CHAPTER 13

(1161 B.C.)

THE ANGEL

¹And the Children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. (Over and over again, we see this terrible disposition of Israel. They go into deep sin; and to bring them to their senses, the Lord allows them to be taken over by the heathen. After they suffer immeasurably for a period of time, they begin to call on the Name of the Lord, begging for help; and, always, the Lord would hear and answer, even as He will always hear and answer such a plea. But what a sad commentary on the plight of the human heart.

The Philistines now become prominent, and continue to be so up to the time of David, when they were finally subdued.

The Philistine represents a fact: Samson, whom we will study in the next four Chapters, represents a principle.

The fact is, there are enemies within the Christians heart, for the Philistine was an inward, and not an outward, foe. The principle is that this inward enemy can only be defeated by the Believer understanding that his victory comes exclusively through Christ and what Christ has done at the Cross, demanding our ever constant Faith in Christ and the Cross. Then, and then only, can the Holy Spirit function and work within our lives, bringing about the desired consecration [I Cor. 1:17-18, 21, 23; 2:2; Gal. 6:14].)

²And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bore not.

³And the Angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, you are barren, and bearest not: but you shall conceive, and bear a son. (This is very similar to Abraham and Sarah [Gen. 17:19; 18:10, 14], to Hannah [I Sam. 1:17], to Elizabeth [Lk. 1:13], and to the Blessed Virgin [Lk. 1:31]. The Angel of Jehovah, incidentally, was the same Angel Who appeared to Gideon, actually, the Lord Jesus Christ in angelic form.)

⁴Now therefore beware, I pray you, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing (until Samson would be born, his mother was to consecrate herself as a Nazarite):

⁵For, lo, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. (Samson was to be a Nazarite from his mothers womb. That meant that he was not to drink any type of intoxicating drink, or even grape juice. He was not to cut his hair, nor was he to go near a dead body, even that of his nearest relation. If the last rule was inadvertently broken, the Nazarite had to undergo closely-detailed purification rites. If it is to be noticed, Samson would not actually deliver Israel from the Philistines, but most definitely would begin the process.)

⁶Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A Man of God came unto me, and His Countenance was like the countenance of an Angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence He was, neither told He me His name:

⁷But He said unto me, Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

ANOTHER APPEARANCE

⁸Then Manoah intreated the LORD, and said, O my Lord, let the Man of God which You did send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born (no matter how evil that Israel became, there were always a few who still looked to God, even as evidently did Manoah and his wife).

⁹And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the Angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her.

¹⁰And the woman made haste, and ran, and showed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the Man has appeared unto me, Who came unto me the other day.

¹¹And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the Man, and said unto Him, Are you the Man Who spoke unto the woman? And He said, I am.

¹²And Manoah said, Now let Your words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him? (He knew this would be a special child.)

¹³And the Angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.

¹⁴She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe.

¹⁵And Manoah said unto the Angel of the LORD, I pray You, let us detain You, until we shall have made ready a kid for You (a young lamb for sacrifice).

¹⁶And the Angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though you detain Me, I will not eat of your bread: and if you will offer a Burnt Offering, you must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that He was an Angel of the LORD.

¹⁷And Manoah said unto the Angel of the LORD, What is Your name, that when Your sayings come to pass we may do You honour? (The faith of Manoah was very admirable, and his ignorance very deplorable; for if not rebuked, he would have given Divine honor to a person whom he believed to be a creature and not the Creator; however, this was, in fact, a preincarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.)

¹⁸And the Angel of the LORD said unto him, Why ask you thus after My name, seeing it is secret?

¹⁹So Manoah took a kid (small lamb) with a Meat Offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the Angel did wonderously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward Heaven from off the Altar, that the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the Altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. (In essence, when asked what was His name, the Angel replied, Wonderful. This, in the Hebrew Text, is the same word as in Isaiah 9:6. His doing wondrously in ascending up to Heaven in the flame of fire proved Him to be entitled to this Great Name.

Christ is a Wonderful Saviour. He is Wonderful for what He is to sinners, and Wonderful because of what He does for Saints.)

²¹But the Angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that He was an Angel of the LORD.

²²And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God (Manoah now knows that this Angel is actually the Lord).

²³But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a Burnt Offering and a Meat Offering at our hands, neither would He have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. (It seems that Manoahs wife had a deeper insight into the things of the Lord than did her husband. The Divine directions respecting the child having been given to the Mother is a striking instance of the fact that the boys future, as with all boys, largely depends upon a mothers proper training.

Her reasoning was right; the fact that the Angel accepted the Sacrifice was an evidence of Salvation and Life, and not of condemnation and death. The truth is, Jesus is All in All!

Sinners are Saved, not so much by their acceptance of Christ, but by Gods acceptance of Christ on our behalf; but sinners must accept this Saviour in order to profit by the Divine acceptance of His Person and Work [Jn. 1:12].)

THE BIRTH OF SAMSON

²⁴And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

²⁵And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol. (Israel had at this time fallen so completely into the power of the enemy that only a Nazarite could be used by God to deliver them. But, as always, so in this case, man failed. Christ was the true Nazarite. The source of His Strength was a secret unknown to the world. At that time, Israel was in a worse bondage than that of the Philistines, who didnt even know the Lord; and He, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the power of full consecration, walked among sinners separate from them separate from evil yet He was in the midst of them as their Light and their Salvation. So, as Samson, He began to save His people from the Philistines in His First Advent, and, as David, He will complete His saving Work in His Second Advent Williams.)