References (14)
And there was a man from Zorah [25 km west of Jerusalem, just north of Beit-Shemesh], from the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah [meaning: resting place; from the word noach meaning rest]. And his wife was barren and had not borne any children. [The phrase is very similar to , and the reader immediately makes the connection to the story of Abram and Sarai, who were also unable to have children. It is interesting that the man is first identified geographically, then by tribe, and finally by name.]
And Manoah pleaded (asked – Hebr. atar) with the Lord (Yahweh) and said, "O Lord (Adonai), please let the man of God (Elohim) whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do with the child who is to be born." [Here, a less common word for prayer is used, which often also involved a sacrifice. The repetition of "us" suggests that he was jealous that the messenger had come to his wife and not to him.]
And God (Elohim) listened to Manoah's voice, and the angel of God (Elohim) came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.
Manoah then got up and followed his wife and came to the man and asked him, "Are you the man who spoke to the woman (my wife)?"
He replied, "I am." [It is I.]
Manoah said, "Now that your word has come to pass (what you have said has happened), what is the commandment (binding legal decision – Hebr. mishpat) for the young man and what we should do [with him]?"
And the angel of the Lord (Yahweh) said to Manoah, "Of all that I have said to the woman, let her keep (guard, protect, preserve) it.
And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord (Yahweh), "Please stay, so that we may prepare a kid before you."
And the angel of the Lord (Yahweh) said to Manoah, "Even if you keep me, I will not eat your bread, and if you prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord (Yahweh)." For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord (Yahweh).
And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord (Yahweh), "What is your name? For when your words come true (what you have said will be fulfilled), we will honor you (literally "and we will give you glory" from the word kavod)."
And Manoah took the kid with the grain offering and sacrificed it on the rock to the Lord (Yahweh), and the indescribable thing was done, and Manoah and his wife saw it.
And it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from above the altar, that the angel of the Lord (Yahweh) ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife saw it, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
And the angel of the Lord (Yahweh) did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. At that time, Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord (Yahweh).
And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God (Elohim)."
And his brothers and all his father's house came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol [in the Lowlands] in the burial place [and hometown] of his father Manoah.
[Zorah was the hometown of Simeon's family, and Eshtaol is only 2 km north of it. The cities are located 25 km west of Jerusalem, just north of Beit-Shemesh, see also , .]
And he judged Israel for 20 years. []
[Samson had a weakness for women. There was nothing magical about his hair being shaved off; his strength did not come from his hair. It was his Nazirite vow, which he subordinated to Delilah's manipulations instead of to God. That was the reason God left him. He simply abandoned his original mission. When his hair grew back, he returned to his original mission.
Samson's way of being a Nazirite differs from what is written in . He does not seem to have had any restrictions about not coming near anything dead. In addition, he killed many people, which is not part of a normal Nazirite vow. But he still had God's calling to be a kind of Nazirite, where hair is a symbol of this.]
