Samson The Promise Fulfilled. So the woman [in due time] gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the boy grew and the LORD blessed him.
And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at times in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. Jdg 13:24-25
INTRODUCTION
This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.
The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.
It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.
There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.
Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances
INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.
RULE OF THE JUDGES, Judges 3:5-16:31
Following repeated apostasy and oppression, the Israelites were successively delivered:
6. From the Philistines by Samson, Judges 13-16
29. What was the promise of Samson’s youth?
THE LORD RAISES UP JUDGES
THE BIRTH OF SAMSON
Then Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, “Please let us detain you and let us prepare a young goat for you [to eat].”
The Angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.” For Manoah did not know that he was the Angel of the LORD.
Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may honor you?”
But the Angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful (miraculous)?” [Isa_9:6]
So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the LORD, and He performed miracles while Manoah and his wife looked on.
For when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Angel of the LORD ascended in the altar flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this they fell on their faces to the ground.
The Angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah or his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the LORD.
So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen God.”
But his [sensible] wife said to him, “If the LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have announced such things as these at this time.”
So the woman [in due time] gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the boy grew and the LORD blessed him.
And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at times in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
Judges 13:15-25
THE PROMISE FULFILLED
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.
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