How often we find in the Old Testament that when a man was to be signally used of God there was something remarkable attending his birth. Such cases as that of Isaac, of Moses, of Sam, will Wince occur to your remembrance; and one object, doubtless, of their birth or infancy being so distinguished, was to show that it was God himself who interposed, and that they were but instruments in his hand.
Samson’s birth is another instance of the kind. Again and again had Israel’s sins brought the nation into trouble and bondage after the days of Gideon; and now we are told that “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.” Perhaps it was not the whole nation that was under the yoke of these enemies, but some portions of it bordering on the region where the Philistines dwelt. In that neighborhood lived a man called Manoah. He and his wife seem to have, been rather advanced in life, but had no family, when, one day, an angel appeared to the latter, and announced that she, would have a sons who was to be a Nazarite to God from his very birth, and he should begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. She at once tells her husband; and it is very striking, the language in wick she express to him her wonder and her fear: “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.” Dear reader, had some heavenly stranger, some inhabitant of the unseen world, appeared thus to you, are you so happy in God, so assured of his favor, so at rest in his love, that you would not have been afraid? Or would you, like Manoah’s wife, have described his countenance as “very terrible?” What is it makes us afraid of God, or of any messenger immediately from him? Alas! dear reader, it is sin; and God’s great object in the Gospel, which is his good news to sinners, is to deliver us both from sin itself and all its consequences, by making himself known to us, in Jesus, as our Friend, as the One who has loved us, and at the cost of his own Son’s precious life, redeemed us to himself. When we know God thus we cease to be afraid of him. We can look up to him as our Father. We can go freely into his presence, and tell him both of our sins, our sorrows, and our fears. What a blessing to know him thus! It was not by this full revelation of god in Christ, that Old Testament saints were brought to know him, but by a particular revelation to each. We have such a revelation in the narrative before us.
When Manoah had heard his wife’s account, he entreated 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.” He is not yet aware who it was that had appeared to his wife; he only supposes him to have been “a man of God;” but he is anxious that he should be sent again, still further to instruct them, and he seeks this by earnest prayer to God. God granted Manoah his request, The heavenly visitant again appeared to the woman as she sat in the field. Her husband not being with her, she went for him at once; and, not having been present on the former occasion, he has repeated to him the instructions which had before been given. Manoah begs the angel to tarry till he has made ready a kid. The answer is such as to disclose the fact, that it is not to a mere man of God, no, nor to a mere angel of the Lord but to the angel Jehovah, the Lord himself, that Manoah is speaking. “Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou offer a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord.” What was this, bat gently to intimate that he was himself the Lord? Manoah presses him for his name, that when his sayings come to pass, they may do him honor; but the answer is, “Why asketh thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” Manoah takes his kid, with a meat-offering, and offers it upon a rock unto the Lord; and we are told that “the angel did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass when the flame went up towards 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, and fell on their faces to the ground.”
But while such was the overpowering effect, on both Manoah and his wife, of this wonderful display of Jehovah’s presence, they do not both view it in the same light. “Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.” But she knew better. “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 be have showed us all these things, nor would he, as at this time, have told us such things as these.” Poor desponding one! if such should read these pages, what an answer have we here to the dark, despairing thoughts which press upon thy heart. Thou lookest on God as thine enemy, viewing him only through the medium of thy sins; and the more conscious thou art of the necessity for having to do with him, the more afraid art thou that he will slay thee—that he will punish thee with that eternal death which thy sins have deserved. But listen to Manoah’s wife. If it were God’s pleasure to destroy, would he have been at such infinite pains to save us? Would he have so shown his willingness to receive us, if only we come in the name of Jesus, that true burnt-offering and meat-offering? Would he have showed us all these things, or told us such things, if his purpose had been to destroy us? We have seen how he showed himself to Manoah and his wife; but since then he has been revealed—fully, openly revealed—in Jesus, the Son of his love; and was this to destroy us? Would he have showed us the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, if it had not been to win our heart’s confidence thus to Jesus and to himself, and to save us eternally? Would he have told us such things? He had told Manoah and his wife that they should have a son, and that he should begin to deliver Israel; but he has told us of his own Son, and of that eternal life he came to bestow, and of that death upon the cross by which he made atonement for our sins. Would he have said, Come unto me, if he had been resolved bidding us depart into eternal woe? Would he have said, Look unto me, if he had determined we should never see his face with joy? O that my dear young readers might believe in the love of God towards them! O that they might believe in Jesus, in whose life and death that love has been so gloriously displayed!
Samson’s birth followed quickly on these events, and we are told, “the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.” May this be true of each reader of GOOD NEWS. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich; and he addeth no sorrow with it.”