Riddle

A riddle (Hebrew chidah, meaning a knotty or intricate problem; Greek ainigma) in Scripture refers to a perplexing saying, dark speech, or enigmatic question requiring skill or insight to understand. The most celebrated biblical riddle is Samson's at his wedding feast: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness" (Judges 14:12–18) — referring to the honey he had found in the carcass of the lion he had killed, which he framed as a wager that his Philistine companions solved only through his wife's betrayal. The Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon with riddles (1 Kings 10:1), and Ezekiel used the riddle form in his parable of the eagles (Ezekiel 17:2).

Paul uses the Greek cognate ainigma in his famous description of partial knowledge: "For now we see through a glass, darkly [literally, in an enigma]; but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12) — contrasting the indirect, enigmatic knowledge of God available in the present age with the direct knowledge of the age to come. Numbers 12:8 establishes Moses's uniqueness by the standard that God spoke with him "mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches [chidot]."