Holy Bible

Manoah; and his wife. Judges 13 The angelic appearances to Manoah and his wife H. J. Bevis. I. THE UNKNOWN VISITOR. Manoah's wife was just the woman to be visited by an angel — bold, energetic, large-hearted, believing. God's gifts are regulated in their extent by our capacity for receiving them. We should have diviner visitations if we were fitted for them, or could appreciate them. II. THE FEARFUL INFERENCE. We never get into the presence of the supernatural, but we are ready to say, "Let not God speak with us, or we die." Whence comes this universal dread of God? I have seen a cross with the image of the dead Christ; the cross in the midst of nature's fairest scenes, telling of sin, of suffering, of death. So there is always with us, in the midst of life's engagements and joys, the shadow or the memory of some sin or sorrow. When God comes to a man, and separates him from other men the man feels, and confesses the sinfulness of his sin, and at first thinks he shall surely die. When God comes to us in His dispensations, when by a touch He causes our flesh to wither, when He removes friends, or strips us of property, we are filled with fear. It is only the sight of God in Christ "reconciling the world unto Himself," the revelation of God in sacrifice, that can calm our minds and quiet our fears. III. THE CONCLUSIVE ARGUMENT. It is the woman's: with her finer perceptions and keener senses, she sees the truth as by intuition — she does not arrive at the conclusion by the processes of an argument, she is guided by her emotional nature. There are some minds that possess the gift of seeing into the meaning of things, and instantly arriving at definite conclusions. We do not know how to construct an argument in reference to the Divine procedure; we are not sufficiently impressed by the past to infer the future; we need spiritual perceptions to see the real truth of spiritual things, and the intuitions of the heart may be left to help the judgment in its interpretations. If God has been at such pains to save us, then surely we shall not be left to perish. If there is a sacrifice for sin, then, sinners as we are, we may be saved through faith in Him "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation." We are not left without Divine manifestations. Christ has come, and has gone up again to heaven. Are we left without any manifestations of God? There are spiritual revelations for spiritual men. God does come to true and loving hearts. Love will always come to commune with love. ( H. J. Bevis. ) Manoah and his wife Homilist. I. A GLOOMY DREAD. This dread of God, which is all but universal — 1. Is an abnormal state of the soul. Antecedently it is impossible to believe that the God of infinite goodness would create beings to dread Him, and the revelations of His love and loveliness in nature prove that they are made to admire and adore Him. Whence came this dread, then? It springs from a sense of guilt. 2. Explains atheism. A desire to ignore and forget and destroy if possible the being we dread is natural. Because men dread God they do not like to retain Him in their thoughts. 3. Is the source of all blasphemous theologies. The being we dread, by the law of mind, we invest with the attributes of a monster. Much of our popular theology presents a God before whom the human heart cowers with horror and recoils with alarm. 4. Keeps the soul away from Him. We shrink from the object we dread, we turn our backs from such an one and hasten from his very shadow. 5. Reveals the necessity of Christ's mission. With this dread in the human soul virtue and happiness are impossible. But how can it be removed? Only by such an appearance of God to the soul as we have in the all-loving tenderness of Christ. In Him God comes to man and says, "It is I, be not afraid." II. A CHEERING HOPE. The woman's hope was based upon an interpretation of God's dealing with them, and this indeed is a certain ground of hope. How has God dealt with us? "If the Lord were pleased to kill us" — 1. Would He have in our natures endowed us with such powers for enjoyment, and placed us in a world so full of blessedness and beauty? 2. Would He have continued our existence so long in such a world, notwithstanding all our transgressions? 3. Would He have sent His only begotten Son into the world to effect our salvation? 4. Would He have given us the gospel, the ministry, and all the morally restorative influences at work within us? ( Homilist. ) God and His people Thomas Kirk. I. WE MAY LEARN THE LOVING FORETHOUGHT OF GOD FOR HIS PEOPLE. He never wounds them without at the same time making provision for their healing. Their emancipation may be only partial in the present; but it is certain in the future to be gloriously complete. The agents for bringing it about are in the counsels and resources of the Most High. II. PARENTS MAY LEARN THE RIGHT METHOD OF TRAINING THEIR CHILDREN FOR FUTURE SERVICE IN THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD (ver. 8). God's teaching is necessary for the great and difficult work; and God's teaching should be asked for and followed. III. WE MAY LEARN THAT EMINENT SERVICE FOR GOD IS ALLIED TO EMINENT CONSECRATION TO GOD. We must become Nazarites in the spiritual sense; and the measure of our usefulness will depend on the measure of our consecration. IV. WE MAY LEARN THE DUTY OF HOPEFULNESS IN THE MIDST OF ALL DARKNESS AND PERPLEXITY (ver. 23). The bright hopefulness of Manoah's wife rested on a solid foundation. But as believers in Christ we have even better grounds for looking with bright hopefulness in reference to every threatening visitation of Divine Providence. God has given to us richer tokens of His love ( Romans 8:32 ). ( Thomas Kirk. ) How shall we order the child Education of children W. A. Scott, D. D. The proper idea of educating children is to fit them for the duties of life, and the realities of a fast-coming eternity. To do this they must be trained. 1. Training combines both instruction and government. Its field is both the mind and the body. To train a child requires patience, faith, courage, perseverance, and Divine assistance. 2. To bring up a child in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord," instruction and example are essential. It is the nature of a child to imitate what is around it. Influences educate the child long before it is large enough to be sent from home to school. Let the home be for amusement, pleasure, knowledge, and religion as attractive as possible. 3. In the bringing up of children prayer, deep, earnest, believing prayer is essential. After all our solicitude and painstaking, and watching, and heart-bleeding, we have to trust them to God. ( W. A. Scott, D. D. ) Money bequeathed by parents to their children W. Arnot. It comes out incidentally, but not the less certainly, in the teaching of the Lord, that parents are in some matters naturally capable of making the best choice for their offspring ( Luke 11:13 ). Although they are evil, there are some things in which they can act aright. If the question relate to the kind of food that should be given to his child — whether a piece of bread or a stone, whether a fish or a serpent — the man is capable of judging. When a parent looks forward and attempts to provide for the future of his child, he is more at a loss than in the matter of choosing what food should be given to a hungry infant. It is when a man is called to do for his offspring what the lower creatures cannot do, that he most signally fails. He is insufficient for these things. Of the many influences which bear on the child's wellbeing, and which the parent may in some measure control, I select only one. I limit the question to one object, and read it, How shall we order the child in regard to money? The estimate, the acquisition, the possession, the use, the loss of money, have a very material influence on the character, and station, and happiness of our children, in youth and onward to age. In these, as in other matters, parents have much in their power. By their method of ordering the child in these things, they may do much good or much evil. I. In respect of money, how shall we order the child — THE LITTLE CHILD? How can you lecture an infant either on the proper value of money, or on the preposterous value that is often foolishly attached to it? Everything in its own place and time. Impress thereon a bias against the danger. Begin early to influence the infant mind. Show the child early the use of money — its use in obtaining necessaries, and in promoting works of benevolence. Train the child in the right direction as to the estimate of money, as to its use, and as to the objects on which it should be expended. In after life he will have much to do with it — teach him betimes to handle it aright. The infant is the germ of the man. The infant's habits, and likings, and actings, are the rivulet, already settling its direction, which will soon swell into the strong stream of life. II. In respect of money, how shall we order the YOUTH as to the choice and opening up of his path in life? The wary seaman will give an undefined sunken rock a good offing. He will take care to err on the safe side. The general rule is, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added." If this law were faithfully carried into practice, we would be safe. Deal honestly with yourselves when the prospect of an advantageous settlement appears. Judge righteous judgment, first as to the facts of the case, whether the money interest and the soul's interest be in opposition. Then, secondly, if so, judge which of the two should be allowed to go to the wall. Does the soul's safety overrule the prospect of wealth? or does the prospect of wealth silence your anxieties about the soul's safety? I do not ask any parent to bind his son to a poor trade, if a more profitable one is within his reach; but I demand of every parent, as he owes allegiance to the King of kings, that he have and manifest a supreme concern for the spiritual life of his children, and that, under the guidance of this ruling passion, he frame his plans and make his arrangements for their outset in the world. Under the head of provision made for an outset in life, the subject of matrimonial alliance deserves special notice. To marry for the sake of money is a degradation of the human being, and a prostitution of the good ordinance of God. It is fraught with danger to present peace and future salvation. III. How shall we order the child in respect to the acquisition and accumulation of MONEY TO BE BEQUEATHED AS HIS PORTION? Beware of tacitly, acting on the supposition that the more money you leave to them, the more good you will do to them. We cannot specify a sum, and say it is lawful for a Christian parent to bequeath so much to his child, but unlawful to exceed it. But it does not follow from this that a Christian is at liberty to scrape together as much money as he can during his life, and simply bequeath it to his children when he comes to die. Although no specific rule can be laid down, some useful suggestions may be given. A man of wealth should consider well before he leaves a large fortune to his son. It may in some cases be safely done; but it is not to be done as a thing of course. You would not spread a press of sail on a ship unless you had previously satisfied yourself that it had been rendered steady by a sufficient weight of ballast. So should parents consider the character and capacity of their children, and not be instrumental in causing their shipwreck by giving them more than they can manage. And as to the cruelty of leaving large fortunes to unprotected orphan girls, it is difficult to speak of it with coolness. It is like spreading rank carrion round the defenceless lamb, to attract the vultures to their prey. The example of a judicious but generous expenditure of money by a parent is a more precious legacy to his child than all the accumulations that parsimony and pride could bequeath. Finally, a good rule for Christian parents is to let prayer and pains always go together. In so far as he labours to provide for the education and the comfort of his children, especially those who are not likely to be able to gain their own livelihood, a father is at liberty to ask God's blessing on his efforts. But when one has already amassed many thousands, and is striving to amass more and more, to be left as a portion to his children, he would do well to add prayer to his pains. Let us remember that we and our children are under law to Christ, and on our way to the judgment. Let us act under the power of a world to come. Regarding money, like other talents, the command of the Lord is, not acquire and bequeath, but occupy. To use his money out well during his own life, is at once the best service to God which a parent can get of money, and the most valuable legacy which he can transmit to his child. ( W. Arnot. ) Manoah knew not that he was an angel Unrecognised angels Wm. Ewen, B. D. Ah! how few of us think that the heavens and the earth, the beneficent ministry of the sun, the glory of the moon, the splendour of the stars, the joy of the summer, the storms of the winter, are all angels of the Lord, bringing to us some revelation of Him, some glad tidings of His love for us. How few of us listen when He speaks to us through the common blessings that we receive every day, through our years of health, through all the joys and sunny hopes of youth, through the strength of manhood, the bliss of love or the good gifts of wife or children! How few of us, when sorrow enters our dwelling, or when sickness comes, realise that an angel of the Lord has come to us — a messenger from God with something on his lips which God wishes us to listen to and profit by! Ah, no. Most of us, if not all of us, are in such circumstances like Manoah, I fear. We do not know that it is an angel of the Lord. Their message is not listened to, and we are none the better, none the wiser for our angel visitants. It is, perhaps, however, not quite the same with us, when the messenger comes in the form of a sorrow, a disappointment, some heavy loss or cross, or some sad bereavement. We may say that they readily regard it as an angel of the Lord, but not as an angel of love. They look upon it rather as a messenger of anger, sent to avenge or punish. They ask themselves, "Why, what evil have I done that this should have been laid upon me?" But suffering is not sent in anger, but in mercy. It is often at least sent, not to destroy, but to correct, to awake, perhaps, some Divine energy in our souls. God knows all our shortcomings and all the dangers that threaten us. He knows where our faith is weak, where our love is languishing, or where we may be misplacing it. Is He unkind to us if, in these circumstances, He employs some sufficient means of showing us our mistake — showing us that we have been over-estimating the strength of our faith, the quality of our love, or the measure of our patience? He comes to point out to us a fault that we might correct it — a fault that if we remain unconscious of it will work for us the most disastrous consequences. Could a greater service, then, be done us — a greater or kinder? ( Wm. Ewen, B. D. ) We shall surely die, because we have seen God The spirit world Homilist. I. THE EARTHLY LIFE OF MAN IS IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE SPIRIT WORLD. 1. Locally proximate. 2. Relationally proximate. 3. Sympathetically proximate. II. FROM THIS SPIRIT WORLD MEN SOMETIMES RECEIVE PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS. III. THE SAME COMMUNICATIONS AFFECT DIFFERENT PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT WAYS. ( Homilist. ) Fears removed W. Jay. I. WHAT PECULIAR IMPRESSIONS DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS MAKE UPON THE MND. He impresses us with a sense of our danger, that we may flee for refuge; with a sense of our pollution, that we may wash in the fountain which He has provided. II. THE DIFFERENCE THERE IS IN THE KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. What opposite conclusions do Manoah and his wife draw from the same event! He infers wrath; she, mercy. The former looks for destruction; the latter for salvation. Thus, there are degrees in grace. There is hope, and the full assurance of hope. Some have little faith; others are "strong in faith," "rich in faith." And this difference is not always to be judged of by the order of nature, or external advantages. We find here the weaker vessel the stronger believer. III. THE PROFIT THAT IS TO BE DERIVED FROM A PIOUS COMPANION. Man is formed for society, and religion indulges and sanctifies the social principle. And if a man be concerned for his spiritual welfare, he will be glad to meet with those who are travelling the same road, and are partakers of the same hopes and fears: he will be thankful to have one near him who will watch over him, and admonish him; who by seasonable counsel will fix him when wavering, embolden him when timid, and comfort him when cast down. And it is to be observed, that in spiritual distress we are often suspicious of our own reasonings and conclusions: we know the deceitfulness of our own hearts, and are afraid lest while they encourage they should ensnare. We can depend with more confidence upon the declarations of our fellow Christians. IV. HOW MUCH THERE IS IN THE LORD'S DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE TO ENCOURAGE THEM AT ALL TIMES, IF THEY HAVE SKILL ENOUGH TO DISCERN IT. How well did this woman reason! How naturally, yet how forcibly! "Nay — let us not turn that against us, which is really for us. Surely the tokens of His favour are not the pledges of His wrath." Her conclusion is drawn from two things. First, the acceptance of their sacrifice. It is not His manner to accept the offering, and reject the person. Secondly, the secrets with which He had favoured them. This regards the birth of their son, his education, his deliverance of their country — if the accomplishment of this be certain, our destruction is impossible. Let us leave Manoah and his wife, and think of ourselves. It is a dreadful thing for God to kill us. What is the loss of property, of health, or even of life, to the loss of the soul? Hence it becomes unspeakably important to know how He means to deal with us. And there are satisfactory evidences that He is not our enemy, but our friend, and concerned for our welfare. Surely, He does not excite expectations to disappoint us; or desires, to torment us. Surely, He does not produce a new taste, a new appetite, without meaning to indulge, to relieve it. What He begins, He is able to finish; and when He begins, He designs to finish. ( W. Jay. ) Manoah and his wife R. Halley, D. D. I. OBSERVE THE HUSBAND AS REPRESENTING HUMAN NATURE TROUBLED WITH A SENSE OF GUILT. You say you walk about among God's works, and wonder at their magnificence and beauty — why should you be afraid of Him? Why should a child be afraid of his father? Ah! why, indeed? Yet I believe you are afraid of God, and I would have you acknowledge it. God's works are indeed very beautiful. He did paint those flowers which you admire, and clothe those fruit trees with their spring blossoms. But it is God, not as the painter of flowers, nor the giver of fruits, but as the avenger of sin, with whom you have to do. There is one place where you do expect you will meet with God, one place certainly. How dreadful is that place! You turn away from it. At all costs you would avoid it: I refer to the place of death. You will meet God there; and you feel the presentiment in the terrible thoughts of your heart. II. THE WOMAN REPRESENTING HUMAN NATURE WHEN CHEERED WITH A SIGN OF MERCY. She correctly interpreted the signs of God's propitiation, and received the consolatory assurance of deliverance from death. Comforted herself, she could comfort her husband with the assurances of mercy, and refer him for satisfaction and a good hope to the auspicious sign of reconciliation. Yet her signs of peace were not like yours, and her words but a poor interpretation of the gospel of your reconciliation. An angel in the flame ascending to heaven! — You see Christ in your own nature ascending to His Father. A kid for a burnt-offering! — You have a brother giving himself for you, a sacrifice and an offering of a sweet-smelling savour to God. Manoah chose the kid from his own flock. God found, not a lamb of His own fold, but the Son of His own bosom, and freely gave Him up for us all. With every qualification this sacrifice was endowed — "a Lamb without spot or blemish" — "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." ( R. Halley, D. D. ) Manoah's wife and her excellent argument 1. Oftentimes we pray for blessings which will make us tremble when we receive them. Often the blessing which we used so eagerly to implore is the occasion of the suffering which we deplore. 2. Very frequently deep prostration of spirit is the forerunner of some remarkable blessing. Take it as a general rule that dull skies foretell a shower of mercy. Expect sweet favour when you experience sharp affliction. Blessed be God for rough winds. They have blown home many a barque which else had sailed to destruction. Blessed be our Master for the fire: it has burnt away the dross. Blessed be our Master for the file: it has taken off the rust. 3. Great faith is in many instances subject to fits. Do not judge a man by any solitary word or act, for if you do you will surely mistake him. Trembling Manoah was so outspoken, honest, and sincere that he expressed his feelings, which a more politic person might have concealed. 4. It is a great mercy to have a Christian companion to go to for counsel and comfort whenever your soul is depressed. Manoah had married a capital wife. She was the better one of the two in sound judgment. She had three strings to her bow, good woman. One was — The Lord does not mean to kill us, because He has accepted our sacrifices. The second was — He does not mean to kill us, or else He would not have shown us all these things. And the third was — He will not kill us, or else He would not, as at this time, have told us such things as these. So the three strings to her bow were accepted sacrifices, gracious revelations, and precious promises. Let us dwell upon each of them. I. ACCEPTED SACRIFICES. This being interpreted into the gospel is just this — Have we not seen the Lord Jesus Christ fastened to the Cross? Because the fire of Jehovah's wrath has spent itself on Him we shall not die. He has died instead of us. But, if you notice, in the case of Manoah, they had offered a burnt-sacrifice and a meat-offering too. Well, now, in addition to the great sacrifice of Christ, which is our trust, we have offered other sacrifices to God, and in consequence of His acceptance of such sacrifices we cannot imagine that He intends to destroy us. First, let me conduct your thoughts back to the offering of prayer which you have presented. I will speak for myself. I am as sure that my requests have been heard as ever Manoah could have been sure that his sacrifice was consumed upon the rock. May I not infer from this that the Lord does not mean to destroy me? Again, you brought to Him, years ago, not only your prayers but yourself. You gave yourself over to Christ, "Lord, I am not my own, but I am bought with a price." You have at this very moment a lively recollection of the sweet sense of acceptance you had at that time. Now, would the Lord have accepted the offering of yourself to Him if He meant to destroy you? That cannot be. Some of us can recollect how, growing out of this last sacrifice, there have been others. The Lord has accepted our offerings at other times, too, for our works, faith, and labours of love have been owned of His Spirit. "Therefore He does not mean to kill us." "Who said He did?" says somebody. Well, the devil has said that numbers of times. He is a liar from the beginning, and he does not improve a bit. Reply to him, if he is worth replying to at all, in the language of our text. II. GRACIOUS REVELATIONS. 1. First, the Lord has shown you — your sin. A deep sense of sin will not save you, but it is a pledge that there is something begun in your soul which may lead to salvation; for that deep sense of sin does as good as say, "The Lord is laying bare the disease that He may cure it. He is letting you see the foulness of that underground cellar of your corruption, because He means to cleanse it for you." 2. But He has shown us more than this, for He has made us see the hollowness and emptiness of the world. Do you think that, if the Lord had meant to kill us, He would have taught us this? Why, no; He would have said, "Let them alone, they are given unto idols. They are only going to have one world in which they can rejoice; let them enjoy it." 3. But He has taught us something better than this — namely, the preciousness of Christ. Unless we are awfully deceived we have known what it is to lose the burden of our sin at the foot of the Cross. We have known what it is to see the suitability and all-sufficiency of the merit of our dear Redeemer, and we have rejoiced in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. If He had meant to destroy us He would not have shown us Christ. 4. Sometimes also we have strong desires after God! What pinings after communion with Him have we felt! What longings to be delivered from sin! Now these longings, cravings, do you think the Lord would have put them into our hearts if He had meant to destroy us? III. MANY PRECIOUS PROMISES. "Nor would He have told us such things as these." "If the Lord had meant to kill us He would not have made us such a promise as this." ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The spectacle of life and the opposite conclusions drawn from it W. W. Newton. We, too, draw just such opposite conclusions from the same admitted phenomena. The facts of life are the same. We admit into the great problem of existence the presence of the powers of this life and of the life to come. There is the world of regret and sorrow, and the world of cheerfulness and hope; there is the secret of the angel's name, and there is religion, with its rocky altar of sacrifice; there is the fire of man's communion with God ascending to heaven, and there is an admitted power in our lives "doing wondrously." And yet, as in this grouping of the forces and interests of life around Manoah's altar, men draw diametrically opposite conclusions. Let us look at three of the common facts of life concerning which we may draw right or wrong conclusions, according as we look at them through desperation or through hopefulness. I. Take, first, the thought of CHARACTER. This includes the entire world of conduct and action — the question of law and authority, the right or wrong quality of a man's motives and his deeds. How are we to regard all this? Is there such a thing as absolute right and truth? Would it exist anywhere if man did not exist? Is it from a God, a Being whose lines have gone out into all the world? Is this power which makes for righteousness, as Matthew Arnold calls it, a motion, an impulse from a seat and source of law, or is it only like some wild, driving gale whose conflicting winds have no definite whence and are seeking no final whither? The Manoah type of mind declares, here are glimpses of some power "working wondrously" in the midst of life; but we can make nothing out of them. We have seen strange sights in the history of humanity and in the experience of our own souls; but we can see nothing but despair and death before us. The other, the religious type of mind, pleads with the wiser wife and mother, would we have all these visions and intimations if there was not a reason for them? Would the Lord have received our offerings, and have told us all these things if He were only pleased to kill us? II. Look at the fact of LIFE, with all its laws, physical, mental, and social. Look at this wondrous organism of ours, with its complex and far-reaching functions. We move through the world as the planets whirl on through space, each soul being a world of its own, with its own laws, and tendencies, and orbit. Is it any wonder that philosophers are forever investigating its meaning and giving us new views of the relationship between the working principle in life and the working principle in death? One side declares we have seen all these wonders, therefore we, too, must die; life is only the bubbling up of a few moments' consciousness, like the evanescent spray in the leap of Niagara's plunge, and then all is deep and quiet again. The other class says, No; this existence is not a mere guess; there is law, and Providence, and love in it; if the Lord were pleased to kill us He would not have told us such things as these. III. There is the question of THE FUTURE. It is very strange to think how theological theories and opinions go in sets and groups. It is impossible to have them separated or to hold them singly. One view leads on to another and draws it after it by a logical necessity. If you deny a personal immortality, you will find that locked up with this negation is your disbelief in a God; or, if you deny a God, you will find that immortality goes with this fundamental denial. Grant the premises of hope or of despair, and the conclusions will haunt you just as your shadow plays round your hurrying form under the successive street lights of a city in the darkness of night. At one moment it follows, at another it precedes your step, but it is always about you, because a shadow, after all, is only the deprivation of light due to a body. And so, with reference to the future, there is no standing-ground between the creed of despair and the creed of hope; between a blind force working in the smoke of our best sacrifices, and a messenger from God working wondrously, as the flame of our truest love ascends and is accepted. And thus we should value the revelation Christ has made, when once we feel from what that Saviour rescues us! ( W. W. Newton. ) Cheer for the faint-hearted Faith is not only the door by which we enter into the way of salvation, as it is written "He hath opened the door of faith unto the gentiles "; but it likewise describes the entire path of Christian pilgrimage, "that we also walk in the steps of that faith." "The just shall live by faith." Happy is that man who, steadfast, upright, cheerful, goes from strength to strength, believing his God! Trusting in his God, he knows no care; resting in his God, he knows no impossibility. 1. But, it seems from our text, that the strongest faith has its seasons of wavering. Most of those eminent saints, who are mentioned in Scripture as exhibiting faith in its greatness, appear to have sometimes showed the white flag of unbelief. Good Lord! of what small account are the best of men apart from Thee! How high they go when Thou liftest them up! How low they fall if Thou withdraw Thine hand! 2. Some of these greatest aberrations of faith have. occurred just after the brightest seasons of enjoyment. Some of us have learned to be afraid of joy. Sadness is often the herald of satisfaction; but bliss is ofttimes the harbinger of pain. 3. It is a very happy thing if, when one believer's down, there is another near to lift him up. In this case Manoah found in his wife a help-meet. If wife and husband had both been down at one time, they might have been long in getting up. But seeing that when he fell she was there strong in faith to give him a helping hand, it was but a slight fall, and they went on their way rejoicing. If thou art strong, help thy weak brother. If thou seest any bowed down, take them on thy shoulders, help to carry them. 4. The text suggests certain consolations which ought to be laid hold of by believers in Christ in their time of sore trouble. You are chastened every morning, and you are troubled all day long, and Satan whispered to you last Saturday night, when you were putting up the shutters as tired as you could be, "It is no use going to the house of God to-morrow. There is nothing there for you. God has forsaken you, and your enemies are persecuting you on every side." Well, now, it would be a very curious thing if it were true; but it is not true, for the reasons which Manoah's wife gave. Recollect, first, the Lord has in your case accepted a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at your hand. Would He have accepted your faith and saved you in Christ, if He had meant to destroy you? What! can you trust Him with your soul, and not trust Him with your shop? Can you leave eternity with Him, and not leave time? What! trust the immortal spirit, and not this poor decaying, mouldering, flesh and blood? Man, shame on thee! But, you say, He will forsake you in this trouble. Remember what things He has shown to you. Why,

Benson Commentary Judges 13:1 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. Jdg 13:1 . The children of Israel did evil again — That is, fell into idolatry, not, it seems, after the death of Abdon, the last judge, but in the days of the former judges. The Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines — These were a very inconsiderable people. They had but five cities of any note. And yet, when God used them as a staff in his hand, they were very oppressive and vexatious. Forty years — To be computed, not from Abdon’s death, but before that time. This is the longest oppression which the Israelites ever sustained, but Sir John Marsham and others think it is not different from that mentioned Jdg 10:7-8 , but one and the same with it; the Philistines harassing the Israelites in the west, while the Ammonites oppressed them in the east; and that, though the tyrannical treatment of them by the Philistines lasted longer, yet it began at the very same time with the other, and rendered their distress the greater. Others suppose, that it did not begin till after Jephthah’s death, and that the great slaughter of the Ephraimites made by him greatly encouraged the Philistines to rise against Israel, one of Israel’s chief bulwarks being so much weakened. Judges 13:2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. Jdg 13:2-3 . Of the family of the Danites — That is, of that tribe or people. His wife was barren, and bare not — An emphatical repetition of the same thing in other words, which is a usual elegance both in Scripture and other authors. The angel — The Son of God, yet distinguished from the Lord, because he appeared here in the form of a servant, as a messenger sent from God. The great Redeemer did in a particular manner concern himself about this typical redemption. Judges 13:3 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Judges 13:4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing : Jdg 13:4 . Now therefore beware — She was to conform to the manner of life observed by the Nazarites, while she carried her infant in her womb, and perhaps while she nursed him; because, as it follows in the next verse, he was to be a perpetual Nazarite to God, from his conception to his death; which would have bear impossible if she had drunk wine or strong drink, because a child in the womb and its mother subsist by the same nourishment. Drink not wine nor strong drink — Under which are comprehended the other particulars mentioned Numbers 6:2-4 . And eat not any unclean thing — Any of those meats forbidden Leviticus 11. These were forbidden to all, but especially to the Nazarites. In all probability the Israelites were negligent at that time in observing the precept with relation to meats, otherwise there would have been no need to mention this. Judges 13:5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no rasor 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. Jdg 13:5 . The child shall be a Nazarite — Consecrated to God’s service in a peculiar manner. He shall begin to deliver Israel — He did not complete the deliverance of the Israelites from the servile yoke of the Philistines; but the work was carried on and perfected by others, namely, by Eli, Samuel, and Saul, and especially by David. Samson galled them severely, but they still continued to oppress Israel, as they did when he was born, and the oppression continued, more or less, till the memorable victory of Ebenezer, recorded 1 Samuel 7:13 , when they were subdued, and their tyranny of forty years ended. Thus God chooses to carry on his work gradually, and by several hands. One lays the foundation of a good work, another builds, and perhaps a third brings forth the top-stone. Judges 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was , neither told he me his name: Jdg 13:6 . A man of God came unto me — A prophet, or sacred person, sent with a message from God. Like the countenance of an angel, very terrible — Or venerable, awful, full of majesty. Though Manoah’s wife had never seen an angel before, yet she might well say this, as it was a prevailing opinion among all people, that celestial beings were more excellent in their nature than mankind, and bore an extraordinary majesty in their countenances, which struck the human beholder with awe and admiration. But I asked not whence he was, &c. — The lustre of his aspect infused such an awe into her, as rendered her incapable of making such inquiry. Judges 13:7 But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing : for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. Judges 13:8 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. Jdg 13:8 . Then Manoah entreated the Lord, &c. — Not hesitating or doubting, on account of his wife’s long barrenness, he believed the heavenly message, and looked upon the thing as quite certain, only he desired that the man of God might appear to them again, to instruct them in what manner they should treat the child when it should be born. And God graciously answered his humble petition. Judges 13:9 And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her. Judges 13:10 And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day. Judges 13:11 And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am . Judges 13:12 And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him? Jdg 13:12 . Now let thy words come to pass — Or, thy words shall come to pass. I firmly believe thy promises shall be fulfilled. How shall we order the child? — Houbigant renders this, What shall be the method of educating the child? What rules shall we observe in bringing him up? How shall we do unto him? — What profession shall we prepare him for, or how shall we instruct him, so as to make him fit to be the deliverer of Israel? Judges 13:13 And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. Jdg 13:13-14 . Of all that I said, let her beware — While the child is in the womb, and after the child is born, let her observe the same orders. We may observe that the angel gives no answer to Manoah’s question, how the child should be educated, &c., as willing that they should not be solicitous about that at the present, but leave it to the care of Providence, which, in proper time, would so direct matters in regard to the child, as that he should be fitted for the great purpose he was intended for. He therefore only repeats his injunctions to the woman how she should act during her pregnancy. Judges 13:14 She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing : all that I commanded her let her observe. Judges 13:15 And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. Jdg 13:15-16 . Until we shall have made ready a kid — He supposed him to be a man and a prophet, to whom he would in this manner express his respect, as was usual to strangers. I will not eat of thy bread — That is, meat, as bread is commonly taken in Scripture. If thou wilt offer a burnt- offering — As Manoah had made no mention of a burnt-offering, but only desired the angel, whom he took for a prophet, to accept of a repast with them, Le Clerc’s translation of this passage is to be preferred. But (not and, as we render it) if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering to the Lord, do it: that is, if thou desirest to express thy thankfulness to the Lord, thou mayest do it by offering a burnt-offering. Judges 13:16 And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD. Judges 13:17 And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour? Jdg 13:17-18 . That when thy sayings come to pass, we may do thee honour — Either by making honourable mention of thee, or by showing respect to thee by a present, such as they usually gave to prophets. Seeing it is secret — Meaning, not only, that it would be of no importance or service to him to know his name; but that his name was hidden from mortal men, and wonderful, as the word ???? peli signifies, and is translated Isaiah 9:6 , where it is applied to Christ, the wonderful child born, and son given, who has the government upon his shoulders, and is the mighty God. The angel means, My nature and essence, often signified by name in the Scriptures, are incomprehensible. This shows, that this was the Angel of the covenant, the Son of God, that spoke to Manoah. Judges 13:18 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? Judges 13:19 So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. Jdg 13:19-20 . And offered it upon a rock — The presence and command of the angel being a sufficient warrant for the offering of sacrifice by a person who was no priest, and in a place otherwise forbidden. Vitringa, however, supposes that “it was the angel who upon this occasion performed the principal functions of the priest; the most essential of which was to put the fire to the burnt-offering.” Manoah, he observes, “dared not to perform the offices of the priesthood in the presence of a personage whom he took for an extra-ordinary prophet, commissioned from God. All that he did was done by order of the angel, or as his minister; just as the Israelites obeyed Elijah afterward,” 1 Kings 18:34 . The angel, or rather he, (for there is nothing for angel in the original,) did wondrously — Bringing fire out of the rock, as in the case of Gideon, Jdg 6:21 , to consume the burnt-offering, and then ascending in the midst of the flame, hereby manifesting his nature and essence to be spiritual. Off the altar — That is, from that part of the rock which served instead of an altar, upon which the sacrifice was laid. Manoah and his wife fell on their faces — Partly out of reverence for so glorious a person manifested in so wonderful a manner, and partly out of a religious horror and fear of death; for the prevention whereof they fell down in the way of supplication to God. Judges 13:20 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. And Manoah and his wife looked on it , and fell on their faces to the ground. Judges 13:21 But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. Judges 13:22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. Judges 13:23 But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things , nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. Jdg 13:23 . If the Lord were pleased to kill us — The reasoning of Manoah’s wife here is very just, and shows her to have been a woman of good understanding. Indeed, both of them seem to have been persons of eminent piety, who, amidst the prevailing corruption and idolatry of their people, retained their integrity, and adhered to the worship and service of the true God. And of such God is always mindful, both bestowing peculiar favours upon them, and communicating blessings to his church, and to the world, through their means. Nor would, as at this time, have told us such things — This expression seems to have some emphasis in it, to enhance God’s mercy to them, as being afforded them in a time of such grievous calamity; and in a time when the word of the Lord was precious, and there was no open vision. Judges 13:24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. Jdg 13:24-25 . The Lord blessed him — That is, endowed him with all those graces and gifts of mind and body which were necessary for the work he was designed for. The Spirit of the Lord began to move him — To excite him to heroical designs and extraordinary actions, above the power of mere unassisted human abilities; to incline his heart to great attempts for the help and deliverance of God’s people; to give some essay of it to his brethren, and to seek all opportunities for it. At times — Upon certain occasions, which might make known to the people that God intended to begin the work of their deliverance by this extraordinary person. In the camp of Dan — A place so called, either from the expedition of the Danites, ( Jdg 18:11-12 ,) which, though recorded after this history took place before it, or from some other camp which the Danites had formed there to give some check to the incursions of the Philistines. Judges 13:25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Judges 13:1 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. THE ANGEL IN THE FIELD Jdg 13:1-18 IN our ignorance not in our knowledge, in our blindness not in our light, we call nature secular and think of the ordinary course of events as a series of cold operations, governed by law and force, having nothing to do with divine purpose and love. Oftentimes we think so, and suffer because we do not understand. It is a pitiful error. The natural could not exist, there could be neither substance nor order without the over-nature which is at once law and grace. Vitality, movement are not an efflorescence heralding decay as to the atheist; they are not the activity of an evil spirit-as sometimes to confused and falsely instructed faith. They are the outward and visible action of God, the hem of the vesture on which we lay hold and feel Him. In the seen and temporal there is a constant presence maintaining order, giving purpose and end. Were it otherwise man could not live an hour; even in selfishness and vileness he is a creature of two worlds which yet are one, so closely are they interwoven. At every point natural and supernatural are blended, the higher shaping the development of the lower, accomplishing in and through the lower a great spiritual plan. This it is which gives depth and weight to our experience, communicating the dignity of the greatest moral and spiritual issues to the meanest, darkest human life. Everywhere, always, man touches God though he know Him not. No surprise, therefore, is excited by the modes of speech and thought we come upon as we read Scripture. The surprise would be in not coming upon them. If we found the inspired writers divorcing God from the world and thinking of "nature" as a dark chamber of sin and torture echoing with His curse, there would be no profit in studying this old volume. Then indeed we might turn from it in discontent and scorn, even as some cast it aside just because it is the revelation of God dwelling with men upon the earth. But what do the writers of faith mean when they tell of divine messengers coming to peasants at labour in the fields, speaking to them of events common to the race-the birth of some child, the defeat of a rival tribe-as affairs of the spiritual even more than of the temporal region? The narratives, simple yet daring, which affirm the mingling, of divine purpose and action with human life give us the deepest science, the one real philosophy. Why do we have to care and suffer for each other? What are our sin and sorrow? These are not material facts; they are of quite another range. Always man as more than dust, better or worse than clay. Human lives are linked together in a gracious and awful order the course of which is now clearly marked, now obscurely traceable; and if it were in our power to revive the history of past ages, to mark the operation of faith and unbelief among men, issuing in virtue and nobleness on the one hand, in vice and lethargy on the other, we should see how near heaven is to earth, how rational a thing is prophecy, not only as relating to masses of men but to particular lives. It is our stupidity not our wisdom that starts back from revelations of the overworld as if they confused what would otherwise be clear. In more than one story of the Bible the motherhood of a simple peasant woman is a cause of divine communications and supernatural hopes. Is this amazing, incredible? What then is motherhood itself? In the coming and care of frail existences, the strange blending in one great necessity of the glad and the severe, the honourable and the humiliating, with so many possibilities of failure in duty, of error and misunderstanding ere the needful task is finished, death ever waiting on life, and agony on joy-in all this do we not find such a manifestation of the higher purpose as might well be heralded by words and signs? Only the order of God and His redemption can explain this "nature." Right in the path of atheistic reasoners, and of others not atheists, lie facts of human life which on their theory of naturalism are simply confounding, too great at once for the causes they admit and the ends they foresee. And if reason denies the possibility of prediction relating to these facts we need not wonder. Without philosophy or faith the range of denial is unlimited. From the quaint and simple narrative before us the imaginative rationalist turns away with the one word-"myth." His criticism is of a sort which for all its ease and freedom gives the world nothing. We desire to know why the human mind harbours thoughts of the kind, why it has ideas of God and of a supernatural order, and how these work in developing the race. Have they been of service? Have they given strength and largeness to poor rude lives and so proved a great reality? If so, the word myth is inadmissible. It sets falsehood at the source of progress and of good. Here are two Hebrew peasants, in a period of Philistine domination more than a thousand years before the Christian era. Of their condition we know only what a few brief sentences can tell in a history concerned chiefly with the facts of a divine order in which men’s lives have an appointed place and use. It is certain that a thorough knowledge of this Danite family, its own history and its part in the history of Israel, would leave no difficulty for faith. Belief in the foreordination of all human existence and the constant presence of God with men and women in their endurance, their hope and yearning would be forced upon the most sceptical mind. The insignificance of the occasion marked by a prediction given in the name of God may astonish some. But what is insignificant? Wherever divine predestination and authority extend, and that is throughout the whole universe, nothing can properly be called insignificant. The taws according to which material things and forces are controlled by God touch the minutest particles of matter, determine the shape of a dew drop as certainly as the form of a world. At every point in human life, the birth of a child in the poorest cottage as well as of the heir to an empire, the same principles of heredity, the same disposition of affairs to leave room for that life and to work out its destiny underlie the economy of the world. A life is to appear. It is not an interposition or interpolation. No event, no life is ever thrust into an age without relation to the past; no purpose is formed in the hour of a certain prophecy. For Samson as for every actor distinguished or obscure upon the stage of the world the stars and the seasons have cooperated, and all that has been done under the sun has gone to make a place for him. One who knows this can speak strongly and clearly. One who knows what hinders and what is sure to aid the fulfilment of a great destiny can counsel wisely. And so the angel of Jehovah, a messenger of the spiritual covenant, is no mere vehicle of a prediction he does not understand. Without hesitation he speaks to the woman in the field of what her son shall do. By the story of God’s dealings with Israel, by the experiences of tribe and family and individual soul since the primitive age, by the simple faith of these parents that are to be and the honest energy of their humble lives he is prepared to announce to them their honour and their duty. "Thou shalt bear a son and he shall begin to deliver Israel." The messenger has had his preparation of thought, inquiry deep, devout, and pondering, ere he became fit to announce the word of God. No seer serves the age to which he is sent with that which costs him nothing, and here as elsewhere the law of all ministry to God and man must apply to the preparation and work of the revealer. The personality of the messenger was carefully concealed. "A man of God whose countenance was like that of an angel of God very terrible"-so runs the pathetic, suggestive description; but the hour was too intense for mere curiosity. The honest mind does not ask the name and social standing of a messenger but only-Does he speak God’s truth? Does he open life? There are few perhaps, today, who are simple and intelligent enough for this; few, therefore, to whom divine messages come. It is the credentials we are anxious about, and the prophet waits unheard while people are demanding his family and tribe, his college and reputation. Are these satisfactory? Then they will listen. But let no prophet come to them unnamed. Yet of all importance to us as to Manoah and his wife are the message, the revelation, the announcement of privilege and duty. Where that divine order is disclosed which lies too deep for our own discovery, but once revealed stirs and kindles our nature, the prophet needs no certification. The child that was to be born, a gift of God, a divine charge, was promised to these parents. And in the case of every child born into the world there is a divine predestination, which whether it has been recognised by the parents or not gives dignity to his existence from the first. There are natural laws and spiritual laws, the gathering together of energies and needs and duties which make the life unique, the care of it sacred. It is a new force in the world-a new vessel, frail as yet, launched on the sea of time. In it some stories of the divine goodness, some treasures of heavenly force are embarked. As it holds its way across the ocean in sunshine or shadow, this life will be watched by the divine eye, breathed gently upon by the summer airs or buffeted by the storms of God. Does heaven mind the children? "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father." In the marvellous ordering of divine providence nothing is more calculated than fatherhood and motherhood to lift human life into the high ranges of experience and feeling. Apart from any special message or revelation, assuming only an ordinary measure of thoughtfulness and interest in the unfolding of life, there is here a new dignity the sense of which connects the task of those who have it with the creative energy of God. Everywhere throughout the world we can trace a more or less clear understanding of this. The tide of life is felt to rise as the new office, the new responsibility are grasped. The mother is become- "A link among the days to knit The generations each to each." The father has a sacred trust, a new and nobler duty to which his manhood is entirely pledged in the sight of that great God who is the Father of all spirits, doubly and trebly pledged to truth and purity and courage. It is the coronation of life; and the child, drawing father and mother to itself, is rightly the object of keenest interest and most assiduous care. The interest lies greatly in this, that to the father and mother first, then to the world, there may be untold possibilities of good in the existence which has begun. Apart from any prophecy like that given regarding Samson we have truly what may be called a special promise from God in the dawning energy of every child life. By the cradle surely, if anywhere, hope sacred and heavenly may be indulged. With what earnest glances will the young eyes look by and by from face to face. With what new and keen love will the child heart beat. Enlarging its grasp from year to year, the mind will lay hold on duty and the will address itself to the tasks of existence. This child will be a heroine of home, a helper of society, a soldier of the truth, a servant of God. Does the mother dream long dreams as she bends over the cradle? Does the father, one indeed amongst millions, yet with his special distinction and calling, imagine for the child a future better than his own? It is well. By the highest laws and instincts of our humanity it is right and good. Here men and women, the rudest and least taught, live in the immaterial world of love, faith, duty. We observe the anxiety of Manoah and his wife to learn the special method of training which should fit their child for his task. The father’s prayer so soon as he heard of the divine annunciation was, "O Lord, let the man of God whom Thou didst send come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born." Conscious of ignorance and inexperience, feeling the weight of responsibility, the parents desired to have authoritative direction in their duty, and their anxiety was the deeper because their child was to be a deliverer in Israel. In their home on the hillside, where the cottages of Zorah clustered overlooking the Philistine plain, they were frequently disturbed by the raiders who swept up the valley of Sorek from Ashdod and Ekron. They had often wondered when God would raise up a deliverer as of old, some Deborah or Gideon to end the galling oppression. Now the answer to many a prayer and hope was coming, and in their own home the hero was to be cradled. We cannot doubt that this made them feel the pressure of duty and the need of wisdom. Yet the prayer of Manoah was one which every father has need to present, though the circumstances of a child’s birth have nothing out of the most ordinary course. To each human mind are given powers which require special fostering, peculiarities of temperament and feeling which ought to be specially considered. One way will not serve in the upbringing of two children. Even the most approved method of the time, whether that of private tutelage or public instruction, may thwart individuality; and if the way be ignorant and rough the original faculty will at its very springing he distorted. It is but the barest common. place, yet with what frequency it needs to be urged, that of all tasks in the world that of the guide and instructor of youth is hardest to do well, best worth doing, therefore most difficult. There is no need to deny that for the earliest years of a child’s life the instincts of a loving faithful mother may be trusted to guide her efforts. Yet even in those first years tendencies declare themselves that require to be wisely checked or on the other hand wisely encouraged; and the wisdom does not come by instinct. A spiritual view of life, its limitations and possibilities, its high calling and heavenly destiny is absolutely necessary-that vision of the highest things which religion alone can give. The prophet comes and directs; yet the parents must be prophets too. "The child is not to be educated for the present-for this is done without our aid unceasingly and powerfully-but for the remote future and often in opposition to the immediate future The child must be armed against the close-pressing present with a counter-balancing weight of three powers against the three weaknesses of the will, of love and of religion The girl and the boy must learn that there is something in the ocean higher than its waves-namely, a Christ who calls upon them." On the religious teaching especially which is given to children much depends, and those who guide them should often begin by searching and reconsidering their own beliefs. Many a promising life is marred because youth in its wonder and sincerity was taught no living faith in God, or was thrust into the mould of some narrow creed which had more in it of human bigotry than of divine reason and love. "What shall be the ordering of the child?" is Manoah’s prayer, and it is well if simply expressed. The child’s way needs ordering. Circumstances must be understood that discipline may fit the young life for its part. In our own time this represents a serious difficulty. What to do with children, how to order their lives is the pressing question in thousands of homes. The scheme of education in favour shows little insight, little esteem for the individuality of children, which is of as much value in the case of the backward as of those who are lured and goaded into distinction. To broaden life, to give it many points of interest is well. Yet on the other hand how much depends on discipline, on limitation and concentration, the need of which we are apt to forget. Narrow and limited was the life of Israel when Samson was born into it. The boy had to be what the nation was, what Zorah was, what Manoah and his wife were. The limitations of the time held him and the secluded life of Dan knowing but one article of patriotic faith, hatred of the Philistines. Was there so much of restriction here as to make greatness impossible? Not so. To be an Israelite was to have a certain moral advantage and superiority. It was not a barren solidarity, a dry ground in which this new life was planted; the sprout grew out of a living tree; traditions, laws full of spiritual power made an environment for the Hebrew child. Through the limitations, fenced and guided by them, a soul might break forth to the upper air. It was not the narrowness of Israel nor of his own home and upbringing but the license of Philistia that weakened the strong arm and darkened the eager soul of the young Danite. Are we now to be afraid of limitations, bent on giving to youth multiform experience and the freest possible access to the world? Do we dream that strength will come as the stream of life is allowed to wander over a whole valley, turning hither and thither in a shallow and shifty bed? The natural parallel here will instruct us, for it is an image of the spiritual fact. Strength, not breadth, is the mark at which education should be directed. The intellectually and morally strong will find culture waiting them at every turn of the way and will know how to select, what to appropriate. In truth there must be first the moral power gained by concentration, otherwise all culture-art, science, literature, travel-Droves but a Barmecide feast at which the soul starves. The special method of training for the child Samson is described in the words, "He shall be a Nazirite unto God." The mother was to drink no strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. Her son was to be trained in the same rigid abstinence; and always the sense of obligation to Jehovah was to accompany the austerity. The hair, neither cut nor shaven but allowed to grow in natural luxuriance, was to be the sign of the separated life. For the hero that was to be, this ascetic purity, this sacrament of unshorn hair were the only things prescribed. Perhaps there was in the command a reference to the godless life of the Israelites, a protest against their self-indulgence and half-heathen freedom. One in the tribe of Dan would be clear of the sins of drunkenness and gluttony at least, and so far ready for spiritual work. Now it is notable enough to find thus early in history the example of a rule which even yet is not half understood to be the best as well as the safest for the guidance of appetite and the development of bodily strength. The absurdities commonly accepted by mothers and by those who only desire some cover for the indulgence of taste are here set aside. A hero is to be born, one who in physical vigour will distinguish himself above all, the Hercules of sacred history. His mother rigidly abstains, and he in his turn is to abstain from strong drink. The plainest dieting is to serve both her and him-the kind of food and drink on which Daniel and his companions throve in the Chaldean palace. Surely the lesson is plain. Those who desire to excel in feats of strength speak of their training. It embraces a vow like the Nazarites’, wanting indeed the sacred purpose and therefore of no use in the development of character. But let a covenant be made with God, let simple food and drink be used under a sense of obligation to Him to keep the mind clear and the body clean, and soon with appetites better disciplined we should have a better and stronger race. It is not of course to be supposed that there was nothing out of the common in Samson’s bodily vigour. Restraint of unhealthy and injurious appetite was not the only cause to which his strength was due. Yet as the accompaniment of his giant energy the vow has great significance. And to young men who incline to glory in their strength, and all who care to be fit for the tasks of life, the significance will be clear. As for the rest whose appetites master them, who must have this and that because they crave it, their weakness places them low as men, nowhere as examples and guides. One would as soon take the type of manly vigour from a paralytic as from one whose will is in subjection to the cravings of the flesh. It soon becomes clear in the course of the history that while some forms of evil were fenced off by Nazaritism others as perilous were not. The main part of the devotion lay in abstinence, and that is not spiritual life. Here is one who from his birth set apart to God is trained in manly control of his appetites. The locks that wave in wild luxuriance about his neck are the sign of robust physical vigour as well as of consecration. But, strangely, his spiritual education is not cared for as we might expect. He is disciplined and yet undisciplined. He fears the Lord and yet fears Him not. He is an Israelite but not a true Israelite. Jehovah is to him a God who gives strength and courage and blessing in return for a certain measure of obedience. As the Holy God, the true God, the God of purity, Samson knows Him not, does not worship Him. Within a certain limited range he hears a divine voice saying, "Thou shalt not," and there he obeys. But beyond is a great region in which he reckons himself free. And what is the result? He is strong, brave, sunny in temper as his name implies. But a helper of society, a servant of divine religion, a man in the highest sense, one of God’s free men Samson does not become. So is it always. One kind of exercise, discipline, obedience, virtue will not suffice. We need to be temperate and also pure, we need to keep from self-indulgence but also from niggardliness if we are to be men. We have to think of the discipline of mind and soul as well as soundness of body. He is only half a man, however free from glaring faults and vices, who has not learned the unselfishness, the love, the ardour in holy and generous tasks which Christ imparts. To abstain is a negative thing; the positive should command us-the highest manhood, holy, aspiring, patient, divine. Judges 13:24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. SAMSON PLUNGING INTO LIFE Jdg 13:24-25 ; Jdg 14:1-20 Or all who move before us in the Book of Judges Samson is preeminently the popular hero. In rude giant strength and wild daring he stands alone against the enemies of Israel, contemptuous of their power and their plots. It is just such a man who catches the public eye and lives in the traditions of a country. Most Hebrews of the time minded piety and culture as little as did the Norsemen when they first professed Christianity. Both races liked manliness and feats of daring and could pardon much to one who flung his enemies and theirs to the ground with god-like strength of arm, and in the narrative of Samson’s exploits we trace this note of popular estimation. He is a singular hero of faith, quite akin to those half-converted, half-savage chiefs of the north who thought the best they could do for God was to kill His enemies and bound themselves by fierce oaths in the name of Christ to hack and slaughter. For the separateness from others, the isolation which marked Samson’s whole career the reasons are evident. His vow of Nazaritism, for one thing, kept him apart. Others were their own men, he was Jehovah’s. His radiant health and uncommon physical energy even in boyhood were to himself and others the sign of a divine blessing which maintained his sense of consecration. While he looked on at the riot and drunkenness of the feasts of his people he felt a growing revulsion, nor was he pleased with other indications of their temper. The frequent raids of Philistines from their walled cities by the coast struck terror far and wide-up the valleys of Dan into the heart of Judah and Ephraim. Samson ashe grew up marked the supineness of his people with wonder and disgust. If he did anything for them it was not because he honoured them but in fulfilment of his destiny. At the same time we must note that the hero, though a man of wit, was not wise. He did the most injudicious things. He had nothing in him of the diplomatist, not much of the leader of men. It was only now and again when the mood took him that he cared to exert himself. So he went his own way an admired hero, a lonely giant among smaller beings. Worst of all he was an easy prey to some kinds of temptation. Restrained on one side, he gave himself license on others; his strength was always undisciplined, and early in his career we can almost predict how it will end. He ventures into one snare after another. The time is sure to come when he will fall into a pit out of which there is no way of escape. Of the early life of the great Danite judge there is no record save that he grew and the Lord blessed him. The parents whose home on the hillside he filled with boisterous glee must have looked on the lad with something like awe-so different was he from others, so great were the hopes based on his future. Doubtless they did their best for him. The consecration of his life to God they deeply impressed on his mind and taught him as well as they could the worship of the Unseen Jehovah in the sacrifice of lamb or kid at the altar, in prayers for protection and prosperity. But nothing is said of instruction in the righteousness, the purity, the mercifulness which the law of God required. Manoah and his wife seem to have made the mistake of thinking that outside the vow moral education and discipline would come naturally, so far as they were needed. There was great strictness on certain points and elsewhere such laxity that he must have soon become wilful and headstrong and somewhat of a terror to the father and mother. Lads of his own age would of course adore him; as their leader in every bold pastime he would command their deference and loyalty, and many a wild thing was done, we can fancy, at which the people of the valley laughed uneasily or shook their heads in dismay. He who afterwards tied the jackals’ tails together and set fire brands between each pair to burn the Philistines’ corn must have served an apprenticeship to that kind of savage sport. Hebrew or alien for miles round who roused the anger of Samson would soon learn how dangerous it was to provoke him. Yet a dash of generosity always took the edge from fiery temper and rash revenge, and the people of Dan, for their part, would allow much to one who was expected to bring deliverance to Israel. The wild and dangerous youth was the only champion they could see. But even before manhood Samson had times of deeper feeling than people in general would have looked for. Boisterous, hot-blooded, impetuous natures grievously wanting in decorum and sagacity are not always superficial; and there were occasions when the Spirit of the Lord began to move Samson. He felt the purpose of his vow, saw the serious work to which his destiny was urging him, looked down on the plain of the Philistines with a kindling eye, spoke in strains that even rose to prophetic intensity. At Mahaneh-Dan, the camp of Dan, where the more resolute spirits of the tribe came together for military exercise or to repel some raid of the enemy, Samson began to speak of his purpose and to make schemes for Israel’s liberation. Into these the fiery vehemence of the young man flowed, and the enthusiasm of his nature bore others along. Can we be wrong in supposing that in various ways, by plans often ill-considered, he sought to harass the Philistines, and that failure as a leader in these left him somewhat discredited? Samson was just of that sanguine venturesome disposition which makes light of difficulties and is always courting defeat. It was easy for him with his immense bodily strength to break through where other men were entrapped. A frequent result of the frays into which he hurried must have been, we imagine, to make his own friends doubt him rather than to injure the enemy. At all events he became no commander like Gideon or Jephthah, and the men of Judah, if not of Dan, while they acknowledged his calling and his power, began to think of him as a dangerous champion. So far we have the merest hints by which to go, but the narrative becomes more detailed when it approaches the time of Samson’s marriage. A strange union it is for a hero of Israel. What made him think of going down among the Philistines for a wife? How can the sacred writer say that the thing was of the Lord? Let us try to understand the circumstances. Between the people of Zorah and the villagers of Timnah a few miles down the valley on the other side who, though Philistines, were presumably not of the fighting sort, there was a kind of enforced neighbourliness. They could not have lived at all unless they had been content, Philistines for their part, Hebrews for theirs, to let the general enmity sleep. Samson by observing certain precautions and keeping his Hebrew tongue quiet was safe enough in Timnah, an object of fear rather than himself in danger. At the same time there may have been a touch of bravado in his rambles to the Philistine settlement, and the young woman of whom he caught a passing glance, perhaps at the spring, had very likely all the more charm for him that she was of the strong hostile race. History as well as fiction supplies instances in which this fascination does its work, family feuds, oppositions of caste and religion directing the eye and the fancy instead of repelling. In his sudden wilful way Samson resolved, and his mind once made up no one in Zorah could induce him to alter it. "The thing was of the Lord; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines." Perhaps Samson thought the woman would be denied to him, a straight way to a quarrel. But more probably it is the outcome of the whole pitiful business that is in the mind of the historian. After the event he traces the hand of Providence. As we pass with Samson and his parents down to Timnah we cannot but agree with Manoah in his objection, "Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren or among all my people that. thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?" It was emphatically one of those cases in which liking should not have led. An impetuous man is not to be excused; much less those who claim to be exceedingly rational and yet go against reason because of what they call love-or, worse, apart from love. General rules are with difficulty laid down in matters of this sort, and to deny the right of love would be the worst error of all. So far as our popular writers are concerned, we must allow that they wonderfully balance the claims of "arrangement" and honest affection, declaring strongly for the latter. But yet such a difference as between faith and idolatry, between piety and godlessness, is a barrier that only the blindest folly can overleap when marriage is in view. Daughters of the Philistines may be "most divinely fair," most graceful and plausible; men who worship Moloch or Mammon, or nothing but themselves, may have most persuasive tongues and a large share of this world’s goods. But to mate with these, whatever liking there may be, is an experiment too rash for venturing. In Christian society now, is there not much need to repeat old warnings and revive a sense of peril that seems to have decayed? The conscience of piously bred young people was alive once to the danger and sin of the unequal yoke. In the rush for position and means marriage is being made by both sexes, even in most religious circles, an instrument and opportunity of earthly ambition, and it must be said that foolish romance is less to be feared than this carefulness in which conscience and heart alike submit to the imperious cravings of sheer worldliness. Novels have much to answer for; yet they can make one claim-they have done something for simple humanity. We want more than nature, however. Christian teaching must be heard and the Christian conscience must be rekindled. The hope of the world waits on that devout simplicity of life which exalts spiritual aims and spiritual comradeship and by its beauty shames all meaner choice. In marriage not only should heart go out to heart, but mind to mind and soul to soul; and the spirit of one who knows Christ can never unite with a self worshipper or a servant of Mammon. Returning to Samson’s case, he would possibly have said that he wished an adventurous marriage, that to wed a Danite woman would have in it too l