Forty years under the Philistines, and no one has cried out this time — Israel has settled into the oppression. So God moves first. An angel comes to a barren woman in a faithful household with news of a son, and a rule for his whole life: no wine, no unclean food, no razor. He will be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he will “begin to deliver Israel.” The parents ask how to raise him. The angel gives a name too wonderful to tell, and goes up in the altar flame.
A study in Judges 13 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 8 min read
A Nazarite Unto God From The Womb
“Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing: for, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: 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.”
Judges 13:4-5
This time Israel does not even ask for a rescuer, and God sends one anyway — through a household in Zorah that had stayed faithful while the nation drifted. The vow is unusual: normally a Nazarite chose it for a set time (Numbers 6); this child is set apart for life, before birth, and the rules reach back to his mother’s table while she carries him. Note the word begin: Samson will start a deliverance he never finishes. That is left for Samuel and David.
“God had an important work for the promised child of Manoah to do, and it was to secure for him the qualifications necessary for this work that the habits of both the mother and the child were to be carefully regulated… The child will be affected for good or for evil by the habits of the mother.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 561
Teach Us What We Shall Do Unto The Child
“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 what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah.”
Judges 13:8-9
Manoah’s prayer is the prayer of a parent afraid of getting it wrong: come back and teach us. God does not rebuke the request; He grants it, and the angel simply repeats the instruction — the mother is to keep the same discipline she is asking her son to keep. The task of raising the deliverer was not left vague. It began with what the household ate and drank, and with two people who cared enough to ask twice.
Why Askest Thou After My Name, Seeing It Is Secret?
“And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?… and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. 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.”
Judges 13:18-20
The word rendered “secret” is the same one Isaiah uses for the coming child — “his name shall be called Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6). This is no ordinary angel: He receives the offering, does “wondrously,” and rises to heaven in the fire. Manoah panics — “we shall surely die, because we have seen God” — and his wife answers with plain sense: if God meant to kill us, He would not have taken our sacrifice or told us all this. Fear and faith, married to each other.
The Spirit Of The LORD Began To Move Him
“And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Judges 13:24-25
Everything is in place: a praying mother and father, a life consecrated before birth, the blessing of the LORD, and the Spirit already stirring in the boy. Few people in Scripture are handed a better beginning. What Samson does with it — the wasted strength, the broken vows, the eyes put out — is the long, sad answer to how much a good start is worth without a surrendered will.
“As the boy grew up it became evident that he possessed extraordinary physical strength. This was not, however, as Samson and his parents well knew, dependent upon his well-knit sinews, but upon his condition as a Nazarite, of which his unshorn hair was a symbol. Had Samson obeyed the divine commands as faithfully as his parents had done, his would have been a nobler and happier destiny.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 562
