What Does Judges 14:13 Mean in the King James?
But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse turns a riddle into a wager: can hidden speech be made known, and what changes hands if it can?
THE MEANING
The verse places hidden meaning between hearing and exchange. You can hear the words while their sense remains concealed; the challenge is whether that sense can be made known. The wager gives understanding a concrete consequence: thirty sheets and thirty changes of clothing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that hearing words means you already understand their meaning.
THE ROOT
חִידָה
ḥîḏāh
GROWS FROM
חוד
To pose a riddle or speak in an enigmatic way.
“riddle” in this verse is ḥîḏāh. The noun names speech whose meaning is not immediately visible. The related plural appears in Proverbs as “dark sayings,” joining Samson’s wager to Scripture’s language of concealed meaning that calls for interpretation.
ALSO GROWS
ḥûḏāh: Pose a riddle.
חוּדָה
The men repeat the root as a command in their reply, accepting the challenge to work out the concealed meaning.
ḥîḏōt: Riddles; dark sayings.
חִידוֹת
Proverbs 1:6 uses this plural for enigmatic sayings, showing that the riddle belongs to a wider language of speech that must be understood.
הַגִּידָהּ
haggîḏāh
GROWS FROM
נגד
To be in front or conspicuous; in a causative form, to make known or declare.
“declare” in this verse is haggîḏāh. The verb asks the hearers to bring the answer into view for Samson. The verse moves from a hidden saying to something declared plainly enough to settle the wager.
ALSO GROWS
higgîḏ: Tell; declare; make known.
הִגִּיד
This is the verb behind “declare it me”: the answer must be made known to Samson.
nāgîḏ: Leader; chief, one at the front.
נָגִיד
The related noun carries the sense of being in front, echoing how declaring an answer brings what was concealed before another person.
THE PATTERN
A veiled saying makes hearing the beginning of interpretation, not its completion.
I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel;All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:THE THREAD
To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.“Dark sayings” translates חִידוֹת (ḥîḏōt), the same word family as the “riddle” in Judges. Proverbs names understanding these concealed sayings as an act of interpretation, opening the wager in Samson’s challenge further.
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