Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, December 22nd, 2024
the Fourth Week of Advent
Attention!
Take your personal ministry to the Next Level by helping StudyLight build churches and supporting pastors in Uganda.
Click here to join the effort!

Bible Encyclopedias
Riddle

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature

Search for…
or
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Prev Entry
Riblah
Next Entry
Rimmon
Resource Toolbox
Additional Links

Riddle, literally, 'something intricate or complicated.' An example of a riddle occurs in , where Samson proposes to the thirty young Philistines who attended his nuptials, an enigma, derived from the circumstance of his having lately found a swarm of bees and honey in the skeleton of the lion, which he had killed some months before, when he had come to espouse his wife. This riddle or enigma, though unfair in regard to those who accepted the pledge to unravel it, because they were ignorant of the particular fact by the knowledge of which alone it could be explained by them, nevertheless answers to the approved definition of an enigma, as consisting of an artful and abstruse proposition, put in obscure, ambiguous, and even contrary terms, in order to exercise the ingenuity of others in finding out its meaning.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography Information
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Riddle'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​kbe/​r/riddle.html.
 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile