“After some days her returned to take her. He turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.” Judges 14:8

Samson and his parents are returning to Timnah for the marriage ceremony. On the way, Samson goes to see the carcass of the lion he had killed on his last trip. Finding that a swarm of bees had built a hive and produced honey within the carcass, he scrapped some of it out to eat. When he caught up with his parents, who had gone on ahead, Samson gave them some of the honey too. This demonstrated the deceptive side of his nature. He did not tell them where the honey had come from as he knew they would not eat it and would have forbidden him to eat it too. As a Nazarite, he was not to touch a dead body, and lions were also considered unclean animals to the Israelites, so he was going against God’s instructions and the culture he had grown up in. Paradoxically, Samson himself will be deceived time and again by the women in his life; each one betraying him to his enemies.

In Timnah, seven days of feasting were arranged attended by 30 Philistine men. The Israelites were the enemy, and although a marriage was arranged between Samson the Israelite and the Philistine young woman, there was suspicion and wariness of what this young man was really up to. When he posed a wager to them, to solve his riddle, they were determined that they would not be beaten by this Israelite.

In verse 14 Samson sets out the riddle

“Out of the eater came something to eat.

Out of the strong came something sweet”

This was obviously in relation to the honey from the carcass of the lion, which no one knew about except Samson himself. The Philistines used his wife to extract the answer from him. She wept, pleaded and manipulated him until he gave her the answer which she then passed on. Samson was so incensed by this betrayal that he left the party and his wife and the chapter ends with the second incident of the Spirit of the Lord rushing upon Samson where he killed 30 Philistine men from the town of Ashkelon and took their goods to pay the wager that was agreed for the winner of the riddle contest v19.

Samson’s self-centred actions had devastating consequences, not only for him, but also for his wife.