And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people.
She wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted. Three days of the seven had already elapsed before she was asked and had undertaken to do so. But the full week is mentioned, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, which is followed in Scripture; just as it was foretold that our Lord should be three days and three nights in the grave, although He was not laid in the tomb until late in the first, and He left it very early on the third day. Having gotten the secret, she revealed it to her friends.
Ploughed with my heifer - a metaphor borrowed from agricultural pursuits, in which not only oxen, but cows and heifers, were, and continue to be, employed in dragging the plow. Divested of metaphor, the meaning is taken by some in a criminal sense, but probably bears no more than that they had resorted to the aid of his wife-an unworthy expedient, which might have been deemed by a man of less noble spirit and generosity as releasing him from the obligation to fulfill his bargain. The Philistine plow, as seen in the Shephelah at the present day, is a very primitive implement, formed of a rude piece of wood, pointed with iron, and attached to a short upright handle, which the plowman holds in one hand, while he urges the cattle with a pole in the other. It is usually drawn, as from Samson's simile it may be concluded it was in his days, by a couple of small bullocks, or heifers.