Bible Commentaries

Judges 3:7, Judges 4:1, Judges 6:1-11, Judges 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, 1 Samuel 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, Numbers 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 Matthew 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 Numbers 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 2 Kings 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 Genesis 27:9; 1 Samuel 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. 1 Samuel 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— Revelation 19:10, Revelation 22:8-9; and see Acts 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 Genesis 32:29; Exodus 3:13; Proverbs 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 Isaiah 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"; Exodus 33:20; see also Genesis 32:20 and Deuteronomy 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 Luke 1:80, and Luke 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

Judges 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 Hebrews 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 Judges 13:12.

The supreme question which parents should ask.—A question which God permits to be pat to himself.—God alone can know the true way of training a human life.—It is in vain to ask God's guidance after the foundations of the life have been laid and its policy has been determined upon. The child is to be trained up from its earliest moment.—There is a sense in which there is no time of unconsciousness to the child: we are making impressions even when those impressions are not accompanied by acts of intelligence.—Surely blessed is that child who has never seen anything in father or mother that is not true, beautiful, and good.—It would seem the easiest thing in the world to train a child; in reality it is the most difficult.—Every child has its own peculiar psychology.—Every child has its own peculiar motive, impulse, vision of things, and purpose.—The very wisdom of God is required in the right training of children.—But the child cannot be trained aright until the parent has a correct conception of life itself.—If life is a question of this world, of immediate health, wealth, and enjoyment, then the policy of child-training is easy and simple enough; but if life here is but the beginning of real life, if the present state of existence is but a gate opening upon true destinies and illimitable spheres of action, then light from above is needed, and guidance and comfort from the Father of all men.—Let parents be encouraged to consult God about child-training.—Let every child be the subject of special prayer.—Let the parent be able to say, should occasion arise, to each child, "I have prayed for thee," as Christ said to Simon Peter.

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?"— Judges 13:18.

Men are continually driven back from secret altars, and forbidden to indulge their curiosity in sacred places.—We may receive anonymous blessings.—It is difficult to distinguish sometimes between curiosity and reverent inquiry.—Sometimes we are more interested in the secret things than in the things revealed. When we are conscious of such interest we may know that we are animated by curiosity, and not by the spirit of reverential inquiry.—In coming to the Bible we must come for ripe fruit, for practical blessings ready to be handled, for the things which we can immediately understand and apply; and we must not be deterred from our use and enjoyment of these because a secret seems to be hidden within them all, and a ghostly presence seems to be moving in shadow across the pages as we peruse them.—There is a point at which the knowable ends: at that point we may either become fools or wise men—fools because we say there is nothing worth knowing, or wise men by saying the temporal must be conducted in the light of the eternal, the finite must be ennobled by a consciousness of the infinite, the human must be lifted up to its noblest significance by the assured presence and judgment of the divine.