Samson was a man of secrets. Outwardly, his long hair made it appear he was keeping his vow, but his secret lifestyle - a secret God reveals to us - proved something very different. Samson used his secrets as power over others, but those secrets ended up destroying him. This chapter begins with seething sexuality, flies into frivolity, before rushing into rage. The result of secrets!

I. Booze (Judg 14:10-14). Samson engaged in the nuptial customs of the Philistines: seven days of eating, drinking, and mental or physical challenges. The man who was to avoid grapes, held a feast (lit, a drinking party) because it’s what young men used to do. He was fully immersed in Philistine culture.
At the party, 30 companions (warriors, Judg 20:15-16) were assigned to him, suggesting his reputation as a rabble-rouser was well known. On the first day of the party, Samson offered a riddle as both a get rich scheme and a means to boast in killing the lion bare-handed, treating his sin lightly. His poetic riddle pointed to the honey he found and ate from the carcass of the dead lion (Judg 14:8-9). The secret of the riddle was known only to him, having kept the earlier events of the chapter a secret from even his parents!
If his 30 drunken companions solved the riddle, he’d provide 30 linen garments (underwear) and 30 changes of embroidered, expensive, outer clothing. Most men had only 1 set of underclothes and 1 fine garment, so the cost of losing was enormous. If they couldn’t solve the secret riddle, they had to provide him with 60 such garments.

II. Betrayal (Judg 14:15-18). God never approved of Samson’s sins, but used them to fulfill His purpose of delivering Israel from the Philistines (Judg 14:4). God cannot allow His people to live a compromised life with an enemy, and sovereignly caused conflict to destroy what Samson sinfully sought to create.
To solve the riddle, the Philistines threatened to kill his wife and her family if she didn’t provide the solution. She was to entice (literally, seduce a simple-minded person) the answer from Samson. Her 4 days of weeping is all we hear from her: You hate me. You don’t love me. You don’t trust me. She enticed (Judg 14:15), manipulated (Judg 14:17), then betrayed him (Judg 14:17). She wasn’t a woman of virtue, but Samson knew that; that’s not what he wanted in a wife anyway (Judg 4:1-3).
Scripture warns of nagging spouses (21.9" class="scriptRef">Prov 21:9; 25:24) and the words of adulterous women (Prov 2:16;5:3; 6:24; 7:5, 21) compared to the deeds and words of a godly woman (Prov 31:10-31).
Samson’s wife didn’t trust him to tell the threat against her. He didn’t trust her with the answer to his riddle. He would be no more truthful or loyal to her than to his parents, whom he dishonored and kept secrets from while engaging them in his sin. She would deceive, manipulate, and betray for her family; and he was more attached to his family than to her (Gen 2:22-24).
A marriage of secrets is void of honesty, truth, and trust and cannot last; these are foundations of every loving and lasting relationship.

III. Bloodshed (Judg 14:19-20). When the men answered Samson’s riddle correctly, he knew it had been revealed by his heifer, a term of derision not devotion. Then we read curiously that the Holy Spirit came upon him mightily, the same phrase used in verse 6, forcing him to do what he resisted: killing Philistines.
God was bringing about His will (Judg 14:4). He made Samson, even momentarily, into a man he didn’t want to be for a task he rejected. God would deliver His people. He would be faithful. Every knee would bow and every tongue confess that He was faithful to deliver Israel and destroy His enemies.
Samson traveled 2 to 3 days round trip to the Philistine city of Ashkelon, murdered 30 men, took their clothes to repay his bet, left his wife, and returned home to his parents. The companions who won by cheating, still lost in the end!