Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yaakov:

On 10/16/07, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s AT rad.com> wrote:
> I guess the time has come to explain why this word is of interest to me.
>
> My idea has to do with the story in Judges 14 of Samson and the lion with 
> the honeycomb.
>
> Samson poses a riddle to the Phillistines from the devourer food comes out, 
> and from the strong sweet emanates (my translation) but the riddle is 
> seemingly impossible to figure out.
>
> ...
> I had an idea about this. A riddle should be a play on words that the 
> average person could figure out. There should be a single word with more 
> than one meaning. In this case the association was triggered by Samson's 
> seeing the lion and honeycomb.
>
Go back in the archives where I have discussed this in greater detail,
also in connection with this same story: "riddle" in English has a
different meaning than XYDH in Hebrew. There was not necessarily the
expectation that a normal person could answer it.

> My idea is that if )RH truly means "to collect a liquid", then possibly 
> there was a noun )RY meaning "honeycomb" - perhaps along with Y(R - or more 
> likely some vessel to collect honey.
>
> Assuming this, the play on words is obvious. )RY means both "lion" and this 
> "collection vessel" or honeycomb. The Phillistines should have realized 
> that there was a word that meant both "the strong, the devourer" and "the 
> sweet, food".
>
Samson expected that the Philistines could not figure it out, which is
why he gave such a high price for the bet.

> ...
> However much I would like to make this riddle reasonable, I need more 
> evidence ergarding the root )RH before taking this idea seriously.
>
You need more than this one word.

> Yaakov (J) Stein

Karl W. Randolph.