A chidah is a riddle, a saying folded so the meaning must be worked for. Samson poses one at his wedding feast (Judges 14). The queen of Sheba tests Shlomo with chidot (1 Kings 10:1). Asaph opens Psalm 78 promising to utter chidot from of old, the line Matthew later applies to Yeshua's parables. The riddle is a respected biblical genre: truth delivered in a locked box, with the key handed to whoever will sit with it.

Numbers 12:8 uses the plural to mark the boundary of ordinary prophecy. HaShem speaks with Moshe mouth to mouth, in clear sight, v'lo b'chidot, and not in riddles. Everyone else gets the locked box: visions, dreams, dark sayings that require interpretation and can be misread. That grade of speech is not a defect. It is the normal register of prophetic experience, and it is what Sha'ul (Paul) says our present seeing is like in 1 Corinthians 13:12. The New Covenant's promise is not better riddles. It is the Moshe grade, face to face, opened to the whole covenant people.