The people fall again into idolatry and are afflicted by the Philistines. An angel foretells the birth of Samson.

¹ And again, the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. And he delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.¹

1. 13:1The eschatological meaning of this verse refers to the period of time, described in the Book of Revelation, called the tribulation, when the Christian faithful are delivered into the hands of those who hate us in secular society cf. Mat 24:9(Conte)

² Now there was a certain man from Zorah, and of the stock of Dan, whose name was Manoah, having a barren wife.

³ And an Angel of the Lord appeared to her, and he said: “You are barren and without children. But you shall conceive and bear a son.

⁴ Therefore, take care that you do not drink wine or strong drink. Neither shall you eat anything unclean.

⁵ For you shall conceive and bear a son, whose head no razor shall touch. For he shall be a Nazirite of God, from his infancy and from his mother’s womb. And he shall begin to free Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

⁶ And when she had gone to her husband, she said to him: “A man of God came to me, having the countenance of an Angel, exceedingly terrible. And when I had inquired of him, who he was, and where he was from, and what name he was called, he was not willing to tell me.¹

1. 13:6The more grammatically correct ‘from where he was’ would be needlessly awkward here. Also, since this is dialogue, it should reflect the way that people express themselves, and not be overly formal.(Conte)

⁷ But he responded: ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Take care that you do not drink wine or strong drink. And you shall not consume anything unclean. For the boy shall be a Nazirite of God from his infancy, from his mother’s womb, even until the day of his death.’ ”

⁸ And so Manoah prayed to the Lord, and he said, “I beg you Lord, that the man of God, whom you sent, may come again, and may teach us what we ought to do about the boy who is to be born.”

⁹ And the Lord heeded the prayer of Manoah, and the Angel of the Lord appeared again to his wife, sitting in a field. But her husband Manoah was not with her. And when she had seen the Angel,

¹⁰ she hurried and ran to her husband. And she reported to him, saying, “Behold, the man appeared to me, whom I had seen before.”

¹¹ And he rose up and followed his wife. And going to the man, he said to him, “Are you the one who spoke to my wife?” And he responded, “I am.”

¹² And Manoah said to him: “When will your word be fulfilled. What do you want the boy to do? Or from what should he keep himself?”

¹³ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah: “Concerning all the things about which I have spoken to your wife, she herself should abstain.¹

1. 13:13Let her refrain, etc: By the Latin text it is not clear whether this abstinence was prescribed to the mother, or to the child; but the Hebrew (in which the verbs relating thereto are of the feminine gender) determines it to the mother. But then the child also was to refrain from the like things, because he was to be from his infancy a Nazarite of God, ver. 5, that is, one set aside, in a particular manner, and consecrated to God: now the Nazarites by the law were to abstain from all these things.(Challoner)

¹⁴ And let her eat nothing from the vine. She may not drink wine or strong drink. She may consume nothing unclean. And let her observe and keep what I have instructed to her.”

¹⁵ And Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “I beg you to agree to my petition, and to let us prepare a kid from the goats.”

¹⁶ And the Angel answered him: “Even if you compel me, I will not eat from your bread. But if you are willing to offer a holocaust, offer it to the Lord.” And Manoah did not know that he was an Angel of the Lord.

¹⁷ And he said to him, “What is your name, so that, if your word is fulfilled, we may honor you?”

¹⁸ And he answered him, “Why do you ask my name, which is a wonder?”¹

1. 13:18The true names of the Angels are unspeakable in human language. The Angels called Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael also have their own angelic names, given to them before human language ever existed. But these names are too wonderful to express in human language.(Conte)

¹⁹ And so, Manoah took a kid from the goats, and libations, and he placed them upon a rock, as an offering to the Lord, who accomplishes wonders. Then he and his wife watched.

²⁰ And when the flame of the altar ascended to heaven, the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. And when Manoah and his wife had seen this, they fell prone on the ground.

²¹ And the Angel of the Lord no longer appeared to them. And immediately, Manoah understood him to be an Angel of the Lord.

²² And he said to his wife, “We shall certainly die, since we have seen God.”¹

1. 13:22Seen God: Not in his own person, but in the person of his messenger. The Israelites, in those days, imagined they should die if they saw an angel, taking occasion perhaps from those words spoken by the Lord to Moses, Ex. 33.20, No man shall see me and live. But the event demonstrated that it was but a groundless imagination.(Challoner)

²³ And his wife answered him, “If the Lord wished to kill us, he would not have accepted the holocaust and the libations from our hands. He would not have revealed all these things to us, nor would he have told us the things that are in the future.”

²⁴ And so she bore a son, and she called his name Samson. And the boy grew up, and the Lord blessed him.

²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to be with him in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.