They could not find the answer, though they tried to find it all that day and the two days that followed. And at last they came to Samson's wife and said to her:
"Coax your husband to tell you the answer. If you do not find it out, we will set your house on fire, and burn you and all your people."
And Samson's wife urged him to tell her the answer. She cried and pleaded with him and said:
"If you really loved me, you would not keep this a secret from me."
At last Samson yielded, and told his wife how he had killed the lion and afterward found the honey in its body. She told her people, and just before the end of the feast they came to Samson with the answer. They said:
"What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?" And Samson said to them:
"If you had not plowed with my heifer,
You had not found out my riddle."
By his "heifer,"—which is a young cow,—of course Samson meant his wife. Then Samson was required to give them thirty suits of clothing. He went out among the Philistines, killed the first thirty men whom he found, took off their clothes, and gave them to the guests at the feast. But all this made Samson very angry. He left his wife and went home to his father's house. Then the parents of his wife gave her to another man.
But after a time Samson's anger passed away, and he went again to Timnath to see his wife. But her father said to him:
"You went away angry, and I supposed that you cared nothing for her. I gave her to another man, and now she is his wife. But here is her younger sister; you can have her for your wife, instead."