Samson - Saint and Sinner
(Part 1 - The Making of a Judge in Israel)
Chapter 2

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WHEN we are looking at the life of a man, it is good to look at the family and stock that nurtured him, and as we look at the parents of Samson we must be encouraged when we see what root and stock God chose for the deliverer of his people.

No doubt Manoah and his wife were one of the few remnant who were faithful to Jehovah. We are not told anything about their spiritual life, but we can deduce that they feared God and worshipped him from the way they reacted to the coming and message of the Angel of the Lord. But they were very ordinary people showing much weakness and fear. What an encouraging revelation of God we have here in the way he dealt with these two faltering believers. We see the gracious patience and kindness that God shows to his people. It is also good to know that it is from such ordinary faltering people that God brought forth Samson, who was to be a judge in Israel.

It seemed to be a condition of Christian biographies written around the nineteen thirties, and before and after, that they painted the one they were writing about in glowing colours. They were spiritual giants without any obvious weaknesses. They are seen as men and women of sacrifice, of prayer, of great faith, and high moral character. They do not seem to have any of the usual human failings or struggles. We have to applaud, and are moved by such saintly living, but we feel we can't identify with them, because we fall so far short of such sanctity. It seemed to be thought by these biographers, that to show or admit that these men and woman had any weaknesses or failings would in some way demean the Gospel, so these were left out and never spoken of.

It is so comforting and encouraging when we come to the biographies in the Bible. There God's saints are painted with both failings and successes. It is good to observe here the weakness of Manoah and his wife, not so that we may treat failing in the spiritual realm lightly, but so that we may be encouraged by how God deals with them in patience and kindness, and redeeming grace. It is strengthening to know that God chose such people to be the parents of the deliverer he was providing for Israel. Although God sets his people high standards, yet he reveals himself as gracious and understanding towards them in their failure to come up to those standards.

Firstly, God's graciousness and kindness is seen in giving Manoah and his wife a son, and a son who was a very special child.

We are not told that Manoah and his wife prayed for a son, but it is safe to assume that they did. As Hannah prayed for a child later and God gave her Samuel, so no doubt Manoah's wife prayed. To be childless in Israel was a great sorrow and affliction, and often felt to be because of some judgement of God upon the childless. God graciously answered this prayer and in a very privileged way. Samson was no ordinary child. To be the parents of Samson was a great privilege and trust. So gracious is God that he not only gave but in abundant measure.

How comforting and reassuring this must have been for them as they reflected upon it later, and throughout Samson's childhood. Not only did God give them a child, so assuring them that they were not an offence to God, but he confirmed his saving love to them by entrusting to them the one who was to be a deliverer in Israel.

Secondly, God's gracious patience and kindness is revealed in the way God dealt with them and patiently put up with their weakness and failings.

Manoah's wife was told all that would happen. She was told to keep herself pure and not eat anything unclean or drink fermented wine. She was told how she was to bring up the child, that he was to be a Nazarite. This fact that Samson was to be a Nazarite of itself would impress on Manoah and his wife the importance of the son they were to be given. We read about the Nazarite and his vow in Numbers chapter six. The Nazarite was one who made a special vow of separation to the Lord. He was to abstain from all that comes from the grape and he was not to cut his hair. These two outward acts were outward signs of the Nazarite's separation to the Lord. The Nazarite was holy - that is, set apart for God, throughout the term of the vow. Normally the Nazarite vow was temporary, for the time needed to fulfil the task which required to be done. In Samson's case the vow was to be for life.

From all this Manoah and his wife knew how they should take care of their son. Yet when we read the story, far from being uplifted and made more competent, we find Manoah's wife in a daze. She seemed to be mesmerised by the events and reduced to a state of dither. Manoah when he was told of the coming of the Angel of the Lord seemed to be reduced to hopeless anxiety and indecision. He prays for more instruction. He can't believe what his wife is telling him. He is frightened. God accommodates himself to their weakness. The Angel of the Lord comes again.

Manoah and his wife had been told already all they needed to know. By asking for another visit from the Angel of the Lord, they were being weak and tiresome. Yet God understood and was so very patient. The Angel of the Lord did come again, and repeated all that he had said before. This is the graciousness of God to his people. God patiently repeats every thing again. God bears with their weakness and foolishness and their lack of faith.

Then as we continue to read the story we find that Manoah, in his weakness and indecision, wanted the Angel of the Lord to stay longer. He still found everything too hard to handle, and sought to delay action and responsibility by delaying the departure of the Angel. Or perhaps he felt that if the Angel of the Lord stayed longer, somehow everything would grow easier or simpler. While the Angel of the Lord was with him in person, he felt things could be handled, but he was fearful of the future after he had left.

We are much like this. God calls us to service, and blesses us with a strengthening experience of his presence through his Word and by his Spirit. We tend to hold on to this experience, and dwell in the past, for that was the time we felt uplifted and strong. The future presents too big a challenge. But the fact is that God is still with us, just as he was with Manoah. He does not give responsibility to his servants without equipping them for that responsibility, but faith is difficult without sight or some conscious experience to bolster it up, and so like Manoah we are reluctant to face the future, and hold on to the experience of the past.

See how wonderfully kind and patient the Angel of the Lord is with Manoah, and how powerfully he provides for the strengthening of his faith. The Angel of the Lord, whom we understand to be Christ in one of his pre-incarnation appearances, does two things.

In the first place he bears with Manoah's weakness graciously waiting longer and putting up with his questions. He also directs him in the way whereby all God's people are strengthened in the spiritual life. He directs him not to prepare a goat for food, but for sacrifice, because it is through sacrifice of a substitute that we are reconciled to God and kept in the favour of God. The Angel of the Lord points prophetically to his own great one and only all-sufficient sacrifice for sin. He also answers his question concerning his own identity, not in words, because this was impossible, but by action which would not only impress the truth more powerfully on Manoah and his wife, but also be in a form they could grasp and understand.

This is the way of our gracious Saviour. Satan may, and often does, seek to undermine this understanding in us, and make us feel that Christ grows angry and impatient with our weakness in faith and service. Satan likes to cause us to feel, after we have been particularly weak or wayward in faith, maybe complaining and shouting at God, that we are guilty and thus have forfeited Christ's love and grace. This is not so. See how Christ gently deals with Manoah here, waiting longer in his presences, and putting up with his questions and complaints, and bringing answers and healing to them.

Christ's action with Manoah, accommodating himself to his weakness to believe his word and to cope with it, now powerfully reveals to Manoah his divine nature by ascending in the flames of the sacrifice; and then by that act bringing assurance to him and his wife that his word and promise was true, and that he would be with them as they coped with the gift of such a son.

Thirdly, God's gracious patience and kindness to his people is demonstrated in the fact that the Angel of the Lord does not rebuke Manoah and his wife, or condemn them or punish them. He corrects them and teaches them, but he does not put them down or crush them. He accommodates himself to their weakness, not requiring of them standards and actions they are incapable of achieving.

Indeed, he accepts what they are, bears with what they are, and works to make them better and stronger, and better able to be his servants.

This is the way of Christ to us. We should never take our failings lightly, or feel that they don't matter, or that we need not seek for improvement, but we should never run away with the idea that they shut us off from the love of Christ, believing that he turns away from us in disgust, and will not bless us until we are better. There is nothing worse than to feel like this, because it is a denial of the Gospel of grace, which tells us that we are not only saved by grace, but are kept by grace and led forward by grace, and that without grace we can do nothing.

Lastly, God's gracious patience and kindness with his people is seen in the understanding expressed by Manoah's wife, as she and her husband discussed the events after the Angel of the Lord had departed.

After the Angel of the Lord had gone up in the flame of the sacrifice, Manoah, in great fear says "We are doomed to die! We have seen God!". His wife knew better and understood the loving purpose of Christ more perfectly. She says in verse 23, "If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this."

See the loving ministry of Jesus. By this act of ascending in the flame of the sacrifice he brings assurance that he accepts the sacrifice, and that atonement for the sins of Manoah and his wife has been fully and acceptably made. He gives them the assurance that they are forgiven and accepted and beloved of God. By this act he assures them that they are his people and he is their God. He strengthens them so they know that all they have heard, is the word of God both true and sure. He assures them of the fact that he will not leave them or forsake them.

All this Manoah's wife understands, not perfectly at this time, but more perfectly later as she and Manoah remember and reflect on all that has happened. So they have been left a blessing that has immediate power to lift them up, and which grows and lasts as time passes.

This is Christ's way in our spiritual weakness. We are led by His Spirit always back to his cross, and he impresses upon us more and more what that cross means. We do not, perhaps, learn anything new, but such is the depth of meaning in the cross that we can never reach the fulness and depth of its meaning to us either now or in eternity, and so as Christ leads us back to the cross, we enter more deeply, through his patience and kindness, to the wonderful strengthening blessings that are there.

This is our gracious God. Samson was sent to be a deliverer through these ordinary weak believers Manoah and his wife. He was of their clay. He finds, as we shall also find, that the way God dealt with his parents, would be the way he would deal with him. We can learn also that in the same way he deals with all his believing people.