Judges – Chapter 13

Angel Visit, vs. 1-7

Thus begins the inspired record of the exciting adventures of Samson. It is the time of the oppression of the Philistines which lasted for forty years. This is probably the same time as the double oppression of Jephthah’s time (Jdg 10:6-9). At that time the Philistines were one of Israel’s oppressors, and while Jephthah ridded the land of the Ammonites the Philistines still oppressed. The forty years of oppression thus would have perhaps covered the judgeships of Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, and the childhood and boyhood of Samson. These judges were in areas either east or north of the Philistines and not directly affected by that oppression.

Sometime during this period, it seems, Samson was born. He was the son of Manoah, a man who lived at Zorah, in the tribe of Dan was one of the westernmost tribes of Israel, his portion of the land reaching to the Mediterranean Sea, but cut off from it by the infiltration of the Philistines after the conquest by Joshua. Zorah was in the western foothills of the Judaean mountains, perhaps twenty-five miles west of Jerusalem.

Manoah and his wife were childless, for she was barren. An angel of the Lord appeared to her, took note of her childlessness and informed her that she would conceive and bear a son. During the period of her pregnancy she was to eat nothing unclean and drink no wine or strong drink. For the baby she was to bear was to be a lifelong Nazarite. (See the law of the Nazarite, Numbers, chapter 6.) This child would “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” As the study of Samson continues it will be seen why Samson only “began” to deliver the Israelites form the Philistines.

Manoah’s wife reported her experience to him, describing her informant as a man of God with a countenance like an angel of God. Though he reminded her of an angel it does not appear that she or Manoah suspected that he actually was a heavenly being. The angel’s directions concerning the child and purpose of his birth were repeated to Manoah, but they knew not to whom they owed this information, since the wife did not inquire the name of her. informant.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

THE BOOK OF JUDGES

Judges 1-21.

THE Book of Judges continues the Book of Joshua. There are some Books of the Bible, the proper location of which require careful study, but Judges follows Joshua in chronological order. The Book opens almost identically with the Book of Joshua. In the latter the reading is, Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua. In the Book of Judges, Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the Children of Israel asked thd Lord, saying Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. God always has His man chosen and His ministry mapped out. We may worry about our successors and wonder whether we shall be worthily followed, but as a matter of fact that is a question beyond us and does not belong to us. It is not given to man to choose prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That prerogative belongs to the ascended Lord, and He is not derelict in His duty nor indifferent to the interests of Israel. Before one falls, He chooses another. The breach in time that bothers men is not a breach to Him at all. It is only an hour given to the people for the expression of bereavement. It is only a day in which to calm the public mind and call out public sympathy and centralize and cement public interest.

Men may choose their co-laborers as Judah chose Simeon; leaders may pick out their captains as Moses did, and as did Joshua; but God makes the first choice, and when men leave that choice to Him, He never makes a mistake.

Whenever a captain of the hosts of the Lord is unworthily succeeded, misguided men have forgotten God and made the choice on the basis of their own judgment.

People sometimes complain of some indifferent or false preacher, We cant see why God sent us such a pastor. He didnt! You called him yourself. You didnt sufficiently consult God. You didnt keep your ears open to the still, small voice. You didnt wait on bended knees until He said, Behold your leader; follow him!

When God appoints Judah, he also delivers the Canaanites and the Perizzites into his hands. Adoni-bezek, the brutal, will be humbled by him; the capital city will fall before him; the southland will succumb, also the north and the east and the west, and the mountains will capitulate before the Lord of Hosts.

But the Book of Judges doesnt present a series of victories. There is no Book in the Bible that so clearly typifies the successes and reverses, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of the church, as the history of Israel here illustrates. It naturally divides itself under The Seven Apostasies, The Successive Judges, and The Civil War.

THE SEVEN APOSTASIES

The first chapter is not finished before failure finds expression. Of Judah it was said he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron (Jdg 1:19). Of the children of Benjamin it was said, They did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem (Jdg 1:21). Of Manasseh it was said, They did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land (Jdg 1:27). Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, (Jdg 1:29); neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron (Jdg 1:30), nor the inhabitants of Mahalol. Neither did Asher (Jdg 1:31) drive out the inhabitants of Acho nor of Zidon; neither did Naphthali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh (Jdg 1:33), and this failure to clear the field results in an aggressive attack before the first chapter finishes, and the Amorites force the children of Dan into the mountain (Jdg 1:34).

If one study these seven apostasies that follow one another in rapid succession, he will be impressed by two or three truths. They resulted from the failure to execute the command of the Lord. The command of the Lord to Joshua was that he should expel the people from before him and drive them from out of his sight, and possess their land (Jos 23:5). He was not to leave any among them nor to make mention of any of their gods (Jos 23:7). He was promised that one of his men should chase a thousand. He was even told that if any were left and marriage was made with them that they should know for a certainty that the Lord God would no more drive out any of these nations from before them; that they should be snares and traps and scourges and thorns, until Israel perished from off the good land that God had given them (Jos 23:13). How strangely the conduct of Israel, once in the land, comports with this counsel given them before they entered it; and there is a typology in all of this.

The Christian life has its enemiessocial enemies, domestic enemies, national enemies! Ones companionship will determine ones conduct; ones marriage relation will eventuate religiously or irreligiously. The character of ones nation is more or less influential upon life.

The ordinance of baptism, the initial rite into the church, looks to an absolute separation from the world, and is expressed by the Apostle Paul as a death unto sin, the clear intent being that no evil customs are to be kept, nor companions retained, nor entangling alliances maintained. The word now is as the word then, Come out from among them, and be ye separate (2Co 6:17).

They imperiled their souls by this forbidden social intercourse. It is very difficult to live with a people and not become like them. It is very difficult to dwell side by side with nations and not intermarry. Intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is almost certain to drag down the life of the former to the level of the latter. False worship, like other forms of sin, has its subtle appeal; and human nature being what it is, false gods rise easily to exalted place in corrupted affections.

If there is one thing God tried to do for ancient Israel, and one thing God tries to do for the new Israel, the Church, it was, and is, to get His people to disfellowship the world.

There are men who think God is a Moloch because He so severely punished Israels compromises. They cant forget that when Joshua went over Jordan and Israel lay encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, her people visited a high place near the camp whereon a festival of Midian, idolatrous, licentious in the extreme, was in process, and they went after this putrid paganism and polluted their own souls with the idolatrous orgy. Then it was that Moses, speaking for the Lord, said, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, and while that hideous row of dead ones was still before their eyes, the plague fell on the camp and 24,000 of the transgressors perished! But severe as it was, Israel soon forgot, showing that it was not too severe, and raising the question as to whether it was severe enough to impress the truth concerning idolatry and all its infamous effects.

Solomon is commonly reputed to have been the wisest of men, and yet it was his love alliances with the strange women of Moab, Ammon, Zidon and the Hittites, these very people, that brought the Lords anger against him and compelled God to charge him with having turned from the Lord God of Israel and in consequence of which God said, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant (1Ki 11:11).

Again and again the kingdom has been lost after the same manner. The present peril of the church is at this point, and by its alliance with the world, the kingdom of our Lord is delayed, and Satan, the prince of this world, remains in power, and instead of 24,000 people perishing in judgment, tens of thousands and millions of people perish through this compromise, and swallowed up in sin, rush into hell.

But to follow the text further is to find their restoration to Gods favor rested with genuine repentance. There are recorded in Judges seven apostasies; they largely result from one sin. There are seven judgments, increasing in severity, revealing Gods determined purpose to correct and save; and there are seven recoveries, each of them in turn the result of repentance. God never looks upon a penitent man, a penitent people, a penitent church, a penitent nation, without compassion and without turning from His purposes of judgment. When the publican went up into the temple to pray, his was a leprous soul, but when he smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner, his was the instant experience of mercy. When at Pentecost, 2500 sincere souls fell at the feet of Peter and the other Apostles, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, the response was, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and the promise was, Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

When David, who was a child of God, guilty of murder and adultery combined, poured out his soul as expressed in the Fifty-first Psalm, God heard that prayer, pardoned those iniquities, restored him to the Divine favor, and showered him with proofs of the Divine love.

When Nineveh went down in humility, a city of 600,000 souls, every one of whom from Sardana-palus, the king on the throne, to the humblest peasant within the walls, proving his repentance by sitting in sackcloth and ashes, God turned at once from the evil He had thought to do unto them and He did it not, and Nineveh was saved.

The simple truth is, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never punishes from preference, but only for our profit; and, even then, like a father, He suffers more deeply than the children upon whom His strokes of judgment fall.

What a contrast to that statement of Scripture, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, is that other sentence, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The reason is not far to seek. In the first case it is death indeed; death fearful, death eternal. In the second case, death is a birth, a release from the flesh that held to a larger, richer, fuller life. In that God takes pleasure.

There is then for the sinner no royal road to the recovery of Gods favor. It is the thorny path of repentance instead. It is through Bochim, the Vale of Tears; but it were just as well that the prodigal, returning home, should not travel by a flowery path. He will be the less tempted to go away again if his back-coming is with agony, and home itself will seem the more sweet when reached if there his weary feet find rest for the first time, and from their bleeding soles the thorns are picked; if there his nakedness is clothed, his hunger is fed and his sense of guilt is kissed away. Oh, the grace of God to wicked men the moment repentance makes possible their forgiveness!

The court in Minneapolis yesterday illustrated this very point. When a young man, who had been wayward indeed, who had turned highway-robber, saw his error, sobbed his way to Christ and voluntarily appeared in court and asked to have sentence passed, newspapers expressed surprise that the heart of the judge should have been so strangely moved, and that the sentence the law absolutely required to be passed upon him, should have been, by the judge, suspended, and the young man returned to his home and wife and babe. But our Judge, even God, is so compassionate that such conduct on His part excites no surprise. It is His custom! Were it not so, every soul of us would stand under sentence of death. The law which is just and holy and good has passed that sentence already, and it is by the grace of God we have our reprieve. Seven apostasies? Yes! Seven judgments? Yes! But seven salvations! Set that down to the honor and glory of our God! It is by grace we are saved!

THE SUCCESSIVE JUDGES

Evidently God has no special regard for some of our modern superstitions, for in this period of conquest He deliberately chooses thirteen judges and sets them over Israel in turn, beginning with Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and nephew of Caleb, and concluding with Samson, the son of Manoah.

They represented varied stations of Israelitish society. A careful review of their personal history brings a fresh illustration of the fact that God is no respector of persons; and it also illustrates the New Testament statement that Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. With few exceptions these judges had not been heard of until their appointment rendered necessary some slight personal history. That is the Divine method until this hour. How seldom the children of the great are themselves great. How often, when God needs a ruler in society, He seeks a log cabin and chooses an angular ladAbe Lincoln. The difference between the inspired Scriptures and yesterdays newspaper is in the circumstance that the Scriptures tell the truth about men and leave God to do the gilding and impart the glory, instead of trying to establish the same through some noble family tree. There is a story to the effect that a young artist, working under his master in the production of a memorial window that represented the greatest and best that art ever knew, picked up, at the close of the day, the fragments of glass flung aside, and finally wrought from them a window more glorious still. Whether this is historically correct or not, we know what God has done with the refuse of society again and again. Truly

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

That no flesh should glory in His presence * * * * He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1Co 1:27-29; 1Co 1:31).

Out of these un-named ones some were made to be immortalGideon, Jephthae, Samson, Deborah.

Gideon, the son of Joash, became such because he dared to trust God. The average Captain of hosts wants men increased that the probabilities of victory may grow proportionately. At the word of the Lord Gideon has his hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands reduced to a handful. What are three hundred men against the multitude that compassed him about? And what are pitchers, with lights in them, against swords and spears and stones; and yet his faith failed not! He believed that, God with him, no man could be against him. When Paul comes to write his Epistle to the Hebrews and devotes a long chapter of forty verses to a list of names made forever notable through faith, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthaethese all appear, and they are put there properly, reason confirming revelation. Barak had faced the hundreds of iron chariots of the enemy, and yet at the word of the Lord, had dared to brave and battle them. Samson, with no better equipment than the jaw-bone of an ass, had slain his heaps. Jephthae, when he had made a vow to the Lord, though it cost him that which was dearer than life, would keep it. Such characters are safe in history. Whatever changes may come over the face of the world, however notable may eventually be names; whatever changes may occur in the conceptions of men as to what makes for immortality, those who believe in God will abide, and childrens children will call their names blessed. Gideon will forever stand for a combination of faith and courage. Barak will forever represent the man who, at the word of the Lord, will go against great odds. Jephthae will forever be an encouragement to men who, having sincerely made vows, will solemnly keep the same; and Samson will forever represent, not his prowess, but the strength of the Lord, which, though it may express itself in the person of a man, knows no limitations so long as that man remains loyal to his vows, and the spirit of the Lord rests upon him.

Before passing from this study, however, permit me to call your attention to the fact that there was made a political exception in the matter of sex. We supposed that the putting of woman into mans place is altogether a modern invention. Not so; it is not only a fact in English language but in human history, that all rules have their exceptions. Gods rule for prophets is men, and yet the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. Gods rule for kings is men, and yet one of the greatest of rulers was Queen Victoria. Gods rule for judges is men, and yet Deborah was long since made an exception. Let it be understood that the exception to the rule is not intended to supplant the rule. The domestic circle is Gods choice for womankind, and her wisdom, tact and energy are not only needed there, but find there their finest employment. And yet there are times when through the indifference of men, or through their deadness to the exigencies of the day, God can do nothing else than raise up a Deborah, speak to a Joan of Arc, put on the throne a Victoria.

I noticed in a paper recently a discussion as to whether women prominent in politics proved good mothers, and one minister at least insisted that they did. We doubt it! The text speaks of Deborah as a mother in Israel, but we find no mention of her children. Our judgment is that had there been born to her a dozen of her own Israel might never have known her leadership. The unmarried woman, or the barren wife, may have time and opportunity for social and political concern; but the mother of children commonly finds her home sphere sufficient for all talents, and an opportunity to reach society, cleanse politics, aid the church, help the world, as large an office as ever came to man. However, let it be understood that all our fixed customs, all our standard opinions, give place when God speaks. If it is His will that a woman judge, then she is best fitted for that office; if He exalts her to lead armies, then victory will perch upon her banners; if He calls her to the place of power on the throne, then ruling wisdom is with her.

In the language of the Apostle Paul, And what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson and of Barak and of Jepkthae. They are all great characters and worthy extended discussion. It would equally fail me to rehearse the confusion, civil and religious, that follows from the seventeenth chapter of this Book to the end, but in chapters nineteen to twenty-one there is recorded an incident that cannot in justice to an outline study, be overlooked, for it results in

THE CIVIL WAR

Tracing that war to its source, we find it was the fruit of the adoption of false religions. We have already seen some of the evil effects of this intermingling with heathen faiths, but we need not expect an end of such effects so long as the compromise obtains. There is no peace in compromise; no peace with your enemies. A compromise is never satisfactory to either side. Heathen men do not want half of their polytheism combined with half of your monotheism. They are not content to give up a portion of their idolatry and take in its place praises to the one and only God. The folly of this thing was shown when a few years since the leaders of the International Sunday School Association attempted to temporarily affiliate Christianity with Buddhism. The native Christians in Japan, in proportion to their sincere belief in the Bible arid in Christ, rejected the suggestion as an insult to their new faith, and the followers of Buddha and the devotees of Shintoism would not be content with Christian conduct unless the Emperor was made an object of worship and Christian knees bowed before him. It must be said, to the shame of certain Sunday School leaders, that they advocated that policy and prostrated themselves in the presence of His Majesty to the utter disgust of their more uncompromising fellows. The consequence was, no Convention of the International Association has been so unsatisfactory and produced such poor spiritual results as Tokios.

Confusion is always the consequence of compromise, and discontent is the fruit of it, and fights and battles and wars are the common issue.

Idolatry is deadly; graven images cannot be harmonized with the true God. The first and second commandments cannot be ignored and the remainder of the Decalog kept. It is God or nothing! It is the Bible or nothing! It is the faith once delivered or infidelity!

The perfidy of Benjamin brought on the battle. We have already seen that men grow like those with whom they intimately associate. This behavior on the part of the Benjamites is just what you would have expected. The best of men still have to battle with the bad streak that belongs to the flesh incident to the fall; and, when by evil associations that streak is strengthened, no man can tell what may eventually occur. Had this conduct been recorded against the heathen, it would not have amazed us at all. We speedily forget that as between men there is no essential difference. Circumstances and Divine aidthese make a difference that is apparent indeed; but it is not so much because one is better than the other, but rather because one has been better situated, less tempted, more often strengthened; or else because he has found God and stands not in himself but in a Saviour.

Pick up your paper tomorrow morning and there will be a record of deeds as dark as could be recorded against the natives of Africa, or those of East India or China, Siberia or the South Sea Islands. The conduct of these men toward the concubine was little worse than that of one of our own citizens in a land of civilization and Christianity, who lately snatched a twelve-year-old girl and kept her for days as his captive, and when at last she eluded him, it was only to wander back to her home, despoiled and demented. Do you wonder that God is no respecter of persons? Do you wonder that the Bible teaches there is no difference? Do you doubt it is all of grace?

The issues of that war proved the presence and power of God. There are men who doubt if God is ever in battle; but history reveals the fact that few battles take place without His presence. The field of conflict is commonly the place of judgment, and justice is seldom or never omitted. We may be amazed to see Israel defeated twice, and over 40,000 of her people fall, when as a matter of fact she went up animated by the purpose of executing vengeance against an awful sin. Some would imagine that God would go with them and not a man would fall, and so He might have done had Israel, including Judah and all loyal tribes, been themselves guiltless. But such was not the truth! They had sins that demanded judgment as surely as Benjamins sin, and God would not show Himself partial to either side, but mete out judgment according to their deserts. That is why 40,000 of the Israelites had to fall. They were facing then their own faithlessness. They were paying the price of their own perfidy. They were getting unto themselves proofs that their fellowship with the heathen and their adoption of heathen customs was not acceptable with God.

Many people could not understand why England and France and Belgium and Canada and Australia and America should have lost so heavily in the late war, 19141918, believing as we did believe that their cause was absolutely just. Why should God have permitted them to so suffer in its defense? Millions upon millions of them dying, enormous wealth destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned, lands sacked, cities burned, cathedrals ruined, sanctuaries desecrated. The world around, there went up a universal cry, Why? And yet the answer is not far to seek. England was not guiltless; France was not guiltless; Belgium was not guiltless.

Poor Belgium! All the world has turned to her with pity and we are still planning aid for the Belgians and to preach to them and their children the Gospel of grace, and this we should do; but God had not forgotten that just a few years ago Belgium was blackening her soul by her conduct in the Belgian Congo. Natives by the score and hundreds were beaten brutally, their hands cut off because they did not carry to the Belgian king as much rubber and ivory as Belgian avarice demanded. American slavery, in its darkest hour, never knew anything akin to the oppression and persecution to which Belgium subjected the blacks in the Congo. Significant, indeed, is the circumstance that when the Germans came into Belgium, many Belgian hands were cut off; hapless and helpless children were found in this mangled state. Frightful as it was, it must have reminded Belgian authorities of their sins in Africa and of the certainty and exactitude of final judgment.

We have an illustration of this truth in the Book of Judges. When Judah went up against the Canaanites and the Lord delivered them into his hands, they slew in Bezek 10,000 men. They found Adoni-Bezek, the king, and fought against him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes. We cry Horror! and wonder that Gods own people could so behave; but, complete the sentence, and you begin to see justice, And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me (Jdg 1:7).

Think of England in her infamous opium traffic, forcing it upon natives at the mouths of guns, enriching her own exchecquer at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of hapless natives of East India and China!

Think of France, with her infidelity, having denied God, desecrated His sabbath, rejected His Son and given themselves over to absinthe and sensuality!

Think of the United States with her infamous liquor traffic, shipping barrels upon barrels to black men and yellow men, and cursing the whole world to fill her own coffers.

Tell me whether judgment was due the nations, and whether they had to see their sin in the lurid light of Belgian and French battlefields; but do not overlook the fact that when the war finally ends, Benjamin, the worst offender, the greater sinner, goes down in the greatest judgment, and one day Benjamins soldiers are almost wiped from the earth! Out of 26,700, 25,000 and more perish. Tell us now whether judgment falls where judgment belongs!

Take the late war. Again and again Germany was triumphant, but when the Allies had suffered sufficiently and had learned to lean not to themselves but upon the Lord; when, like Israel, they turned from hope in self and trusted in God, then God bared His arm in their behalf and Germany went down in defeat, a defeat that made their come-back impossible; a defeat that fastened upon them the tribute of years; a defeat that proved to them that, great as might have been the sins of the allied nations, greater still, in the sight of God, was their own sin; for final judgment is just judgment.

God is not only in history; God has to do with the making of history. If men without a king behave every one as is right in his own eyes, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, will do that which will eventually seem right in the eyes of all angels and of all good men. That is GOD!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

NEW OPPRESSORS AND A NEW DELIVERER

In fixing the date at which Samson appeared, it must be remembered that great diversity of opinion exists, as to the exact chronology of the whole period between the exodus from Egypt, and the building of Solomons temple. The entire duration of that period, we are informed in 1Ki. 6:1, was spanned by 480 years. But how to allot the various sections, into which it was divided, forms a puzzling problem. Upwards of 50 different calculations have been made, and most of them differ widely from each other, some reducing the lapse of time during the Judges to 170 or 190 years [Ewald and Bertheau], whilst others lengthen it out to over 600 years [Josephus.]

Without entering into this entangling discussion, it may suffice to remark, that the narrative in this book, in the opinion of several of the best authorities, such as Keil, Bachmann, Vitringa, Cassel, Lightfoot, &c., gives the events as they followed each other in succession, up to the death of Jair, which, counting from the invasion of Chusan, the first oppressor, extended over a period of 300 years. After that date most of the events related seem to have been more or less synchronous. Thus the oppression by the Philistines, and that by the Ammonites, are spoken of as occurring together, the one on the east, chiefly affecting the tribes beyond Jordan, and the other on the west, affecting Judah and Benjamin, Simeon and Dan. (ch. Jdg. 10:7.) These were not quite simultaneous; the one preceded the other by some years, or may have been over when the other began. First, an account is given of the Ammonite oppression, and the deliverance accomplished under Jephthah, and now, in what follows, an account is given of the yoke imposed by the Philistines, on the tribes that were nearest to them, and the deliverances wrought by the mighty Samson on their behalf.

Part of the time of Elis high priesthood must have been coeval with the deeds of Samson. It is scarcely any objection to say, that we hear nothing of him in the account given of Israels great hero. For, indeed, we hear little or nothing of the priesthood, or of sanctuary service, all through this book. The purpose in it is chiefly, to give an account of the manner in which the people by their conduct kept their covenant towards their God, and how He, in turn, kept his covenant engagements to them. From first to last they were uniformly treacherous towards Him, while He was uniformly faithful and gracious towards them. We are now, therefore, at a time when the people had been already for some time oppressed by the Ammonites beyond Jordan, and when, on this side Jordan, the oppression by the Philistines was just beginning to be most severely felt, while to the north, the tribes were enjoying a season of comparative quietude, under the administration of wise and righteous judges.

Jdg. 13:1-25.

CRITICAL NOTES. Jdg. 13:1. Did evil again] or continued to do evil (Jer. 17:9; Heb. 3:12; Gen. 6:5; Jer. 13:23). See on Ch. Jdg. 3:12; Jdg. 4:1; Jdg. 6:1, etc. Into the hand of the Philistines.] The land of the Philistines (Exo. 13:17) was on the coast of the Mediterranean, between Joppa and the border of Egypt, to north and south, and between the mountains of Judah and the sea, to east and west. This was one of the most fertile plains in all Palestine; it grew richer crops, and supported a larger population than any other. The people were brave and warlike, and at their hands the Israelites suffered longer and more severely, than at those of any other of the heathen nations. We first hear of them before the confusion of tongues at Babel (Gen. 10:14), where Philistim and Caphtorim are spoken of as grandsons of Ham, the son of Noah. Caphtor, according to Jewish tradition, was Cappadocia. The people settled first in Crete, which is also called Caphtor, and afterwards they went to Palestine. Allusions are made to them in Amo. 9:7; Zec. 9:5-7; Jer. 47:4; Deu. 2:23. It is more probable, that they belonged to the Pali, or shepherd race, called by different namesthe Pali, Pelasgi, Palatines, Philistines. There seem to have been different immigrations of them into Palestine. First, that of the Casluhim (Gen. 10:14). Next, the Caphtorim, a kindred clan, about the time of the Exodus. The place where they settled was called the sea of the Philistines. Thirdly, the Cherethites, not mentioned till the time of Saul, who are spoken of at that time as a Philistine clan, enjoying territory and wealth (see Exo. 23:31; Exo. 13:17; 1Sa. 30:14; 1Sa. 30:16). About 300 years before the time of Samson they lost three of their great cities to Israel, but by his time they had received a great accession of power and had recovered them again (Jud. 1:18). The Philistines thus consisted of different tribes, who came together in the south-west of Palestine at different times, and took a name suggested by their habits and history, signifying emigrants, or strangersjust as Saxons, Danes, and Normans, immigrating into our own island at different epochs, became at length amalgamated and united under the one name of English. This mixture of blood tended in both cases, no doubt, to give a character of greater vigour, enterprise, and general superiority.

Jdg. 13:2. Of Zorah.] A town at first belonging to Judah, but afterwards given to Dan (Jos. 19:41), on the western slope of the mountains of Judah, near to Eshtaol (Jos. 15:33). His wife was barren.] But for a special design to serve, Samson had never been brought into existence. It was the same with the whole nation of Israel. The Lord had need of them, otherwise such a nation had never been. They were brought into existence contrary to nature. The family of the Danites.] Mishpachath Dani is used in the same meaning as Shebet Dani, the tribe of the Danites, for at the numbering of the people there was only one family of the Danites, who, however, multiplied greatly (Num. 26:42-43).

Jdg. 13:3. The angel of the Lord.] This name usually, if not always, in the Old Testament, applies to the AngelJehovah,the uncreated Angel, or the form in which Christ appeared to His people in Old Testament times. Thou shalt bear a son. God raised up Ehud and Othniel, called Barak through Deborah, and called Gideon direct. Now Samson is chosen before he is born. The angel comes to his mother. God is not confined to one mode of action. It is something to know, in view of the strange character which Samson exhibited when he came to mans estate, that God thought of him when as yet he was not, and specially raised him up to do His work. Compare the special messages sent to the parents of those who were raised up to be blessings to the Church and to society, to Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 17:19; Gen. 18:10; Gen. 18:14), to Hannah (1Sa. 1:17), to Elizabeth (Luk. 1:13), and to Mary (Luk. 1:31).

Jdg. 13:5. The child shall be a Nazarite unto God.] Not Nazar, but Nazirite. One separated to God or specially dedicated, according to certain external observances, namely, to drink no wine or strong drink, to eat no unclean thing, and let no razor come on his head, also not to touch a dead body, or attend a funeral (Num. 6:1-8, &c.) Some interpret these signs to indicate, self-denial, holiness, and humility, or submission. This first two of these interpretations may be included, but the general idea, is that of entire consecration to God for a special purpose. The forbidding of wine, is not so much here a prohibition of self-indulgence, as a restriction of that which would produce ceremonial uncleanness (Lev. 10:9). Hence it was forbidden to the priests, while doing duty in the tabernacle. The priest had an office and functions which did not belong to the Nazarite, but their absolute consecration to God was practically the same. The latter, was always to look on himself as if he were in the Sanctuary, holy in himself as all things around him were, and all his duties holy duties. The Nazir is indeed a walking altar of God; and his flowing hair is the visible token of his consecration. Just as the lifting up of iron on the altar would be a desecration of it (Exo. 20:25), so would the bringing of a razor on the head of the Nazir be inconsistent with the sacred character he bears. The unshorn hair which he wore, was as much his specific mark, as the linen garment was that of the priest. Probably, the prohibition against cutting the hair meant, that there must be no interference with an object so entirely consecrated to God as the Nazir, so as to alter it from what nature has made it, and that as the hair growing to its full length is natures protection of the person, it must be hallowed and remain untouched. Some, indeed many, were so devoted to the Lord for only eight days, others for a month, or longer, and we only read of three who were so devoted for life, Samuel, John the Baptist, and Samson (1 Saml. Jdg. 1:11; Luk. 1:15). We read also, that Paul at one time took such a vow (Act. 18:18; Act. 21:24-26).

He will begin to deliver Israel, &c.] This implies that the Philistine oppression had been felt for some time. Let us suppose it to have lasted, as yet, but one year; let us farther suppose that Samson was but 18 years old when he began to act as judge; and again add up the 20 years that his judgeship lasted. This would amount to 39 years from the beginning of the oppression; yet, the whole period of that oppression, was only 40 years. There would thus be only one year left for the inflicting of the final defeat under Samuel. It is also implied, that Samson was not to complete the deliverance; he was but to lift the yoke partially from their neck, and inspire them with the hope that full freedom would come in the end.

He shall be a Nazarite unto God and shall begin to deliver Israel.] There is certainly a connection between his being a Nazarite, and his being a deliverer of his people. It seems to be this. In the case of the other Saviours, such as Ehud, Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah, the ground on which God gave them power, and the special fitness for delivering the suffering people, was either the repentance of the people, or what is practically the same thing, their crying to God in earnest prayer. But we bear nothing of this in the case of the generation of Samsons age. And as there must be some ground of righteous procedure brought forward, if God is to grant another Saviour now, He, Himself, appoints a special capacity to be sustained by the man whom He raises up to give deliverance. That capacity is, to be a person specially set apart for God, ceremonially free from all defilement, and hallowed for the doing of any service that God may require at his hand. On a man occupying such a capacity, God could confer His Holy Spirit consistently with his righteous character, and make him strong, wise, fearless, and successful in doing the work set before him. But the question is not what the man is in himself, in his own personal character, but in what he represents. Samson, in his heart and life, was not the spotless person which the theory of Nazaritism required him to be but the signs which he bore, were a standing law, pointing out what the character and conducto those should be whom God would acknowledge as His own, and whom He would deliver from all evil. His Nazarite profession was really a protest against the iniquity of the time, and an illustration of the principles, which the holy nation must cultivate anew, if they were to receive the Divine protection.

Being a Nazarite, God could, consistently with His holy character, bestow on Samson the gift of superhuman strength, but when he suffered his locks to be shorn, he no longer retained the principal sign of his consecration to God, and so the gift which was conferred only out of respect to that consecration, departed from him.

Jdg. 13:6. A man of God.] Usually applied to a prophet, or a man who is authorised to speak messages from God, such as Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, David, and others. To Manoahs wife he had a far nobler and more impressive look than men usually have, yet she does not seem to have recognised him as Divine.

Jdg. 13:8. Manoah entreated the Lord.] The name signifies Rest. He was a man of prayer. How often are those who become blessings to the world, children of praying parents? Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, Solomon, and Timothy, all appear to have been the children of many prayers. The prayer, on this occasion, appears to have been acceptable unto God, and was heard. The same instructions, as to the training of the child, are given as before.

Jdg. 13:15. Let us detain Thee until.] Not yet having discerned the Divine character of his visitor, Manoah, full of gratitude for the joyous tidings, would offer him a warm hospitality (comp. Gen. 18:7; Heb. 13:2).

Jdg. 13:18. Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is secret?] The word is Peli, the same with Pel, in Isa. 9:6, which is translated, wonderful. Meaning, that all about Him is most wonderful, or, He is the wonderful one beyond comparison with all others. The true rendering of the clause, therefore is, seeing it is wonderful. That is not really telling his name, but describing its character. It is as if He had said, Why ask after my name? seeing I am not known by a mere name, but by a character and mode of action, which belong only to myself, and cannot be devised or imitated by others. Everything about me is essentially wonderful, (comp. Psa. 118:23; Exodus 17; Exo. 34:10). We must understand it to have the force of absolutely and supremely wonderful, which can only apply to God. Bertheau tones it down to mean neither easy to utter, nor easy to comprehend. Rather, we are to regard it as one of the hints which He always gives when He appears, that it is one who is Divine that has appeared.

Jdg. 13:19. Unto the Lord.] In obedience to the direction given in Jdg. 13:16. They still regarded their visitor as a messenger from God, and nothing more, or as they express it, a man of God. So that their sacrifice was not to the visitor but to Jehovah. It was offered there and then, expressly by the direction of the visitor, which to them seemed sufficient to hallow the spot, though no offering, as a rule, could be accepted unless laid on the duly consecrated altar.

Jdg. 13:20. The angel ascended in the flame.] This was proof positive that he was Divine. Fell on their faces.] Paralysed with fear at the sudden disclosure of the fact that they had been talking with God face to face (Dan. 10:9; Num. 14:5; Lev. 9:24; 1 Chronicles 21).

Jdg. 13:22. We shall surely die because we have seen God.] They regarded Him as the Angel-Jehovah, and that was in their estimation the same as Jehovah himself. Many such appearances were made in Old Testament times (Gen. 18:25-26; Gen. 19:24; Gen. 22:11-15; Gen. 28:13-17; Gen. 32:30; Gen. 31:11; Gen. 31:13; Gen. 35:9-15; Exo. 3:2-5; Exo. 14:19; Exo. 19:17-20; Exo. 20:21-22; Exo. 24:9-11; Exo. 33:19-23; Exo. 34:5-8, etc., etc.). That the visitor in the present case was Divine appears from two things especiallyHe brought fire out of the rock to consume the offering, and He vanished in the flame. That they should fear death to come to them because they had been face to face with God, is the natural instinct of a guilty mind, even in the case of those, in whom the good work is begun (see Gen. 32:30; Exo. 33:20).

Jdg. 13:23. He would not have received a burnt offering, etc.] The wife proved a wise counsellor to her husband on this occasion. It is a specimen of excellent reasoning. The mercies God had shown to them were proofs that he regarded them with favour. Why confer such honour on them if He meant to kill them? Why pledge His word in promise to them, and then put them to death, so that that promise could not be fulfilled? Why did He accept their offerings on His altar? Surely the honour of the Divine truthfulness required that they should be preserved. Were not the mercies they had received pledges of the Divine love, and a reason for concluding that, since God had begun to bless them with promises of good, He would continue to bless them still? (Psa. 115:12; Psa. 36:10; Isa. 26:12).

Jdg. 13:24. Called his name Samson.] The Hebrew form of the name is Shimshon, the root of which is Shemesh, the sun. The meaning in that case would be sun-like, or little sun, or hero of the sun, Josephus, however, makes it shimshom the strong, or daring one while yet others make it to mean to minister, in allusion to the Nazarites consecration to the service of God. The Jewish expositors speak of Samson as called after the name of God, who is the sun and shield of Israel (Psa. 84:12). The symbol of servitude is night (as in the case of the Egyptian oppression), but the beginning of freedom is as the dawn of day, or the rising of the sun. one of the legends places at the head of its narratives the powerful knight, Samson, dark of complexion, like an Oriental, with hair and beard black as pitch, and from whom the mighty race of the Amelungen springs.

The Lord blessed him.] This could hardly be said of a man who had nothing good in his character before God (Psa. 7:11). Gods blessing and Gods curse cannot rest on the same man. He must have the one lot or the other. He may be severely chastised on account of grievous sins, but that does not decide the point that he is an ungodly character. God may do much for a wicked man. He may give him long life, a high station of honour, and many titles and distinctions; he may gratify his natural wishes to the full, and yet give these things without his blessing (Psa. 73:7-9). Nay, all the while these things may be working out his ruin (Psa. 73:18). We regard this statement, if not as decisive, at least as a strong point in Samsons favour as a religious character.

Jdg. 13:25. Began to move him in the camp of Dan.] The word here which is translated to move () signifies to excite to action. He was already conscious of his superior strength to other men, and, in view of what he saw around him, he was stirred up now and again by the Spirit of the Lord, to arise and use his power on behalf of his oppressed people. Moses was so stirred, though not so specially (Exo. 2:11-14). Paul also (Act. 17:16). But this was before his actual exploits, such as slaying the lion, or making great slaughter of the Philistines. It seemed to be certain sudden impulses which the Spirit made him feel, to indicate that he had a mission before him in breaking the power of the oppressor. As the root of the word signifies an anvil, some think that these impulses were an intimation to him beforehand, that he was to smite the Philistines with repeated strokes as from a hammer on an anvil. But surely it was also an intimation that when the time came, he would be made fit for his work, according to the promise, as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

In the camp of Dan] or Mahaneh Dan. This was an encampment formed by the armed 600, who formed a temporary settlement, which afterwards became permanent, in a district near Kirjah-jearim, when they went out in quest of the acquisition of new territory. The account is given in Jdg. 18:11-12, the date of which, was more than 300 years anterior to the days of Samson. This place was somewhat higher up the sides of the mountain than Zorah, but only a few miles distant from the young heros home. Thither he must often have climbed as to one of the centres where a few patriots, still left in the land, were wont to congregate, and from them he would hear, from time to time, of fresh deeds of barbarity and oppression that were perpetrated on the homesteads of Israel, by the cruel enemies that occupied the plains below. Even at Zorah, every morning as he looked out at the door of his paternal dwelling, on the western slope of the mountains, his eye could take in not only the rich garden of the Shefelah, which belonged to his own tribe, but also a large sweep of the fertile fields beyond the borders, all over which, the enemy spread their tents, or built their cities, and which, at one time, had been trodden by the foot of the dreaded giants. Many a band of these cruel plunderers, doubtless, he would see marching up the glen beneath his fathers house, and returning again laden with the spoils of his brethren; many an act of rapine and cruel outrage, or even barbarous murder, left a deep impress on his mind, and stirred within him, thoughts of doing mighty deeds, on behalf of the oppressed.

Patriotic thoughts or feelings, however, are not to be confounded with the movements occasioned by the Divine Spirit. Any supernatural operation of the Spirit on a man, is indeed ever in harmony with natural law, yet, is quite distinct in itself from natural law. We believe the Spirit took occasion from the impulses of patriotism, prompted by natural causes, to produce a higher class of impulses, that were peculiar to His own special working in the mind.

HOMILETIC REMARKS.Jdg. 13:1-25

AN UNTHOUGHT OF DELIVERER RAISED UP

I. The thoughtfulness of Gods mercy to a backsliding people.

1. In sending chastisement at all. That alone shows the considerateness of the Divine love. If the stone which has begun to roll down the steep be not stopped, and stopped soon, by some effectual means, it will inevitably dash on to the bottom, and be broken in a thousand splinters. If a fire be kindled in a house, it must be extinguished at once by any and every means, or it will soon envelope every object in the house in flames. So, if sin is left to do its natural work in the soul unchecked, it will ere long lead to irretrievable ruin. Hence those Divine utterances which tell usYou only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities. He that spareth the rod hateth the child. (Psa. 94:12, etc.; Lev. 19:17; Heb. 12:6.) The confession is made by the afflicted person himself (Psa. 119:71; Psa. 119:75). The intention of the chastisement is often to remove what would be deleterious, or to assist growth (Joh. 15:2): To let a man alone while he is going on sinning, is a heavy judgment to him (Hos. 4:17; Jer. 48:11). Sharp chastisement is incomparably kinder treatment. When a man is asleep on the top of a precipice, the kind thing is to awaken him, however roughly rather than let him fall over into ruin.

Thus did God with His own people when He gave them into the hand of the fierce enemy here described. He only fulfilled the terms of His covenant (Psa. 89:30-34). Yet it remained true, that all His paths were mercy and truth to such as kept His covenant.

2. In not removing the chastisement at once. Were it to be so removed the greater part of the benefit to be gained by sending it would be lost. There is need for realising the bitterness of sin from the bitterness of its fruits (Jer. 2:19). Nothing teaches like experience, especially when the father has to deal with sottish children, a people of no understanding (Jer. 4:22). When the mild whispers are not heard, love raises her voice to the hoarse notes rather than relinquish her object. A discipline is needed to make the heart become broken and contrite. He subdues its iniquities, heals its back-slidings, and then loves freely. It is like driving the ploughshare through the hard, beaten ground, and breaking it up by way of preparing the soil for the good seed. We must suffer awhile ere we are made perfectmust know something of the sorrows of the sinful state, ere we enter on the joys of the world where sin is unknown.

3. In devising deliverance before the voice of prayer is heard. While we are told in this chapter of the peoples new sins, we hear nothing of their repentance, or their earnest cry for deliverance. The cry of distress with the symptoms of repentance, referred to in ch. Jdg. 10:10-16, seems to refer to the experience and behaviour of the people under the oppression that was then going on to the east of the Jordan (see Jdg. 13:8-9), and not to the men of Judah, Benjamin and Dan, to the west. Even, therefore, if the oppressions were synchronous, which they only were in part at the very most, we cannot take the expression of penitence given in ch. 10, as applying to the western tribes that were now crushed under the tyranny of the Philistines.

We are left to believe that here there was no voice of prayer, nor turning of the heart to Him from whom they had so deeply revolted. They were still enemies of God in their minds and by wicked works. Yet in these circumstances, thoughts of love sprung up in the Divine bosom, solely because of the great goodness that dwells eternally there.

God is so disposed to bless His people, that He sometimes hears their voice as soon as they begin to cry, and even before they have begun to do so, while, indeed, they are only purposing to do it (Isa. 65:24) (comp. Mat. 6:8). But always, sooner or later, He hears them when they cry to Him with their whole heart (Jer. 29:12-13). Here, however, such is His mercy, that He interposes on their behalf when they do not cry at all. Suffering has been sent, but they are chastised like the bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. They do not know the why or wherefore of it all. They seem not to know that it is the hand of their God that is upon them, chastising them for their sins. Hence there is no prayer. They are beaten like the horse or mule, whose mouth is kept in with bit and bridle. They do not see any moral instruction in it all, whereas those who have understanding of Gods ways see a salutary course of training in those dealings, dictated by the loving kindness of the Lord (Psa. 107:43).

4. In providing a remedy as soon as He begins to chastise. This is specially to be noticed. The remedy indeed does not appear at once. The antidote is not applied on the very day when the bane is sent. For some considerable time, it looks as if there was no intention to remove the dreadful scourge. And yet all the while steps have been taken to provide a remedy suitable for removing the evil. The birth of Samson was thought of at the very beginning of the oppression by the Philistines. That oppression lasted forty years, of which time twenty years were occupied with Samsons judgeship, and most of the other twenty were filled up with his growth from infancy to manhood. The Philistines were not fully driven off till at least one year after Samsons death (1Sa. 7:13). And if we suppose that Samson began to judge Israel at the age of 18 or 19, then it follows that the message spoken of in this chapter was coeval with the date when the oppression began. The conclusion is manifest, that on the very day when the wound is made, steps are taken to furnish a balm for healing it!

What a touching proof we have in this, that God afflicts not willingly (Lam. 3:33). It is not from feelings of hatred or revenge that He sends heavy judgments. There His nature entirely differs from ours. He bears no grudge, and cherishes no anger, against any class of men merely as men, as we do when provoked. His anger, which is most strong, is directed against sin, so that all who determine to live in sin, and will not give it up, must take the consequences. It is then according to laws that God acts, and not as we do, according to passionate feelings. The sending of this Philistine opp ession on His people was out of respect to righteousness and truth, and not because He had lost His loving feelings to His own. For at the same moment that He applies the rod, He devises means to alleviate the strokes! The love which thinks of deliverance, is at work in the same breast, where jealousy for the honour of His holy name burns.

5. In doing all this for a people hardened in sin. It is when obstacles are placed in the stream that we see the strength of the current. The people with whom God was so considerate and tender in His dealings, were inveterately obstinate in clinging to their wicked ways. Every heart was determinedly barricaded against admitting Him. To bestow His mercies on them seemed like casting pearls before swine. They were all grievous revolters, their hearts like brass and iron for hardness. Yet it is long before the Divine mercy goes away. How shall I give thee uptheeMy own Israel, whom I have redeemed, with whom I have entered into covenant! No! I will not give up. I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, for I am God, and not man. If they will not hear the gentle zephyr, I will bring the thunder cloud. But I will not leave.

II. The salvation of Israel is entirely of the Lord.

A common place remark, but how valuable to see it always standing out before us on every page of this interesting history! The thought of it ever begins with Him. It springs from the abundant goodness of His own nature (1Pe. 1:3). So strong is the welling up of that goodness that it overflows the mightiest obstacles which sin in so many forms is ever putting in its wayby its stubbornness, its manifoldness, its malignity, its inveteracy, its intense antagonism to His holy nature, its mischievous influence, its ingratitude, and dishonour done to all His sacred perfections, and finally, its incurableness. How sincere and cordial His pity for the sinning people before Him! To the generation that has provoked Him to bring on them the terrible calamity of the captivity, He said, speaking through the weeping prophet: You may not think me sincere in prolessing loving kindness towards you because of these troubles, but in myself I know the thoughts which I think toward you; thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. In all the different crises which occurred in Israels history as recorded in this Book, their refuge in the background when things came to the worst, was their God; though they had cast Him off, put other gods in his place, and provoked Him to anger daily by their systematic wickedness. For all that, He only was their rock and defencetheir expectation was only from Him. Let it be treasured up in the memory of every reader to His everlasting praise.

III. Gods honours are free to all His own people alike, though not to strangers.

It was the highest honour in that age which any Israelite could enjoy, to be raised up by God to act as the Saviour of the people, in a great crisis. This honour was distributed impartially among the various tribes. From Judah was taken an Othniel; from Ephraim, an Abdon and a Samuel; from Benjamin, an Ehud, and perhaps a Shamgar and a Deborah; from Issachar, a Tola; from Zebulun, an Ibzan and an Elon; from Gad (if the same with Gilead), Jair and Jephthah; from Naphtali, a Barak; from Manasseh, a Gideon; from Dan, a Samson; and perhaps from Simeon, a Shamgar, though it remains undecided. The only two tribes omitted are Reuben and Asher, and that may well be accounted for by the fact, that the deliverer was usually raised up near the point where the danger was greatest; and the tribes just named seem never to have been in such risk of destruction by an enemy as the other ten at some part of their history. But we never hear of any man outside Israel being raised up to be a defender of Gods Church. All Gods battles were fought by men of faith. All others were rejected, whatever might be their skill and prowess. The Church does not need the worlds help. Her resources are within herself.

IV. The real guardian of the Church never deserts his post.

As we read through the account, one naturally inquiresWho is this kind friend, that now and again makes His appearance in the darkest nights of this peoples history, to save them from threatened ruin? He comes unsought, and even unknown; or the moment that He is known, He disappears from view. He does not appear before the public gaze, but shows himself to a solitary individual, whom He appoints to act for Him in carrying out plans for the redemption of the people. He seems always to be in the background, His step noiseless, His voice calm; no pomp of appearance, and no retinue surrounding Him. But He is therewith this people, knowing all that happens to them, knowing all their provocations and sins, but never losing sight of them or ceasing to interest himself on their behalf. He was with the Church in the wilderness; He appeared as the Captain of the Lords host, when the Church was about to fight her first battle with her enemies; when the people had lost Joshua and were about to pursue their course without a leader, again He appears to reprove them for the symptoms they were already beginning to give of their apostasy (Jdg. 2:1-5). In the days of the great oppression by Midian, when the land was groaning under the weight of its troubles, He appeared to Gideon and gave him a commission to become the Saviour of his Church. And now here we see the same never-forsaking friend, always throwing His shield round about them when they are getting under the paw of the lion.

No other people has such a protector. They stand alone among the nations. They have a friend that never dies, and his love never cools. He lives through all the ages and ever sits at the helm. What can it mean, but that He has a special charge of the church, never resigning his post and never permitting her enemies to accomplish her destruction. All this we find gloriously realised in the guardian care exercised over the church of the New Testament era, He is head over all things to the Church which is His body, He ever liveth to make intercession, I am with you always to the end of the world, On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, I have graven thee on the palms of Mine hands, thy walls are continually before me.

V. God is glorified by the diversity of the instrumentality He employs.

The deliverance of Israel is not always effected by one uniform method. Rather there is every possible variety. At one time, a member of one of the best families of Israel is selected to lead the people against the invader, and he is driven back. At another time a left-handed man is employed, who, by a single stroke, smites the head of the oppressor, and the enemy is thrown into confusion. Again a single man with an ox-goad makes such havoc in the ranks of the foe, that their inrush is arrested. Now it is a man from the woods of the north, who appears at the call of a woman, with a handful of mountaineers to meet a huge host with iron chariots in the plain, and in one short hour the imposing array is swept from the field. Again it is a man of sterling worth, but greatly upappreciated by those around him, that is found out by the Searcher of hearts, and brought from the operation of threshing wheat, to lead a small band of lion-hearted heroes against a countless multitude of invaders, and ere the next sun arose, the whole living wave has passed away. Still again it is a refugee, who has found shelter in a foreign land, that is recalled and put at the head of the armies of Israel, and the legions of the enemy are scattered as the chaff before the wind. Now it is no longer a leader with an army at his back that stands before usone man forms an army in himself, and an army so formidable, that the enemy fall in heaps on heaps before him. Before one single arm a whole nation is kept in terror.

What an illustrious display is thus given of the resources of the God of Israel. These resources are never exhausted. What is the practical lesson? Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strengthresources. Is anything too hard for the Lord? On and on indefinitely, this series of diversity of ways of redemption might be carried, without the necessity of repeating the old forms. What magazines of resources are at the disposal of Him, who has all hearts in His hands, and all events under His control! Man as God has made him, is a witness to this power in the Divine nature of producing an infinite diversity of expedients to accomplish the Divine purposes. For man is made with a craving after perpetual freshness of knowledge, which can only be met by the inexhaustible resources that are stored up in the mind of Him who made him. Whatever brings out this fulness of resources glorifies God.

VI. Israelites indeed are found in the most degenerate times.

The men of that generation appeared to be sunk in what might be called the lethargy of sin. It seemed as if nothing could quicken them, or raise them out of their stupor. When they were smitten again and again, they could not be brought to see that it was for their sins. They were of that doltish nature, that they could not read their sin in their punishment. It would have required a Hosea to rise up and describe their character. The terrible Philistine scourge could awaken no other sound among them than that of howling on their beds like stubborn beasts under the smart of the lash. Their root was dried up, and bore no fruit. Ephraim was like a cake not turned. Over the length and breadth of the land Gods judgments were rolling, yet no voice of prayer is heard in the high places, nor is there any symptom of the heart of the people turning to the Lord. There is no confession of sin, nor are any Bochims found among their cities or places of public resort.

Thus it was with the masses. But God never leaves Himself without a witness. Here is one family known to the all-seeing eye among the hills of Dan, where in the two heads of the household, both faith and prayer seem to be in healthful exercise. The fear of God is in this home, the knowledge of His laws and statutes is still preserved, His word is law, offerings are made to Him on the altar, His promises are trusted, and His requirements are complied with. Northward, even in Ephraim itself, is another home of these times which forms an oasis in the desert, at the head of which stand an Elkanah and a Hannah, who, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessthe home of a praying mother and a God-fearing father, a meet birthplace for such a child as Samuel. And near by is old Eli, the resident priest of Shiloh, whose dwelling-place was the tabernacle itself, and whose heart in these stormy times trembled for the ark of God all his life. There were also others in that age to whom everything about the name of God, and the service of God was dear. The daughter-in-law of Phinehas, who gave the name Ichabod to her child, because the ark of God was taken; Abinadab in the hill near where Manoah dwelt, and his son Eleazar; and by and bye a large company of penitents sprung up, doubtless in answer to the prayers of the few Israelites indeed, who had all along been left in the land (1Sa. 7:1-2).

Thus it has been in every age. A Noah was found at a time when the earth was filled with violence, a Job in the land of Uz, and the family of a Terah, when the twilight of heathenism was beginning to overspread the earth, an Abraham and his seed for many generations while the gross darkness of heathenism prevailed, and many striking individual cases of true piety were ever coming up to relieve the dreary history until the great Light at last arose, which is destined in due time to dispel the darkness for ever. For it cannot be that the good man should entirely perish out of the earth.

(1) Then the earth would be ripe for destruction, and the thunders of heaven could no longer sleep. It is for the sake of the righteous in it that the world is not destroyed, and were they all removed there would be no argument to plead for its preservation. The case of Sodom is the proof.

(2) It would be too great a triumph to allow Satan to win over the cause of God on the earth. All Satans triumphs take place only by permission. The little finger of Him who defends the church in this world has more power in it, than all the hosts of the dark empire unitedly possess. But for wise reasons that hidden power is meantime held back, to allow the most ample liberty to the powers of darkness to bring forth their boasted strength. It is really weakness placed against strength, that we see on the spiritual battlefield, so that when victory comes, as it is sure to do, the victory may be all the more glorious on the one side, and the defeat all the more crushing on the other. Were the side of Truth, however, to become extinguished altogether, even for a time, it would be allowing one real triumph to the side of Error, and so leave a stain on the record of Truths victories in the long run, as being less than perfect.

(3) It would be contrary to the promises made to the church. His name shall endure for ever. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations, etc., etc.

(4) It is for the honour of Christs providential rule, that the cause of unrighteousness and error should not gain a single real victory in their conflict with truth. The Son of God is at work in the history of this world in destroying the works of the devil. It is to His honour, therefore, that amid all the seeming defeats of a Christian cause, there should not be one real defeat. As He loves His own name, He will see to it that the cause of evil shall never really conquer, but that uniformly in the end dust shall be the serpents meat.

VII. In all Divine deliverances wrought there must be respect paid to principles of righteousness.

No repentance, no salvationis the uniform tone of New Testament teaching; and throughout the Book on every page, we find it was the same in the days of the judges. These saviours could not save until the people repented. On the occasion before us, as there was no public manifestation of penitence, the man who was raised up to deliver Israel has no army with him, for it would have been hard to find an army, even a small one, of men of faith at that time in the land; and of such materials usually did Israels conquering armies consist. Since, however, there was to be deliverance, some means must be found to show respect to principles of righteousness in granting it. These we have in the conditions laid down for Samson while holding his office, which have been already explained. It was as a man professedly dedicated to the Lord and His service, hallowed in his person, and keeping himself separate from the world, that extraordinary strength was given him through the power of the Divine Spirit resting upon him.

This was indeed but a ceremonial dedication. Yet it was a picture of the principles, out of respect to which, the holy Lord gave to sinning Israel the benefit of a Samsons strong arm. And it is added, He only began to deliver Israel. In point of fact, the crushing defeat of the enemy only took place in the days of Samuel (1Sa. 7:10-13). Pull deliverance could not be granted until there was a living expression of penitence, such as is recorded in 1Sa. 7:2-4. The whole Bible might be quoted to show the absolute necessity of repentance where there is to be salvation. In the cross of Christ grace does indeed reign, but it is through righteousness by Jesus Christ. God must have regard to His character as a just God, while He justifies, in place of condemning a sinner. And so Jesus Christ is set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness in order to the remission of sins. Having shed His blood as a propitiation, Christ is now the end of the law for righteousness, to every one that believeth. Every sinner who goes to Jesus for salvation necessarily repents, for he admits the supreme necessity of the vindication of the Divine righteousness, ere his sins can be forgiven, and that the awful sufferings of the Cross alone can do that. To take salvation on that ground is to condemn his own sins in the most emphatic manner, and to admit that God must have the fullest satisfaction for them. That implies conviction of sin, and naturally leads to sorrow for it, and turning from it unto God.

VIII. Mans inability to see Gods face without ceasing to live.

It was the general belief at that time that no man could see God and live. This may have been due to what Jacob said at Peniel (Gen. 32:30), or to what God said to Moses at Sinai (see Exo. 33:20, &c.). In three ways this is true.

(1.) On account of guilt. To a guilty man, God out of Christ is a consuming fire. So it is expressed in Heb. 12:29. Not that He is less loving than at other times, nor that any real change has passed over His character. But so intense is His love of purity, and so profound is His jealousy for the glory of His name, in the eternal calm of His nature, that without the slightest discomposure, His attitude to sin, and all that cling to it, must be like a fixed natural law, that of strong antagonisman antagonism so strong as to mean the death of the soul. This antagonism of an infinite nature to one that is finite has all the effect of an irresistible fire, and is substantially the same with that which is called everlasting fire in the New Testament. It is the frown of the Lawgiver on the transgressor of His own law. Who can doubt that that will come down on those who die impenitent, precisely according to the manner in which they have sinned.

(2.) On account of a creatures weakness. When any strong manifestation of Gods character is made, a man naturally shrinks from it, and looks for some means of concealment. This is because of guilt. For why should innocence flee from purity? The holy angels in light who see the Kings face are not afraid. Neither should we be so if perfectly pure. But even though spotless, the full blaze of the Divine glory might be overpowering to the holiest of creature natures, simply because of its transcendent brightness. No human eye could withstand the effulgence of the mid-day sun, so with a human soul before the full vision of God. For this reason many think there will never be a complete display of the glory of God made to the redeemed in heaven itself, but that there will always be some veil put on the Divine countenance, perhaps as many veils as there were curtains of goats hair on the tabernacle, which were eleven in number. The general belief is that the form in which God will be seen by us in Heaven, will be the man Christ Jesus.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Samson of Dan Jdg. 13:1 to Jdg. 16:31

The Birth of Samson Jdg. 13:1-25

And 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.
2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not.
3 And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.
4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
5 For, lo, thou shalt 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.
6 Then 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:
7 But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt 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.
8 Then Manoah entreated the Lord, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.
9 And 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.
10 And the woman made haste, and ran, and showed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day.
11 And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am.
12 And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?
13 And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.
14 She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe.
15 And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.
16 And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord.
17 And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor?
18 And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?
19 So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.
20 For 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.
21 But 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.
22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
23 But 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.
24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.
25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

1.

Where was Zorah? Jdg. 13:2

Zorah was a city on the border of Dan. It lay between Eshtaol and Ir-shemesh (Jos. 19:41). It is best known as the birthplace of Samson. He was buried near here also (Jdg. 16:31). From this point some Danites went to look for additional land as is recorded in one of the appendices of the book of Judges (Jdg. 18:2; Jdg. 18:11). Zorah was allotted to the tribe of Judah when Joshua parceled out the land to the twelve tribes (Jos. 15:33). After the captivity, it was occupied again by the children of Judah (Neh. 11:29). Rehoboam fortified this city (2Ch. 11:10), and the modern Sura near the summit of a lofty hill on the north side of the Wady es-surar has been identified as the location of ancient Zorah. A striking stone altar nearby is pointed out as the altar from which the angel ascended.

2.

Who was the Angel of the Lord? Jdg. 13:3

The Angel of the Lord was the special messenger by whom God chose to reveal Himself at many different times in the days of the patriarchs and the other leaders of Israel of Old Testament times. He does not identify himself by name as did Gabriel, the angel who announced the birth of John the Baptist (Luk. 1:19). Other angels are also known by name, but this special representative of the Lord refused to give his name (Jdg. 13:17-18). Manoahs wife told him she had failed to ask him about his name (Jdg. 13:6); but when he was asked at a later time, the angel refused to give further identification of himself.

3.

Why was Samsons mother to drink no wine? Jdg. 13:4

Samson was to be a Nazarite from the time of his birth. A Nazarite was not allowed to drink wine (Numbers 6), and even Samsons mother was to live a similarly devoted life in preparation for the birth of this champion of God. Her model of abstinence is profitably followed by many conscientious mothers of modern times who refuse to weaken their constitutions by the use of alcoholic beverages. The abstinence of Samsons mother, however, was more than just a personal preference on her part. She was to drink no wine because she was given this commandment by the angel who appeared to her.

4.

Why was Samson to be a Nazarite? Jdg. 13:5

Samson was to be set aside for the service of God in a special way. The vows taken by a Nazarite are some of the most exacting and specific on record in the Old Testament. A Nazarite could not drink any vinegar of wine or vinegar of strong drink. He was not allowed to drink any juice of grapes nor to eat fresh grapes or dried (Num. 6:3). In addition, he was to allow no razor to come upon his head, but he was to let the locks of the hair of his head grow long. Furthermore he was not to come near a dead body, not even making himself unclean at the time of the death of his father, his mother, his brother, or sister (Num. 6:5-6). Some Nazarites took these vows for a specific length of time, but Samson was to live this kind of life throughout all his days, even from the time of his birth.

5.

Why did Manoah want the angel to come again? Jdg. 13:8

Manoah was not with his wife when the angel first appeared to her. He wanted confirmation of the instructions which had been given to his wife, and he asked God to allow the angel to appear again. The angel appeared to Manoahs wife the second time, but she ran and fetched Manoah so that he might hear the instructions which were given to them. All his questions were answered, and he was thoroughly convinced of the special nature of Samsons life.

6.

Why did Manoahs wife refer to the angel as a man? Jdg. 13:10

The Angel of the Lord appeared to be a man. This was the normal way in which he made these appearances, beginning with the times when he appeared to Abraham and Hagar. Joshua thought he might be one of the soldiers and asked him whether he was for Israel or against them. Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord as a man would wrestle with another man. Nonetheless, those who saw the Angel of the Lord knew that they had seen a theophany. God was revealing Himself in this visible manifestation.

7.

What additional demand was made of Samson? Jdg. 13:14

When the Angel of the Lord first appeared to Manoahs wife, he instructed her not to drink wine or strong drink. She was not to eat any unclean thing. At the time of the second appearance the Angel of the Lord told her not to eat anything which came from the vine. This additional demand was made on her and indicated that she was to live a life very similar to the clean and holy life demanded of a Nazarite. Such a prohibition was given to prevent a person from imbibing in anything which would cause him to lose any of the keenness of his natural senses. Such a person was holy and completely dedicated to God.

8.

Why did Manoah wish to make ready a kid? Jdg. 13:15

It is not stated that Manoah intended to prepare a kid for sacrifice. The Angel of the Lord did not know whether he was intending to sacrifice or to prepare a meal. Manoah may have been intending to show hospitality such as the hospitality extended by Abraham when the three men appeared to him (Genesis 18). As a result, the angel said that if he were preparing something for them to eat he would not be allowed to stay or to partake. He said also for Manoah to make his sacrifice to the Lord and not to him, a manifestation of one aspect of Gods being.

9.

What miraculous feat did the angel perform? Jdg. 13:19-20

As Manoah and his wife looked on, the angel ascended through the flames of the sacrifice on the altar. God has chosen to reveal Himself on many occasions through such phenomena as fires and flames. It was a burning bush through which Moses came to learn Gods will for his life (Exodus 3). It was a fire which came from heaven to burn up the sacrifice on Mount Carmel and convince Israel of her apostasy (1 Kings 18). Gods final judgment will be meted out as the heavens and the earth are destroyed with the fervent heat (2 Peter 3). Such an ascension as the one demonstrated by the Angel of the Lord to Manoah and his wife impressed them with the holiness of God, whom they served.

10.

Why did Manoah think they would die? Jdg. 13:22

Manoah knew it was not possible for a man to see God and live (Exo. 33:17 ff.). When he saw the angel do his wondrous deed, he knew he was standing in the presence of the angel who appeared in Gods stead on many occasions throughout the history of the Old Testament. He was like Jacob, who thought he had seen God face to face. As a result, he expected to be smitten and to die.

11.

What was the conclusion of Manoahs wife? Jdg. 13:23

Manoahs wife reasoned more logically than he did. God had accepted the sacrifice of this humble, God-fearing couple. She said God would not receive their sacrifice if He were intending to destroy them. When her husband became fearful at the appearance of the Angel of the Lord, his wife comforted him with this conviction which she expressed.

12.

Where was Eshtaol? Jdg. 13:25

Eshtaol was in the hill country leading up from the Mediterranean seacoast to the mountains of Judah. It is named next after Zorah in Jos. 15:33 and again in Jos. 19:41. The camp of Dan lay between these two cities, and here the Spirit of the Lord began to move Samson as we read in this passage. He was buried here also as is recorded in Jdg. 16:31. Later a contingent from Eshtaol formed part of the force of the Danites who captured Lachish in the northern part of Israels territory (Jdg. 18:2; Jdg. 18:11). Some believe it is represented by the modern Ashua about a mile and a half east of Zorah.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) Did evil again.Jdg. 3:7; Jdg. 4:1; Jdg. 6:1-11; Jdg. 10:6.

Of the Philistines.Hitherto the nation has only been cursorily mentioned (Jdg. 3:31; Jdg. 10:7-11); from this time to the reign of David they play an important part. They were not Canaanites, but foreign conquerors. The district which they held, and from which the name of Palestine has been derived, was originally in the hands of the Avim (Deu. 2:23). The name means emigrants. They seem to have been also called Caphtorim (Jer. 47:4), from living in Caphtor, i.e., Crete (Tac. Hist. v. 3); but it is uncertain whether they were Semitic (Ewald, Mvers), or Hamitic (see Gen. 10:14), or Aryan (Hitzig). Their connection with Crete is inferred from the name Cherethites (LXX., Kretes). They were in Palestine by Abrahams time (Gen. 21:32).

Forty years.These terminated with the battle of Ebenezer (1Sa. 7:13). The ark had been taken and sent back about twenty years before this battle, and the acts of Samson probably fall within those twenty years, so that Eli died about the time that Samson came of age.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

PHILISTINE OPPRESSION, Jdg 13:1.

1. The Philistines From the narrative of the Ammonite oppression, and Jephthah’s rule in eastern Palestine or Gilead, the historian now passes to the extreme west the Shephelah, or maritime plain of Philistia and introduces us to a nation of warriors that gave Israel more trouble than they had hitherto experienced from any heathen power. These warlike foes have been frequently mentioned before, (see note on Jos 13:2,) but here they appear for the first time as having dominion over Israel. For this dominion they had doubtless been aiming many years, and they had met with at least one check from the heroic Shamgar. Jdg 3:31. But the successful invasions of northern and eastern powers, and Israel’s many misfortunes, gave them marked advantages for extending their conquests over the southern tribes.

Forty years This period seems to have included the twenty years of Samson’s judgeship, (Jdg 15:20😉 at least the Philistine power was not fully broken in his day, but only greatly weakened. These foes maintained their rule, with only occasional breaks, till the time of Samuel. It was a most memorable period in the history of the chosen people. The tribe of Judah lost all spirit, and quietly succumbed, (Jdg 15:11😉 and long before the night of oppression ceased, the ark of God was captured, and the sanctuary at Shiloh made desolate.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Samson the Deliverer

God’s Sixth Lesson – the Rise of the Philistines – God Raises Up Samson ( Jdg 13:1 to Jdg 16:31 ).

The story of Samson is one of the most remarkable in the Bible. It demonstrates quite clearly that God can use the inadequacies of a man within His purposes. When God raised up Samson from birth He knew the propensities that he would have for good or evil. He gave him every opportunity for success but knew that he would eventually fail. Yet from that failure He purposed to produce success. Samson is an encouragement to all, that if the heart is right, God can use a man, even in his weakness, in His purposes.

Chapter 13. The Birth of Samson ( Jdg 13:1-24 ).

This chapter relates the birth of Samson, another ‘judge of Israel’. His birth was first foretold by an angel to his mother, who told her husband about it, and on his entreaty the angel appeared again, and related the same thing to them both. The Angel of Yahweh was very reverently treated by the man, and was known by him to be the Angel of Yahweh, because of the wonderful things He did, and the chapter closes with an account of the birth of Samson, and of his being early endowed with the Spirit of God.

Jdg 13:1

‘ And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of Yahweh, and Yahweh delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years .’

The sad story of Israel’s failure was again repeated here. It reminds us how little men learn from history or from what happens to others. For Israel were not unique in this failure. The nations continually did evil in the sight of Yahweh. But Israel were the more blameworthy because they had received the revelation of Yahweh, and had become His own people bound by the covenant of Sinai. For a generation after entering Canaan they had remembered Him, meeting together at the three annual feasts at the central sanctuary and maintaining a general unity. But then they had begun to go astray. And as they went astray so their attachment to the covenant weakened. Not all came together for the periodic feasts, the three gatherings a year before Yahweh, although at times particular situations could arouse them to act together (Judges 19-21). The past became a distant memory, gloried in when some of them came together for their united feasts, sung about at their local feasts, but in practical terms almost forgotten by many. They began to compromise with their neighbours, they turned to worship foreign gods or to syncretise them with their own worship of Yahweh, they made light of the requirements of the covenant, their unity was loosened and they failed to live in accordance with God’s requirements (Jdg 3:6). And yet every now and again something would occur to unite them and bring them back to Yahweh. That this was so comes out in that in the time of Eli (1Sa 3:20) the central sanctuary appears to have had a strong influence, while under Samuel it was resurgent. Nevertheless it probably did not include all Israel, for Samuel’s control was mainly exercised in the central part of the land, especially in the hill country west of Jordan, and in Beyond Jordan. There is no mention of the farthest Northern tribes, and it is questionable how many of them were included in 1Sa 10:20. On the other hand contacts must have been maintained in order for their later unity to come about.

For we must remember that the children of Israel were scattered throughout the land of Canaan, with some separated off from others by other peoples within the land. Different groupings had seemingly arisen. So for example we have no mention of powerful Judah to the south in the accounts of previous Judges in 2-9, and their absence is especially noticeable in the Song of Deborah, although no blame was assigned to them. They were seemingly not even expected to be there (although that may have been because they were hard pressed by the Philistines). Against Sisera it was the northern tribes who came together, and even then there were a number of absentees. Those beyond Jordan in the east refused or hesitated, while Asher in the west avoided the call. Ephraim and Benjamin were, however, responsive, although Dan ignored the call. Dan were probably too involved with the Philistine menace on their southern border, and indeed within their borders. In 2-9 the accounts have dealt mainly with the more Northern tribes (against Sisera), the central tribes (against Midian) or the tribes in Beyond Jordan (against Ammon), although Ammon had affected parts of Judah (Jdg 10:9), and thus it is possible that some men from Judah served under Jephthah. But each on the whole faced their own enemies, and when the call to arms has come to the other tribes, only some have responded, often those in their particular (loose) grouping, or affected by the situation.

In this particular situation now in mind we are speaking at the most about Judah, Simeon and the remnants of Dan, all of whom were affected by the Philistines who were their neighbours. Dan were to the north of the Philistines, stretching eastward. Judah and Simeon were to the east and the south. And what is described here may well have been going on at the same time as the invasion of Gilead by the Amorites. Different parts of Israel were being affected by different enemies. The word ‘again’ does not necessarily mean after the Ammonite oppression, for that was pictured as going on at the same time (Jdg 10:7). It simply means ‘again’ in comparison with all previous examples of the same. Indeed constant pressure from the Philistines helps to explain why Judah was so rarely able to participate in the call to the tribes.

“And Yahweh delivered them (mainly Judah and Dan) into the hands of the Philistines forty years.” The Philistines were not like any other opponents that the Israelite faced at that time. They were not local warriors, but had come across from Crete and the Grecian mainland, and were fierce and uncompromising fighters who were seeking to establish themselves in this new land, and form a military elite over the local inhabitants. Having taken their time establishing themselves in the coastal plain, they had made an abortive attempt on Egypt, but had suffered a retaliatory attack by Raamses III. Slowly recovering from this they were now beginning to expand their empire northwards and eastwards.

The Philistines were a part of the inflow of Sea Peoples from Crete and the Aegean, who had fairly recently invaded the coasts of Syria and Egypt. They wore head-dresses of feathers, and were armed with lances, round shields, long broadswords and triangular daggers. They gradually incorporated iron into their lifestyles and weaponry, something which they had learned from the Hittites and which gave them great superiority. Repelled from Egypt they became a ruling class over the native Canaanites, and at certain stages parts of Israel also submitted to them, especially Dan and those in the lowlands bordering the Coastal Plain. The Philistines quickly acquired Canaanite culture, religion and language, for their gods were Near Eastern, but some of their temples were certainly patterned on similar examples in the Aegean. They were a formidable foe.

The Philistines were a type of foe that Israel had never faced before since leaving Egypt. They were united under five ‘Tyrants’ (seren – used only of Philistine leaders) in their five principle cities, and, as a military ruling class, had to keep together a strong army and maintain firm unity and discipline, carefully watching over those who reluctantly lived and served under them. They maintained a monopoly on working iron, (learned from the Hittites), and were thus more powerfully armed than those around. They were a genuine occupying army, controlling the conquered almost literally with a rod of iron. In the days of Samson’s escapades the territory they controlled was the coastal plains and the surrounding lowlands, and the Danites and parts of Judah at least were crushed under their weight to such an extent that they offered little resistance (Jdg 15:11). See 1Sa 14:19-21 for a partial indication of what conditions would have been like. They were in complete subservience. That was probably why a large number of Danites had left their inheritance and had settled in Laish (Judges 17-18).

The Philistine aristocracy were established in many towns, and were so hated that they had themselves constantly to be on guard, and as a result they would react violently to any attempt to undermine them. Because of this it was indeed difficult to see how they could be attacked in any way, for they held all in iron control under a kind of martial law, and reacted violently. Any disobedience would have been stamped on, and any reaction or retaliation severely dealt with. The country that they controlled was held in thrall. But God raised up a kind of one man army by the name of Samson, an Israelite aristocrat (a judge of Israel) who mingled with the Philistine aristocracy, probably welcomed by them because of his status and his phenomenal strength. And he developed his own way of attacking the Philistines, and did it in such a way that no repercussions were brought on his people. Indeed by the time of his death the Philistines had been severely weakened as a result of his activities.

Later after the battle of Aphek this control by the Philistines would extend further, although areas of resistance held out, and this continued until the mighty Samuel drove them back to the plains (1 Samuel 7). Later they returned again and gained iron control over a wide area (1Sa 14:19-21), causing great trouble to Saul, and building forts in the highlands, and this continued until they were finally subdued under David. They do not appear to have troubled the area Beyond Jordan, nor the farther tribes to the north.

“Delivered into the hands of the Philistines” indicated that at least Dan and parts of Judah had become tributary to them. ‘Forty years’ indicated a long period of domination, a whole generation and more, longer than any other of the previously mentioned trials. The Philistines would not be so easily dealt with now they were settled in. It should be noted that there was no cry to Yahweh for help from ‘Israel’. Those under Philistine control appear to have been fairly content with their lot, which suggests that the Philistines, while maintaining iron control, did not treat them too harshly. But God knew that left in these circumstances they might well lose their faith in Yahweh altogether and be assimilated into the surrounding peoples.

It should be further noted that Samson did not try to raise the tribes and rebel against the Philistines. They were too powerful for tribes whose faith was as weakened as that of Judah, Simeon and Dan, and the other tribes probably did not want to get involved. This was possibly a part reaction to past attitudes. Samson was instead a provocative one man band, and God used his propensities as tools against them (Jdg 14:4), in order to weaken them until someone would arise with faith to defeat them (1Sa 7:10-11). We can indeed interpret his life as being that of a great buffoon whom God used in spite of himself, but careful examination rather suggests that he had considerable acumen and cleverly played with the Philistines like a fisherman will play with a fish. That is not to deny his weaknesses. But it does help to explain why God used him.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jdg 13:5  For, lo, thou shalt 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.

Jdg 13:5 Word Study on “Nazarite” Strong says the Hebrew word “Nazarite” ( ) (H5139) means, “to separate, i.e. consecrated,” saying the noun comes from the Hebrew verb ( ) (H5144), which means, “To hold aloof, to set apart, to devote.”

Jdg 13:5 For, lo, thou shalt 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.

Jdg 13:2-5 Comments – The Birth of Samson Foretold In Jdg 13:4-5 the angel foretells of Samson’s birth. God also foreordains and calls us from the womb (Psa 22:10, Col 1:26-27).

Psa 22:10, “I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly .”

Col 1:26-27, “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”

Jdg 13:17-18 Comments Manoah Asks the Angel for His Name In Jdg 13:17-18 Manoah asks the angel to tell him his name, a request that the angel denied. Compare a similar question by Jacob and a similar statement by an angel in Gen 32:29.

Gen 32:29, “And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.”

Jdg 13:19 So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.

Jdg 13:20 For 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.

Jdg 13:19-20 Comments The Angel Accepts the Sacrifice – The angel accepted the sacrifice of Manoah, the father of Samson by consuming it with fire.

Jdg 13:19, “So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. For 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.”

This fire also came down and consumed the sacrifice of Moses at the dedication of the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Lev 9:24).

Lev 9:24, “And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.”

A fire from heaven consumed the sacrifice of King David at the threshing floor of Ornan.

1Ch 21:26, “And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.”

A fire also came from heaven and consumed the sacrifice of King Solomon at the dedication of the temple.

2Ch 7:1, “Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house.”

Fire also consumed the sacrifice of Elijah on Mount Carmel.

1Ki 18:38, “Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.”

In addition, during the time of Moses, God consumed the children of Israel with fire as a form of judgment (Num 11:1-2; Num 16:35).

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The First Appearance of the Angel

v. 1. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, they fell back into their former ways of idolatry, adding to the transgression of their fathers; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years, the tribes most concerned in this oppression being Dan and Judah with Simeon.

v. 2. And there was a certain man of Zorah, Jos 19:41, of the family of the Danites, the tribes nearest to the territory of the Philistines, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and bare not, a fact which was regarded as a painful visitation of the Lord, if not as a distinct curse.

v. 3. And the Angel of the Lord, He who is equal with God in essence, who always revealed Himself when help and salvation was needed, appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold, now, thou art barren and bearest not; but thou shalt conceive and bear a son, an announcement much like that made to Abraham, to Zacharias, and to Mary.

v. 4. Now, therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, the latter being a very intoxicating beverage usually made of barley, dates, and honey, and eat not any unclean thing, Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14;

v. 5. for, lo, thou shalt 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, from his birth to his death, Num 6:5. And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. It was only a beginning which he made, for his victories were not full and final, the complete deliverance being effected later.

v. 6. Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, the word used for a prophet or for one in the most intimate relation toward God, and his countenance, his appearance, was like the countenance of an angel of God, that is, the special Angel, in whom the invisible God reveals Himself to men, this fact being well known among the children of Israel, ver y terrible, inspiring the greatest awe and reverence; but I asked him not whence he was, not daring to ask for this information, neither told he me his name;

v. 7. but he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt 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. As a man set apart to God by a vow, consecrated to His service, the son who was to be born should lead his entire life. The children of Christian parents are also consecrated to the Lord, even before their birth, and should spend their entire life in His service.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Jdg 13:1

Did evil again. It by no means follows from this phrase that this chapter is in direct chronological sequence to the preceding The scene is shifted to the tribe of Dan, and to the Philistines on the west, and there is nothing to guide us as to the exact time when the things narrated occurred. But the end of the forty years probably coincided with the judgeship of Samuel; for there was no complete deliverance in the time of Samson, only occasional cheeks to the Philistine domination (see Jdg 13:5). It was not till the days of Samuel that the Philistines were really smitten (see 1Sa 7:3-14). We may suppose the date of the ensuing narrative to be somewhere in the first decade of the Philistine oppression.

Jdg 13:2

Zorah. Enumerated among the cities in the tribe of Dan in Jos 19:41, but ascribed to Judah, ibid. Jos 15:33 (there transliterated Zoreah) and in 2Ch 11:10. Probably the boundary passed through the city, ,as that of Judah and Benjamin did through Jerusalem. In Neh 11:29 it is transliterated Zareah, and also ascribed to Judah. It is almost always coupled with Eshtaol, as in Neh 11:25 of this chapter. It was situated in the Shephelah, or plain country, and was fortified by Rehoboam (2Ch 11:10). It is supposed to be represented by the modern Surah, at the entrance of the Wady Ghurab. The family of the Danites. It appears from Num 26:42, Num 26:43 that there was only one family in the tribe of Dan, so that in this case tribe and family were co-extensive.

Jdg 13:3

Thou shalt bear a son. It is obvious to compare the promise to Abraham and Sarah (Gen 17:19; Gen 18:10, Gen 18:14), to Hannah (1Sa 1:17), to Elizabeth (Luk 1:13), and to the blessed Virgin (Luk 1:31).

Jdg 13:5

The child shall be a Nazarite, etc. So it was said, though not in the same words, concerning Samuel (1Sa 1:11) and concerning John the Baptist (Luk 1:15). A Nazarite (or, more correctly, a Nazi-rite) means one separated, and specially dedicated to God. The law of the Nazarites is contained in Num 6:1-27; where, however, only Nazarites of days, i.e. Nazarites for a definite time, arc spoken of. Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were perpetual Nazarites, Nazarites of for ever, as the Mishna classifies them. Abstinence from strong drink, and from anything made of the grape; letting the locks of the head grow unchecked by the razor; and keeping quite clear of any pollution from a dead body, even in case of the death of his nearest relations, were the chief articles of a Nazarite’s vow. St. Paul took the vow of a Nazarite of days, and offered the prescribed sacrifices, together with “the hair of the head of his separation,” as we read in Act 18:18; Act 21:23-26. He shall begin, etc. This is an exact description of what Samson did. He did not “deliver Israel” as the other judges did; but he began to shake the Philistine power, and prepared the way for the deliverance of Israel in the time of his worthier successor Samuel.

Jdg 13:6

A man of God, i.e. a prophet, applied to Moses, Samuel, David, Shemaiah, Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets, and to Timothy in the New Testament. Manoah’s wife applies it to the angel, not being sure that he was not human. It would not be improper to apply to an angel, seeing that Gabriel means man of God. I asked him not, etc. No doubt from awe. Jacob, on the contrary, asked the angel with whom he had wrestled, “Tell me, I pray thee, thy name” (Gen 32:29). See Jdg 13:17, Jdg 13:18. In the Septuagint (Cod. Alex. ) and Vulgate the not is omitted. “I asked him, but he did not tell me.”

Jdg 13:10

And the woman ran, etc. Acting in the true spirit of a loving and trustful wife, and showing that she felt that neither angel nor man of God stood before her own husband in the claim to her confidence and obedience.

Jdg 13:12

Let thy words come, etc. The verb is singular in the Hebrew here and in Jdg 13:17. Possibly the true reading is word, as in the Septuagint. If the text is correct, words must be taken collectively, as making one promise. The saying marks Manoah’s earnest desire for a son. Some, however, construe it, If thy words come. How shall we order, etc.literally, What will be the manner of the child, and what will be his doing? i.e. either, What will be his manner (cf. 1Sa 8:11, and following verses), and what will be his action or work? or, What will be his proper treatment, and what shall be done to him? The former is the most natural rendering of the words, and though the latter seems at first more suitable to the angel’s reply, yet if we take the angel’s reply as referring Manoah to what he had said before in Jdg 13:4 and Jdg 13:5, we have a distinct answer to the questions. His manner will be to live as a Nazarite, and his action or work will be to begin to deliver Israel (cf. Gen 16:12, where both the manner and the actione of Ishmael are foretold). In fact, Manoah’s question refers directly to Jdg 13:4 and Jdg 13:5, and is a request to have a confirmation of what was then said; just as David asked again and again, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine? (1Sa 17:26, 1Sa 17:30).

Jdg 13:14

She may not eat of anything, etc. Nearly the identical words of Num 6:4.

Jdg 13:15

Let us detain thee, etc. He wishes to detain him as a guest till he has had time to cook a kid for him (cf. Gen 18:7). For thee. The Hebrew is before thee. The phrase is elliptical. The full sentence would be, until we have dressed a kid and set it before thee, as in Gen 18:8.

Jdg 13:16

I will not eat of thy bread, etc. The angel refuses to eat of his meat, but suggests that if he would offer the kid as a burnt offering, he must offer it to the Lord. The angel, perhaps perceiving that Manoah was in doubt as to who he might be, had a holy dread lest he might offer the kid to him, just as the angel whom St. John was about to worship said, “See thou do it not” (Rev 22:9); and Barnabas and Paul ran in among the people of Lycaonia to restrain them from offering sacrifice to them (Act 14:14-18). The order of the words, which is rightly given in the A.V; makes it a clear direction to offer the sacrifice to no one but the Lord.

Jdg 13:17

What is thy name? See note to Jdg 13:6. The phrase is very peculiar, literally, Who is thy name? as if he had been going to say, Who art thou? and then changed the form to is thy name. The Hebrews seem to have attached great importance to names, a circumstance due, in part, to every name being significant in the spoken language (see Gen 4:1, Gen 4:25; Gen 5:29; Gen 16:5, etc.; Gen 17:19; Gen 25:25, Gen 25:26; Gen 29:1-35. and 30.; 1Sa 1:20 Isa 9:6; Isa 62:4; Jer 23:6; Eph 1:21; Php 2:9, Php 2:10; Rev 19:16, etc; and. many other passages). Compare also the phrase, the name of the Lord (Isa 30:27; Exo 23:21; Exo 33:19; Exo 34:5, Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7). Manoah had certainly some suspicious as to the mysterious character of his visitor, and expected the name to reveal his true nature. We may do thee honour. Manoah seems throughout to use ambiguous language, suitable either to a man, if he was speaking to a man, or to a celestial visitant, should he be angel or God.

Jdg 13:18

It is secret. The Hebrew word does not mean secret, but wonderful, as it is rendered in Isa 9:6, and elsewhere. His name was one which, as St. Paul expresses it, it is not lawful, or possible, for a man to utter (2Co 12:4), it was so transcendently wonderful. The feeling of the Hebrews in abstaining from uttering the name was akin to this. Some take the angel to say that WONDERFUL is his name, but the A.V. is right in prefixing seeingseeing it is wonderful.

Jdg 13:19

Offered it, etc. He had the angel’s sanction for doing so in Jdg 13:16. But we must not look for strict compliance with the Levitical law in the lawless days of the Judges, though we find many of its prescribed ordinances in use, as, for instance, the institution of Nazarites, and here the offering of the meat offering with the burnt offering (Le Jdg 2:1, etc.). And the angel. These words are rightly inserted, to give the sense of the original, as more fully explained in the following verse. Did wonderouslyliterally, was wondrous in his doing. The verb here is the same root as the substantive or adjective wonder, or wonderful, in verse 18. Compare the similar account in Jdg 6:21.

Jdg 13:20

Looked on it. There is no occasion for the italic it, the phrase is identical with that at the close of Jdg 13:19; but the rendering would be better, And when Manoah and his wife saw it, they fell, etc.

Jdg 13:21

But. It is better rendered and, in close sequence to the preceding words. It follows, Then, i.e. when they saw him go up, they knew that he was an angel.

Jdg 13:22

We shall surely die, etc. Similarly Gideon (Jdg 6:22, Jdg 6:28) expressed his alarm because he had “seen an angel of the Lord face to face,” but was assured, “Thou shalt not die.” And so Isaiah said, “Woe is me! for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa 6:5). So again the Lord said to Moses, “There shall no man see me and live” (Exo 33:20). The name of the well, Beer-lahai-roi, is also thought to mean the well of him that is alive after seeing God (Gen 16:14). And Jacob called the name of the place where he wrestled with the angel Peniel, “for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Gen 32:30). See too Exo 20:19. The same belief also prevailed amongst the heathen, that seeing a god without his special permission was visited by death or some grave calamity, as Callimachus, quoted by Grotius, says-

”The laws of Saturn thus decree,
Who dares immortal gods to see
Shall suffer loss, whoe’er he be.”

Jdg 13:23

But his wife said, etc. The woman’s faith saw more clearly than the man’s fear. With the acceptance of the sacrifice the conscience was cleared from guilt. The ascent of the angel in the flame of the altar was to her the same evidence of an accepted sacrifice as the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus are to us.

Jdg 13:24

Called his name Samson. No doubt the name was significant of what the child should be (see note to Jdg 13:17), but the etymology and meaning of the name are doubtful. Josephus (‘Antiq.,’ Jdg 8:4) says the name means “a strong one,” but he does not say in what language, and it does not appear to have such a meaning in any Semitic dialect. It is commonly interpreted to mean like the sun, from shemesh, the common word for the sun; and so Jerome in his ‘Onomasticon’ expounds it as the sun‘s strength,’ possibly with an allusion to Jdg 5:31. Others make it equal shimshom, from the Pilpel conjugation of shamem, to devastate. Another possible derivation is from the Chaldee shemash, to minister, specially in sacred things, a root from which the Nestorian, Syriac, and Arabic names for a deacon are derived. If this were the derivation, it would be a reference to his dedication to God as a Nazarite from his mother’s womb, the only thing his mother knew about him when she gave him the name.

Jdg 13:25

The Spirit of the Lord, etc. See Jdg 3:10, note. To move himto urge and impel him to strange actions by fits and starts. It is an uncommon expression. In Gen 41:8 the passive of the verb means to be troubled or agitated, and the substantive is the common word for a time in the phrases time after time, twice, thrice (according to the number specified), other times, etc.; also a footstep; and its derivatives mean an anvil, a bell. The idea is that of sudden, single impulses, such as are described in the following chapters. In the camp of Dan, or, as in Jdg 18:12, Mahaneh-Dan, where the reason of the name is explained. For Zorah see Jdg 18:2, note. Eshtaol has not hitherto been identified with any existing place, but it ought to lie east or north of Mahaneh-Dan, since this last was between Zorah and Eshtaol (see note on Jdg 18:12). Kustul, a conical hill one hour west of Jerusalem, has been suggested.

HOMILETICS

Jdg 13:1-25

Married life.

Many deep and valuable teachings may be gathered out of this chapter. The ministry of angels to the heirs of salvation, and, connected with it, the. sublime conception of the countless hosts of heaven; for the presence of one angel upon earth brings tidings, as it were, from distant spheres of principalities and powers, of thrones and dominions, of angels and authorities, of cherubim and seraphim, peopling the realms of space, filling the heavens with intelligence and praise, and having a community with mankind in the grace and love of God; and one converse of an angel with men suggests a future intercourse of inconceivable wealth of enjoyment, and unbounded variety of interchange of thought, and a fellowship in adoration and praise with unnumbered worlds of holy and mighty intelligences. The mysterious nature of the angel of the Lord, baffling all human attempts to explain itat one moment seeming quite separate from the Godhead itself, and next moment seeming to be one with it, as if a kind of anticipation of the incarnation were taking place, and God himself were speaking by the angel’s mouth. And then there is the predestinating grace of God, calling into being whom he will, assigning to his creature his proper work, and marking out his future course before he was born; endowing him with great and singular gifts, pouring freely and fully upon him his Holy Spirit, and yet leaving his free will unshackled, and his responsibility unimpaired. And there is the doctrine of sacrifice, and of answers to prayer; and there is the question of temperance, and total abstinence from the fruit of the vine; and the duty of hospitality, and of gratitude for kindness received; and that of giving honour to whom honour, and worship to whom worship is due, and other lessons besides. But the one lesson which stands out above the others and runs through the whole chapter is that of the conjugal relation of man and wife, which is set forth with inimitable simplicity and force, and which we shall do well to study for a few minutes as one that bears with singular influence upon the happiness and well-being of mankind. It is obvious to notice in the first place that Manoah was the husband of one wife, according to the institution of marriage in paradise. Such mutual confidence and help as we here see could not have been found in Gideon’s harem, or in the households of Ibzan and Abdon. The real conjugal union of interests, and oneness of aim, and transparent openness of intercourse springing from having nothing to conceal, can have no existence where polygamy exists. Nor is it in the nature of things that a woman’s entire love and trust should be given to the man who has only a fraction of affection to give in return. If Christianity had done nothing else for mankind than restore the primitive law of marriage, and guard it with the highest sanctions of religion, it would have conferred upon our race an inestimable boon. The holiness and happiness, the peace and union, of countless homes, is due to the marriage law of the gospel of Christ. But then this law must be kept in the spirit as well as in the letter. The conduct of Manoah’s wife after her first interview with the angel is a beautiful exemplification of this spirit in the wife: “Then the woman came and told her husband.” “Many things might have moved her to secrecy. The fear of exciting her husband s suspicions, the risk of being disbelieved, the possibility that the stranger had deceived her with false hopes; or, on the other hand, a feeling of pride and self-sufficiency at the marvellous apparition and revelation made to herself, not to her husband, and a spirit of independence engendered by such a distinctionsuch feelings as these, had they existed, or had they ruled her conduct, might have led her to conceal the mysterious interview. But the wife’s instinct led her straight to the mark. “she came and told her husband.” He was her husband, her natural, legitimate, only counsellor and adviser. His was the ear into which to pour her strange confidence. What she knew, he ought to know, and her conduct must be guided by his counsels. So she came at once and told her husband. But the lesson has peculiar force from the supposed office of the stranger. She took him for “a man of God,” and his very announcement of what was to happen hereafter invested him with a sacred and awful character, which was likely to affect powerfully the sensibilities of a woman. But not for one instant was “the man of God” allowed to stand between her and her husband. She had no secrets for the “man of God” which were to be hidden from her husband, nor had the angel any counsel to give which her husband was not to know of. It was on the second time of his appearing as on the first: “she made haste, and ran, and showed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me.” It is a very forcible lesson to the effect that no pretence of spiritual authority can justify interference with the laws of nature, which are the laws of God. If the mutual love and mutual confidence between man and wife in the holy estate of matrimony is the ordinance of God for the happiness of man, the secret influence of another man which is to override the influence of the husband is not, and cannot be, according to the will of God. If the wife is to obey her husband, no other man can of right exact a higher obedience; if she is to trust her husband, she may not keep secret from him what she reveals to others; she may not receive counsel from others which is to be hid from him. The function of a confessor and spiritual,, director is incompatible with the Christian law of marriage, as it is with the first commandment with promise,” when it stands between children and their parents. Nor is Manoah’s trust in his wife less conspicuous than her trust in him. Not a shadow of doubt as to the truth of her statement crossed his mind, not a shade of jealousy that the message came to her rather than to him. In the desire for further information his wisdom suggested prayer that the Lord would send again the man of God; but the language of his prayer was beautifully expressive of the union that was betwixt them two. “Let the man of God come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child.” And when the second time the angel appeared to the woman alone, he took it as the answer to his prayer. As she came quickly to him, so he quickly followed her. With manly courage he asked the questions which her feminine modesty had not dared to put, and appeared at once in his proper place, ordering and directing what was to be done with regard to the rites of hospitality and piety; and yet when his own fears were excited by having seen the angel of God he sought counsel from his wife, and readily acquiesced in her pious trust in the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord. And exactly the same perfect union between them appears many years afterwards, when Samson was grown up (Jdg 14:2-5), so that the whole passage is a beautiful idyll of conjugal love and concord. They both fulfil their proper parts with the utmost simplicity and propriety; they both contribute to the common stock of wedded happiness what each had to contribute; neither of them had one word of reproach or bitterness to the other; neither of them attempted to usurp the other’s place, or shrunk from occupying their own. And they have left for our study and imitation as beautiful an example of the mutual help and harmony of married life as is to be found in the whole range of Scripture. May it find its counterpart in every Christian family in the land!

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR

Jdg 13:2-5

A natural desire and its gracious fulfilment.

In the East it is a reproach to be childless, and the greatest anxiety is displayed by married people to have a son. In ancient times the possibility of becoming the mother of the promised Messiah was a hope which greatly influenced this, but it had its root in the natural longing to continue one’s name and influence after death. This “will to live,” which is so strong in the natural man, God sanctified by religious sanctions. It is ever a healthful and lawful desire when the “chief end” of man is respected.

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

The natural life of man or woman is incomplete apart from the married state, and children are the blessing and crown of marriage. But they may also he its curse. It is only as God shapes their destiny and moulds their character, only as he “builds the house,” that happiness and prosperity can be insured. Improvident marriages and parental neglect have been amongst the greatest causes of misery and vice in all ages. As in later ages we have learnt that there is no virtue in being a mother, so we have discovered that the single life is not the only possible one for the saint.

I. GOD DELIGHTS IN GRATIFYING OUR LEGITIMATE NATURAL DESIRES. It is but fitting that he who made us as we are constituted should supply, or place within our reach, that which shall satisfy our natural cravings. To do otherwise would be a refined and terrible cruelty. But our sin has forfeited for us this claim upon his providence. It would be perfectly lawful for him to withdraw natural supplies, and leave a rebellious world to perish, because of a broken covenant. But it has been far otherwise. The providence of God has been extolled by the heathen as by the Christian, by the sinner and the saint. He makes his sun to rise and his rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. Save his grace, there is no more pathetic and wonderful thing in the doings of God than this persistent and impartial providence. And in visitations like this to Manoah’s wife we have glimpses of the feeling which inspires it. A real pleasure is felt by our Father in helping and gratifying his children. The mother has no more pleasure in giving suck to her infant than God has in making it possible for her to do so. Care and interest like this prepare us for the grander exhibitions of his grace in the gift of his only begotten Son. It could only be sustained in the breast of one who “so loved the world.” A part of this Divine love is due, doubtless, to the possibility of some of those he fosters becoming his spiritual children and heirs of his kingdom.

II. HE DOES IT IN SUCH A MANNER AS TO IMPRESS UPON THE SUBJECT OF THE BLESSING THE SACREDNESS OF THE GOD–GIVEN LIFE, AND THE TRUE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD. The child promised is to be devoted to God from his birth. His whole life is to be a Divine service. A special commission is to be given him for the deliverance of God’s people. To this end a life of self-deniala Nazarite lifeis to be his. Thin conception of Samson’s future is typical and representative. Every first-born in Israel was so regarded. And every child should be so regarded, and taught so to regard himself or herself. There is nothing so beautiful under the sun as a life wholly and from beginning to end devoted to God. And this, though it may seem a hard and difficult thing to realise, is the shortest and truest way to happiness. The mother of such a childevery motheris therefore called upon to sanctify herself, that her offspring shall receive from her no evil tendencies or desires. Hereditary influence is everywhere recognised throughout Scripture.

III. THE OFFSPRING THUS GRANTED IS MADE THE INSTRUMENT OF BLESSING AND DELIVERANCE TO HIS PEOPLE. There are always considerations for and against granting a boon outside and independently of the ordinary course of nature. Consecration of the gift thus bestowed is the surest way of avoiding injustice to others, and justifying our own super-abounding good. What a thought this for every mother to ponder! In lesser proportion and degree hers may be the wonder and forethought of Mary, the mother of our Lord, when “she hid these things in her heart.”M.

Jdg 13:5

The difficulty of salvation.

“And he shall begin to deliver Israel.” There is a parsimony of expression here that is highly expressive. It is not said, “he shall deliver,” as of a complete work, but only “he shall begin” to do so. How many reasons were there for this! Do they not also hold good for the grander work of human salvation?

I. HINDRANCES TO THE COMPLETE SALVATION OF ISRAEL.

1. It was a work which required to be, in the first place, and mainly, spiritual in order to its being thorough

2. In order to this the penalty of past transgression had in greater measure to befelt. The transgression had been great, repeated, and habitual. A stern lesson had to be read to the guilty. It was an evil inflicted in order to induce repentance. The moral depths of human nature were being sounded and discovered to itself, that in the fulness of time a Divine Saviour might be sought.

3. Meanwhile the nature and character of the deliverer did not admit of such a work being completed. He was but a man: his consecration was merely or chiefly external; the faults of his character were glaring, His deeds, accordingly, are those of physical heroism and strength. Only once or twice do any hints of more than human wisdom occur.

II. CONSOLATIONS ATTACHED TO THIS INCOMPLETE SALVATION.

1. It was actually begun.

2. God had undertaken it, and provided the instrument.

3. As being a professedly partial undertaking, it showed a far-reaching and thorough scheme.

4. The conditions of its ultimate accomplishment were with themselves.M.

Jdg 13:2-5

God’s use of unlikely means for gracious ends.

The crisis was grave, relief being, humanly speaking, impossible. The family chosen for the experiment an ordinary one, of no social standing. The mother of the promised child barren. The sustenance enjoined of the most meagre description, not likely to produce strength or furnish artificial stimulus. No inward holiness is shown by Samson.

I. IT SHOWS A PURPOSE OF ENGAGING THE SINNER, EITHER PERSONALLY OR REPRESENTATIVELY, IN THE TASK OF HIS OWN SALVATION. The humblest transgressor cannot be saved without his own self-surrender and willing co-operation.

II. THE HIGHER SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES, FAITH, HOPE, etc; ARE EVOKED IN THOSE WHO ARE THUS SAVED. The human agent is thus put in his right place. He secures the sympathies of his fellow-countrymen. Their hopes rise or fall as he prospers or is hindered in his task. The blessing of God must therefore be invoked, and the promise of God implicitly believed.

III. ALL THE GIFTS OF OUR NATURE ARE SHOWN TO BE DIVINE IN THEIR ORIGIN, AND THEIR CONSECRATION IS ENCOURAGED.

IV. THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD IS THUS VINDICATED AS HIS OWN, AND HE HIMSELF DECLARED THE ONLY SAVIOUR.M.

Jdg 13:1-5

Divine punishment and preparation of deliverance simultaneous.

The heaviest judgments in human history have been secretly charged with such merciful provisions. This circumstance alters the character of the infliction; it ceases to be mere vengeance, and becomes discipline.

I. INSTANCES OF THIS IN SACRED HISTORY. The Fall and promise of the Seed. In Joseph’s sale and slavery we see the anticipation of an evil not yet experienced. Esther is raised up in the Persian captivity. The age of the destruction of Jerusalem was the age of the gospel.

II. WHAT THIS PROVES.

1. God does not “afflict willingly“ and for the sake of afflicting, but for ultimate good.

2. The wrath of God exists at the same time as his love, and is penetrated and overruled by it.

3. The mercy of God is far-seeing, wise, and painstaking.M.

Jdg 13:8-11

Repetition of Divine favours.

There are visitations of God and signs of his favour that are not fully comprehended the first time, and their repetition alone can satisfy the cravings of the heart and the wonder of the spiritual understanding. And God is considerate of our human weakness. “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” The blessing is then realised in absolute certainty, and a communion of faith.

I. GOD‘S PROMISES ARE SO PRECIOUS THAT WE WISH TO BE ASSURED OF THEM. His words, so mysterious and far-sent, are like clouds full of rain for the thirsty soil, if we can only secure the blessing. When he condescends to visit thus the home of men it is for good, and not evil. And the blessings which he promises are not such as the world can give. The spiritual understanding can alone discern their true worth, and alone yearns for their fulfilment. The mere repetition of the terms and words is soothing and confirming. And to the faithful they will be spoken again as a token of favour, and the signs will be repeated; but to a “faithless generation shall no sign be given,” save that which plunges in deeper wonder or increases the certainty of doom.

II. How ARE GOD‘S PROMISES TO BE REALISED?

1. By interested attention to them. Manoah’s mind is full of the message received by his wife. He does not dismiss it from mind and memory as a trifling thing. It is this pondering and waiting and searching spirit that is blessed. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

2. By implicit faith. He does not question the reality of the Divine message. He is eager to hear it, so that all its significance may be understood. He speaks even at first of “the child that shall be born.”

3. By believing prayer. How earnest is this man! “Manoah entreated Jehovah.” There is no unnecessary delay: “God hearkened to the voice of Manoah.” He loves to hear the voice of praying men. He loves to be “inquired of,” and “entreated,” and “wrestled” with. “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

4. By expectation, and diligent watching for the answer. The reality of our prayer is thus shown. How often is prayer but an idle word uttered thoughtlessly when in a devout frame I Let us look for what we ask, and God will not weary our patience or betray our confidence. Ask, seek, knock (2Ti 4:8; Tit 2:13).M.

Jdg 13:12-14

Parental anxiety and its satisfying.

Questions of great importance, which every parent ought to study. Circumstances may occur that render the responsibility of the parent peculiarly heavy.

I. ALL PARENTS, OR THOSE ABOUT TO BE PARENTS, SHOULD BRING THEIR PARENTAL CARES TO GOD.

1. It will relieve anxiety.

2. The sense of moral responsibility will be deepened and confirmed.

3. Direction will be given for duty and usefulness.

II. THE BEST SAFEGUARD OF THE CHILD IS THE CONSECRATION OF THE PARENT. To regard the child-blessing as a trust. To seek the benefit of others through that which is a joy and gratification to oneself. To keep oneself pure and temperate, that no taint or evil tendency may pass to one’s posterity, and that in oneself, as in one’s children, God may be glorified.M.

Jdg 13:15-21

Cf. on Jdg 6:17-21.M.

Jdg 13:17, Jdg 13:18

The wonderful name.

The balance of critical authority is in favour of the rendering “wonderful,” or wonder-working, and not that of “secret.” It is to be taken as expressive not only of the general character of God as mysterious, glorious, and ineffable, but as doing wonders, i.e. mighty deeds of manifestation and salvation. This characteristic of God is to be studied as

I. PROVOCATIVE OF CURIOSITY. The Divine element has ever maintained its presence in human life, has kept the horizons of human consciousness wide apart and constantly extending, and has exercised the counteractive and saving influence required by the action of the world-spirit upon the nature of man. God has never left man alone. Ere a single page of inspiration was penned he dwelt “in the conscious breast,” and drew reverent eyes and feet after his marvels in the physical world. Man is, perforce of his moral constitution being linked and blended with his physical, a being “between two worlds.” The gate is ajar, and no mortal can ever effectually close it. Led by this “presence of the threshold,” the fathers of faith began that religious movement that received its loftiest impulse and satisfaction in Christ. There were partial and progressive revelations, each new “wonder” laying firmer hold upon the imagination and the heart. Jacob at Bethel and at Penuel (Gen 32:24-30), Moses at Horeb, Elijah in the cave of the desert, and David at the threshing-floor of Araunah, are grand typical figures, milestones in this spiritual pilgrimage. And there is no individual life, even of this secularised modern world, that is not the theatre of “even greater works than these,” speaking in it of a heavenly Father, and keeping it within sound of his voice. If we are true to our own inner selves and to our spiritual history we must be worshippers of him whose name is Wonderful.

II. IN PROCESS OF REVELATION THROUGH MIRACLES. “And the angel did wondrously,” i.e. true to his name, he acted miraculously. Creation, providence, the unfolding work of the world’s salvation, are so many series of revelations in act and work. The general impression produced upon the mind by the scheme of the universe is enhanced and led up into religious fervour by these miracles, of which our latest physical science does not well know how to dispose. The moral and spiritual lessons they teach, and the impression they produce upon the human heart, run parallel with, but indefinitely above, the ordinary lines of (so-called) “natural religion,” and constitute a distinct revelation, of which the core is reached in the miracles of Jesus Christ. As this moral or Divine side of miracle is increasingly studied, the riches of the Word made flesh will grow upon us, fascinate and convert the soul. At the tribunal of Jerusalem the old, old question is asked anew, and again in effect is the answer returned, “My name is Wonderful.”

III. ASSERTIVE OF JEHOVAH AS THE SUPERNATURAL CAUSE OF THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL. It is not Moses, or any judge, or David even, who is able to save. Jehovah is the great Deliverer, and he works above nature in a realm in which he can have no co-worker. Samson even is a “child of the promise,” and no product of the influences of his time. His strength is to be from above, and its great exercises and feats are distinctly miraculous.

IV. PREPARING MEN FOR THE MESSIAH, IN WHOM IT WAS MOST PERFECTLY MANIFESTED. The depths of the world’s consciousness, in seer and saint, are ceaselessly stirred until the look of the ages fastens itself on him whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6). And as we look back on the brief episode of his life, ever new wonders declare themselves, and we feel that his example, his sufferings, his sacrifice, his resurrection, and ascension are potent to save and to sanctify, etc. Truly “his name is Wonderful.”M.

Jdg 13:22, Jdg 13:23

Reassurance of Divine favour.

Manoah is now uncertain whether to consider himself blessed or miserable. He has the deep-rooted superstition of a fleshly age strong within him, and is alarmed. But this arises from a defective spiritual education. He does not consider sufficiently the method and the manner of God’s approaches to him.

I. FEAR REGARDING GOD‘S VISITATIONS IS A NATURAL FEELING. The consciousness of sin is easily roused to alarm, and the unknown is ever awe-inspiring. Our own littleness too is made the more manifest: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psa 8:4).

II. How IT MAY BE OVERCOME. Considering,

1. The character of God;

2. His continuous scheme of redemption;

3. The blessings he has already bestowed;

4. The voice of Christ (” Fear not “), and the witness of the Spirit (“Abba, Father”).

III. GOD WILL NOT LEAVE HIS CHILD IN UNCERTAINTY OF HIS MEANING. “Two are better than one.” How often in life is the husband, wife, parent, child, brother, sister, or friend, close beside us, the witness of God and the spiritual help-meet! The simple soul teaches the more complex and experienced, being itself taught of God. And so: somewhere or other, he is never without a witness.M.

Jdg 13:24, Jdg 13:25

Fulfilment of promise.

The history of this promise to the worthy pair reads like an unbroken tale. Outwardly it was with them only as it was with numberless others of their neighbours. The circumstance is woven into the web of contemporary village life. The birth is as any other, the child as any other, up to a certain point; and then the true character and destiny begin to declare themselves.

I. THE ORDINARY ASPECT OF DIVINE FULFILMENTS IN THEIR BEGINNINGS.

II. PRIVATE JOY AND SATISFACTION ACCOMPANYING THE GIFT OF A PUBLIC BENEFACTOR AND FULFILLER OF THE DIVINE PURPOSE. “The Lord blessed him.”

III. THE GRADUAL DIFFERENTIATION OF THE DIVINE AGENT FROM THE MERELY HUMAN RELATION. It soon appears that the lad is not meant for the mere solace of his parents’ age and light of their home. “The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times.” Like Christ, the time comes when he “must be about his Father’s business.”M.

HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY

Jdg 13:5

Samson the Nazarite.

I. THERE ARE MEN WHOM GOD CALLS TO HIS SERVICE FROM THEIR BIRTH. This is seen in the fact that the earliest events of their lives are made to train them for their subsequent mission in the world. Parents should consecrate their children to God in infancy, and not wait for later years before using those means which will fit them for the work of life in God’s service. Manoah. and his wife are taught these lessons with special reference to the condition of a Nazarite. Other vocations may require external varieties of training, but the essential characteristics which fit us for the service of God are the same in all cases, so that it is not necessary to know the exact form of service to which God will call a child, in order to lay the foundations of his character in the main principles which devotion to God’s service in any form involves.

II. ABSTEMIOUSNESS IS FAVOURABLE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIGOUR. Self-indulgence is enervating. Self-restraint both husbands and enlarges strength. That which is apparently most helpful to us may prove in reality to be a hindrance. Appetite and desire are neither to be regarded as masters nor as enemies, but as servants. As wine excites rather than strengthens, so there are influences of a mental character which add nothing to our power for work, although they appear to do so by rousing excitement. The soul will not grow strong on the heating, but not nourishing, diet of religious sensationalism.

III. DEVOTION TO GOD REQUIRES PURITY OF LIFE. The Nazarite was to touch no unclean thing. Unhappily Samson was satisfied with this ceremonial purity, and did not cultivate purity of soul, as the spirit of the Nazarite’s vow plainly required him to do; hence his moral weakness and failure to attain perfect success. Samson “began to deliver Israel,” he was not able to finish. Only the spotless One could say, “It is finished.” In proportion to our holiness will be our spiritual strength. Religious devotion without moral purity cannot be accepted by God (Isa 1:11-15).

IV. FULNESS OF LIFE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO LIVE TO GOD. No razor, no iron (the symbol of death), was to come upon the Nazarite. Consecration to God involves self-denial, but it brings a deeper joy and a fuller life than a self-seeking course will secure.

1. Religion does not require the destruction of any part of our true human nature, not even to the injuring of one hair of the head.

2. Religion requires the consecration of our whole being unmaimed, even to the not severing of one hair of the head from the perfect sacrifice.

V. CONSECRATION TO GOD IS A SOURCE OF USEFULNESS TO MEN. Samson was a Nazarite; he was also a deliverer of his people. God calls us not to the hermit’s life of useless devotion, but to the servant’s life of devotion practised in active good works. The religiousness which forbids useful work in commerce, in politics, in literature is a false sentiment. The Christian can best serve God by labouring for the good of his fellow-men.A.

Jdg 13:8

The training of children.

I. CHILDREN NEED TRAINING.

1. Children do not attain to the best character and conduct spontaneously, by natural growth and development, Left to themselves they would make little progress and many errors. But they cannot be thus left. If good influences are not brought to bear upon them, they cannot be entirely shielded from evil influences which will prove fatal unless they are counteracted. Training is necessary

(1) to assist and promote the natural development of the good which is already in children,

(2) to check and eradicate hereditary tendencies to sin derived from parents, e.g. the inclinations to intemperance likely to be felt by the children of the intemperate, and

(3) to counteract the effect of the temptations of the world.

2. Children do not attain to the best character and conduct without care and effort. They need specific training. Example does much; the atmosphere of a Christian society is also effective. Yet these general and vague, though real and powerful, influences are not sufficient without definite teaching and personal discipline. Christianity must be taught, and it cannot be learnt from any spirit of Christianity in the air.

II. THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN SHOULD BEGIN EARLY. The danger accompanying the process of intellectual forcing which results in unnatural precocity is not so great in moral training. The intellect need not be taxed with complex dogmas, nor the feelings stirred with unhealthy emotions, and yet children may be trained in integrity and unselfishness, in love to God and manthe great fundamental principles of the highest moral character. It is foolish to postpone this training. It is most easy when the mind is plastic. A natural economy would teach us that it is better that the whole life should be right from the first, than that there should be an early time of mistakes and faults and a subsequent conversion to better things.

III. THE SUPREME END OF THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN SHOULD BE TO FIT THEM FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD. Samson is to be trained for God. Parents are too negligent of the highest ends of their children’s lives. Careful to preserve their health and develop their natural powers of body and mind, anxious to instruct them in useful and liberalising secular knowledge, energetic in securing them a prosperous career in the world, parents often forget the real purpose of life, and fail to fit their children for the great mission of serving God. Children should be regarded as God’s from their birth, and as only lent by him. The significance of baptism, as implying God’s claim on the children and their dedication to him, should be remembered in all the subsequent training of them.

IV. THE CHIEF RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN RESTS ON THEIR PARENTS. This cannot be delegated to teachers. Though the work may be largely done by special teachers, the responsibility still remains on the father and mother, and can never be shifted. They too have the most influence by the constant intercourse of home, the force of parental example, authority, and affection, their knowledge of their children and interest in them.

V. GUIDANCE FOR THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN SHOULD BE SOUGHT FROM GOD. Manoah and his wife show their humility, their faith, and their devotion in praying for guidance. This is necessary for many reasons. The issues of the work are supremely important; error may lead to fearful disaster. The execution of the work is exceedingly difficult. The ideal to be aimed at is great and high. There is mystery in the character of every soul, mystery in the will of God as to its destiny, mystery in the innumerable subtle influences which play upon it. He who realises these things will seek light as to the end of the training of the children and the method of pursuing it.A.

Jdg 13:17, Jdg 13:18

The mystery of a name.

Names denote persons and describe characters. The nameless one wraps both his individuality and his nature in mystery. Naturally Manoah, like Jacob, desires to solve such a mystery (Gen 32:29), and in response to this wish, unlike “the traveller unknown,” the angel reveals a name, though one of partial mystery.

I. MANOAH‘S QUESTION (see Jdg 13:17).

1. Manoah does not know that his visitor is an angel of the Lord (Jdg 13:16). Divine visitations are not always recognised. The true nature of Christ was unknown to most of his contemporaries. We cannot always trace the hand of God in his providential action. Heaven is about us unnoticed; unseen ministries attend our lives; God is nearer to us than we suspect.

2. Manoah desires to know the name of his mysterious visitor

(1) from natural curiosity,

(2) from a desire to strengthen his faith in the message of the unknown,

(3) from a wish to give him thanks when his promise should be fulfilled.

The thirst to solve the strange questions which surround our spiritual life is natural, and not inconsistent with humility nor with faith. It would be better if we were more anxious to inquire for indications of God and of his character in the experience of life.

II. THE ANGEL‘S REPLY (see Jdg 13:18).

1. He begins his reply with a question. We should not assail heaven with unjustifiable prayers, but should be ready to give a reason for our petitions. Revelation is not intended to quench human thought, but to stimulate it. Every new voice from heaven, while it answers some questions, starts new questions.

2. The angel implies that Manoah‘s request was needless, either

(1) because he ought to have recognised the nature of his visitant from the character of his message and conduct, or

(2) because it was more important to consider the meaning of the message than to inquire into the nature of the messenger. We sometimes pray for more light when we only need better eyes to use the light we have; not a fresh revelation, but discernment, reflection, spiritual feeling to appreciate the revelation already received. God’s truth is more important than the person of the prophet, apostle, or angel who brings it to us.

3. The angel gives Manoah a name. He is “Wonderful.” This was a partial answer to Manoah’s question.

(1) It carried his thought to God, who is the supreme mystery, and suggested the greatness, the wonder, the awe of all that pertained to him. Thus it was a revelation of the Divine.

(2) Nevertheless the name was but a partial explanation, as its very meaning suggested the unknown. The deepest questions cannot be solved on earth. But it matters little that the rays of revelation seem to melt into the darkness of the Infinite if only they shine bright and clear on our path of duty.A.

Jdg 13:22, Jdg 13:23

The fear of the vision of God.

The Divine vision was connected with a blessing to Manoah and his wife. The vision of God by the soul is itself the highest blessing; yet, as in the case of Manoah, it fills men with fear.

I. THE CAUSE OF THE FEAR.

1. Mystery. We naturally dread the unknown. Darkness hides possibilities of danger. Superstition peoples the unseen with horrors.

2. Guilt. “Conscience makes cowards of us all.“ So Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in the garden (Gen 3:8). Because we are all sinners before God we have a natural shrinking from him

(1) who knows our secret hearts,

(2) against whom we have offended,

(3) who is holy to hate sin and

(4) just to punish it.

3. Unbelief. We do not sufficiently understand the character of God nor trust his grace. If we did, we should feel safer with all our guilt in his hands than we are when left to ourselves and to the world. Men fear God because they do not know him.

II. THE REMEDIES OF THE FEAR. Manoah’s wife encourages her husband. Though men may be brave before physical danger, women sometimes show more courage in spiritual difficulties. This moral courage is nobler than the brute courage which man shares with the lower animals. It has its source in true excellences of character.

1. Self-possession. Manoah is confused and dismayed by terror beyond the power of reflection; but his wife is calm and collected, and thus able to see indications of mercy in the vision.

2. Reflection on the character of the vision. God has given to us powers of observation, discernment, reasoning. Superstitious terrors more commonly haunt the minds of those people who have neglected to use those powers, while weakly yielding to foolish emotions. Religion to be healthy must be thoughtful. God has given us sufficient indications of his character in the Bible, in Christ, in life, to deliver us from slavish fear, if only we consider and reflect on these. The more we know of God, the less shall we be afraid of him. May not the most fearful learn to reason with Manoah’s wife”If God had meant harm to us, would he have blessed us as he has done hitherto?” The Christian may go further, and be sure that after the great gift of his Son, God must wish well to us in all lesser things (Rom 5:10).

3. Faith. We cannot see perfect evidence that God is blessing us in every mystery; but if we know his character we ought to trust his actions, even when they seem most alarming, as they cannot be contrary to his nature.

4. The acceptance of sacrifice. God had accepted Manoah’s sacrifice, therefore he could not regard him with disfavour. He has accepted the sacrifice of Christ, and accordingly our guilt need not make us fear God if we rely on the atonement Christ has effected.A.

Jdg 13:24, Jdg 13:25

The young Samson.

I. His NAME. Samsonthe sun. This was a great name, full of inspiring significance. It is well to have a good name, one which is a constant appeal to a man to be worthy of it, and to live up to its meaning.

II. HIS GROWTH. Samson the hero was first a child at the mercy of the weakest. The grandest river springs from a little streamlet. The noblest man enters life, as the meanest does, in helpless infancy. So the spiritual life of the saint, the martyr, the apostle is seen first in him as in a babe in Christ. It is therefore no dishonour to have a small beginning, but it is a dishonour to remain small. The one question is, Do we grow mentally, spiritually, in knowledge, in holiness, in power? There is more to be expected of the minute growing seed than of the dead stump, which is at first vastly larger. Better be a growing child of the Lord than a dwarf adult Christian man.

III. HIS BLESSING. “The Lord blessed him.” We are not told how; this matters not. Perhaps he did not recognise the blessing. God blesses us silently, with no formal benediction, and perhaps in ways which to us seem hard and injurious. Still better than health, riches, pleasure is the fact God does give a man the thing that is for his highest good, which is what we mean by “a blessing.”

IV. HIS INSPIRATION. “The Spirit of the Lord began to move him.”

1. Samson’s heroic strength was an inspiration of God, not a mere brute muscular force. We see how in great crises men are nerved to do what is beyond their power in ordinary life. The abnormal strength of insanity is an instance of the same principle, applied in circumstances of disease.

2. Inspiration assumes various forms. To Samson it brought neither the grace of purity nor the gift of prophecy; but it gave him the special gifts which he needed for his special work. He would have been a nobler man if he had sought the Spirit of God also to help him in more spiritual ways. Samson had a supernatural gift of the Spirit with little of its ordinary grace of holiness. It is better to have this grace first, though, if God will, we may receive the gift also.

V. HIS IMPERFECT POSSESSION BY THE SPIRIT. He was moved at times.

1. God’s special gifts are limited to occasion. There is an economy of Divine power. When we need extraordinary grace he will give this, but only then.

2. The receipt of spiritual gifts depends on the condition of our spirit. Samson was only rightly disposed to receive the Spirit at intervals. Our spiritual life fluctuates; we are not long at our best.

3. We are only moved when we respond. God may have visited Samson more often than Samson profited by his visit. We can resist the Spirit. We are helped only when we willingly yield to it.A.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

CHAP. XIII.

The Israelites are oppressed forty years by the Philistines: an angel appears to the wife of Manoah, and promises her a son: he appears again to the husband and wife, and ascends, in the midst of the flame of the burnt offering, towards heaven: Samson is born.

Before Christ 1175.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

NINTH SECTION

The Oppression Of The Philistines. Samson, The Nazarite Judge

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Renewed apostasy

Jdg 13:1.

1And the children [sons] of Israel did evil again [continued to do evil] in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah]; and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL

The same fatal history repeats itself everywhere. Not one single tribe, the Book of Judges teaches us, is exempted from it. Apostasy is constantly followed by subjection, whether it be inflicted by eastern or western neighbor-tribes. It is written, Jdg 2:14, that when Israel falls into sin, it will be persecuted by all the nations round about. And Jdg 3:3 includes the five princes of the Philistines among those through whom Israel is to become acquainted with distress and war. The Book began with the oppression of the Mesopotamian king in the east, from which Othniel, the hero of Judah, liberated the people. After tracing a circular course through the east and northeast, it ends, like the daily course of the sun, in the west; and the tribe of Judah, with which the narrative began, is again brought forward at its close. As far back as Jdg 10:7, in connection with events after the death of Abimelech, we read that God gave Israel up into the hands of the Philistines and the sons of Ammon. The heroic achievement of Jephthah against Ammon is, however, first reported. (The Judges named immediately afterwards belong to northern tribes, two to Zebulun, one to Ephraim.) Now the writer comes to speak of the great conflicts which Israel had to wage with the brave and well-equipped people of the five Philistine cities on the coast, and which, with varying fortunes, continued to the time of David. The tribes especially concerned in them were Dan, the western part of Judah, and Simeon, encircled by Judah. How changed went the times! Once, the men of Judah, in their stormlike career of victory, had won even the great cities on the sea-coast. Afterwards, they were not only unable to maintain possession of them, but through their own apostasy from God and the genuine Israelitish spirit, became themselves dependent on them. Dan had already been long unable to hold its ground anywhere except on the mountains (Jdg 1:34). Now, the Philistines were powerful and free in all the Danite cities. Chapter Jdg 10:15 f. tells of the earnest repentance of the sons of Israel before God. But such a statement is not made here, although the history of a new Judge is introduced. Everywhere else the narrative, before it relates the mighty deeds of a Shophet, premises that Israel had cried unto God, and that consequently God had taken pity upon them. Now, unless it be assumed that Jdg 10:15 refers also to Dan and Judah, as in Jdg 13:6 the Philistines are likewise already spoken of, it is remarkable that the narrative of Samsons exploits is not preceded by a similar remark. It is a point worthy of special notice. For since the story of Israels apostasy is repeated, that of its repentance would likewise have been repeated. That which he does not relate, the narrator must have believed to have had no existence. And in fact no such repentance can have taken place at this time in Dan and Judah, as we read of in Gilead. The history of the hero, whose deeds are about to be related, proves this. If, then, such a man nevertheless arose, the compassion which God thereby manifested toward Israel, was doubtless called forth by the few, scattered here and there, who sought after and acknowledged Him. The power which shows itself in the history of Samsons activity is of a similarly isolated, individual character. It is only disconnected deliverances which Israel receives through him. It is no entire national renovation, such as were brought about by former Judges within their fields of action. Herein the history of Samson differs entirely from the events of Othniels, Ehuds, Baraks, Gideons, and Jephthahs times, just as he himself differs from those heroes. Jephthah also speaks as an individual I, when he treats with the enemy; he was in fact the national I, for his will was the will of the people, his repentance their repentance. He can say, I and my people, (Jdg 12:2): his people have made him their prince. Samson is an individual without a people; a mighty I, but no prince; a single person, consecrated to God, and made the instrument of his Spirit almost without his own will; whereas Jephthah and his people are one in penitential disposition and trust in God. Hence, the circumstance that, although Samson was a Judge, and announced by an angel of God, it is nevertheless not recorded that before his advent the sons of Israel had cried to God, affords an introductory thought important for the right apprehension of the peculiar and remarkable narratives in which the new hero appears.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This chapter commenceth with another sad account of Israel’s transgression, and the consequent punishment from the Lord. We have in it also, the relation of the birth of Samson, and the message of an angel concerning him. The conference between the angel and the mother of Samson in the first interview, and the renewed conversation at a second, when her husband was present. Both are circumstantially related in this chapter.

Jdg 13:1 And 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.

This is but the same distressing page, varying only as circumstances required they should vary, concerning Israel’s sin and the Lord’s punishment. But Reader! do not overlook, for it is a sweet consoling thought: correction is a mark of love, a proof of interest, the token of a father. If I see a man chastising a child, I instantly know that there is a relationship between them. That man I should say, without being told so, is the child’s father. And do not these frequent corrections of Israel prove to me; that the Lord is Israel’s father? You only have I known (saith God) of all the families of the earth; therefore 1 will punish you for all your iniquities. Amo 3:2 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jdg 13:21

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

George Eliot.

A Woman’s Logic

Jdg 13:22-23

We say usually that woman has instinct and man has logic. That is an ingenious definition to save the masculine face. For really instinct is logic without its forms, and you have only to look at this text to see that the woman’s instinct and logic are alike sound and convincing.

I. The Promise in Nature. Now let us first take this question: If the Lord had been pleased to kill us, would He have shown us all these things? We may ask this question in respect of this present life, and its anxieties. We are often full of trouble about our future life in this world. We are full of misgivings, full of solicitudes, full of apprehension. Now when we are thus tormented would it not be a good thing to put to ourselves: Would God have shown us all these things (these things that He is displaying to us, say, in this royal summer-time), would God have shown us all these wonderful things of our personal experience if He had meant to starve us, to degrade us, to forsake us, and leave us to nakedness and despair? All the riches and splendours of nature assure us that God is going to take care of us in the days to come as in the days that are past.

II. The Promise in Life. And you may take the same argument about the greater life beyond this world. We are doubtful sometimes, we are troubled with perplexities about the unknown future, and we are tempted to say that we shall perish utterly. If God had meant to destroy us would He have acted as He has with us, brought us into this world, and schooled us only to dismiss us to the dust? After all the grandeur of the world of which we are the chief object, the splendour of our faculties, the excellence of our education, the rich treatment received at the hand of heaven, all declare that life has an immense perspective, that God is contemplating generous things, and after laying His large foundations He is going to put on the superstructure and the topstone of perfection, of immortality.

III. The Promise in Revelation. Another question, Would the Lord have spoken to us all these things if He had meant to kill us? He has not only shown us wonderful things, but He has spoken to us great words. God has not left Himself without witness; from the beginning there have been His messengers speaking great words of light, of true righteousness, and hope to the various nations. And (depend upon it) God will continue to vindicate Himself and utter His great words. And what is all this for? For what end? Has God spoken to us through the Jewish nation, and spoken to us through His Son, and is it likely now that He is going to annihilate us, to desert us, to leave us in darkness and despair? It is not like Him. The very fact that He has spoken to us is full of promise and full of prophecy.

IV. The Promise in Grace. Finally, would God have shown us all the grace which He has shown us if He had meant to destroy us? Think of what God has given us in His Son; of the love He has expressed to us in His Gospel! God has spoken words to you that He will justify and accomplish.

W. L. Watkinson, The Christian World Pulpit, Vol. lxv. 1904.

References. XIII. 22, 23. H. J. Bevis, Sermons, p. 186. J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, part i. p. 95. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1340. XIII. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No. 440. XIII. 24. I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 149. XIII. 24, 25. Bishop Alexander, The Great Question, p. 145.

Jdg 13:25

Deeds of heroism are only offered to those who have been, for many long years, heroes in obscurity and silence.

Maeterlinck.

History proves that the majority of men who have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

Heine.

Reference. XIII. 25. J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 97.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Jdg 13 (Annotated)

Jdg 13

1. And the children of Israel did evil again [see chap. Jdg 3:7 , Jdg 4:1 , Jdg 6:1-11 , Jdg 10:6 ] in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines [who from this point to the reign of David play a most important part. By Philistines we are not to understand Canaanites, but foreign conquerors; the name means camps ] forty years [terminating with the battle of Ebenezer, 1Sa 7:13 ].

2. And there was a certain man of Zorah [ place of hornets ], of the family of the Danites [the words “family” and “tribe” are often used interchangeably. The tribe of Dan is said to have consisted of the single family of Shuham, Num 26:42 ], whose name was Manoah [ rest ]; and his wife was barren, and bare not.

3. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.

4. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink [intoxicating liquor not made from grapes], and eat not any unclean tiling [a law which applied to all Israelites]:

5. For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head [see the law of the Nazarite in Num. vi.]: 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 [” begin,” but not complete: many men are permitted to begin good works, but they die without their full accomplishment].

6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me [angels always appear in human form], and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible [see Mat 28:3-4 ]: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name:

7. But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt 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 [Samuel was also a Nazarite, so was John the Baptist, so was James the Lord’s brother] to God from the womb to the day of his death.

8. Then Manoah intreated the Lord, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us [we should ask for second and completing inspirations] what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.

9. And 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.

10. And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day.

11. And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am.

12. And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child [what shall be the order of the child and his work?] and how shall we do unto him? [Not a step would they take without divine direction.]

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

14. She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine [see Num 6:3-5 ], neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe. [The wine is described as the vine of wine the grape-bearing vine; thus distinguishing it from the wild cucumber vine; see 2Ki 4:39 ].

15. And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee [literally, before thy face. Compare with this the narrative of Gideon. A kid was a special delicacy; see Gen 27:9 ; 1Sa 16:20 ].

16. And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord [literally, a burnt offering unto the Lord thou mayest offer it. Compare chap. 1Sa 6:20 . The worship of angels is nowhere encouraged by angels themselves; they invariably point worshippers to God himself. The angel did not understand Manoah as preparing a simple meal, but as really making preparations for sacrifice. Cautions given by angels should be studied with care Rev 19:10 , Rev 22:8-9 ; and see Act 10:25-26 ]. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord.

17. And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name [compare Gen 32:29 ; Exo 3:13 ; Pro 30:4 ], that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour [the word implying that some gift would be presented to the angel]?

18. And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? [In Isa 9:5 , this word is rendered “wonderful “: the word must be taken as an adjective. The only angel who names himself in scripture is Gabriel],

19. So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord: and the angel of the Lord did wondrously [as in some sense verifying his name]; and Manoah and his wife looked on [all they could do].

20. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar [that which was a rock at first now became an 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.

21. But 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.

22. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God [“as seeing him who is invisible”; Exo 33:20 ; see also Gen 32:20 and Deu 5:24 ].

23. But 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 shewed us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have told us such things as these.

24. And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson [ to minister, a name denoting Nazaritic consecration]: and the child grew [see Luk 1:80 , and Luk 2:40 ], and the Lord blessed him [“with a heroic spirit and extraordinary strength of body, far above that which the poets feign of their Hercules with his twelve incredible labours “].

25. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times [literally, to agitate or thrust him ” to move him hither and thither, as the bells which hung in the skirts of Aaron’s garments; these bells have their name from a word which signifies that they were shaken to and fro “] in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Manoah’s Wife

Jdg 13:23

THIS is part of a family scene. It is quoted from a conversation which took place between husband and wife. Let us treat the incident as showing some aspects of family life, some methods of reading divine Providence, and some sources of consolation amid the distractions and mysteries of the present world.

Look at it as showing some aspects of family life. Here is the head of the house in gloom. Is he not always more or less in gloom, this same head of the house all the world over? Who ever knew a head of the house that was not more or less low-spirited, worried by a hundred anxieties, tormented by sudden fear? Perhaps naturally so: after all he is the head of the house; and probably the lightning conductor, being higher than any other part of the building, may have experience of thunderstorms and lightning discharges that lower parts of the structure know nothing about. As the head of the house you are in the market-place, you see things in their roughest aspects, you have to bear many a thing that you cannot explain to strangers, and there is an under-current in your consciousness which perhaps your truest friend has never seen, or seeing, appreciated; and therefore when we hear the head of the house complaining in tones that have no music in them, how know we but that the poor man has been undergoing vexations and distresses that he does not feel at liberty to explain? At any rate Manoah took this view of the angel’s visit: “We have seen God: no man can see God and live we shall surely die.” Here we have a wife comforting her husband. Like a true woman, she let Manoah have his groan out. There is a beautiful cunning in love. It does not break in upon a sentence at a semicolon. It lets the groan get right out, and then it offers its gentle consolation. If we had heard Manoah alone, we should have said, A terrible thunder-storm has burst upon this house, and God has come down upon it with awful vengeance; and not until we heard his wife’s statement of the case should we have any clear idea of the reality of the circumstances. You complain of this word ” but ” when a statement is made to you and it proceeds fluently and satisfactorily; the speaker says but, and you say, “Aye, there it is again.” We carelessly abuse this but; it sometimes, however, introduces all the light and all the music, and is found to be the key, long lost, of the gate which had impeded our progress. “But his wife said unto him” ” but a certain Samaritan came that way.” Therefore remember that help sometimes comes after words that seem only to promise some greater distress. Be the complement of each other. The husband does not know all the case. Perhaps the wife would read it a little too hopefully. You must hear both the statements, put them both together, and draw your conclusions from the twofold statement. People are the complement of each other. Woe to that man who thinks he combines all populations and all personalities in himself. He must be a miserable man who thinks that he is the only man in the world. You would get more help from other people if you expected more, if you invited more, if you put yourself in circumstances that would justify the offering of more. There is not a poor creature in the world who cannot fill up the drop that is wanting to complete the fulness of some other creature’s joy. You would not be half the man that you are except for your wife, and yet you never say “Thank you” with any degree of heartiness or sincerity. You listen to her suggestions with a half contempt, as if she did not know what she was talking about, and then you go and work out her idea and get the profit of it, and say what a clever man of business you are. That is not honest, it is not just “Thou shalt not steal.”

Here we have a husband and wife talking over a difficult case. Is not that a rare thing in these days of rush and tumult and noise, when a man never sees his little children, his very little ones, except in bed? He leaves home so early in the morning, and gets back so late at night, that he never sees his little ones but in slumber. Is it not now a rare thing for a husband and wife to sit down and talk a difficulty over in all its bearings? Have we not known in our own experience many a wife wronged because of the husband failing to show proper confidence? The man has been in difficulties, wherever he has gone he has been pursued by a haunting dread, and he has suffered all this alone; whereas if he had but stated the case with all frankness and loving candour, who knows but that his wife might have said some word which might have been as a key to the lock, and as a solution of the hard and vexatious problem? You will always find it an inexpressible comfort to take your husband or wife, as the case may be, into your confidence, and talk any difficulty right through, keeping back no part of the case. “It soothes poor misery hearkening to her tale.” If we lived in more domestic confidence, our houses would be homes, our homes would be churches, and those churches would be in the very vicinage of heaven.

Let us now look at the incident as showing some methods of reading divine Providence. There we have the timid and distrustful method. Manoah looks at the case, reads it, spells where he cannot read plainly, and then, looking up from his book, he says to his wife, “There is bad news for you: God is about to destroy us.” There are these same timid and doubtful readers of Providence in society today. There are some men who never see the sky in its midday beauty, who never see summer in July at all, who really have never one day’s true elevation of soul. I do not blame such people altogether. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We cannot all read with equal facility, and see with equal distinctness. There are causes or sub-causes, intermediate, secondary influences arising from physical constitution and other circumstances over which we have no control, which trouble our vision even of God himself. Let us, therefore, put in a word wherever we can for those who are not constituted hopefully, who have not been gifted with a sanguine temperament. There are men amongst us whose life is a continual pain. It is possible so to read God’s ways among men as to bring upon ourselves great distress. Is a man, therefore, to exclaim, “This is a punishment sent from heaven for some inscrutable reason, and I must endure it as well as I can; I shall never see the sky when not a cloud bedims its dome “? No, you are to struggle against this, you are to believe other people; that is to say, you are to live in other people’s lives, to get out of other people the piece that is wanting in your own life. You are not to put ashes upon your head and say, “There is nothing in the universe that I do not see.” You are to call little children and to say, “What do you see?” and young men and say, “How does life look from your point of view?” and you are to live in other people. We are to walk by faith and not by sight; we are debtors both to the Jew and to the Greek; and we must get from one another a complete statement of the reality of God’s way among the children of men. This is the inductive and hopeful method of reading divine Providence. Some cynical people who have no licence, and therefore ought to be arrested as metaphysical felons, say that women have no logic. And that sentence sounds as if really it ought to be true. It is so pat. It is one of those little weapons that a man can pick up and use as if he had always had it. I think that Manoah’s wife was in very deed learned in what we call the inductive method of reasoning, for she stated her case with wonderful simplicity and clearness. “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 shewed us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have told us such things as these.” That is logic! That is the inductive method! the method, namely, of putting things together and drawing a conclusion from the aggregate. Thank God if you have a wife who can talk like that. Why, if they had both been gloomy parties, what a house it would have been! They need never have taken the shutters down, and summer might have ignored their existence. But Manoah’s wife was of a hopeful turn of mind. She had the eye which sees flecks of blue in the darkest skies. She had the ear which hears the softest goings of the Eternal. She was an interpreter of the divine thought. Oh, to have such an interpreter in every house, to have such an interpreter in every pulpit in England, to have such a companion on the highway of venture and enterprise! This is the eye that sees farther than the dull eye of criticism can ever see, that sees God’s heart, that reads meanings that seem to be written afar. Have we this method of reading divine Providence? I call it the appreciative and thankful method. Why, some of us can take up our loaf and say, “Only this!” and say it in a tone that means practical blasphemy; others can take up a crust and say, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow! This is God’s gift. He cannot mean me to die, or he would not have put this into my hand.” A litany in one sentence, worthy to find its place amid the hallelujahs and blessings of the better world. Who was it that said, “When I look at those who are higher than I am, I am tempted towards discontent, but when I go out amongst the poor and compare their condition with my own, my heart overflows with loving thankfulness”? How dare we complain, the worst, the poorest among us! Taking the average and a low average what man, what woman is there that ought not to join in heartfelt praise to Almighty God for mercies innumerable as the moments, delicate as the light, present as the living air round about one’s poor life! Manoah droops, pines, dies; his wife goes out, gathers the flowers in the Lord’s garden, brings them back to him and says, “Manoah, be a man: would God have given us these things if he meant to kill us?” And poor Manoah lifts up his drooping face to the light. Put together your mercies, look at them as a whole and say, Can this mean death, or does it mean life? and I know what the glad answer will be.

There are some sources of consolation amid the distractions and mysteries of the present world. Every life has some blessings. I charge it upon you when the year closes to reckon up your blessings. Men eagerly count up their misfortunes and trials, but how few remember their mercies! One man says, I have no wealth. No, but look what a pair of shoulders you have! Another man says, I have but feeble health. True, but look what investments you have! Another voice says, I am disposed to be fearful and dispirited. But look what a wife you have! Every life has some blessing, and we must find what that blessing or those blessings are. We must put them together, and reason from the goodness towards the glory of God. Amid these blessings religious privileges are sure signs of the divine favour. We have religious privileges: we can go into the sanctuary: we can take counsel together; we can kneel side by side in prayer; we can go to the very best sources for religious instruction and religious comfort. Does God mean to kill when he has given us such proofs of favour as these? Does he mean to kill us when he has sent the minister of the covenant to tell us glad tidings of great joy? Let us find in religious blessings proof that God means no evil to us. We will persist in looking at a distress till it seems to be the only thing in our life. We need to put two and two together. Do not be losing yourselves in the midst of details that have apparently no connection. Gather up your life until it becomes shaped into meaning, and then when you have seen things in their proper relationships pronounce calmly upon the ways of God towards you. Let us put away religious melancholy. Many people are saying, “I fear I have committed the unpardonable sin; I seem to have offended God for ever, and put him far away from me, so that I can never see his face again.” Wouldst thou have any anxiety about the thing if he were clean gone for ever, and had drawn the skirts of his garments after him so as to leave thee but the blackness of darkness? By the very fact of thy concern, understand that God has not purposed to kill thee. Cry mightily for him; say, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” “Why standest thou afar off, O God?” And if thou criest so, he will surely come again, saying, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.”

Let us learn from this family scene that great joys often succeed great fears. Manoah said, The Lord intends to kill us; his wife said, Not so, or he would not have received a burnt offering at our hands. And behold Samson was born, a judge of Israel, an avenger of mighty wrongs. Is it ever so dark as just before the dawn? Are you not witnesses that a great darkness always precedes a great light that some peculiar misery comes to prepare the way for some unusual joy? If we could only lay hold of life in this way, and read it, not with unreasonable expectation of deliverance and joy, but with hopefulness, we should never become old, desiccated, or tuneless to the last we should wear like old silver, to the very last there would be in us a light above the brightness of the sun. Let us read the goodness of God in others. Many a time we have been recovered from practical atheism by reading other people’s experience. When things seem to have been going wrong with us, we have looked over into a neighbour’s garden and seen his flowers, and our hearts have been cheered by the vision.

Oh, woman, talk of your mission! Here is your mission described and exemplified in the case of the wife of Manoah. What do you want with your School Board and platform experiences, and those mysterious abstractions which you call your rights? Here is your field of operation. Cheer those who are dispirited; read the word of God in its spirit to those who can only read its cold meagre letter, and the strongest of us will bless you for your gentle ministry. Did not Paul write to the Church at Rome saying, “Greet Priscilla and Aquila,” putting the wife’s name first, and that in no mere spirit of courtesy, but probably in recognition of her supreme influence in spiritual direction and consolation? Who was it in the days of Scottish persecution? Was it not Helen Stirk a braver Helen than the fiend Macgregor who said to her husband as they were both carried forth to be executed, “Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day wherein we die together ought to be most joyful to us both, because we must have joy for ever; therefore I will not bid you good-night, for we shall suddenly meet within the kingdom of heaven “? Who was it when Whitefield was mobbed and threatened, and when even he was about to give way, who was it but his wife who took hold of his robe and said, “George, play the man for your God”? Oh, woman, talk of your rights, and your sphere, and your having nothing to do! We should die without you. The man is fit for murders, stratagems, and spoils who is not a worshipper of woman a worshipper of his mother, of his sister, of his wife, of the ideal woman. Have a sphere of labour at home, go into sick-chambers and speak as only a woman can speak. Counsel your sons as if you were not dictating to them. Read Providence to your husband in an incidental manner, as if you were not reproaching him for his dulness, but simply hinting that you had seen unexpected light. Women have always said the finest things that have ever been said in the Bible. She was a woman that we speak it with reverence outwitted the Lord himself. He said “No” to her request. And he was not accustomed to say that word; it fell awkwardly from those dear lips. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto dogs.” But the woman outwitted him. Scribes and Pharisees would have been silenced, but the woman said: “Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Christ yielded himself a willing prisoner of love. Trust the heart of love to outstrip the brain of genius!

Selected Note

Samson was the son of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, and born a.m. 2848, of a mother whose name is nowhere given in the Scriptures. His destination to great achievements began to evince itself at a very early age by the illapses of superhuman strength which came from time to time upon him. Falling in love with a woman of Sorek, named Delilah, he became so infatuated by his passion, that nothing but his bodily strength could equal his mental weakness. Betrayed by her, and forsaken of Heaven, the Philistines having deprived him of sight, at first immured him in a prison, and made him grind at the mill like a slave. As this was an employment which in the East usually devolves on women, to assign it to such a man as Samson was virtually to reduce him to the lowest state of degradation and shame. In process of time, while remaining in this confinement, his hair recovered its growth, and with it such a profound repentance seems to have wrought in his heart as virtually reinvested him with the character and the powers he had so culpably lost. Of this fact his enemies were not aware. They kept him like a wild beast for mockery and insult. On the occasion of a feast in honour of their god Dagon, Samson was ordered to be brought out to be made a laughing-stock to his enemies. He secretly determined to use his recovered strength to tremendous effect, and persuaded a boy to conduct him to the two pillars upon which the roof of the building rested. Here, after pausing for a short time, while he prefers a brief prayer to Heaven, he grasps the massy pillars, and bowing with resistless force, the whole building rocks and totters, and the roof, encumbered with the weight of the spectators, rushes down, and the whole assembly, including Samson himself, are crushed to pieces in the ruin. Thus terminated the career of one of the most remarkable personages of all history, whether sacred or profane. The enrolment of his name by an apostolic pen ( Heb 11:32 ) in the list of the ancient worthies “who had by faith obtained an excellent repute” warrants us undoubtedly in a favourable estimate of his character on the whole, while at the same time the fertility of the inspired narrative has perpetuated the record of infirmities which must for ever mar the lustre of his noble deeds.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Thou knowest when to open thine hand and when to close it, and it is ours but to watch the opening and the shutting. Thou art King: we are the subjects of thy crown. The Lord reigneth. That is the highest note in our song, the gladdest tone of our rhapsody. We abide under the shadow of the Almighty, and take nothing into our own hands, for they are not only unclean, but weak because unclean. We come to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Unknown One, and the for-ever Unknowable, yet still always coming to our heart’s best feeling, a new light, a new warmth, a new gladness. We know thee by our love. Our hearts grope for thee, assured that thou art hidden in the darkness, and concealed in the light, and everywhere present to bless and heal and redeem. Now we know thee in Christ Jesus the heart of God, the will of God, the whole meaning of eternity in relation to man. This is wonderful in our eyes. Sometimes we touch him, so near we are, and so reverently familiar; yet we feel that it is like touching a cloud hiding mysteries; and sometimes we stand afar off, because we do not know his language, we cannot follow his words: we know them as terms, but we cannot see all the meaning with which he charges them. Nevertheless, he is with us today, to-morrow, and on the third day; then he rises again, and we see him no more after the flesh: but we know that he lives; he left his promise with us: we claim it, we rejoice in it, our heaven begins in its music, and our eternity of bliss is assured by a living faith in the living Christ. Thou hast done all things well. Sometimes we have thought otherwise, and at those times of ignorance thou hast graciously turned away thine eyes from us, that thou mightest not see our folly; but we have come to repent; we have seen the larger work, the fuller meaning, somewhat of the ultimate intention then our mouth has been filled with singing, and our heart with joy, and our eyes with tears of. gladness. Henceforth we will trouble thee no more. Be the rain heavy and the storm bitter, or the sky burning with gracious summer, it shall not be ours to murmur at the reigning, living, loving Father. Thou doest all things as thou wilt; the time is kept in the upper sanctuary, and the law is with the Lord and not with man. This is the gift of Christ this glowing, triumphant faith; this is the miracle of the cross; this is the meaning of the resurrection as to our own spiritual victory. Now we glory in tribulations also. They were the last to come into the song; they stood back, far off, frowning and hesitant, unwilling to be made use of for Christian sacrifice; but now by faith we have brought them in one by one: and we glory in tribulations also yea, we are exceedingly filled with gladness, and we forget our sorrow as the sea might forget in its fulness the stone which lies in its depths. We bless thee for all these high emotions, these noble impulses, these upward outgoings of the soul: they do us good; they cleanse the heart; they give elevation to the whole scale of life they are the very miracles of heaven. We put our whole being into thine hand, saying, Do as thou wilt: thy will, not mine, be done; what thou choosest is best, what thou doest is right. This we have learned in Jesus Christ; this is the lesson we have received in our crucifixion with the Son of God. Thou dost administer thy discipline to us in various ways. Sometimes thou dost bring us down from great heights; sometimes thou dost chasten us with heavy sorrows, so that men pity us, so that human creatures who are strangers cannot look on without sympathetic tears. Yet the sufferer is the most rejoicing, because where pain abounds grace doth much more abound; where the background is blackest every touch of thy light shines with a new and dazzling meaning. Thou hast brought us together again after separation some for one week, some for a few days, some for a longer period. For all renewal of fellowship, and trust, and love, we bless thee. We need all these intermediate helps, that we may be continued in our faith and patience in reference to the eternal communion. Some are in great sorrow; some cannot see for tears; many have no helpers, and a few have none to speak to: a few words of uttered misery would be a help in the wilderness, but there is nothing present but the great glaring light or the heedless wind. Say to such that thou art near, and that everything may be told to thee, even things that may not be told to sweetest mother, or most trusting and loving friend. Help us during the few days that remain. How they fly! Presently they will all be gone, and we, who were going to enjoy ourselves some day, will find that our proposals are lost in the wind, and that the opportunity is gone. Help us, then, to begin now, to enter into the joy of the Lord now, to know that now is the accepted time and now the day of salvation. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXX

SAMSON

Judges 13-16

Contrast the history of Samson with that of the other judges.

Ans. (1) It is every way more minute and circumstantial in its details and more extensive.

(2) It resembles the cases of Ehud and Shamgar as a record of individual exploits, but seems to have even less national significance.

(3) Othniel, Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah led armies, fought pitched battles, conducted great campaigns and achieved results of national and lasting importance. They were men differing, indeed, in character from one another, but all men of a high order of intelligence and administrative capacity, but Samson not only manifests no such intelligence and capacity in a general way, but is weak in judgment and weak in character. He is merely an individual champion in the direction of physical strength, and like the prize fighters of all ages, susceptible to temptations which appeal to flesh passions.

(4) Unlike all others he was a Nazarite.

(5) Unlike the others his history commences with his father and mother and, like Isaac, Samuel, and John the Baptist, his very birth was the result of a miraculous power.

(6) His history is a history of miracles and prodigies, more than all the others.

2. What legendary hero of the classics most resembles Samson, indeed whose mystical story is supposed by some to be a heathen outgrowth of the Bible story?

Ans. Hercules.

3. How do you account for the marvelous hold of Samson upon the imagination of all succeeding ages?

Ans. The personal hero, the man of individual exploits, always impresses the popular mind more than the ripest statesmanship or the greatest generalship. More of the common people have ever gone to witness the feats of a gladiator, a bullfighter, or a prizefighter than would assemble to hear an orator, poet, statesman, scholar, or inventor. With the exception of the orator perhaps, the fame of the others will most likely be posthumous instead of contemporaneous.

4. In the case of men like Moses, Samuel, and John the Baptist it is easy to account for the Spirit’s circumstantial record of their birth and youth, so largely do their lives and influence affect all succeeding generations, but how do you account for the minute prologue concerning Samson all of Jdg 13 and the relative extent and circumstantial detail of his history?

Ans. We may not be able to philosophize profitably concerning the matter, but we suggest:

(1) The infinite variety of the Scriptures as a whole is designed to present something circumstantial about all phases of individual life. We need the circumstantial record of Moses the law-giver, Samuel the founder of the school of the prophets, David the psalmist, Job the patient, Jonah the reluctant foreign missionary, Peter the impulsive, John the meditative theologian, Paul the world moulder in doctrine and aggressive propagandism, and so we need one circumstantial record, the power of physical prowess, as a special gift of God. A child’s mind easily takes hold of the simple catechism: Who was the first man, the oldest man, the meekest man, the strongest man, the wisest man, etc.?

(2) There are lessons to be learned from the history of Samson of invaluable use to all ages, lessons far more significant than his exploits in themselves considered, and this is the governing thought in the fulness and variety of the Holy Scriptures. (See 2Ti 3:16-17 .)

5. According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, where does the education of a child commence?

Ans. “With his grandmother,” Timothy’s grandmother a case in point. (2Ti 1:5 ; 2Ti 1:3-15 .)

6. In this case show how Samson’s education commences with his mother.

Ans. “Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing: for lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come upon his head; for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb; and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of Philistines.” “And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass; what shall be the ordering of the child and how shall we do unto him? And the angel of Jehovah said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. She may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe,” (Jdg 13:4-5 ; Jdg 13:12-14 ).

7. What is a Nazarite, and the token of one?

Ans. (1) The law of the voluntary Nazarite is found in Num 6:1-21 . The dominant idea is consecration or devotedness to Jehovah for a limited period or for life. The token is the unshaved hair. The requirements are total abstinence from intoxicating liquors and even the fruit of the vine and from contact with any defilement, and holiness of life.

(2) But in the case of some either the parents or God himself decreed them Nazarites for life from the womb, as Samson (Jdg 16:17 ), Samuel (1Sa 1:11 ), John the Baptist (Luk 1:15 ), and the Rechabites (Jer 35 ).

(3) A passage in Lam 4:4 , shows the requirements of holiness and the beneficial effect of an abstemious life.

8. In what other scriptures is abstinence from intoxicating drink required of consecrated men?

Ans. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes to say, Where is strong drink? Lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to any that is afflicted,” Pro 31:4-5 , and in I Timothy pastors and deacons should be “not given to much wine.”

9. Unto what nation was Israel subject in the days of Samson?

Ans. See Jdg 14:4 – The Philistines.

10. From whom do all Samson’s troubles come?

Ans. From two Philistine women Jdg 14:15-17 ; Jdg 16:20 .

11. Did these women entice him to evil of their own thought or were they used as tools by the Philistines?

Ans. In both cases the Philistines brought pressure to bear on the women.

12. Distinguish between the pressure on the one who was his wife and the one who was a harlot.

Ans. On the wife by a threat of burning her and her father’s family, on the harlot by bribery.

13. Did the wife and her father escape the burning by her yielding to the threat?

Ans. No.

14. Describe the character and power of the temptation in each case.

Ans. See Jdg 14:16-17 ; Jdg 16:15-16 . It was in both cases persistent from day to day; in both cases they asked the secret as a proof of love. In the first case with persistent tears, in the second case with accusation of mocking and lies, nagging, nagging until his soul was vexed unto death; a woman’s seven days’ weeping; a woman’s seven days’ nagging; tears and nagging.

15. What proverbial question have the French when a man goes to the bad?

Ans. “Who was the woman?”

16. What secrets should a man withhold from his wife?

Ans. That depends on the nature of the case, and the disposition of the wife.

17. Who, perhaps, was the only man known to history that fully and fairly answered all the hard questions put to him by a woman?

Ans. Solomon.

18. What infamous and notorious chief of police used a woman to trap men, and what great novelist devoted a section of a romance to a description of the method?

Ans. Fouche, the chief of the Parisian police, and Balzac is the romance writer in that book of his, Les Chouans. Now, he has a section of that book headed with these words: “The Notion of Fouche,” showing how he wanted to get hold of the enemy that he could not capture on the field.

19. What chapter of the Bible is devoted to warning against women like Delilah, and quote its last two verses. Cite another passage to prove that the author of this chapter had ample experimental qualifications for the warning.

Ans. Pro 7 . See Pro 7:26-27 . 1Ki 11:1-8 proves that Solomon, the author of Pro 7 , had the experimental qualifications for this warning.

20. Cite in order the exploits of Samson.

Ans. (1) Slaying the lion, Jdg 14:5-6 .

(2) Slaying the thirty Philistines, Jdg 14:19 , to get the changes of raiment to pay his wager.

(3) The use of foxes in burning the harvest fields of the Philistines for giving his wife to another, Jdg 15:4-5 .

(4) The great slaughter to avenge the burning, Jdg 15:7-8 .

(5) The slaying of a thousand with the jawbone of an ass, Jdg 15:14-15 .

(6) Carrying off the gates of Gaza, Jdg 16:1-3 .

(7) The breaking of the seven green withes, of a new rope, and the carrying away of the pin and web in which his hair had been woven, Jdg 16:7-14 .

(8) The pulling down of the Philistine temple and his consequent destruction, Jdg 16:29-31 .

21. In what power were all these achievements wrought?

Ans. “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.”

22. In a noted book, Types of Mankind, by Drs. Nott and Gliddon of Mobile, what different rendering is given of Jdg 15:4-5 , and what do you say of the merits of their rendering?

Ans. Turn to Jdg 15:4-5 . This is the way they translate this passage: “And Samson went and took three hundred sheaves of grain and took firebrands and turned them end to end and put a firebrand in the midst between the two ends. And when he had set the brands on fire, he threw them into the standing grain of the Philistines, . . .” What is the merit of this translation? I say, none at all. It is just one of those ways by which men try to evade the marvelous features of scripture.

23. Hither to we have considered Samson as only an embodiment of physical strength, but what proof in the record of his much higher endowments?

Ans. The feats of physical strength make the most vivid impressions on the mind, but there is evidence sufficient in history to show his higher endowments. It is said, without giving details, “he judged Israel twenty years.” The exercise of this function called for knowledge, judgment, and fidelity to God’s law.

His propounding a riddle shows training in Oriental wisdom and his proverbial reply to his enemies who treacherously found its solution shows not only quick discernment but racy humor. His readiness to locate the source of all the hidden assaults upon him indicates a shrewd knowledge of human nature.

We may not assume his inability to lead armies and conduct great campaigns because through the abject spirit of his people there were not only no armies to lead, but there was even that despicable meanness on the part of the people to surrender their own deliverer in bonds to the enemy at their demand. There was no material for an army in a people who thought it necessary to take 3,000 men to arrest one man, and then were afraid to arrest him without his consent. The national cowardice of both Israel and Philistia forms the dark outline of his sublime and solitary courage.

He seems to have been the only brave, absolutely fearless man in the two nations, and stalks among them like a Titan among quail bugging the covert or ready to take flight at the mere sight of him. His life deserves its prologue to which reference has been made. His sin of going unto harlots was the sin of his age characterizing great men of his nation before and after him. He never led Israel into sin like Gideon, nor offered human burnt offerings like Jephthah. He never went into idolatry. It is true that like other and even greater men he could not withstand the persistent tears or continual nagging of a woman, yet he never himself wronged a woman.

His sense of the stern justice of the lex talionis taught in his law and his logical mind are both evident in his reply to his own abject countrymen who rebuked his heavy strokes against the common enemy: “As they did unto me, so I have done unto them.”

For his one great sin against Jehovah he patiently bore the penalty, and, in penitence and prayer, found forgiveness. He wag truly a great man, deserving no help from contemporaries and stands like a solitary mountain on the dead level of a plain.

This, with the pathetic tragedy of his death, gives him his place in human memory and appeals to the imagination of succeeding ages. A mere gladiator or prizefighter would never have awakened the muse of Milton. Therefore we greatly misjudge him if we count him simply a prodigy of physical strength. He stands in the New Testament roll of the heroes of Old Testament faith.

That he was a man of prayer as well as of faith appears from Jdg 15:18 , and Jdg 16:28 . His celebration of his great victory, Jdg 15:16 , his riddle, Jdg 14:14 , and his poem Jdg 16:18 , show him a poet, and his reticence about killing a lion with his naked hands show that he was no braggart even in his own family. You may contrast this with the publicity given to Roosevelt’s lion killing, armed with weapons so deadly that at a distance the lions had no chance.

24. What Old Testament riddles precede Samson’s?

Ans. None.

25. Was Samson a wilful violator of the Mosaic law of marriage in insisting on taking a Philistine wife against the protest of his father and mother, Jdg 14:3 ?

Ans. No, God can make his own exceptions, and this marriage was of the Lord to furnish occasion for smiting the enemy under their own provocation, Jdg 14:4 .

26. What do you learn of the methods and customs of courtship and marriage at that time from Jdg 14:1-18 ?

Ans. (1) The son selects the wife “she pleased his sight.”

(2) The father and mother conduct negotiations.

(3) The son does his own courting “she pleased him in conversation.”

(4) The prospective bridegroom gives a seven-days’ feast in the bride’s city to which her family invites thirty young men.

(5) At the entertainment there is the feast of reason and flow of soul in which riddles are propounded, wagers made, and racy humor employed.

27. What the great sin of Samson?

Ans. In yielding through weariness to the nagging of a bad woman in the disclosure of the secret of his strength after she had thrice demonstrated her purpose of using it to his destruction, and then putting himself in her power. It was telling the Lord’s secret to a harlot, fulfilling the words of Jeremiah:

“Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;

They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:

Their skin cleave to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.” (Lam 4:7-8 .)

28. Did Samson’s strength reside in his hair?

Ans. No, but in keeping his Nazarite vow, of which the unshaved head was the token.

29. What the pathetic elements of the tragedy which followed?

Ans. (1) “He wist not that the Lord had departed from him,” and that he was as any other man. This time, though he shook himself as before, he could not break the bonds.

(2) The enemy took him and put out his eyes.

(3) Bound him in fetters of brass.

(4) Made him grind in the prison house.

(5) On the day of their sacrifice claimed him as the captive of their gods.

(6) Caused him to be exhibited in sport.

30. What indication of God’s mercy appeared in prison?

Ans. His hair began to grow.

31. Cite his possible reflections.

Ans. I preached a sermon on that once, a sermon to backsliders, that Spirit power is given for the good of others, for the deliverance of others, and this man through sin had lost the Spirit power, lost spiritual sight. He was becoming a slave to the enemies of God. While he is grinding in the mill, he hears coming from the valley the cry of a young woman as the Philistines snatched her and she cries out, “O Samson, appointed of God to deliver Israel, help me.” And Samson is blind, powerless. Another story comes from the mountains from an old gray-haired woman, a grandmother, whose old age is put to shame. In a quivering voice she cries, “O Samson, appointed of God as our deliverer, come, help us.” I draw this picture for you as his possible reflection and the way any preacher will feel who loses hi? Spirit power and becomes like other men.

32. What proof of his penitence?

Ans. His humble prayer to God.

33. What evidence of his unselfishness?

Ans. “Let me die with the Philistines; I don’t ask to live and be tried again; I have proven myself unworthy. Just forgive me and deliver these people who have put out my eyes to vengeance and let me die with them.”

34. How may he illustrate the backslider and the final preservation of the saints?

Ans. That is exactly what he was, a backslider. You have to kill them sometimes to bring them back. They get so far off that they grow indifferent and have to be killed to be brought back.

35. Cite Milton’s words in his great poem “Samson Agoites,” illustrating the answer to his last prayer.

Ans. After Samson’s prayer, Milton says in his poem this:

This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed:

As with the force of winds and waters pent,

When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars’

With horrible convulsion to and fro.

Now you are prepared to understand the place of Samson with the other judges. It is the object of this chapter to show that he was a great man and a good man; that he was a man of intelligence; that he was a poet; and on wonder the whole world from that time until now thinks about Samson.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Jdg 13:1 And 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.

Ver. 1. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. ] To whom any sin is an eyesore, but especially apostasy and idolatry, the sins of those Israelites, who were therefore worse than others, because they ought to have been better.

Into the hand of the Philistines forty years. ] During the days of Samson and Eli. Peace they had enjoyed likely, under the three forementioned Judges, Jdg 12:7-9 ; Jdg 12:13-14 and were the worse for it.

“ Luxuriant animi rebus plerunque secundis. ”

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

children = sons.

did evil again = Hebrew added to commit.

evil. Hebrew. ra’a’. App-44.

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

forty years. 1120-1080.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 13

[Now, again] The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. There was a certain man from Zorah, he was of the tribe of Dan, and his name was Manoah; and his wife was barren ( Jdg 13:1-2 ),

And one day she was out in the field and an angel of the Lord visited her there in the field. And told her that she was going to become pregnant, she was going to bare a son and through her son God was going to begin delivering the children of Israel from the Philistines.

Now the angel said, “The son is to be dedicated unto God. You’re not to allow a razor to come to his head.” A Nazarite vow, not cutting your hair. Also he was not to drink any wine, strong drink, anything that came from the vine for he was to be a Nazarite from his birth, dedicated his life. His life was to be dedicated unto God, a commitment of his life to God. Well, she was all excited. She ran and she told her husband about this man that met her in the field, told her that she was going to become pregnant and have a son and that she was not to shave his hair and not give him any wine or strong drink.

And he said, “What did he look like? And what did he tell you?” And he said, “Oh God, if it’s really you that appeared, appear again so we can get some further instructions what we are to do with this child.”

So she was out in the field again and the angel of the Lord appeared again. And she said, “Would you mind waiting here. My husband wants to meet you.” So she ran and got her husband and said, “The man who appeared to me in the beginning is here again.” So Manoah came running up and said, “I just, you know, I heard the story and I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to know, you know, a little bit more instructions. She was sort of excited and I wanna make sure I got the, you know, the instructions straight. How we’re suppose to raise this kid and what we’re supposed to do with him and all, and tell me again.” So the angel repeated he said, “Just like I told her. Don’t give him any wine, anything that comes from the vine, don’t cut his hair. He is to be a Nazarite, dedicated unto God.”

And so Manoah said, “Look, I want-” well he wanted to-

Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, [verse fifteen] I pray thee, let us detain you, until we have made ready a kid for thee. And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though you detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD. So Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What is your name, so that when your sayings come to pass that we might honour you. And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? ( Jdg 13:15-18 )

That word secret, in the Hebrew, is actually wonderful. “Why you ask me my name seeing it is wonderful?”

So Manoah took the kid with a meal offering, and he offered it on a rock unto the LORD: and the angel of the LORD did wondrously; while Manoah and his wife looked on ( Jdg 13:19 ).

For while the fire was coming up, the angel stepped into the fire and descended up to heaven And Manoah fell on his face and said “Oh, we’re gonna be wiped out. We saw an angel of the Lord face to face.”

And his wife said, “Hey, what do you mean? If God wanted to wipe us out why would he tell us we’re gonna have a baby and all this and give us all these promises.”

And so he said, “Well, I guess you’re right.” So the level head prevailed of Manoah’s wife.

So she bare a son, called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him in times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol ( Jdg 13:24-25 ).

And so, the valley of Zorah and Eshtaol are actually eight miles from Jerusalem towards Tel Aviv. And that it is a very beautiful fertile valley through there. It was part of the inheritance of the tribe of Dan. And so this is where he grew up and God’s Spirit began to move on him at various times. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Once again we read that “Israel again did that which was evil,” and once again they were delivered to discipline at the hands of their enemies. In this connection we have one of the strangest stories of the Old Testament, the story of Samson. It is the story of a great opportunity and a disastrous failure in the case of a man who might have wrought a great deliverance but failed.

Everything would seem to have been in his favor. His birth was foretold by an angel visitor. The foretelling led to his special training, for Manoah his father inquired diligently of the angel how he should be trained. These facts make the story of Samson’s failure the more terrible. There is an almost weird suggestiveness in the phrase used by the angel concerning him, “He shall begin to save Israel.” His ultimate failure was as certainly foreknown as was his opportunity.

Samson seems to stand as a symbol of the nation in his strength and possibility and also in his ruin and comparative failure. This will be seen as we follow the story. In the light of the after years there is a tragic pathos in this account of beginnings. “The Spirit of Jehovah began to move him.” Had he but yielded to the impulses of the Spirit, how different a story might have resulted.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Promise of a Nazarite Champion

Jdg 13:1-14

The secret of Samsons strength was a puzzle to his contemporaries. Even Delilah could not account for it, Jdg 16:5-6. Clearly, then, it did not depend on his great height, nor his brawny chest and arms, nor his muscular development. It was due, as Heb 11:32 explains, to his faith, which opened his nature to the Spirit of God. See Jdg 14:6; Jdg 14:19; Jdg 15:14. But faith is always in direct proportion to consecration. The soul cannot give itself in two directions nor serve two masters; and if it draws its energy from the eternal God, there must be strict discipline exercised on the gateways of sense.

This was the intention of the Nazarite vow, which was generally taken for a limited period, but in this case for life. Its three particulars are enumerated in Num 6:4-9. Modern physiology has laid heavy emphasis on the necessity for a mothers careful regimen. How blessed it would be if not mothers only, but fathers and indeed all who influence young life, would, for the sake of Christ and the children, abstain from alcohol! Is this price too much for love to give? See Mar 9:42.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Judges 13, 16

I. We must first ask what principles, regarding the way in which God works deliverance for man, were taught by Samson. (1) The first principle impressed on the minds of his contemporaries must have been, that, “in a state of universal depression, all must ultimately depend on the indomitable strength which is aroused in individuals.” Samson was qualified by his natural gifts to stand alone, and to hearten the people, and give them more courageous and hopeful thoughts. His name, Samson, refers not to his strength but to his temper. It means “sunny.” (2) A second principle illustrated by the life of Samson is, that God has often to deliver His people in spite of themselves. This was impressed on the minds of all observant persons by the fact that the Israelites, instead of flocking to Samson’s standard and seconding his effort to throw off the Philistine yoke, bound him and gave him up into the hands of the Philistines. They would not strike a blow in defence of their own liberty, still less in defence of their own champion. (3) A third principle illustrated by Samson’s career is, that the greatest deliverances are wrought by self-sacrifice; “the dead which Samson slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

II. Another important inquiry is, What was it that constituted Samson’s strength? (1) His strength was not the natural physical strength that accompanies a powerful frame and well-developed muscle. (2) Neither did his strength or success consist in his skill in the use of his weapons or choice of the most effective weapons. (3) Samson’s strength required to be sustained by the ordinary means of life. (4) Samson’s strength abode with him so long as he was faithful to his Nazarite vow, and departed as soon as, for the sake of a fleshly lust, he departed from that vow and put himself into the power of Delilah and the enemies of the God of Israel. (5) God returned to Samson and gave him back his strength. There is no better instance of the use God can make of the wreck of an ill-spent life.

M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 119.

Reference: Jdg 13:8.-H. Hopwood, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 1st series, p. 128.

Jdg 13:9

The name Zorah means “the hornet’s nest.” It was a village of the tribe of Dan on a crag of the spur of a long mountain chain, high up amidst the cliffs. The place had a fame for the powers of mischief it possessed in sheltering or in sending forth the foes of those who were the enemies of Israel.

I. Look first, at the country of Samson. Dan was the extreme northern point in the territory of Israel. It was the last retreat and fastness of the Philistines. The sea-coast bordered on the Mediterranean. The country was fruitful, and remarkable for its rivers, especially the river Eshcol. Its people were wild, crafty, and cruel; they were in the immediate neighbourhood of that Phoenicia whose cruel idolatries and gross naturalism proved so often fatal to Israel. Samson was the most celebrated man of the tribe of Dan.

II. Notice the family of Samson’s parents. In Zorah, the village on the cliff, there lived a Danite farmer and his wife. To this household went the Divine message-a pious, holy, prayerful household; we may be sure we should find they were afflicted in the afflictions of Israel. The entire story of the parents shows a pious and devoted pair, characterised also by simplicity and fear on the part of the man, and a fine spiritual shrewdness on the part of the woman, and in both by the desire to receive and obey Divine instructions.

III. Look at the circumstances of Samson’s education, and consider how strong men are made. A rigid abstinence was to be the material conservatism of strength, training alike body and mind to be the vehicle of spiritual power, and compelling the inference that strong men are made by the education they receive, by their lessons in abstinence and self-denial. A strong man is characterised by two things-by the purpose of his life, and the strength he brings to bear upon it.

IV. Glance at the age of Israel in which Samson was born. There was Providence in the rise of Samson. The Book of Judges gives us the story of a very disordered state of Israel’s history; the record of Israel during a period like that of our Heptarchy or like the annals of the kings of Rome; yet a distinct mark and thread of Divine purpose and plan of government runs through it, as through any other period or epoch of the story of the peculiar people. God watches over the lives of states and the lives of men.

E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 241.

Reference: Jdg 13:12.-Parker, vol. vi., p. 168.

Jdg 13:18-22

I. It is clear that this angel was in human form, for twice Manoah’s wife, twice Manoah, and once the history itself calls him “man” or “man of God.” And yet the Deity of this man is as perfectly evident. When asked His name, He is not afraid to give the one by which Christ is distinctly designated in the ninth chapter of Isaiah, “Secret” or “Wonderful,”-for the two words in the original are the same. At the sight of Him as He ascends, Manoah and his wife fall on their faces to the ground. In the twenty-second verse Manoah expressly asserts respecting Him, “We have seen God.”

II. The language of Christ to Manoah’s wife was all concerning “a deliverance,” which was to come through her. In whatever garb Christ may visit us, it is still an advent; and the purpose of that advent is to strike off a chain, to give liberty, essential, true, eternal liberty, “deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 249.

References: Jdg 13:22, Jdg 13:23.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1340; J. Keble. Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 95. Jdg 13:23.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 440. Jdg 13:24.-I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 149.

Jdg 13:24-25

(with Jdg 16:31)

I. Consider the character of Samson. His character is unlike that of the other heroes of Hebrew story. (1) Alone in the Old Testament he overflows with joyousness. His very name means “Sunlike.” He has a sportive wit which sparkles in rhythmic couplets, flashes in epigrams, plays upon words. (2) This great child of daring and genius is brought up a Nezyir-Elohim with his vow of strictness. But his strictness in one direction was compensated for by laxity in another. His unrivalled bodily strength co-existed with abject moral weakness. (3) Being such as he was, Samson naturally fell lower and lower. When the Philistines shouted, the cords seemed to melt away before the bracing of those mighty sinews; but the chains of his own sin, with which he was tied and bound, he could not unloose.

II. The story of Samson has been called “the seriocomic history of a Hebrew Hercules.” Instead of being comic, it is pathetic and tragic in the highest degree. It is one of those histories of a soul’s fall, in the Bible, which are most like summaries of an almost universal experience; like parables in which we may trace features like our own and those of hundreds more.

III. The question has often been asked, Was the fall of Solomon final? Among the Fathers of the Church different replies have been given; but the heart of the Church has turned to the more favourable answer. May we not hold, with somewhat more assurance, the same hope for the giant judge?

IV. We may gather these lessons from the life of Samson: (1) Flee from every sin that has light in its eye and honey on its tongue. (2) We learn from Samson the weakness of our own will. Our wills must be strengthened: (a) by the sympathy of Christ; (b) by the inward gift of the Spirit.

Bishop Alexander, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. i., p. 78 (see also The Great Question, p. 145).

I. Notice first, that in Samson we have a man of surpassing physical strength. He was from first to last a huge, lone pugilist, capable of dealing tremendous blows: he could smite, rend, crush with his two hands marvellously, and that was all. He recognised his own ability, and did earnestly what he knew he could do.

II. Observe what Samson’s countrymen thought of his amazing strength. (1) They ascribed it to the Spirit of the Lord. Samson’s chief value lay, perhaps, in the one inspiring thought which his prowess awakened-the thought that God was there. (2) The people believed that Samson’s strength, having its source in the Spirit of Jehovah, was intimately connected with the Nazariteship of the man, and depended for its continuance upon the maintenance of that Nazariteship. Thus he served to remind them that their might and their hope as a nation lay in their fidelity to the consecration to which they had been chosen. He taught them that to be strong was to be faithful, and that with faithlessness came weakness and decay.

S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 72.

Jdg 13:25

(with Jdg 14:6, Jdg 16:20, Heb 11:32-34).

If we inquire where the great strength of Samson lay, three answers exist; one in the Old Testament; one in the New Testament; another in the newest testament of all-the current life of our own day.

I. The first response brings us face to face with God. The historian of the Judges traces Samson’s power, by one single and swift step, to Jehovah, and credits his marvellous triumphs to the mighty and immediate movements of the Divine Spirit.

II. What is attributed to God directly and at once in the Old Testament, is set down to the credit of Samson’s “faith” in the New, and accordingly this Divine hero takes his place in the long roll-call of conquering believers, along with Abel and Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, Deborah and David.

III. Looking at Samson in the full blaze of all the lights that shine on human character in the making, what is the answer yielded to the demand, “Tell me where thy great strength lieth?” (1) He was born in an elect home, and belonged to a devout and consecrated family stock, and had been dedicated to God from his birth. (2) Samson’s Nazarism must have exercised an incalculable power upon his mind, and fixed in the “porcelain” of his nature the faith that he had a supreme work to do for God and was responsible to Him. (3) Samson’s natural cheerfulness was one of the sources of his strength. (4) The urgent need of his people provoked and stimulated Samson’s faith, as his vow had inspired it. (5) The teaching of Samson’s fall is, that nothing external, though it be the purest and best, can enable us “to keep the heights the soul is competent to gain.” God, and God alone, is sufficient for continuous progress and final victory.

J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 97

Jdg 13:25

The lesson taught by Samson’s life is that spiritual men are not free from the temptations common to man, and the very eagerness and impulsiveness of some men render them specially liable to fall.

I. The life of Samson is a witness to God’s Spirit from beginning to end.

II. We see from Samson what a priceless possession is the gift of an independent spirit in thinking and acting, such as the Judge in Israel displayed among his fellow-men.

III. Samson’s fall is a picture of everyday experience, when a spiritual man yields to the lusts which war within him and enslave him if they prevail against him.

C. E. Searle, The Cambridge Review, Oct. 21, 1885.

Jdg 13:25

(with Jdg 8:21).

I. The tradition and idea of Samson always associates him with strength, but it was rude, animal energy. Samson belongs to the same age as Gideon, probably also to the same age which Homer has sung.

II. This rude type of strength was sacramental and Divine. Even in the wildest deeds of Samson’s career, there is the teaching of another and higher strength. Rude as he was, and primeval as was his age, his strength was in the name of the Lord, which made heaven an earth.

III. We speak of typical men, representative men. Is such language permissible as applied to Samson. Here the words of Hengstenberg may be quoted: “Samson was the personification of Israel in the period of the Judges; strong in the Lord, and victorious over all his enemies; weak through sin, of which Delilah is the image, and a slave to the weakest of his enemies. His life is an actual prophecy of a more satisfactory condition of the people; one more closely corresponding to the ideal which was first to be imperfectly fulfilled under Samuel and David, and afterwards perfectly in Christ.”

E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 264.

References: Jdg 13:25.-S. Wilberforce, Sermons before the University of Oxford, 1871, p 72. Jdg 14:4.-E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 277. Jdg 14:8, Jdg 14:9.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1703 Jdg 14:14.-Todd, Lectures to Children, p. 210; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 304. 14-Parker, vol. vi., pp. 107, 116. Jdg 15:15-19.-S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 38. Jdg 15:18.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 21. Jdg 15:19.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 120.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

6. Sixth Declension: Under the Philistines and Samson

CHAPTER 13

1. Israel delivered to the Philistines (Jdg 13:1)

2. Manoah and his wife (Jdg 13:2-23)

3. Samson born (Jdg 13:24-25)

The sixth and last declension of Israel in this book is now before us. This section has deep and interesting lessons. The darkest period is reached. The Philistines lorded over Israel. We miss in connection with this declension the statement which occurs in every preceding departure from Jehovah: And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD. Here is no cry recorded nor a return unto the Lord. It seems the greatest indifference controlled the people so that there was no desire to cry to the Lord. And when we come to the deliverance we find that it was an imperfect one. He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (verse 5), is the divine announcement of Samsons work. And how did he end? He died as a captive of the Philistines. But what does the Philistine typify? He represents the religious man, one who has the form of godliness but knows not the power, the ritualistic Pharisee. We quote from Notes on Judges by F.C. Jennings:

Turning to the tenth chapter of Genesis, we find the genealogy of the Philistines. They are the children of Ham, and Ham is, as his name denotes, the black one or sunburnt. Dark indeed, but darkened by the sun. God wanted a man who should show us, as in a figure, or picture, what He sees man who is turned away from Himself (light), so He brings on to the stage of this world a black man, a man made black by the sun, and crystalizes the sorrowful truth in his name, Ham. A very clear picture of the old man. The sun has shone upon him indeed, but he has not received the light. He has rejected the light–has not come to the light, has hated the light, and, of course, it has not enlightened him; but it must have had some effect. What is it? It has been only to darken him. We may truthfully say that if he had never had light he would not have been dark as he is, and the brighter the light, the darker he has become. Now this is surely the picture of the Pharisee rather than the Publican. It was the Pharisee, the religious man, who was warned if the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. It was the Pharisee, the religious man, not the Publican, of whom the Lord testified that his deeds were evil. It was the Pharisee, the religious man of that day, who with the very Light of the World–the true, bright light shining clearly right before his eyes–asked for a sign! As if one should ask for a light at noonday–what would it prove but his blindness? Oh, blind Pharisee, oh, dark Pharisee, oh, thou child of Ham, thou unregenerate religionist, thou unconverted church-member, how great was, and is even up to this day, thy darkness–a black man indeed!

The marks of the Philistine are given as follows:

First. Wherever there is an introduction of carnal principles–that is, principles that the flesh can understand and approve–into the things of God, there is the Philistine.

Second. Wherever there is the teaching of some other way into the land of blessing than by the Red Sea and Jordan (the Cross of Christ) there is the Philistine.

Third. Wherever there are claims to sole authority over the refreshing fountain of Gods Word, which is then tightly shut up, there is the Philistine, for that is how his ancestors treated Abrahams wells.

Fourth. Wherever you get uncertainty as to sins forgiven–a dread, cold fear that all is not well, for there is no knowledge of a sacrifice that takes away sin–there is the work of the Philistine.

Fifth. Wherever you get principles that would bind the energy of faith, there is the Philistine. And one may still further question whether there are not other phases of Philistinism, far more subtle and dangerous in these last days, than these open expressions of it. The Philistine women of whom we shall read were not warriors, but they were always the ensnarers of the Nazarite.

And who is the deliverer out of the hands of the Philistine? A Nazarite. (See our annotations on Numbers 6 of what the Nazarite is and represents. A careful perusal of that chapter is needed to understand the typical meaning of Samson.) Even so the heart knowledge of Christ, our blessed place in Him, as well as the practical life of separation unto which we are called, is the power which delivers from the evil of Philistinism. The Angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah and later also to Manoah. Her name is not given. He announces to her, who was barren, the birth of a son, who was to be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. The mother herself was to abstain from wine and strong drink and defilement with any unclean thing. The messenger, the Angel of the Lord, is the same who had come from Gilgal to Bochim, the Captain of the Lords host, He who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Jehovah Himself. When asked what is thy Name? He answers: It is Wonderful (Isa 9:6). Then He ascended in the flame of the altar. Samson was born and Jehovah blessed him. The Spirit of the Lord even in his young days began to move him in Mahaneh-dan, the camp of Dan. (Dan means judging.)

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

did: Heb. added to commit, etc. Jdg 2:11, Jdg 3:7, Jdg 4:1, Jdg 6:1, Jdg 10:6, Rom 2:6

in the sight: Jer 13:23

delivered: “This seems a partial captivity.”

into the: 1Sa 12:9

Reciprocal: Gen 21:32 – the Philistines Deu 28:29 – thou shalt be Jos 23:15 – so shall Jdg 14:4 – had dominion Jdg 15:11 – Philistines Jdg 15:20 – General Jdg 18:30 – until 1Sa 4:9 – as they have 1Sa 7:13 – subdued 1Sa 8:8 – General 1Sa 12:11 – Bedan Heb 11:32 – Samson

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Subdivision 6. (Jdg 13:1-25; Jdg 14:1-20; Jdg 15:1-20; Jdg 16:1-31.)

Samson and the Philistines: victory, but not rest.

The story of Samson, the last of the judges in this book, is fittingly a sixth and not a seventh subdivision; nor have we a seventh. The number, we well know, to be significant of evil at its height, even though it speak also of limit set to and victory over it: and to this, in every particular, the history corresponds. It is one of strange contrasts and of apparent contradictions: one in which the grace and purpose of God, so manifest in it, seem so little fulfilled in the result; in which the consecration of the Nazarite to God has so little correspondence to any spiritual condition that all through, if we are confined to the letter, there seems scarce a gleam of comfort for the Christian heart. The failure of man is plain, whatever the circumstances in which he may be placed: the greater privileges bestowed on him, the deeper only is his fall. Samson, in this way, -by the strength of the Lord which he manifests, and his loss of it when false to his consecration, -is a lesson impossible to be mistaken as to Israel’s condition,who were themselves. thus nationally separated to God, and untrue to their separation. The Church has failed more signally, inasmuch as she has been called to, and qualified for, a higher separation. Nor, though there have been, and may yet be, partial revivals, will there be for her any complete recovery. Her earthly history ends, as that of this book does, in Philistine captivity still in the main unbroken.

The reason is obvious as to Israel: we read of fresh departure, but of no return nor cry to Jehovah. He acts toward them, indeed, in goodness, and provides a deliverer; but the deliverance itself, being still conditioned upon their repentance, cannot be effected. Samson’s victories bring about, at the most, but an alleviation of their distress; and he himself fails at the last, and dies, though slaying more of the Philistines at his death than in his life.

We have seen, abundantly, what these Philistines stand for. They are the ritualistic, traditional, element in Christendom, -the Judaism in the Church, -the earthly intrusion into what is spiritual and heavenly. We have seen them as hindrances in the path of Abraham and of Isaac, and traced them from the Egyptians by Casluhim and Caphtorim, the united people settling at last on the outward border of the land to which, -Palestine from Philistine, -though never possessing but a fraction, they have given their name. So has the world-church become the “catholic” or universal church.

From Philistine bondage the deliverer is a Nazarite; and thus Samuel, who completes Samson’s work, is like him iii this respect. For the Nazarite is the type of separation from the world, such as belongs to the true church, -from the intoxication of its joys and from its legal claims, as well as from its pollutions; and let this separation be lost, all strength is lost, -the conqueror becomes the slave, the clear sight of the judge becomes but blindness: the history of Samson is repeated. How many times has it been, in fact, repeated!

1. With Samson we are made to see, from the outset, the sovereign grace which prepares the deliverance. His birth is announced by the angel of the Lord, apart from any apparent seeking upon man’s part. He is the son of a woman naturally barren; and the preparation for his coming antedates his birth. In this last it is implied that there are still conditions to be conformed to in order to deliverance.

(1) The predicted deliverer is of the family of Dan. Dan speaks already of the service of rule, as we have seen, -a rule which must, for blessing, be first of all over one’s self. Manoah is a man of Zorah, which reminds us of the sting of sin; while his name, “rest,” nevertheless proclaims already victory over it. The victory is in subjection: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Here is the Danite spirit from which springs the helper.

It is to the woman, however, to whom the angel first appears, and her name we have not. She is reminded of her barrenness, that God’s grace and power may the more appear. She is herself nothing, her very name without importance, and that of her husband unnoticed in the message of the angel: for all here is of God. And agreeing with this is the special emphasis laid upon the woman’s long hair of the Nazarite, to the man a shame, and the renunciation of his glory as such (1Co 11:1-34). Oh the blessing that results when all the glory is given to God, and man owns himself naturally to have forfeited all, that grace may be grace!

(2) In correspondence with all this, it is the woman who receives most readily the divine communication. Manoah, pious as he is, does not feel so sure of its character and meaning. But he looks to God, and is confirmed by the angel’s second visit. This is still to the woman first, but who is permitted to call her husband, that he too may hear from the angel’s lips. But Manoah as yet recognizes only a human messenger, even while recognizing the message. The angel insists simply upon obedience to the word already given; and when Manoah desires to entertain him, refuses to receive from him as man, but bids him offer a burnt-offering to Jehovah. Like Gideon, he is constituted thus a priest to the Lord: the unbelief of the believer is rebuked by his being brought into nearer intimacy; he is turned from man to God, and put into a place in which, in priestly fashion, he may approach God. But Manoah cannot yet understand, and would learn the name of the speaker, that when his word is fulfilled they may, as man, do him honor. Thus the angel’s question, why he should ask after his name? -yet adding, what might well justify inquiry, that it was “Wonderful,” -a name which Isaiah afterward gives us as Immanuel’s” (Isa 9:6); and here, indeed, God and man are brought together in one Person. But Manoah does not yet understand. Still, obedient, he brings his kid and the meal-offering which goes with it, the blessed type of Him in whom a perfect Man would be in due time the Substitute for man, and offers it upon the rock, -no unworthy altar. Then the angel of Jehovah acts according to His name, and ascends to heaven in the altar-flame. God in His holiness is indeed that which, while it consumes the sacrifice turns it to sweet savor, in which it ascends to Him. With this flame the angel, as it were; identifies Himself, and ascends up to heaven. Thus He is revealed to Manoah; thus in the truth of what is here He is made known to every believing sinner, and takes His true and heavenly place.

The woman still it is who enters into the mind of God, however; and her identification with the true Nazarite character, as in the Nazarite’s long hair, is emphasized, as well as the connection of this preparatory part with the history that follows. Her reasoning is simplicity itself, and the truth of it a demonstration. Faith is indeed always simple; unbelief laborious and roundabout, for it is the effort of human will against God, and may well be labor.

3) And now the prophecy is fulfilled, and Samson is born. The name is variously explained. While that of “sun-like” would be etymologically the most simple, and have some support from the words of Deborah’s song (Jdg 5:31), yet that of Josephus, “strong,” seems rather to point to the lesson of his story.* It is the secret of strength that is shown forth in him, both in his victories and in his failure and defeat; and thus it is very far from true that (as Cassel thinks) such an explanation appears to be without historical motive.

{*”Shimshon (LXX. Samson) does not mean ‘sun-like,’ ‘hero of the sun,’ from shemesh (the sun), but, as Josephus explains it (Ant. v., 8, 4), iskuros, the strong or daring one; from shimshom, from the intensive form shimshem of shamem, in its original sense of to be ‘strong,’ or ‘daring,’ not to ‘devastate.'” -(Keil.)}

Samson grows, and the Spirit of Jehovah begins to urge him in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. It had been that of the six hundred men, whose history is given us further on (ch. 18), although the occurrence was much earlier than Samson’s time, and who had gone forth, pressed by the narrow limits into which Amorites and Philistines had combined to crowd them, to found for themselves a new Dan in the north. Such a spot would naturally work upon the youthful mind of Samson, and be used of the Spirit to inspire him with eager patriotism, -a thing which in Israel had not alone nature to commend it. Israel were the people of God, the divine means of fore-ordained blessing for all the families of the earth, and to whom the revelation of God had been committed. The champion of Israel was, by this fact, and though he might have but little intelligence of the fact, the champion of the world’s salvation.

2. As Keil rightly remarks, the story of Samson’s deeds that follows is divided into two parts by the notice of his judgeship in Israel, which lasted twenty years. The first of these -the present section -gives evidently the heroic acts which win for him the place of acknowledged authority which he retains for the time; while the second shows his fall and ruin through being false to his Nazariteship, though in his death he is once more victorious. This descent and restoration, though but at the close of his career, mark the last as a true third section.

The present, as Keil again points out, “includes six distinct acts, which are grouped together in twos; namely (1 and 2), the killing of the lion on the way to Timnath, and the slaughter of the thirty Philistines for the purpose of paying for the solution of his riddle with the clothes that he took from them; (3 and 4), his revenge upon the Philistines by burning their crops, because his wife had been given to a Philistine, and also by the great slaughter with which he punished them for having burned his father-in-law and wife; (5 and 6), the bursting of the cords with which his countrymen had bound him for the purpose of delivering him up to the Philistines, and the slaying of a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.” Of course it does not follow that these six acts sufficiently characterize the portions with which they stand connected; while yet, in this simple way, a numerical structure is shown to exist. This, we may be sure, must have its significance. The number 6 is itself, as we have seen, characteristic of the whole history of Samson; and this, broken up into 3 x 2, becomes the witness of the divine in the midst of all the human failure and sorrow attendant.

(1) The story in all this part is a closely connected one, and all the events spring out of -what is sadly significant as to the final issue here -Samson’s attempt to connect himself with the very people from whom he is to “begin to deliver” Israel. The alliance it is that is the occasion of the conflict: the Philistine and the Nazarite cannot really unite, and the attempt to do so only brings out the essential incompatibility. The Nazarite stands for separation from the world, over which death reigns. The Philistine shows us the world brought in into the holiest things. The women stand here, as they do in the case of Sarah and Hagar, for principles by the embracing of which fruit is sought: and alas, how often do we seek to gain over the world by concessions to the world! -by the adoption of principles which compromise the whole truth of God. Timnath speaks, as we have before seen, of “apportionment,” which, if the town were Israelite, would be divine, -a lot measured out to us from God; but being Philistine, where Dagon, “increase,” has usurped His place, we have a striking confirmation of what has already been indicated as the meaning here. When we measure things by results, these must be, of course, palpable results: those divinely ordained are apt to be too far off, too slow in development, not to say too purely spiritual also, to admit of present discernment and of right appraisal. Thus one Nazarite in desire may be led by an impetuous longing for gains capable of speedy realization, to take up with methods which are worldly and carnal (Philistine), but which, on that very account, yield present fruit. How many souls, in fact, and these often the strongest and most earnest, are thus seduced into Timnathite marriages! How good to remember here the “long patience” needed by the husbandman in order to garner the precious grain; and that duty is ours, results are to be left with God, as they may be safely left. A Timnathite woman may “please” even a Samson “well,” and elder Israelites be overborne, if not deceived, into acquiescence, as were Manoah and his wife; none the less is she Philistine, -the whole thing, indeed, tending directly to the snare of Dagon-worship. Let those who would be helpers in the deliverance of Israel beware of this.

It is quite natural that the Timnathite vineyards should contain lions also. Satan is here in this among his many forms; and the seduction may lead into the ambush, and so the open assault. But here he is to be less feared than elsewhere. The soldier of Christ is more easily lulled to sleep than overcome in battle. The Spirit of Jehovah at once comes upon Samson, and he awakes to his strength, gaining thus a personal experience which is to be fruitful for him afterwards. He rends the lion without a weapon in his hand, and as easily as one would a kid. It is the power of God, but realized in the living energy of man, stripped and bare of all other assistance. With such help the mightiest foe is as easily vanquished as the feeblest. No need to measure difficulties, save only to assure one’s self that the greatest opposition means the greatest triumph; and again, it is the glory of the earthen vessel that the excellency of the power should be of God and not of us.

Yet, after all, spite of this display of strength, Samson is not right with God; and his history is most sadly instructive in this respect. He slays the open foe, and is deceived into the Philistine alliance; and how many are like him today. People can quote the heroism, and use it to set off the Timnathite’s son-in-law: God uses it in the end to break off the alliance. He is bringing the blind by a way he sees not.

But he comes to take the woman that pleases him, and a new experience awaits him on the road. A swarm of bees had hived in the sun-dried carcass of the lion. Death had made room for multitudinous life, and abundant and ordered* activities; and as the product of this there is the honey that, with milk, gave a special character to the land of Canaan. Thus “out of the eater had come forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness.” Out of the power that was against us, met and subdued by the mightier power of God, comes ever sweetness and refreshment for the people of God: and this because of life that has come in in the place of death, and order that has arisen out of the hold of corruption. And this is true Nazarite experience of the transforming power of God, by which that which is contrary to us becomes ever for us. On the cross this was most gloriously manifest, where power was shown in weakness; and in the worst act of rebellion that the world has seen, grace came in to subdue and sanctify to God. So in measure it is in every defeat of the enemy, where the Spirit of God works in the living energy of the saint of God -the Nazarite. The battle-field becomes a banqueting-house; the table is furnished not only “in the presence of our enemies,” but from that which they have provided. But this is the personal experience of faith, -a secret hidden from all but those who have the experience.

{*”The swarm of bees is significantly spoken of as the congregation of bees. Commonly edah designates the congregation of Israel, as regulated by the law. . . . Horapollo, in his work on Hieroglyphics (lib. 1. 62), informs us that when the Egyptians wished to picture the idea of a people of law, they did it by the figure of a bee.” -(Cassel.)}

And this leads on to that which follows, in which the fundamental lack of fellowship between Nazarite and Philistine comes clearly out, and the inevitable strife begins. Samson goes on to accomplish his marriage; makes a feast, according to the custom; and receives thirty companions, all Philistines, to be with him. He who is contracting a life-union with a woman of this people cannot refuse a wider connection. Immediately we find the riddle proposed, -a thing common enough in those days, as a test of wisdom; and which, we have to remember, as in Scripture not simply what the world counts such, but what is such before God. The riddle, in its spiritual meaning, is a true test of this; and it is not to be imagined that a Philistine can explain it. Samson has no such thought: but if they can do this, then they shall have each one a change of garments: for he that can penetrate the secrets of a life with God must have “habits” changed in accordance with it. They could not penetrate it: by dishonest practicing on the Philistine wife they learn it, and are repaid with Philistine garments from Ashkelon, the “fire of infamy.” Thus they are suitably arrayed, and with their own shame; and so the necessary strife commences. The marriage is broken off; and Samson goes up to his father’s house.

(2) The second part of this story now begins, in which Samson is in open conflict with the Philistines all through. At first, indeed, he goes to visit his wife with a kid, ignorant of what has taken place, and finds she has been given to the one who had acted as his “friend,” -the “friend of the bridegroom”: a custom to which afterwards the Baptist makes well-known allusion (Joh 3:29). His wrath breaks out, not as private vengeance against the Timnathite, however, but against the Philistines as a whole. He catches three hundred jackals, and joining them in couples by the tails, with a lighted torch between the tails, he lets go the terrified animals into the cornfields and olive-yards, just at the time of harvest. The destruction must have been immense; and the terror of Samson had already become so great, that, instead of revenging it upon the Israelite enemy, they take cowardly vengeance upon those that had provoked his wrath, and burn the Timnathite and her father with fire. But this does the very opposite of appeasing him. He smites them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.

The spiritual meaning of all this is more difficult than in the last case. The jackal we have seen elsewhere (Joshua, p. 98) to be the type of a nature that burrows in the earth, and feeds upon corruption. The fire behind might well represent the terror of divine wrath when breaking in upon such natures, working upon them, not to conversion and blessing, -mere wrath never does, -but to madness: in which the desire to escape only spreads abroad in a general devastation what they would escape from. The torches, though here very differently used, remind us of those in the hands of Gideon’s men, which wrought the destruction of the Midianites, and would show us this wrath as what is proclaimed in the testimony of living men. Times of widespread alarm in this way have been known in the history of the external church: panics which have been but disaster, and the anticipation of sure coming doom.

Something akin to this seems to be shadowed here, though it may be hard to follow it into details; nor can we speak with any distinctness of the slaughter which ensues. But we may notice that Samson in his proper position of hostility to the power to which Israel is captive is never defeated; nor does he need alliances, or subtlety, or human wisdom, in any way. Alone, and unassisted by human arm, he is ever victorious, as leaning upon almighty power. The lesson of divine sufficiency is complete in him; his very enemies have to recognize it. And this, in its principle, is not an exception to the ways of God. It is only the universal rule written large that we may the more plainly see it: to make an exception of it is to lose the lesson.

(3) The third stage of this strange history is that in which Samson sinks to the lowest, as rejected and bound by his own people; and then rises, through a wonderful victory, to be ruler amongst them. The Philistines, now thoroughly roused by the blows he has inflicted upon them, invade Judah with a host, and pitch in Lehi. The place is named, in anticipation, from the “jaw” which he uses to discomfit them; and it becomes to them a place of crushing defeat. But Judah is completely spiritless and cast down. Almost as much afraid of their God-sent deliverer as of the people under whom they are in bondage, they go down, to the number of three thousand, to the cleft of the rock of Etam, where he had withdrawn, as it would seem, just from such danger, to bind and deliver him into the enemy’s hand. Things are thus with him at the lowest point, while, on the other hand, the grace on his part is beautiful. With the consciousness of divinely-given strength upon him, he cannot use it against the people whom he is called to deliver, but quietly submits to be bound in order to being handed over to the Philistines. It is Judah, the lion-tribe, which thus is seen in lowest humiliation.

When the Philistines shout in triumph, the Spirit of Jehovah once more comes upon Samson, and the new cords are but as flax in the fire: with one effort he is free. Once free, the jawbone of an ass arms him for the fight; and with this he slays a thousand men. He who had used before the mouth of a living ass to rebuke the madness of a prophet, uses now the jaw of a dead one as a weapon to defeat an army. The song of deliverance emphasizes this:

“With the jaw of an ass I have made asses of them;*

With the jaw of an ass I have smitten a thousand men.”

{*This seems the real force of the so-called paronomasia. The Hebrew, as now punctuated, -“billechi hachamor chamor chamorathaim,” -reads as in the margin of our common version, “a heap, two heaps,” where the identity of words is altogether lost. The Septuagint, reading “chamor chamartim,” translates ezaleipson ezeleipsa autous, “I have destroyed them,” the Vulgate following this with delevi eos. It might be rendered “with the jaw of the turbulent I have troubled them,” giving the ass its ideal character, and preserving the connection between noun and verb. It seems to me, however, that, taking advantage of this, Samson uses the verb as more strictly synonymous with the noun, as above. The expression has the disadvantage with us of seeming mere vulgar coarseness, which it is not.}

The ass is not, in Scripture, the expression of stupidity, as with us; but, generally, of intractability under the yoke: and so it seems here. The easy victory showed them to be rebellious to the yoke of divine sovereignty, -which, after all, it was bootless to resist. The mouth of the ass had rebuked the prophet, more stubborn than itself: his mouth had uttered rebellion, and by a beast’s mouth was reproved. Here, where rebellion had been more open and utter, a beast’s jawbone is used to smite it down. Here, indeed, is a folly that is made manifest to all.

He casts the instrument of destruction out of his hand, and calls the place the “Jawbone Height.” The lesson is worthy of preservation in the name. But God, who cares for his poor servant, must make him realize his own need of the same lesson. The heat and fatigue of the encounter affect him with a mortal thirst; and he who had been dealing death to others realizes a danger from which his own hand is powerless to deliver him. He can only cry to Jehovah, and plead with Him His recent interposition on his behalf as argument for a new one. A good argument it is with the Unchangeable One, who is not a man that He should repent: yea, “with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.” The lesson, too, must be complete to be a lesson; and He who has just delivered Samson from the hands of the uncircumcised cannot possibly allow him now to fall into them. God, therefore, answers by cleaving the “Bruising place that is in Lehi,” so that water conies out of it, and he revives. The likeness to the rock cleft in the wilderness can hardly -is surely not intended to -escape us. The cross and its results for us are needed to be held in constant remembrance; and the place of bruising -machtesh, the “mortar” -is not likely to make the reference here less plain. The connection with the scene that has just been before us is also evident: so plain that our common version speaks of it as the hollow place” -“socket” it might mean -“that was in the jaw.” That this is not right, the fact of its being “in Lehi unto this day” is sufficient witness: but the connection is also clear. And the bruising-place that is in Lehi reminds us surely of the Philistine defeat. Yet the spring of water is in marked contrast. Not by “bruising,” but by being “bruised for our iniquity,” did the Lord of glory bring forth living water for our death-faint souls; and here the soldiers of the cross find continually their admonition and refreshment. Here, too, is the secret of how alone Satan is bruised, and every enemy succumbs in turn. How necessary a lesson for God’s Nazarites, if they are to know and preserve the secret of strength! Samson is now ready for the judgeship; and he judges Israel twenty years.

3. We now come to the final section of the story, in which we find a rapid descent on Samson’s part to utter destruction, as far as he can accomplish it. Indeed, although recovered by divine grace, it is only by death that he breaks the bonds by which he has bound himself. His life goes out in one last victory, in which he perishes with the Philistines, -the link that he had forged with them still prevailing even over his recovered strength. While, on their part, as it has been ever with the enemies of the people of God, the victory of the Philistines over him becomes their worst defeat at last.

In this last section, Gaza, the place of their “strength,” is the witness of their double defeat. The strength of God, which alone Samson’s is, measures itself with that of the enemy, and prevails, spite of the mortal weakness found in the vessel of it. It is only thus the more manifested as divine; and in holiness also against sin wherever found: the lust which is the lawlessness of a heart away from God, and the pride which would pervert His grace into a shelter for such license.

(1) In the first part of what we have here, -the divine gift of strength in Samson, so far from being recalled, is displayed in a way so signal as at first sight to obscure the evidence of the decline which has begun, and which is so soon to make itself disastrously apparent. For the moment he gains another brilliant triumph, as would appear, in the very presence of the enemy, appalled to utter inaction by the contemptuous daring of the Israelite. He walks into the place of strength, and breaks his way out of it again, leaving it dismantled, like a conquered city. He carries the gates in a direction pointing significantly enough toward Israelitish territory; and then drops them, with equal insult, where they can find them, -as if, after all, there were no need to deprive them of defenses so insignificant as they had proved. Even the moral decline which his presence there had demonstrated, and which (whatever their heathen manners might be), they could realize, no doubt, in a follower of Jehovah, seemed to have no effect in diminishing that wonderful strength which had long before carried shame and ruin into the midst of their broken ranks. All this, for them, was a warning they would have done well to listen to, and did not; and the last blow came upon them unawares.

But for Samson, also, there was a warning to which he listened no more than they. True, God had not left him to the consequences of his pride and lust, and the strength of the Nazarite had not deserted him. But while he had splendidly insulted the enemy, he had not harmed him; and the strength which should have delivered Israel had, in this case, been put forth only to deliver himself. He had been forced to flee, and not the Philistines. He had shown his strength, but gained no dignity. As between them and him God might still act for him, help him to escape by night even from the house of shame which he had entered, was there no warning for him as to that besetting sin of his which might yet make this gateless Gaza a steel trap to hold him? Oh, that he had heard! Oh, that men did hear!

From the first, the snare for the Nazarite had been a Philistine alliance. Then he had openly, and, in a sense, honorably, courted it. It was to be a marriage. The matured man seeks this no more; but alas, cannot restrain his lusts, though plainly unlawful. He can no more vindicate indulgence, but he can yield to it. How often is this, too, today the pit into which fall God’s Nazarite strong men! Principles with which open alliance is refused are toyed with, and courted dishonorably, embraced and thrown off at will. Yet, for a while strength may still be shown and exploits done, the enemy’s stronghold be dismantled, and the gates carried away to an indefinite somewhere, facing toward Hebron. This they never reach, nor do we find there Samson either.

(2) Grace resisted hardens the heart, and Samson, with his lesson all unlearned, is found now in the vale of Sorek, “entanglement?” No strong city is here to keep him in, -nothing but a weak woman’s arms, and they are stronger than the gates of Gaza. Delilah means “exhausted, weak”; and it is by that which appears to us such we are often overcome: for in this respect, at least, we credit ourselves with strength, and do not find it. The blindness induced by sin is wonderful, and Samson here wonderfully illustrates it. He takes one step after another, drawing nearer and nearer to the precipice into which at last he plunges recklessly. Each step taken makes the next easier. With each his eyes are more completely sealed. Then,when his ruin is complete, he is unconscious of it until the consequences overtake him. The details are here exceptionally hard to translate into spiritual meaning, while we need not be less assured that such there is all through. On the other band, it scarcely needs to moralize where moralizing is so easy. Such is the fatal power, -the hardening through the deceitfulness of sin!

(3) The Philistines make it the triumph of their god that Samson is delivered into their hands, and thus it is needful that Jehovah manifest Himself. Samson also, blinded, begins to see more clearly than when the lust of his eyes enthralled him. His bonds set him free; his darkness enlightens him. The goodness of God it is that thus leaves His people to the consequences of their sins, that the bitter fruit may condemn the tree; and they may, by experience, however painfully, find fellowship with Him. How much better, indeed, to learn by His word through faith! And this should be our profit from these sad and shameful histories. Still, if the Father’s chastenings are needed, it is what must not be denied us: “He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.”

The application made by some of this history of Samson to the Lord seems too partial, too much contradicted by other parts, too little in harmony with the character of the book, and with its place in the book, to be accepted with any satisfaction. Partial applications of this nature are easy to be made, but tend to confusion of all interpretation, and have been the reproach of the allegorical, especially. Even although we can put nothing better in their place, it becomes our duty to reject them in the interest of clear and consistent exposition of the word of God. The close of Samson’s history is a most solemn one; and at the end of this series of declensions and revivals, comes in a most solemn place. We must leave it for the prayerful examination of the Lord’s people, and as what calls for exercise of heart as well as for searching of Scripture. To introduce here a representation of the Lord’s blessed work would seem to take the edge from the admonition it should convey to us, if at least this should be assumed to be the real object here of the Spirit of God. If it be simply meant as the suggestion by the history of the failed Nazarite of that true and perfect One who alone has never failed, this is no longer typical interpretation, and does not fall within the compass of these brief outline notes.

Judges

F. W. Grant.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

SAMSON THE NAZARITE

The close of chapter 12 furnishes the history of three other civil judges, and then we reach that of another warrior as picturesque as Gideon or Jephthah. Sampsons life is so full of inconsistencies and mysteries from the divine standpoint, that again we can only await the explanations until we shall know as we are known.

THE PROMISED SON (Judges 13)

Here is another theophany, for the angel of the Lord is none other than Jehovah Jesus.

The beginning of this captivity to the Philistines is recorded in Jdg 10:6, apparently, when the historian digresses to speak of the probably simultaneous captivity to the Ammonites on the east and here returns to the south again.

Zorah (Jdg 13:2) was in the tribe of Dan on the border of Judah, and hence approximate to the Philistine country. For the law of the Nazarite, compare Numbers 6. Manoah and his wife were of faith and piety remarkable for these times, as illustrated in the formers prayer (Jdg 13:8). Verse 16 identifies the angel with Jehovah. The word secret (Jdg 13:18) is, in the Revised Version, wonderful, and harmonizes with the name of Christ given in Isa 9:6. Wondrously (Jdg 13:19) is the same word.

The angels words (Jdg 13:16) are similar to those of our Lord in Mat 19:17, and spoken for the same reason, viz: to instruct Manoah that the viands must be offered, not to a human prophet or an ordinary angel, but to the Lord Himself.

While both husband and wife had faith, the latter seemed to possess the better spiritual understanding, as judged by verses 22-23. She was able to draw a logical inference, and her words offer a suggestive

Text for a Gospel Sermon

Jdg 13:23 suggests Gods Love Proven by His Work. His manifestation in the flesh of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice and resurrection from the dead, and His revelations in the written Word, to follow the outline of verse 23, are all evidences of His purpose to eternally save them that believe.

SWEET FROM THE STRONG (Judges 14)

The key to this chapter: Jehovah by retributive proceedings, was about to destroy the Philistine power, and the means he chose was not an army but the miraculous prowess of this single-handed champion. In such circumstances the provocation to hostilities could only spring out of a private quarrel, and this marriage seems to have been suggested to Samson as the way to bring it about. See verse 4 as authority for this line of thought.

In the East parents negotiated the marriages of their sons, and the Israelites were not commanded against intermarrying with the Philistines as they were not of the accursed nations.

It may not be that Samson loved this woman so much, as that he found her well-suited for his purpose, which may explain the last clause of verse 3.

Observe that it was by the Spirit of the Lord, i.e., through superhuman courage and strength, he was enabled to slay the lion (v. 6), an incidental circumstance by which with others of the kind, he was gradually trained to trust in God for greater and more public work.

The bees are clean creatures, and time enough must have elapsed for the sun and birds of prey to have put the lions carcass in fit condition for their use (Jdg 14:8-9). The thirty companions (Jdg 14:11) were to honor Samson, and yet the outcome shows that they were there with ulterior motives also. Sheets (Jdg 14:12) means linen garments. If ye had not plowed with my heifer (Jdg 14:18) means if ye had not used my wife to deceive me. There must have been some reason why Samson went to Ashkelon (Jdg 14:19), and it is thought the men of that city were particularly hostile to Israel. Jdg 14:20, compared with the first two verses of the next chapter, indicates base treachery to Samson, which might well arouse just resentment.

THE HILL OF THE JAWBONE (Judges 15)

Samson now feels that he has a reason for revenge (Jdg 15:3), which (with assistance perhaps) he executes in Jdg 15:4-5. The margin of the Revised Version translates foxes as jackals, a cross between a wolf and a fox, which prowl in packs. Two of these were tied together, tail by tail, a slow fire brand being fastened between each pair. The brand lighted, they were started down the hillside into cornfields, and, of course, nothing could stop them as they ran widely here and there.

The remainder of the chapter calls for little explanation, except to say that the slaughter accomplished by the jawbone of the ass must have been, like the breaking of the cords that bound Samson, a supernatural act.

THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE (Judges 16)

The event at Gaza is discreditable to Samson both on account of his sinful conduct and the careless exposure of his life to his enemies, but God is still pleased to continue His power toward him (Jdg 16:3).

The event with Delilah is equally discreditable and he pays the penalty for it (Jdg 16:21). Of course Samsons strength did not lie in his hair, but in God (Jdg 16:17), and in the consecration of his life to Him as symbolized by the growth of his hair. He broke his Nazarite vow by cutting it and in that sense cut himself off from God. The loss of spiritual power to the Christian is always accompanied by grinding in the prison-house of sin.

But how merciful God was to Samson that on his repentance, as evidenced in the growth of his hair again, He should have vouchsafed power to Him once more, albeit it was to use him further as an executioner (Jdg 16:22-30). It is important to bear this latter point in mind, to relieve Samson of the charge of suicide. He put forth his strength against the pillars of the temple in the exercise of his office as a public magistrate, and his death was that of a martyr to his countrys cause. His prayer was doubtless a silent one, but the fact that God revealed it and caused it to be recorded is an evidence that it was heard and approved.

As we dwell on the biographies of these judges, so reprehensible, and yet so used of God, we see the great distinction between a holy life and simply power for service. There are Christians seeking the latter who appear indifferent to the former, but for the individual in eternity it is the former that counts and not the latter. God may use any man, but it is only the holy man who seeks to do His will who pleases Him. Let our ambition be not to do great things so much as to be acceptable to Christ when He comes (2Co 5:9). Samson, Like Jephthah, is honored for his faith in God (Heb 11:32), and it was great, but he could never be honored for anything else.

QUESTION

1. Name the three judges referred to in the close of Judges 12.

2. Define the law of the Nazarite. Judges

3. Quote Isa 9:6.

4. Quote Mat 19:17 and explain it.

5. Quote Jdg 13:23 and expound it, giving topics and divisions.

6. State the key to chapter 14.

7. What is the meaning of sheets in Jdg 14:12?

8. Describe the burning of the Philistine cornfields.

9. Where lay Samsons strength?

10. Was Samson a suicide?

11. Which is preferable, and why, power for service or a holy life?

12. Quote 2Co 5:9.

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

By now, the words this chapter begins with are all too familiar. Whenever God’s people strayed from worshiping the true God to serving idols, God let them be oppressed by some enemy. In this case, it is the Philistines who God used to discipline his people for forty years ( Jdg 13:1 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Thomas says Zorah was on the border of Dan and Judah, which was close to the area the Philistines occupied. Interestingly, Dan means “a judge” and Jacob had foretold Dan would judge his people ( Gen 49:16-17 ). Whether this has specific reference to Samson, we cannot say for sure. It is plain, from the directions given to his mother, that Samson was to be a Nazarite ( Num 6:1-21 ). A Nazarite was a man or woman consecrated to the Lord for a set period of time, which could even extend to a lifetime as it did in Samson’s and Samuel’s case ( Jdg 13:1-7 ; 1Sa 1:11 ; 1Sa 1:28 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Jdg 13:1. The children of Israel did evil again That is, fell into idolatry, not, it seems, after the death of Abdon, the last judge, but in the days of the former judges. The Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines These were a very inconsiderable people. They had but five cities of any note. And yet, when God used them as a staff in his hand, they were very oppressive and vexatious. Forty years To be computed, not from Abdons death, but before that time. This is the longest oppression which the Israelites ever sustained, but Sir John Marsham and others think it is not different from that mentioned Jdg 10:7-8, but one and the same with it; the Philistines harassing the Israelites in the west, while the Ammonites oppressed them in the east; and that, though the tyrannical treatment of them by the Philistines lasted longer, yet it began at the very same time with the other, and rendered their distress the greater. Others suppose, that it did not begin till after Jephthahs death, and that the great slaughter of the Ephraimites made by him greatly encouraged the Philistines to rise against Israel, one of Israels chief bulwarks being so much weakened.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jdg 13:1. Forty years. There are no exact dates of the commencement and termination of this servitude. Therefore to harmonize it with the four hundred and eighty years from the going out of Egypt, to the fourth year of Solomon, 1Ki 16:1, nearly twenty years of this oppression must have expired on the birth of Samson. Consequently, it must have commenced about the end of Ibzans presidency.

Jdg 13:3. The angel of the Lord appeared. He is called the angel of the Lord, Gen 22:15; he sware by himself, and was assuredly the Messiah. Manoah calls him God, and his wife, JEHOVAH. And though he declined accepting the sacrifice, and bade Manoah offer it upon the rock to JEHOVAH, who does wonderful things; yet it was solely in the way that our Saviour refused to be called good, being then in the form of a servant. The answer he returned, when asked to tell his name, was in substance the same as when Jacob asked his name. It was secret, or wonderful, as Isa 9:6.

Jdg 13:5. A Nazarite. See note on Num 6:1. He shall begin the work of deliverance, and David shall temporally, and the Messiah spiritually complete it.

Jdg 13:19. The angel did wondrously, by causing fire to consume the sacrifice. The LXX, followed by the Vulgate, read, Manoahoffered it on a rock to the Lord, who doth wonderful things.

Jdg 13:22. We shall surely die. This sentiment being of frequent occurrence in the Hebrew scriptures, Jdg 6:22; and in the Gentile mythology, some of the ancients must have died in their approaches to the divine presence. Ovids Metam. lib. 3., and Cicero of the nature of the gods, lib. 3., mention the death of Semel, mother of Bacchus by Jupiter, how she was consumed by the approaches of the father of the gods, when she had rashly desired to see his brightness; and that the child, dropping &c., was sewed up in the thigh of Jupiter, to complete the time of pregnancy. Dr. Stukely thinks that these sacred figures designate the divine and human geniture of Christ.

Jdg 13:23. If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering. Be encouraged, oh trembling soul; the Lord who inspires thy prayer, will give thee an answer of peace.

REFLECTIONS.

This chapter opens with a new scene of mercy, in the singular preparation for the deliverance of Israel, long and frequently oppressed. It exhibits the never-failing care of God over his church and people, and a care most clearly manifested by special interpositions, whenever they cry under the visitations of his hand.

The good news came to Manoah and his wife when they expected no such favour, but were apparently fully reconciled to their childless lot. It is almost an invariable method with God to try those whom he greatly honours: let the christian wait, and God will one day more than realize his hopes, and deliver him from every fear.

This divine Hercules, this infant judge of Israel was born in the tribe of Dan, whose lot was bounded by Philistia, on the west; and thus the Lord raised up a deliverer in presence of the enemy. Ah, haughty oppressor, let thy youths and thy princes tremble: He is born who shall requite thee according to thy sins. Moses also was born in the time of oppression; and thus God will ever in due time save those that call upon his name.

Samsons extraordinary endowment of strength was connected with the purity and laws of a Nazarite; for many in Israel, it is probable, equalled him in point of natural strength; and in that respect, as well as in several circumstances of his birth, he is a figure of Christ. If his locks were at any time shorn, that strength was forfeited. God has generally been pleased to give some covenant seals to man, as the rainbow with Noah, circumcision, &c. In like manner, all that divine power afforded the christian to vanquish his foes, is connected with his abiding in covenant with God.

Conformably to all those intimations, the Spirit of the Lord began to move him in the camp of Dan. The soul of a hero and a prince made its appearance when occasions offered; almost every man designated of providence for eminence in church or state, has afforded in infancy and youth hopeful indications of future glory. Who can decypher the emotions of the youthful mind when contemplating the character of a hero in the field, a minister in the sanctuary, or any object which interests the soul? Surely these are omens that God has for him better things in store than are yet revealed. Surely these emotions should prompt him to industry in mental and virtuous improvements. Every young man, contemplating so many scripture characters, whose hearts were early touched with grace, should most religiously devote himself to God, that he may be ready for every work and service to which he may be called.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jdg 13:1-24. The Birth of Samson.

Jdg 13:1. Ds usual introduction.

Jdg 13:2. Zorah (p. 31) is now Sara, 800 ft. above the valley of Sorek (Wady es-Surr), 17 m. W. of Jerusalem. In Jos 15:33 and 2Ch 11:16 it is no longer Danite, but Judahite, evidently because the Danites of the town had moved to the north (Judges 18).

Jdg 13:3. On the angel of the Lord see 21*. The words but thou shalt conceive and bear a son belong to Jdg 13:5, and should be deleted here.

Jdg 13:4. The idea was that a person who partook of anything fermented or putrified was thereby rendered unfit for consecration to the Deity.

Jdg 13:5. As a Nazirite (pp. 103, 105) Samson was set apart, not by his own voluntary act but by the will of God, from the day of his birth and during his whole life, the sign of his consecration being his unshorn hair. He was not required to abstain from wine. The post-exilic Nazirite (Numbers 6*) bound himself by a vow for a time, during which he abstained from wine, and on the expiry of his vow he cut off his hair and presented it at the sanctuary. In Jdg 13:5 b read he will be the first to deliver Israel.

Jdg 13:6. A man of God was an inspired man, a prophet (1Sa 2:27; 1Sa 9:6-8; 1Ki 12:22, etc.). So impressed was Manoahs wife that she abstained from asking the questions which she would have put to an ordinary stranger: What is thy name? Whence comest thou?

Jdg 13:12. Manoah asks (1) what will be the manner of the child, the mode of his upbringing, the regimen prescribed for him, and (2) what will be his calling or occupation. Instead of answering his questions, Yahwehs angel repeats the injunctions already given to the mother.

Jdg 13:16. With His refusal to eat bread contrast Gen 18:8, noting the gradual spiritualising of ideas regarding God.

Jdg 13:17 f. Like Jacob (Gen 32:29*), Manoah asks, but in vain, what is the Divine name, which is inscrutable. Not Gods unwillingness to reveal Himself, but mans incapacity for a fuller revelation, is the ground of mystery.

Jdg 13:19. Cf. Jdg 6:19-21. Many scholars read unto the Lord that doeth wondrously. The remaining words belong to Jdg 13:20.

Jdg 13:21 indicates another advance in theological reflection. Once on a time God walked and talked with men; now it is death to see God (cf. 1Sa 28:13). Yet a womans quick instinct conquers fear.

Jdg 13:24. Samson comes from Shemesh, the sun, and means either sunny or little sun. Only the width of the valley separated Zorah from Beth-Shemesh (p. 31), the house of the sun, evidently an ancient centre of sun-worship.

Jdg 13:25. The superhuman energy which Samson began to display is ascribed to the working of Yahwehs spirit in him (see Jdg 3:10*). What is said of Mahaneh-dan does not agree with Jdg 18:12; and some propose to read Manahath-dan, the home of the Manoah clan.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

F. The sixth apostasy chs. 13-16

"From chapters 13 to 18, the author concentrates on the tribe of Dan, which had been one of the largest and most prominent tribes during the wilderness march (Num 2:25-31). In the period of the judges, however, Dan seemed helpless against the Amorites (Jdg 1:34) and moved northward to find new territory (chs. 17-18). Contrasted with these failures are the exploits of Samson, whose personal achievements are detailed in four chapters. Yet his own life was a strange mixture of the strength and weakness that epitomized the tragic conditions within the tribe itself." [Note: Wolf, p. 460.]

1. Samson’s birth ch. 13

The purpose of this chapter is to show how the Lord provided the Israelites with a deliverer from their Philistine oppressors.

The Philistine oppression 13:1

The translation "again did" in Jdg 13:1 implies that the Philistine oppression followed the Ammonite oppression chronologically. However, the Hebrew idiom these words translate does not necessarily mean that. It can also mean, and in view of Jdg 10:6-7 must mean, the Israelites "continued to do" evil. The Philistines and the Ammonites began oppressing Israel at approximately the same time (ca. 1124-1123 B.C.). [Note: See Robert G. Boling, Judges, p. 85.]

"More than any previous agent of deliverance . . . Samson demonstrates that the divinely chosen leaders were part of Israel’s problem rather than a lasting solution." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 392.]

The present 40-year oppression by the Philistines did not end until Samuel, also a judge (1Sa 7:6), defeated them at Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7; ca. 1084 B.C.). Samson only began to deliver Israel from the Philistines (Jdg 13:5). At the end of his life and story, things in Israel were worse than at the beginning. The Philistines continued their oppression of the Israelites into King David’s reign.

I have already referred to the antagonism of the Philistines on Israel’s southwestern flank (Jdg 3:31; Jdg 10:7). This nation continued to increase in power during the period of the judges and became Israel’s major enemy by the end of the amphictyony and the beginning of the monarchy.

The Philistines were, ". . . a powerful sea people that settled in the coastal strip in S.W. Palestine, extending along the Mediterranean from Joppa to S. of Gaza . . . about 50 miles long and 15 miles wide. . . .

"The Philistines are said to have come from Caphtor [Crete] (Amo 9:7; Jer 47:4; cf. Deu 2:23). . . .

"The Philistines were a non-Semitic people. . . . They appear as a tall, Hellenic-looking people. . . .

"Their power and threat to Israel were due to a large extent to their political organization. It consisted of a league of five great cities [Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gath]. . . .

"Besides their warlike nature, effective political organization and economic power, as the result of the fertile farming section they inhabited, Philistine militarism, which was a continual threat to Israel, was explainable by their early control of the iron monopoly. Iron came into widespread use in Palestine around 1200 B.C. Philistines knew the secret of smelting it, which they evidently got from the Hittites. They were able to import, smelt, and forge iron and made use of various iron military weapons. By enforcing a rigid monopoly over Israel, the Philistines were able to make great strides in military encroachments upon Israelite territory [cf. 1Sa 13:19-22]. . . .

"The Philistines were intensely religious. They celebrated their victories in the ’house of their idols’ (1Sa 31:9) [cf. Jdg 16:23-27]. . . . Dagon . . . ’fish’ was represented with the hands and face of a man and the tail of a fish. . . . To . . . him they offered thanksgiving when they had taken Samson (Jdg 16:23-24)." [Note: Unger’s Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Philistines," by Merrill F. Unger, pp. 859-61.]

The Philistines (Caphtorim) evidently lived in Canaan in small numbers as early as the patriarchal period (Gen 21:32; Gen 26:1; cf. Deu 2:23). However, their major migration into Canaan took place in the first quarter of the twelfth century B.C. (1200-1175 B.C.). [Note: John Garstang, The Foundations of Bible History: Joshua, Judges, p. 287. See also Trude Dothan, "What We Know about the Philistines," Biblical Archaeology Review 8:4 (July-August 1982):20-44.] This would have made them more recent settlers in Canaan than the Israelites. Samson evidently began his judgeship about 1105 B.C. One writer argued that Samson was roughly contemporary with Jephthah and Gideon, which would place the beginning of his judgeship earlier. [Note: Washburn, p. 424.] He based his view on the fact that the writer recorded no rest period that preceded the beginning of Samson’s judgeship (Jdg 13:1). He saw a continuation of the conflict with the Philistines mentioned in Jdg 10:7. These arguments seem weak to me.

The Philistines continued to frustrate the Israelites until David subjugated them early in his reign (ca. 1004 B.C.; 2Sa 5:17-25). However, the Philistines continued to oppose the Israelites until the Babylonian Captivity removed both people groups from the land (cf. Isa 14:29-32; Jeremiah 47; Eze 25:15-17; Amo 1:6-8). The land of the Philistines became known as Philistia. "Palestine" is a Greek word that comes from Philistia. The Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) gave Canaan the name Palestine.

The writer recorded no Israelite cry for help from the Philistine oppressors. Later we shall see that the Israelites did not cooperate with Samson in opposing this enemy. The Philistines appear to have been attractive neighbors. The Israelites cooperated with them readily instead of opposing them and driving them from the Promised Land.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE ANGEL IN THE FIELD

Jdg 13:1-18

IN our ignorance not in our knowledge, in our blindness not in our light, we call nature secular and think of the ordinary course of events as a series of cold operations, governed by law and force, having nothing to do with divine purpose and love. Oftentimes we think so, and suffer because we do not understand. It is a pitiful error. The natural could not exist, there could be neither substance nor order without the over-nature which is at once law and grace. Vitality, movement are not an efflorescence heralding decay as to the atheist; they are not the activity of an evil spirit-as sometimes to confused and falsely instructed faith. They are the outward and visible action of God, the hem of the vesture on which we lay hold and feel Him. In the seen and temporal there is a constant presence maintaining order, giving purpose and end. Were it otherwise man could not live an hour; even in selfishness and vileness he is a creature of two worlds which yet are one, so closely are they interwoven. At every point natural and supernatural are blended, the higher shaping the development of the lower, accomplishing in and through the lower a great spiritual plan. This it is which gives depth and weight to our experience, communicating the dignity of the greatest moral and spiritual issues to the meanest, darkest human life. Everywhere, always, man touches God though he know Him not.

No surprise, therefore, is excited by the modes of speech and thought we come upon as we read Scripture. The surprise would be in not coming upon them. If we found the inspired writers divorcing God from the world and thinking of “nature” as a dark chamber of sin and torture echoing with His curse, there would be no profit in studying this old volume. Then indeed we might turn from it in discontent and scorn, even as some cast it aside just because it is the revelation of God dwelling with men upon the earth.

But what do the writers of faith mean when they tell of divine messengers coming to peasants at labour in the fields, speaking to them of events common to the race-the birth of some child, the defeat of a rival tribe-as affairs of the spiritual even more than of the temporal region? The narratives, simple yet daring, which affirm the mingling, of divine purpose and action with human life give us the deepest science, the one real philosophy. Why do we have to care and suffer for each other? What are our sin and sorrow? These are not material facts; they are of quite another range. Always man as more than dust, better or worse than clay. Human lives are linked together in a gracious and awful order the course of which is now clearly marked, now obscurely traceable; and if it were in our power to revive the history of past ages, to mark the operation of faith and unbelief among men, issuing in virtue and nobleness on the one hand, in vice and lethargy on the other, we should see how near heaven is to earth, how rational a thing is prophecy, not only as relating to masses of men but to particular lives. It is our stupidity not our wisdom that starts back from revelations of the overworld as if they confused what would otherwise be clear.

In more than one story of the Bible the motherhood of a simple peasant woman is a cause of divine communications and supernatural hopes. Is this amazing, incredible? What then is motherhood itself? In the coming and care of frail existences, the strange blending in one great necessity of the glad and the severe, the honourable and the humiliating, with so many possibilities of failure in duty, of error and misunderstanding ere the needful task is finished, death ever waiting on life, and agony on joy-in all this do we not find such a manifestation of the higher purpose as might well be heralded by words and signs? Only the order of God and His redemption can explain this “nature.” Right in the path of atheistic reasoners, and of others not atheists, lie facts of human life which on their theory of naturalism are simply confounding, too great at once for the causes they admit and the ends they foresee. And if reason denies the possibility of prediction relating to these facts we need not wonder. Without philosophy or faith the range of denial is unlimited.

From the quaint and simple narrative before us the imaginative rationalist turns away with the one word-“myth.” His criticism is of a sort which for all its ease and freedom gives the world nothing. We desire to know why the human mind harbours thoughts of the kind, why it has ideas of God and of a supernatural order, and how these work in developing the race.

Have they been of service? Have they given strength and largeness to poor rude lives and so proved a great reality? If so, the word myth is inadmissible. It sets falsehood at the source of progress and of good.

Here are two Hebrew peasants, in a period of Philistine domination more than a thousand years before the Christian era. Of their condition we know only what a few brief sentences can tell in a history concerned chiefly with the facts of a divine order in which mens lives have an appointed place and use. It is certain that a thorough knowledge of this Danite family, its own history and its part in the history of Israel, would leave no difficulty for faith. Belief in the foreordination of all human existence and the constant presence of God with men and women in their endurance, their hope and yearning would be forced upon the most sceptical mind. The insignificance of the occasion marked by a prediction given in the name of God may astonish some. But what is insignificant? Wherever divine predestination and authority extend, and that is throughout the whole universe, nothing can properly be called insignificant. The taws according to which material things and forces are controlled by God touch the minutest particles of matter, determine the shape of a dew drop as certainly as the form of a world. At every point in human life, the birth of a child in the poorest cottage as well as of the heir to an empire, the same principles of heredity, the same disposition of affairs to leave room for that life and to work out its destiny underlie the economy of the world.

A life is to appear. It is not an interposition or interpolation. No event, no life is ever thrust into an age without relation to the past; no purpose is formed in the hour of a certain prophecy. For Samson as for every actor distinguished or obscure upon the stage of the world the stars and the seasons have cooperated, and all that has been done under the sun has gone to make a place for him. One who knows this can speak strongly and clearly. One who knows what hinders and what is sure to aid the fulfilment of a great destiny can counsel wisely. And so the angel of Jehovah, a messenger of the spiritual covenant, is no mere vehicle of a prediction he does not understand. Without hesitation he speaks to the woman in the field of what her son shall do. By the story of Gods dealings with Israel, by the experiences of tribe and family and individual soul since the primitive age, by the simple faith of these parents that are to be and the honest energy of their humble lives he is prepared to announce to them their honour and their duty. “Thou shalt bear a son and he shall begin to deliver Israel.” The messenger has had his preparation of thought, inquiry deep, devout, and pondering, ere he became fit to announce the word of God. No seer serves the age to which he is sent with that which costs him nothing, and here as elsewhere the law of all ministry to God and man must apply to the preparation and work of the revealer.

The personality of the messenger was carefully concealed. “A man of God whose countenance was like that of an angel of God very terrible”-so runs the pathetic, suggestive description; but the hour was too intense for mere curiosity. The honest mind does not ask the name and social standing of a messenger but only-Does he speak Gods truth? Does he open life? There are few perhaps, today, who are simple and intelligent enough for this; few, therefore, to whom divine messages come. It is the credentials we are anxious about, and the prophet waits unheard while people are demanding his family and tribe, his college and reputation. Are these satisfactory? Then they will listen. But let no prophet come to them unnamed. Yet of all importance to us as to Manoah and his wife are the message, the revelation, the announcement of privilege and duty. Where that divine order is disclosed which lies too deep for our own discovery, but once revealed stirs and kindles our nature, the prophet needs no certification.

The child that was to be born, a gift of God, a divine charge, was promised to these parents. And in the case of every child born into the world there is a divine predestination, which whether it has been recognised by the parents or not gives dignity to his existence from the first. There are natural laws and spiritual laws, the gathering together of energies and needs and duties which make the life unique, the care of it sacred. It is a new force in the world-a new vessel, frail as yet, launched on the sea of time. In it some stories of the divine goodness, some treasures of heavenly force are embarked. As it holds its way across the ocean in sunshine or shadow, this life will be watched by the divine eye, breathed gently upon by the summer airs or buffeted by the storms of God. Does heaven mind the children? “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father.”

In the marvellous ordering of divine providence nothing is more calculated than fatherhood and motherhood to lift human life into the high ranges of experience and feeling. Apart from any special message or revelation, assuming only an ordinary measure of thoughtfulness and interest in the unfolding of life, there is here a new dignity the sense of which connects the task of those who have it with the creative energy of God. Everywhere throughout the world we can trace a more or less clear understanding of this. The tide of life is felt to rise as the new office, the new responsibility are grasped. The mother is become-

“A link among the days to knit

The generations each to each.”

The father has a sacred trust, a new and nobler duty to which his manhood is entirely pledged in the sight of that great God who is the Father of all spirits, doubly and trebly pledged to truth and purity and courage. It is the coronation of life; and the child, drawing father and mother to itself, is rightly the object of keenest interest and most assiduous care.

The interest lies greatly in this, that to the father and mother first, then to the world, there may be untold possibilities of good in the existence which has begun. Apart from any prophecy like that given regarding Samson we have truly what may be called a special promise from God in the dawning energy of every child life. By the cradle surely, if anywhere, hope sacred and heavenly may be indulged. With what earnest glances will the young eyes look by and by from face to face. With what new and keen love will the child heart beat. Enlarging its grasp from year to year, the mind will lay hold on duty and the will address itself to the tasks of existence. This child will be a heroine of home, a helper of society, a soldier of the truth, a servant of God. Does the mother dream long dreams as she bends over the cradle? Does the father, one indeed amongst millions, yet with his special distinction and calling, imagine for the child a future better than his own? It is well. By the highest laws and instincts of our humanity it is right and good. Here men and women, the rudest and least taught, live in the immaterial world of love, faith, duty.

We observe the anxiety of Manoah and his wife to learn the special method of training which should fit their child for his task. The fathers prayer so soon as he heard of the divine annunciation was, “O Lord, let the man of God whom Thou didst send come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.” Conscious of ignorance and inexperience, feeling the weight of responsibility, the parents desired to have authoritative direction in their duty, and their anxiety was the deeper because their child was to be a deliverer in Israel. In their home on the hillside, where the cottages of Zorah clustered overlooking the Philistine plain, they were frequently disturbed by the raiders who swept up the valley of Sorek from Ashdod and Ekron. They had often wondered when God would raise up a deliverer as of old, some Deborah or Gideon to end the galling oppression. Now the answer to many a prayer and hope was coming, and in their own home the hero was to be cradled. We cannot doubt that this made them feel the pressure of duty and the need of wisdom. Yet the prayer of Manoah was one which every father has need to present, though the circumstances of a childs birth have nothing out of the most ordinary course.

To each human mind are given powers which require special fostering, peculiarities of temperament and feeling which ought to be specially considered. One way will not serve in the upbringing of two children. Even the most approved method of the time, whether that of private tutelage or public instruction, may thwart individuality; and if the way be ignorant and rough the original faculty will at its very springing he distorted. It is but the barest common. place, yet with what frequency it needs to be urged, that of all tasks in the world that of the guide and instructor of youth is hardest to do well, best worth doing, therefore most difficult. There is no need to deny that for the earliest years of a childs life the instincts of a loving faithful mother may be trusted to guide her efforts. Yet even in those first years tendencies declare themselves that require to be wisely checked or on the other hand wisely encouraged; and the wisdom does not come by instinct. A spiritual view of life, its limitations and possibilities, its high calling and heavenly destiny is absolutely necessary-that vision of the highest things which religion alone can give. The prophet comes and directs; yet the parents must be prophets too. “The child is not to be educated for the present-for this is done without our aid unceasingly and powerfully-but for the remote future and often in opposition to the immediate future The child must be armed against the close-pressing present with a counter-balancing weight of three powers against the three weaknesses of the will, of love and of religion The girl and the boy must learn that there is something in the ocean higher than its waves-namely, a Christ who calls upon them.” On the religious teaching especially which is given to children much depends, and those who guide them should often begin by searching and reconsidering their own beliefs. Many a promising life is marred because youth in its wonder and sincerity was taught no living faith in God, or was thrust into the mould of some narrow creed which had more in it of human bigotry than of divine reason and love.

“What shall be the ordering of the child?” is Manoahs prayer, and it is well if simply expressed. The childs way needs ordering. Circumstances must be understood that discipline may fit the young life for its part. In our own time this represents a serious difficulty. What to do with children, how to order their lives is the pressing question in thousands of homes. The scheme of education in favour shows little insight, little esteem for the individuality of children, which is of as much value in the case of the backward as of those who are lured and goaded into distinction. To broaden life, to give it many points of interest is well. Yet on the other hand how much depends on discipline, on limitation and concentration, the need of which we are apt to forget. Narrow and limited was the life of Israel when Samson was born into it. The boy had to be what the nation was, what Zorah was, what Manoah and his wife were. The limitations of the time held him and the secluded life of Dan knowing but one article of patriotic faith, hatred of the Philistines. Was there so much of restriction here as to make greatness impossible? Not so. To be an Israelite was to have a certain moral advantage and superiority. It was not a barren solidarity, a dry ground in which this new life was planted; the sprout grew out of a living tree; traditions, laws full of spiritual power made an environment for the Hebrew child. Through the limitations, fenced and guided by them, a soul might break forth to the upper air. It was not the narrowness of Israel nor of his own home and upbringing but the license of Philistia that weakened the strong arm and darkened the eager soul of the young Danite. Are we now to be afraid of limitations, bent on giving to youth multiform experience and the freest possible access to the world? Do we dream that strength will come as the stream of life is allowed to wander over a whole valley, turning hither and thither in a shallow and shifty bed? The natural parallel here will instruct us, for it is an image of the spiritual fact. Strength, not breadth, is the mark at which education should be directed. The intellectually and morally strong will find culture waiting them at every turn of the way and will know how to select, what to appropriate. In truth there must be first the moral power gained by concentration, otherwise all culture-art, science, literature, travel-Droves but a Barmecide feast at which the soul starves.

The special method of training for the child Samson is described in the words, “He shall be a Nazirite unto God.” The mother was to drink no strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. Her son was to be trained in the same rigid abstinence; and always the sense of obligation to Jehovah was to accompany the austerity. The hair, neither cut nor shaven but allowed to grow in natural luxuriance, was to be the sign of the separated life. For the hero that was to be, this ascetic purity, this sacrament of unshorn hair were the only things prescribed. Perhaps there was in the command a reference to the godless life of the Israelites, a protest against their self-indulgence and half-heathen freedom. One in the tribe of Dan would be clear of the sins of drunkenness and gluttony at least, and so far ready for spiritual work.

Now it is notable enough to find thus early in history the example of a rule which even yet is not half understood to be the best as well as the safest for the guidance of appetite and the development of bodily strength. The absurdities commonly accepted by mothers and by those who only desire some cover for the indulgence of taste are here set aside. A hero is to be born, one who in physical vigour will distinguish himself above all, the Hercules of sacred history. His mother rigidly abstains, and he in his turn is to abstain from strong drink. The plainest dieting is to serve both her and him-the kind of food and drink on which Daniel and his companions throve in the Chaldean palace. Surely the lesson is plain. Those who desire to excel in feats of strength speak of their training. It embraces a vow like the Nazarites, wanting indeed the sacred purpose and therefore of no use in the development of character. But let a covenant be made with God, let simple food and drink be used under a sense of obligation to Him to keep the mind clear and the body clean, and soon with appetites better disciplined we should have a better and stronger race.

It is not of course to be supposed that there was nothing out of the common in Samsons bodily vigour. Restraint of unhealthy and injurious appetite was not the only cause to which his strength was due. Yet as the accompaniment of his giant energy the vow has great significance. And to young men who incline to glory in their strength, and all who care to be fit for the tasks of life, the significance will be clear. As for the rest whose appetites master them, who must have this and that because they crave it, their weakness places them low as men, nowhere as examples and guides. One would as soon take the type of manly vigour from a paralytic as from one whose will is in subjection to the cravings of the flesh.

It soon becomes clear in the course of the history that while some forms of evil were fenced off by Nazaritism others as perilous were not. The main part of the devotion lay in abstinence, and that is not spiritual life. Here is one who from his birth set apart to God is trained in manly control of his appetites. The locks that wave in wild luxuriance about his neck are the sign of robust physical vigour as well as of consecration. But, strangely, his spiritual education is not cared for as we might expect. He is disciplined and yet undisciplined. He fears the Lord and yet fears Him not. He is an Israelite but not a true Israelite. Jehovah is to him a God who gives strength and courage and blessing in return for a certain measure of obedience. As the Holy God, the true God, the God of purity, Samson knows Him not, does not worship Him. Within a certain limited range he hears a divine voice saying, “Thou shalt not,” and there he obeys. But beyond is a great region in which he reckons himself free. And what is the result? He is strong, brave, sunny in temper as his name implies. But a helper of society, a servant of divine religion, a man in the highest sense, one of Gods free men Samson does not become.

So is it always. One kind of exercise, discipline, obedience, virtue will not suffice. We need to be temperate and also pure, we need to keep from self-indulgence but also from niggardliness if we are to be men. We have to think of the discipline of mind and soul as well as soundness of body. He is only half a man, however free from glaring faults and vices, who has not learned the unselfishness, the love, the ardour in holy and generous tasks which Christ imparts. To abstain is a negative thing; the positive should command us-the highest manhood, holy, aspiring, patient, divine.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary