Judges 13--The Birth of Samson

Judges 13
English Standard Version

The Birth of Samson
13 And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. 3 And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, 7 but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

8 Then Manoah prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” 9 And 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 was not with her. 10 So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” 11 And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” 12 And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the child's manner of life, and what is his mission?” 13 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. 14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.”

15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.” 16 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the LORD.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.) 17 And Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” 18 And the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” 19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.

21 The angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” 24 And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

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Very few people in the Bible have their birth announced by a messenger from heaven, and even fewer have the angel of the LORD Himself (that is the second person of the Trinity before He took on flesh and was called Jesus) announce their birth.  The birth of Samson to his parents is going to be so important that the Son of God Himself will make the announcement, and we will see just how much time is devoted to Samson's story here in the book of Judges.  There will be some aspects that remind us of the story of Gideon (the last time we saw the angel of the LORD in the book of Judges), but this story will also be vastly different.  See if you can spot the similarities and differences.

The nation of Israel had once again done what was evil in the sight of the LORD and the LORD gave them over into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years.  However, it does not say that the people cried out for relief at this point like we have seen other times.  It seems that perhaps we have gotten to the point where the Israelites have come to accept their occupation by foreign nations and have begun to live so much like these pagan peoples that they no longer felt the need to cry out to the LORD for salvation.  This time, the LORD would prepare a deliverer from before the time he was born for this special purpose--to save His people.  That should sound familiar, because that's exactly how the Old Testament and New Testament describe the birth of Jesus.

We don't normally think of the Danites as a tribe of godly men and women, but it is from this tribe that the LORD looked down and found Manoah and his wife who were unable to have children because Manoah's wife was barren (this too should sound familiar if we know about some other miraculous births from the Bible--specifically the birth of Samuel, who is probably writing this text).  At this time and all throughout this history of Israel, and at some level even to this day, a woman without the ability to bear children was seen as being cursed by God, for children were a blessing from the LORD.

The angel of the LORD Himself shows up to give the birth announcement as we mentioned earlier, but there are special restrictions here--this child is to be under the Nazarite vow of Numbers 6 from conception to natural death--his whole life this child is not to let a razor touch his head, is not to eat or drink of the fruit of the vine, and is not to touch anything dead or be in the presence of death (which is surprising because it seems that Samson will do nothing but be in the presence of death for those of us who know this story).


Numbers 6:1-8
English Standard Version
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The Nazirite Vow
6 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD, 3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. 4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.

5 “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the LORD, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long.

6 “All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body. 7 Not even for his father or for his mother, for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean, because his separation to God is on his head. 8 All the days of his separation he is holy to the LORD.

Manoah's wife does not recognize the messenger as the angel of the LORD, but simply calls Him "a man of God" (a prophet), but she tells her husband that His appearance was like that of an angel of God .  She did not ask Him His name or where He was from (both pieces of information would be necessary if you wanted to know someone's identity for it was common for people to have the same name, but not common for people of the same town to have the same name back then).  She then relayed the message to her husband.

Manoah asked for the same messenger with the same message to come and speak to him directly.  I doubt that it was because he did not believe his wife, but probably because he had questions about the identity of the One who brought the message to his family (he says so when he speaks to the angel of the LORD again).  The angel of the LORD again comes to Manoah's wife in the field and she runs to tell her husband that the man of God has returned.  He runs to meet the man and makes sure that this is the same man that his wife talked to and he asks for clarification--he does not doubt that the prophecy will come true, but wants to make sure they are careful to obey everything the LORD has commanded, so he asks specifically about how the child is to be raised and his mission, since that was to be established now before he was born.  The angel of the LORD repeated the commands that I gave earlier which are also from the Nazarite vow, but twice said "Everything I have commanded her, be careful to do."  God wasn't going to play into cultural system of denying the testimony of a woman by having to repeat everything that was said to a man.  We'll see God make this point again at the Resurrection of Jesus when it is a group of women that first hear the news of the risen Christ and Mary Magdalene who first sees Him (for she was looking in the opposite direction of the other women who were looking at the angels so that she could see the Lord Himself), but Peter and John did not believe Mary or the other women and had to go investigate things themselves.  However, they did not receive the same kind of message the women did--the angels simply told them to obey all that had already been told to them (by the message that the women already told them).  In the same way here, we see the angel of the LORD intentionally showing back up to Manoah's wife again and His message to Manoah being "Be careful to follow all the instructions that I gave to your wife."

Manoah then tries to show some hospitality and invite the "man of God" for a meal, but the angel of the LORD insists that He cannot be delayed but that whatever was going to be used to make the meal should instead be offered as a sacrifice to the LORD and that the glory should go to the LORD and not to the angel of the LORD (the Son always wishes to glorify the Father).  Manoah tries once again to learn the name of the angel of the LORD to which He responds, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?" (meaning that it would be beyond Manoah's comprehension).  Manoah still doesn't understand the identity of the angel of the LORD until the offering is made to the LORD who works wonders and the angel of the LORD went up into heaven in the fire of the offering.  At this Manoah and his wife, who was with him, finally realize the identity of the messenger and they fall on their faces and are afraid.

The angel of the LORD did not appear to them any more after this, but they knew His identity at this point and were afraid they would die for they knew they had seen God (verses 21 and 22).  It is Manoah's wife that speaks to Manoah and says that if the LORD meant to kill them, then He would not have accepted the sacrifice and He would not have given them such a promise--for the promise cannot be fulfilled if they are dead.

The child is delivered to them just as the angel of the LORD had promised, and they called his name Samson, which is derived from the Hebrew word for "sun."  The LORD blessed Sampson and the Spirit of the LORD started to stir within him from a young age so that he was being prepared for the world that the LORD had for him to do.