Deeper Commentary
Jdg 13:1 The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of
Yahweh and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for
forty years-
"The children of Israel did evil in the sight of Yahweh" is a refrain which occurs seven times in Judges
(Jud. 2:11; 3:7,12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1),
recalling how Israel both over history and in the last days were to be
punished "seven times" for their sins (Lev. 26:23,24).
Biblical history is unlike any other national history of a people in
that it seems to emphasize the spiritual weakness of Israel. The heroes
are nearly all flawed- and that, surely, is so as to give us realistic
inspiration to rise up to their spirit, knowing how flawed we also are.
And yet there's a tendency amongst some of us to idealize these men, in
the same way as the Catholic and Orthodox churches portray them as white
faced, haloed saints. Judaism has done the same. Despite the evident
weaknesses of Samson (and other judges, e.g. Gideon) as revealed in the
inspired record, later Jewish commentary sought to idealize them. Take
Ecclesiasticus 46:11,12: "The judges too... all men whose hearts were
never disloyal, who never turned their backs on the Lord...". Perhaps the
psychological basis for this tendency is that we simply don't want to be
personally challenged by the fact that heroes of faith were so
much like us...
We know, or we ought to, how weak our moral judgment is, how prone we
are to forget the degree to which God has justified us from our sins. This
weakness is seen in the difficulty we have in analyzing the characters we
read of in Scripture. For example, from reading the record of Lot in
Genesis, it would seem that Lot was a materialistic, weak, faithless man
who is shown to be the exact opposite to Abraham, who is held up as the
example of real faith. Yet in the New Testament record, Peter points out
that Lot was a righteous man. We are therefore left to conclude that the
Genesis record is highlighting the weaker aspects of Lot's character,
without commenting on the good points. We may have the same sort of
surprise when we read in Hebrews 11 that Samson was a man of outstanding
faith- yet the record we are reading at the moment in Judges seems framed
to paint Samson as a womanizer, a man who lacked self-control and who only
came to God in times of dire personal need.
But just imagine if only the negative incidents in our own lives, over
a period of 20 (or 40?) years, were recorded. Anyone reading it would
conclude that we were a complete hypocrite to claim to have any hope of
salvation. In our self-examination, we sometimes see only this negative
record; we fail to see that God has justified us, that in His record book,
we are ranked among the faithful, as Samson was in Hebrews 11. Any
character study of Samson needs to bear this in mind. Samson, over 40
years of service, courted a girl not in the faith and tried to marry her;
once went to a prostitute in Gaza; and had an on-and-off relationship with
a worthless woman in Sorek for a few months (?). And yet he seems to have
lived the rest of his life full of faith and zeal- although I say this not
in any way minimizing the mistakes he made. This is hardly evidence that
Samson was the renegade sex-maniac that he is sometimes made out to be.
Jud. 17-21 contain various pictures of and insights into the apostacy
of the tribe of Dan, providing the backdrop for a character study of
Samson. These chapters seem chronologically out of place; they belong
before the Samson story. 18:30 speaks of Jonathan the grandson of Moses,
and 20:28 of Phinehas the grandson of Aaron (cp. Num. 25:11), which would
place these events at the beginning of the period of the Judges, once
Israel had first settled in the land. Dan's apostacy is suggested by the
way in which he is omitted from the tribes of the new Israel in Rev. 7.
Zorah, Samson's home town, was originally Judah's inheritance (Josh.
15:33-36), but they spurned it, and passed it to Dan (Josh. 19:41), who
also weren't interested; for they migrated to the north and too over the
land belonging to the less warlike Sidonians (Jud. 18:2,7-10). Their
selfishness is reflected by the way they chide with him: "What is this
that you have done unto us?" (15:11). "They had become
reconciled to the dominion of sin since it did not appear to do much harm.
They could still grow their crops etc.". It is even possible that his
parents had elements of weakness in them; for his name doesn't include the
'Yah' prefix, and 'Samson' ('splendour of the sun') may be a reference to
the nearby town of Beth Shemesh ('house of the sun-god'). It could be
argued that because the father was responsible for his son's marriage
partner (Jud. 12:9; 14:2; 15:2; Gen. 24:3-9; Neh. 10:30), therefore
Samson's father was equally guilty for Samson's 'marriage out'. Many of
the commands against intermarriage were directed to parents, commanding
them not to give their children in intermarriage. All the Judges were
preceded by a period of Israel prostituting themselves to the surrounding
nations (Jud. 2:16-19); and this was evidently true of the period in which
Samson grew up. From this apostate tribe and background came Samson. The
way his own people angrily rebuked him that " Don't you know that the
Philistines are lords over us?" (Jud. 15:11) was tacit recognition of the depth
of their apostacy. They seemed to have no regret that they were fulfilling
the many earlier prophecies that they would be dominated by their enemies
if they were disobedient to Yahweh. The fact that Israel were dominated
throughout Samson's life by the Philistines is proof enough that they were
apostate at this time (Jud. 13:1; cp. Jud. 15:20; 16:31).
Jdg 13:2 There was a man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose
name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and childless-
Samson lived at a time when Israel were hopelessly weak. His great
desire was to do the work of the promised seed, who would save Israel from
their enemies. He resented the Philistine domination and sought,
single-handed, to overcome it in faith, not only for himself, but for his
weaker brethren. As predestiny would have it, in recognition of his zeal
for these things, he came from Zorah, 'the hornet'- a symbol of the
Divine power that would drive the foreign tribes out of the land, as
Samson dedicated himself to do (Dt. 7:20). And his father's name, Manoah,
meant "rest", or inheritance (cp. Josh. 1:13,15). Samson-ben-Manoah was
therefore Samson, the son of the promised inheritance.
Jdg 13:3 The angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman and said to her, Look
now, you are barren and childless but you will conceive and bear a son-
God's Angelic appearance to barren or childless women and promising
them a very significant child is quite a theme. We think of Abraham and
Sarah (Gen. 17:19; 18:10,14), Hannah (1 Sam. 1:17), Elizabeth (Lk.
1:13) and Mary (Lk. 1:31). These women were intended to have reflected
upon the experience of those previous women, and to have taken strength
and guidance from their response. This is the advantage of daily Bible
reading and familiarity with the text and historical narrative of the
scriptures. Even if we 'don't get anything out of it' at the point of
reading, when events occur in our lives, we are able to see them in the
context of Biblical history, and are comforted that we are not alone. Our
experiences are not so totally unique. And it is the sense of walking
alone in unchartered, unexperienced territory which is where much of our
fear comes from. And yet because the hand of God works according to a
historical pattern, we need not feel so alone; through patience and
comfort of the scriptures we have hope (Rom. 15:4), as if these historical
records speak to us in a personified form and comfort us. See on :3,24.
Jdg 13:4 Now therefore you must be careful and drink no wine nor strong
drink, and don’t eat any unclean thing-
As discussed on :4, Manoah's wife was here promised that her son
would be a Nazirite from birth; and she was to become the pattern for
later women who were told likewise (1 Sam. 1:11; Lk. 1:15).
Jdg 13:5 You shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor must come upon
his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he
will begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines-
It would be simplistic for a character study of Samson to see Samson as
some kind of sex maniac of a believer. He was a man of faith who,
amidst a weak and indifferent brotherhood, tried to rise up to the spirit
of Messiah in delivering Israel from their spiritual enemies. In order to
devote himself to this, it seems that he chose the single life. In common
with others who trod that path of zeal (e.g. Timothy and possibly
Hezekiah), he couldn't maintain it all the time. He stumbled, and his
stumbling in this area resulted in him reasoning that the end (i.e. the
work he was doing) justified the means, and that therefore he could do
God's work in a way which in fact gratified his own flesh. He had to learn
the spirit of the cross-carrying Christ; the lesson of the whole burnt
offering: that the whole of a man's life must be affected by the
cross- not just those parts which we are willing to surrender. We can't mix the service of God with the
service of self. There is no third road. Because Samson failed to realize
this (until the end), he was a man who in many ways never quite made it;
he never quite lived up to the spiritual potential which he had.
Although
he was to be the beginning of serious deliverance of Israel from the
Philistines, the whole story of Samson is prefaced by the fact that
during the 40 years of Samson's' ministry (15:20 + 16:31), "the Lord
delivered (Israel) into the hand of the Philistines" (13:1). It is
emphasized in Jud. 14:4 that "at that time the Philistines had dominion over
Israel" ; and the men of Judah chode with him: "Don't you know that the
Philistines are rulers over us?" (Jud. 15:11). The point is hammered home in
Jud. 15:20: "He judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years".
God's intention was that Samson was to deliver Israel from the
Philistines; but somehow he never rose up to it, and only 'began' to do it
(Jud. 13:5). They remained under the
Philistines, even during his ministry. He made a few sporadic attempts in
red hot personal zeal, confirmed by God, to deliver Israel. But he never
rose up to the potential level that God had prepared for him in prospect.
And yet for all this, he was accepted in the final analysis as a man of
faith. It may be possible to understand that the breaking of his
Nazariteship was yet another way in which he never lived up to his
God-given potential. He was "a Nazirite unto God from the womb to
the day of his death" (13:7). Yet he broke the Nazirite vow by touching
dead bodies and having his hair shaven (Num. 6:6). This may mean that he
chose to break God's ideal intention for him, to take a lower and lower
level of service to God until actually he had slipped away altogether.
However, it may be that God counted his desire for the high
standard of Nazariteship to him. He saw him as if this never happened, in
the same way as He saw Abraham as if he had offered up Isaac, even though
ultimately he didn't (Heb. 11:17; James 2:21). Intention, not the human
strength of will to do the act, seems to be what God earnestly looks for.
Jdg 13:6 Then the woman went and told her husband, A man of God came to
me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome. I
didn’t ask him where he was from, neither did he tell me his name-
LXX "I did not ask him His Name". Therefore the husband did ask His
Name when He appeared again. She assumed this was a prophet, a "man of
God", but she had the suspicion that it was in fact an Angel.
Jdg 13:7 but he said to me ‘You will conceive and bear a son; drink no
wine or strong drink, and eat no unclean thing, for the child shall be a
Nazirite unto God from the womb to the day of his death’-
He was a Nazirite to God (i.e. in God's eyes?) all his life-
although he broke his Nazariteship by contact with dead bodies (Jud. 14:19;
15:15 cp. Num. 6:6) and probably by drinking wine at his wedding (Jud. 14:10
"feast" = 'drinking', Heb.). This was not only imputed righteousness, but
God counting the essential intentions of a weak willed man to him as if he
had actually achieved what he fain would do.
Or it could be that we are to read this as meaning that it was God's
intention that Samson should be a Nazirite to the day of his death- but he
failed to live up to that Divine intention and potential. Which is a sad
theme of the Judges record. Jud. 13:7 cp. Jud. 16:17 implies that Samson himself felt
he had broken his Nazariteship. Likewise Zacharias was "blameless" in God's
sight, even though in this very period of his life he was in some ways
lacking faith that his prayers would be answered (Lk. 1:6). It is our
holding fast that is our acceptable service (Heb. 12:28 mg.); not the
occasional heroics of outstanding acts of obedience.
We know that we sadly oscillate between the flesh and the spirit. And
yet Scripture abounds with examples of where God sees us as in a permanent
state of either sin or righteousness. We are fountains that bring forth
good water, and therefore by that very definition cannot occasionally
bring forth bitter water; we are good fruit trees or bad ones. We aren’t a
little of both, in God’s sight. This is surely because He sees us on the
basis of the fact that we are in Christ, clothed with His righteousness,
rather than as individuals who sometimes act righteously and sometimes not
during the course of a day. Thus God saw Samson as a lifelong Nazirite, although we know there were times when he broke the
Nazirite
vow by, e.g., touching dead bodies and having his hair cut. The
challenging thing is to behold our brethren as having the “in Christ”
status (for we can’t impute anything else to them, lest we condemn them),
and not to see them from the point of view of people who sometimes act
righteously and sometimes don’t.
Likewise
the Angel declared that he would “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand
of the Philistines” (Jud. 13:5). Yet he died with the Philistines firmly
in control over himself and Israel. This was potentially possible in the Angelic plan;
but he didn’t live up to what had been made possible in prospect.
Significantly, Samson’s mother omitted to repeat this part of the Angel’s
conversation when she relayed the incident to her husband (Jud. 13:7)-
perhaps because she didn’t believe that her child would be capable of
this. And perhaps this was a factor in his failure to achieve what God had
intended for him.
Jdg 13:8 Then Manoah entreated Yahweh and said, Oh Lord, please let the
man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do
to the child who will be born-
The Angel had explained already; they were to raise him as a
Nazirite. But as with Gideon, Manoah had a weak faith and wanted continual
confirmation. And there was also the fact that he may well have doubted
how a woman could speak to him God's words. He wanted to hear them for
himself. And God made a concession to that weakness, as He does to many
cultural mores which are a denial of deeper spiritual principle.
Jdg 13:9 God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came
again to the woman as she sat in the field, but Manoah her husband, wasn’t
with her-
I suggested on :8 that he may well have doubted how a woman could
speak to him God's words. He wanted to hear them for himself. And God made
a concession to that weakness. But He does so by all the same first
appearing to the woman alone, and not directly to Manoah in the first
instance.
Jdg 13:10 The woman quickly ran and told her husband, and said to him, The
man has appeared to me, who came to me that day-
The record of Samson's birth frequently uses the phrases "the man"
and "the woman" (:10,11), as if to send the mind back to Eden- with
the implication that Samson was the seed of the woman, in type of Christ.
"The woman" is a phrase nearly always associated in Scripture with the
birth of someone who was to be a seed of the woman. "Of all that I said
unto the woman, let her beware", coming from the mouth of an Angel
(:13), surely confirms the Eden allusions.
Jdg 13:11 Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and
said to him, Are you the man who spoke to the woman? He said, I am-
To hear the words of God directly, Manoah has to follow after his
wife. I suggested on :8,9 that he may well have doubted how a woman could
speak to him God's words. He wanted to hear them for himself. And God made
a concession to that weakness. But He does so in such a way that still
requires him to follow behind his more spiritual wife (see on :23), in
order to hear those words.
Jdg 13:12 Manoah said, Now may your words come true. What should the
child’s way of life and mission be?-
There may be here the slight hint that he did not have total faith in
the words of promise. For we could understand him as meaning 'Well I hope
what you say is true. Should it be true, then how should we, in that case,
raise the child; what is his mission going to be, so that we might raise
him towards it?'. I note on :23 that his wife has more faith and
perception than he does. And it is highly significant that the description
of the "mission", to deliver Israel from the Philistines, is told only to
the woman and not to Manoah.
Jdg 13:13 The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, All that I said to the woman
she must do-
Although God is making a concession to Manoah's weakness in appearing
to him, He emphasizes that His primary word had been to the woman, not to
Manoah. The concession to his chauvinistic weakness was therefore not
total, but done in such a way that he was reminded that God had chosen his
wife before him in revealing His word. See on :14.
Jdg 13:14 She may not eat anything that comes from the vine, neither let
her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I
commanded her let her observe-
"Let her observe" may have been the command to Manoah, to not stand
in the way of her obeying the call to also be a Nazirite. See on :13.
Jdg 13:15 Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, Please, let us detain you so
that we may make a young goat ready for you-
The record of Samson has a large number of examples of the repetitions in
Biblical narrative. They are situations where he was connected into the
experience of those who had gone before- e.g. Manoah's desire to detain
the Angel recalls Jud. 6:18; Gen. 18:5. His desire to detain the Angel and offer sacrifice was exactly that of Gideon (6:18). His belief after he had seen the Angel ascend (Jud. 13:20 =
Jud. 6:21), and his subsequent fear, were again expressed in the words of Gideon (Jud. 13:21,22 cp.
Jud. 6:22). As Gideon was, perhaps subconsciously, the hero of Manoah, so Samson followed his father's spirituality in this,
wanting likewise to copy Gideon. It seems he lived out parental expectation, and imbibed the spirituality of his father without making it his own. Born and raised believers, beware.
The whole scene is very similar to that of Gen. 18:7,8. Manoah responded as Abraham did, and later he would have perceived the similarities, and therefore grasped that this "man" was indeed an Angel.
Jdg 13:16 The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I
won’t eat your food, and if you prepare a burnt offering, you must offer
it to Yahweh. Manoah didn’t know that he was the angel of Yahweh-
And yet as noted on :15, the whole scene was so very similar to that
of Gen. 18:7,8 that we conclude that Manoah ought to have perceived
["know"] that this was an Angel. The fact he didn't is therefore an
indication of lack of spiritual perception on his part. See on :23. The
fact the Angel didn't eat of his food and meat, whereas the Angels who
visited Abraham did so, could be read as a possible rebuke of Manoah for
not perceiving this was an Angel. See on :17.
"Detain" is the word used for the Angelic restraining of the womb from bearing children (Gen. 20:18), and had been used specifically about Sarah (Gen. 16:2). And this whole incident was intended to help them see the similarities with Abraham and Sarah's Angelic visitation. The Angel may intend them to grasp the point- that they thought they were detaining / restraining Him, when He had been restraining them from having children until this point. Perhaps only later did they perceive this, if at all. There are many such Biblical allusions built in by God to our life experiences; and we may or may not ever perceive them in the course of our lives. Self examination of the path and details of our lives is clearly intended by God.
Jdg 13:17 Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, What is your name, that when
your words come true, we may honour you?-
The record says that Manoah said this "to the Angel", whilst clearly
thinking this was a mere man. He acts and reasons as if this is a man, and
he needs to know his name so that he can give him honour. When surely his
mind should have been upon honouring God. "When" may also bear the
implication of "if", as if he still didn't completely believe these words
(see on :12). As noted on :16, his lack of perception that this was an
Angel is criticized implicitly.
Jdg 13:18 The angel of Yahweh said to him, Why do you ask about my name,
since it is beyond understanding-
Or, "wonderful", implying 'miraculous'. This again was urging Manoah
to understand that this was not a human prophet, but an Angel with the
power to do miracles. I have noted on :16,17 that Manoah is being
implicitly criticized for not perceiving this was an Angel. And so the
Angel replies with exactly the Angelic words to Jacob (Gen. 32:29). Their subsequent fear (Jud.
13:22) is that of Gen. 32:20. See on Jud. 14:12. Yet despite this, Manoah
fails to make the connection, for only at the point :21 does he realize
this was an Angel.
Jdg 13:19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and
offered it on the rock to Yahweh. Then the angel did a wonderful thing as
Manoah and his wife looked on-
Manoah had initially wanted to prepare food for the visitor, but He
had declined it, and told him instead to offer it to Yahweh. And Manoah
does so.
Jdg 13:20 When the flame went up toward the sky from the altar, the angel
of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar, and Manoah and his wife
looked on-
The fact they had an altar on their property indicates that they did
serve Yahweh, although not in the ideal sense of offering at His
sanctuary. "Ascended" is the word usually translated "offering". The idea
is that the Angel was identified with the sacrifice, meaning that it had
been accepted. Despite all Manoah's lack of spiritual perception
throughout the encounter, as lamented on :16-18.
And they fell on their faces to the ground-
The phrase used of men doing this with a sense of unworthiness and
conviction of sin (Gen. 44:14; Josh. 7:6; Ruth 2:10). Now that they had
been humbled, God could work further with them. And that is an abiding
principle.
Jdg 13:21 But the angel of Yahweh didn’t appear to Manoah or to his wife
any more. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of Yahweh-
See on :16,17,18. It was the very absence of God’s direct appearance
in his life that in the end persuaded Manoah that truly, he did have a
fully valid relationship with Him. And the apparent silence of God is
intended to teach us likewise.
Jdg 13:22 Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have
seen God-
He failed to learn the lesson from Gideon, who had likewise wrongly
panicked (Jud. 6:22,28); and likewise of Jacob and others who saw the face
of an Angel and lived (Gen. 16:14; 32:30). Isaiah too failed to learn this
lesson from history (Is. 6:5).
Jdg 13:23 But his wife said to him, If Yahweh wanted to kill us He
wouldn’t have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from us,
neither would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us
such things as these-
Here we have a repeat of the essence of the situation between Deborah
and Barak, where again a woman’s faith was greater than a man’s fear; see
on :12. Such interconnections within the Biblical record reveal an overall
Divine mind behind the entire volume. And we see too how Biblical history
is intended to serve as a precedent for us, teaching us that we are not
alone, not on unmapped territory never passed before. But all is working
out as God has worked previously.
Jdg 13:24 The woman bore a son, and named him Samson, and the child grew
and Yahweh blessed him-
"The child grew, and Yahweh blessed him" is the language used of Samuel, John
and
the Lord Jesus- all likewise chosen from the womb, with births announced
by Angels to childless women. See on :2,3. It is possible that his parents
still had elements of weakness in them; for his name doesn't include the 'Yah' prefix, and 'Samson' ('splendour of the sun') may be a reference to the nearby town of Beth Shemesh ('house of the sun-god'). It could be argued that because the father was responsible for his son's marriage partner (Jud. 12:9; 14:2; 15:2; Gen. 24:3-9; Neh. 10:30), therefore Samson's father was equally guilty for Samson's 'marriage out
of the faith'. Many of the commands against intermarriage were directed to parents, commanding them not to give their children in intermarriage.
Jdg 13:25 The Spirit of Yahweh began to trouble him in the camp of Dan,
between Zorah and Eshtaol-
Samson was possessed of a finely tuned conscience. The first instance
of this is when we read how the Spirit of Yahweh troubled him (Heb.) from
time to time in the camp of Dan, in the very places where his people had
earlier failed to follow up the victories of Joshua-Jesus by their
spiritual laziness. He was troubled, deeply, by the Philistine dominance
and Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh (s.w. Gen. 41:8). God works directly
on the human spirit by His Spirit. And so He provoked Samson to have these
concerns in his spirit, and God's Spirit confirmed Samson's positive
response to these proddings, which were initially of God's working
directly on his heart. This is how the Holy Spirit likewise works today.
The context of Samson's marriage does seem to suggest that Samson himself sought occasion against the Philistines; for the Spirit of the Lord had been troubling his conscience as to why the people of Dan had not followed up Joshua's victories, and had allowed themselves to be overrun by the uncircumcised (13:25 Heb.). The only other references to "troubled" are in Gen. 41:8; Ps. 77:4; Dan. 2:1,3. The Spirit of God worked with Samson's spirit, so that it was troubled as he went for his solitary walks of meditation. It was no accident that he was buried in the very place where his conscience was first awakened (Jud. 16:31); he maybe asked for this burial place, to show he had at last returned to his innocent spiritual beginnings.