Riddles (Hebrew)

Riddles in Hebrew are referred to as ḥidot (singular ḥidah). They have at times been a major and distinctive part of literature in Hebrew and closely related languages. At times they have a complex relationship with proverbs.[1]

Riddles in the Bible and other ancient Hebrew literature

Riddles are not common in the Bible,[2] nor in Midrashic literature,[3] though other tests of verbal wit are. The most prominent riddle in the Bible is Samson's riddle in Judges xiv.14: Samson outwitted the Philistines by posing a riddle about the lion and the beehive until they learned the answer from his Philistine bride, costing Samson 30 suits of clothes (Judges 14:5-18).[4] However, according to Joseph Jacobs, 'it would appear that some of the proverbs in which sets of three and of four objects are mentioned (e.g. xxx.15 et seq.) were originally in the form of riddles', while Ezekiel xvii.1-10 is also a riddle of sorts.[5]

Sirach mentions riddles as a popular dinner pastime, and the Talmud contains several, such as this one from the end of Kinnim: 'What animal has one voice living and seven voices dead?' ('The ibis, from whose carcass seven different musical instruments are made').[5]

The Aramaic Story of Ahikar contains a long section of proverbial wisdom that in some versions also contains riddles.[6]

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba

The Bible describes how the Queen of Sheba tests Solomon with riddles, but without giving any hint as to what they were (I Kings 10:1-13). On this basis, riddles were ascribed to the Queen in later scholarship: four riddles are ascribed to her in the tenth- or eleventh-century Midrash Proverbs.[7][8] For example, the Midrash Proverbs include 'She said to him: "Seven exit and nine enter, two pour and one drinks". He said to her: "Surely, seven days of menstruation exit and nine months of pregnancy enter, two breasts pour and the baby drinks".’[9] These plus another fourteen or fifteen tests of wisdom, some of which are riddles, appear in the Midrash ha-Ḥefez (1430 CE), for example:[7]

There is an enclosure with ten doors: when one is open nine are shut; when nine are open, one is shut. — The womb, the bodily orifices, and the umbilical cord.

Living, moves not, yet when its head is cut off it moves. — A ship in the sea (made from a tree).

What was that which is produced from the ground, yet produces it, while its food is the fruit of the ground? — A wick.[10]

The early medieval Aramic Targum Sheni also contains three riddles posed by the Queen to Solomon.[7]

Hebrew riddles in the Middle Ages

Under the influence of Arabic literature in medieval al-Andalus, there was a flourishing of literary Hebrew riddles in verse during the Middle Ages. Dunash ben Labrat (920-990), credited with transposing Arabic metres into Hebrew, composed a number of riddles, mostly apparently inspired by folk-riddles.[11] Exponents included Moses ibn Ezra, Yehuda Alharizi, Judah Halevi, [5] and Abraham ibn Ezra.[12] Immanuel the Roman wrote riddles, as did Israel Onceneyra.[13] The tradition extended to Italy from the twelfth century, beginning with the work of Yerahmiel Bar Shlomo.[12]

For example, Moses ibn Ezra asked 'What is the sister of the sun, though made for the night? The first causes her tears to fall, and when she is near dying they cut off her head'. (The answer is 'a candle'.)[5] Judah Halevi asked:

Evincing the infinite--
the size of your palm--
what it holds is beyond you,
curious, at hand.[14]

(The answer is 'hand-mirror'.)

There is also 'a curious riddle' at the end of the Haggadah.[5]

See also

  • R. Shalem Me'oded /שירי-חידה הלכיים לר' שלם מעודד יהודה רצהבי and Yehuda Ratzaby, 'Halakhic Poetic Riddles', Sefunot: Studies and Sources on the History of the Jewish Communities in the East /ספונות: מחקרים ומקורות לתולדות קהילות ישראל במזרח, New Series /סדרה חדשה, כרך א (טז) (תש"ם), pp. 273–286 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23415145

References

  1. ↑ Galit Hasan-Rock, 'Riddle and Proverb: The Relationship Exemplified by an Aramaic Proverb', Proverbium 24 (1974), 936–40.
  2. ↑ Harry Torcszyner, 'The Riddle in the Bible', Hebrew Union College Annual, 1 (1924), 125-49, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43301983; Othniel Margalith, 'Samson's Riddle and Samson's Magic Locks', 'Vetus Testamentum, 36 (1986), 225-34, DOI: 10.2307/1518382; https://www.jstor.org/stable/1518382.
  3. ↑ Dina Stein, 'A King, a Queen, and the Riddle Between: Riddles and Interpretation in a Late Midrashic Text', in Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes, ed. by Galit Hasan-Rokem and David Dean Shulman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 125-74 (at p. 127).
  4. ↑ Margalith, Othniel, "Samson's Riddle and Samson's Magic Locks", Vetus Testamentum 1986; 36, pp. 225-234 (p. 226) https://www.jstor.org/stable/1518382.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Joseph Jacobs, 'Riddle', in The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, ed. by Isidore Singer (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901-1907), s.v.
  6. ↑ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 41-42.
  7. 1 2 3 Jacob Lassner, Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 9-17
  8. ↑ Christine Goldberg, Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, Garland Folklore Library, 7 (New York: Garland, 1993), p. 24.
  9. ↑ Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj, Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), p. 13; https://dx.doi.org/10.21435/sff.10; http://oa.finlit.fi/site/books/detail/12/riddles/.
  10. ↑ Christine Goldberg, Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, Garland Folklore Library, 7 (New York: Garland, 1993), p. 24.
  11. ↑ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 33-35, citing Nehemya Aluny, 'Ten Dunash Ben Labrat's Riddles', The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, 36 (1945), 141-46, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1452496.
  12. 1 2 Dan Pagis, 'Toward a Theory of the Literary Riddle', in Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes, ed. by Galit Hasan-Rokem and David Shulman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 81-108 (p. 104 n. 1).
  13. ↑ See further Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 35-37.
  14. ↑ The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492, ed. and trans. by Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 150.
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