Chapter 13 is pretty fascinating. It chronicles the birth of a Nazirite named Samson. It has a very interesting beginning. The Angel of the LORD appears to a Danite woman, who was sterile and childless and told her she would have a child. Sterile and childless women don't have children.
And I wonder why this is...why would God select someone to be set apart from birth? If I remember right in Leviticus, this setting apart from birth was optional. I'm not concerned about this particular couple in question, Manoah and his wife, but rather why God would select anyone for this. Of course God will uses who He wills, he's shown that time and again. But the angel comes down out of nowhere, and at random chooses a family. Or maybe it wasn't at random. Manoah seems eager to facilitate this plan, praying to God and asking th messenger to return, and preparing offerings. Was it the thrill of actually being able to bare a child? And this would be their only child (at least at this point), yet he belonged to the LORD. Specifically.
Manoah asked the angel his name, and gets a rather cryptic response in verse 18.
"It is beyond understanding."How could someone's very name be beyond understanding? What kind of person is this? Why was it so hard to tell someone your name, despite the lack of understanding.
As the offering burned, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. He went up. Heaven is apparently up. Or at least the direction meant to indicate heaven (life), while the ground, the grave is death. And Manoah freaks out the same way Gideon did when he realized it was the angel of the LORD. Who apparently carries the same reverence among the people of Israel as the LORD himself. Manoah's wife reasons that they couldn't be killed, because the angel of the LORD gave specific instructions as to how they were to raise the child. Is this God choosing who gets to see faces? Can He be choosy like that?
They named him Samson.
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