Judges 14:14

‘ And he said to them, “From the eater came food, from the strong came sweet.” And they could not propound the riddle in three days.'

They at first, in their merry state, probably thought that it would soon be solved, but after a few days they became alarmed. No solution that they propounded was correct. ‘In three days' signifies a standard short period of time, ‘in a few days'.

The riddle was not only a riddle. Samson probably intended by it amusing mockery. He was thinking that from the ‘devouring' Philistines he would gain both a marriage feast and wealth, and from the ‘strong' Philistines he would obtain the sweetest of all, a wife.