“When hope seems barren, God plants deliverance.”
“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord
delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.”
– New International Version
We have watched this rhythm for twelve chapters: rebellion, oppression, outcry, rescue. Chapter 13 opens with only the first two beats; no one even bothers to pray. Forty years—an entire generation—feel the iron grip of the Philistines, a Sea-Peoples group whose excavated pottery and two-chamber temples dot the southern coast of modern Israel. The people of God are spiritually numb, yet heaven is already moving.
Cross-references
• Judges 3 :7; 10 :6 – earlier recitals of the same pattern
• 1 Samuel 13 :19–22 – Philistine policy of disarming Israel
“There was a certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, whose wife was childless, unable to give birth.”
The camera narrows from national crisis to a nameless woman in a small Danite town. Scripture often begins new chapters of salvation in a womb that will not open (Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah, Elizabeth). Barrenness in the ancient Near East was not only sorrow but social shame; yet God delights to make hopeless soil fertile.
A messenger—malakh YHWH, “the Angel of the Lord”—appears first to the wife, not the husband. Western readers may miss how startling this is in a patriarchal culture: God honors her with the initial revelation. Early Christian writers such as Jerome saw here a faint foreshadowing of Mary’s visitation in Luke 1.
Cross-references
• Genesis 18 :10–14; 1 Samuel 1 :19–20 – closed wombs opened by
promise
• Luke 1 :26–38 – another angelic birth announcement
“You will conceive and give birth to a son… the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb.”
Hebrew nazir means “one set apart.” Normally an adult chose
a Nazirite vow for a season (Numbers 6 :1-21). Samson, like John the
Baptist, receives it before birth and for life:
• No grape products – a sign of sobriety and self-denial
• No razor – a visible badge of consecration
• No contact with death – ritual purity
Theologically, God’s grace precedes human choice (Jeremiah 1 :5; Galatians 1 :15). Historically, the tribes of Dan will soon migrate north, squeezed by Philistine pressure—yet God plants a deliverer right on the border.
“Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy…’”
Manoah’s request is humble and practical: How do we raise a child chosen by God? Parents still ask the same. Notice that the messenger simply repeats what he told the wife. God affirms her testimony; Manoah must learn to trust what heaven already spoke through her.
“As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame.”
Manoah offers a young goat on a rock. The text says the angel “did a wondrous thing.” The Hebrew adjective pĕlîʼ (פֶלִיא) also appears in Isaiah 9 :6 (“Wonderful Counselor”), hinting at divine mystery. The messenger rises with the smoke—the sacrifice becomes a ladder between worlds.
Terror grips Manoah: “We are doomed to die! We have seen God!” His wife answers with calm logic and quiet faith: If God planned to kill us, He would not have accepted our offering or given these promises. Throughout the Samson cycle women show more spiritual perception than men (here, later Delilah in a tragic way, and even Samson’s mother again in rabbinic tradition).
Literary Note
The scene forms a miniature theophany (appearance of God)
resembling Gideon’s earlier encounter (Judges 6 :17-24). Both accounts
use a rock altar, a meal that becomes fire, and fear of death after
seeing God—a narrative echo that links Gideon’s and Samson’s
callings.
“The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh-Dan…”
“Samson” (Shimshon) is related to shemesh, “sun.” In a land bullied by Philistines who worshipped grain and fish gods, God raises a “little sun” to begin warming chilled faith.
Archaeology locates Zorah and Eshtaol on opposing hills overlooking the Sorek Valley—the very borderland where Philistine and Israelite cultures met. Recent digs show Philistine pottery layers here in the 12th–11th centuries BC, aligning well with the biblical timeline.
Yet the text says Samson will “begin” to save Israel (13 :5). His victories will be partial and flawed. Judges keeps us longing for a fuller Redeemer—the true Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4 :2).
Cross-references
• Luke 1 :76-79 – John the Baptist “goes before” the Lord, another
Nazirite-like figure
• Malachi 4 :2 – “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its
rays”
• Augustine saw Samson’s birth as “an early sign of the strength that
grace gives, not the flesh.”
• John Calvin noted Manoah’s desire for “renewed instruction,” urging
believers to ask God to deepen understanding rather than seek new
revelations.
• Charles Wesley wrote a hymn stanza (1762) referring to “Samson’s
strength” as a type of the Spirit’s power in the believer.
malakh YHWH – not merely “an angel” but often a
manifestation of God Himself. Jewish commentator Rashi called the figure
“the Prince of the Presence.” Early Christians read many “Angel of the
Lord” appearances as the pre-incarnate Christ.
na·zir – root n-z-r, “to separate, to crown.” In Isaiah 11 :1
the wordplay appears again: a netzer (shoot) will spring from
Jesse’s stump—another set-apart deliverer.
“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” (Charles Wesley, 1744). Though an Advent hymn, its plea for a deliverer who “sets Thy people free” resonates with the aching decades under Philistine rule.
Lord of wondrous flame,
You speak hope into barren places and plant deliverance before we can
even ask.
Set us apart, body and soul, for Your purposes.
Teach us, like Manoah’s wife, to trust Your word even when others doubt
it.
Stir us by Your Spirit to shine as small suns in a shadowed world,
until the true Dawn breaks and every chain falls.
In the name of Jesus, our complete Savior. Amen.