Samson Gets a Honey
Judges 14
Samson went down to Timnah one day, and while he was there, he spotted a hot Philistine woman. 2 When he got back home, he told his parents, ‘I saw a Philistine woman in Timnah. Go buy her for me, I want to marry her.’
3 His parents were deeply disturbed, and Manoah, his father, exclaimed, ‘A Philistine? In this family, we marry our cousins, young man! Philistines don’t even chop their foreskins off!’
4 ‘But I want her!’ yelled Samson, stamping his foot.
‘Did you even talk to her and get to know her?’
‘I want her! I want her! I want her!’ screamed Samson, flailing around on the floor.
‘Fine!’ huffed Manoah.
5 So, Samson took his parents down to Timnah to buy the woman. As they were approaching the vineyards of Timnah, a dog jumped out and came running towards them.
‘Aww, look,’ cooed his mother. ‘A puppy!’
6 Seeing the dog, Samson freaked out, and he picked it up and tore it clean in two.
‘Holy shit!’ cried his mother.
‘If anyone asks,’ said Manoah, ‘we’ll just say it was a lion…’
7 They continued on to Timnah, and when they arrived, Samson found the woman, and he talked to her and found that he actually liked her.
8 Some time later, Samson was on his way back down to Timnah to marry the Philistine woman when he saw the rotting corpse of the dog with what looked like a swarm of flies around it. He poked the corpse with a stick, rolling it over, and he found that they were in fact bees that had built a hive inside its innards. 9 He smashed his fist into the hive and scooped out some honey.
When he met up with his parents, he told them, ‘Hold out your hands and close your eyes, and you will get a big surprise!’
Reluctantly, his parents did as he asked; they’d been fooled by this trick before. Samson dolloped honey into each of their hands. They opened their eyes slowly, and they saw that it was honey.
‘Ooh, honey!’ cheered his mother.
As his parents eagerly licked the honey from their hands, Samson announced, ‘That’s been in my bum!’
His parents began spitting and retching.
He laughed and said, ‘Just kidding.’
His parents breathed a sigh of relief.
Then Samson chuckled, ‘It was actually in the carcase of that dog I killed.’
His parents vomited.
10 In Timnah, Manoah went to meet with the Philistine woman’s father to agree terms, and Samson got the seven-day marriage festival started. 11 Unfortunately, Samson had no friends, so the people chose thirty men to hang around with him.
12 ‘Hey,’ said Samson, ‘do you want to hear a riddle? If you can answer correctly within a week, I’ll buy you all new clothes. 13 But if you don’t, you all have to buy me clothes.’
‘Sure,’ replied the men. ‘Let’s hear the riddle.’
14 So, Samson said, ‘What did I see on the way to this party?’
‘How could we possibly know that?’ exclaimed the men.
‘Oh, so you give up?’ laughed Samson.
‘No, it’s just not a fair question!’
‘Haha, you forfeit,’ sang Samson.
15 After four days, the men went to Samson’s wife and said, ‘Your husband posed us a “riddle” that’s impossible to answer.’
‘How’s this my problem?’ she replied.
‘Well, it’ll be your problem when we burn your house and your father’s house down!’
16 So, she went looking for Samson, and she found him at the buffet table eating a goat leg. She threw herself on him, sobbing, ‘You hate me! You won’t even tell me the answer to the riddle!’
‘You didn’t ask,’ he replied between mouthfuls.
‘Well, are you going to tell me?’
‘Nope. I didn’t even tell my parents. Why would I tell you?’
‘Because I’m your wife!’ she wailed.
17 But Samson refused to tell her, and she spent the remaining three days of the feast in hysterics and begging him to give her the answer.
Finally, on the seventh day, Samson relented and told her the answer, and she in turn, told the Philistine men.
Before the end of the day, the men came to Samson and said, ‘You saw a dead lion with honey in its belly.’
Samson replied, ‘If you hadn’t ploughed my heifer, you wouldn’t have solved my riddle.’
Just then, his wife was passing, and she overheard what he said. ‘Hey!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who the fuck are you calling a heifer? I’ll have you know that I starved myself to get into this dress! Also, there was no ploughing involved!’
19 Samson was so enraged that he stormed off down to Ashkelon and attacked thirty unsuspecting men who had nothing to do with the situation. After he’d killed them, he stripped off their clothes and gave them to the men to whom he’d posed the ‘riddle’.
20 When the Philistines discovered what he’d done, they decided to annul the marriage and give Samson’s wife to one of the men who’d attended the feast.
