The Isrealites offend the Lord again and are forced under the power of the Philistines for 40 years.An angel of the Lord appears before the barren wife of the Danite Manoah. He tells her to conceive, but she should abstain from alcohol, unclean food, the cutting of the hair. (My notes say this is a Nazarite vow). She tells Manoah, who prays for the angel's return so he might teach them what to do for the child.
The angel returns and repeats his instructions. Manoah asks him to stay, and the angel tells him to set up a sacrifice for the Lord. He refuses to tell Manoah his name. When the fire gets going pretty well, and Manoah offers his offering of goat and cereal as holocaust, the angel rises to the sky from the flames. The couple realize they definitely had an angel and Manoah thinks they will die because they have seen God, but Manoah's wife points out that if the Lord had wanted to kill them, he would have done so - indeed, the Lord has accepted their holocaust. She bears a son named Samson.
1 comment:
No one should cut HIS hair because he is to be a Nazirite (Debbie Reynolds is a Nazarine, I assume it's the same thing). Not cutting hair shows their devotion to God. Samson, however, had no choice and couldn't cut his hair throughout his entire life.
Manoah asks the "man" to stay so they can prepare a young goat. The "man" says that he won't eat it if they fix it and to offer it to the Lord. Manoah also asked his name so they could honor him at the fulfillment of his words. He said, "It is beyond understanding."
(Hebrew - "wonderful")
Strange how Manoah, the patriarch and only named character in this story, is the one who's afraid when the angel ascends and his wife (who remains nameless) is calm and realizes what's going on.
Notes indicate the Samson is representative of Israel, in that, he was called by God from birth, was obviously and outwardly blessed by God with special powers, but he chased foreign women which ultimately led to his downfall just as Israel constantly did (worshiped foreign gods).
Also, this is another in a long list of "immaculate conceptions".
Samson - Hebrew for "sun" or "brightness"
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