Judges 13:15-25 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

Bible Comments

the Promise Fulfilled

Judges 13:15-25

Manoah's wife comforted her husband with admirable tact. How often her words come back to us, at the different stages of life! The fact that God continues to bless and use, to answer prayer and give revelations of Himself, may be quoted as a reason for believing that He has not cast us off. Would He have showed us such things as these and then kill us? His love in time past forbids us to think so.

Samson means sunny. A happy, laughing lad, with his profuse crown of unshorn hair-is it any wonder that the soldiers of the garrison, situated on the Dan-frontier, welcomed him? And the Spirit of God began to play on his young soul, as a minstrel plays on his harp. Such is the literal rendering of “began to move.” Oh, happy are they whose natures lie open to God's touch, so that the least movement produces a quick and glad answer! As the Aeolian harp will respond to the kiss of the zephyr or the moan of the rising storm, so be it with our hearts and lives. Thus our unconscious influence may become as songs without words.

Judges 13:15-25

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.c

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 honour?

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 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: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the campd of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.