What a most interesting scene this must have been! It seems as if the man and his wife did nothing but look on. Yes, our faith can go no further. To lift a tool upon the altar is to pollute it. Exodus 20:25. Jesus is both the sacrifice, the rock or altar on which the sacrifice is offered, and the High Priest to offer. Well might they look on when the Lord did things so wondrously. There could be no longer a question who this was, when he ascended in the flame of the altar. Whether fire came down from heaven, or whether the Lord caused it to issue from the rock to consume the sacrifice, it is not said; but the acceptableness of the sacrifice could not be doubted, when the wonderful angel ascended with it before God. Reader, how very precious are such views, in type and figure, we meet with occasionally in the Old Testament, of that one grand and all-sufficient offering which our Lord Jesus made by himself under the New dispensation? And oh! how very, very refreshing to the souls of God's people now, is the consideration, that our dear Lord, as Mediator, gives a sanctity and sweetness to all the pure offerings of our hearts, in perfuming them with the odours of his blood and righteousness, and ascending in the flame of our devotions which he himself, by his Holy Spirit, hath excited; and carries them, as our High Priest, before the throne! Oh! may my soul never presume to draw nigh, but under the censer of this Great High Priest! And may my soul never cease to draw nigh, now I have such an High Priest and Advocate with the Father, who is the propitiation for my sins. 1 John 2:1-2.
Related Commentaries of Judges 13:19
Judges 13:19-20
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.