Judges 14:18

14:18 On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”

He said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer, ¹ 

you would not have solved my riddle!”

Judges 16:5

16:5 The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate ²  him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”

Judges 18:3

18:3 As they approached ³  Micah’s house, they recognized the accent ⁴  of the young Levite. So they stopped ⁵  there and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?” ⁶ 

¹ sn Plowed with my heifer. This statement emphasizes that the Philistines had utilized a source of information which should have been off-limits to them. Heifers were used in plowing (Hos 10:11), but one typically used one’s own farm animals, not another man’s.

² tn Heb “subdue him in order to humiliate him.”

³ tn Or “When they were near.”

⁴ tn Heb “voice.” This probably means that “his speech was Judahite [i.e., southern] like their own, not Israelite [i.e., northern]” (R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 263).

⁵ tn Heb “turned aside.”

⁶ tn Heb “What [is there] to you here?”