A Promise in the Field: Samson's Birth

A woman is alone in a field when a stranger appears. His face is so awe-inspiring that she does not dare ask where he has come from. And what he says will change her life, and the story of her whole nation.

These are the days of the judges, a dark and tangled time in Israel's history. Again and again the people turn away from God, and again and again trouble follows. This time the trouble has a name: the Philistines. For forty years they have ruled over Israel. In the hill town of Zorah, looking out toward Philistine country, lives a man named Manoah, from the tribe of Dan. He and his wife have no children. The Bible doesn't even tell us her name. But it is to her that heaven comes first.

The angel of the Lord appears to her. “You have not been able to have children,” he says, “but you are going to have a son.” Then come instructions. While she is expecting, she must drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. And once the boy is born, no razor must ever touch his head. “The child will be a Nazirite to God from the womb,” the angel says, “and he will begin to save Israel from the Philistines.” Begin. Not finish. Remember that word. She runs to tell her husband. “A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn't ask where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name.”

Manoah does something lovely. He prays. “Lord, please let the man of God you sent come back to us, and teach us what to do for the boy who will be born.” And God listens. The angel comes again, and once more it is to the woman, sitting alone out in the field. She runs to fetch her husband, and Manoah hurries after her. “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am.” Manoah has questions. How should the boy live? What will his work be? The angel simply repeats what he has already said. Let her keep everything I told her.

Manoah wants to be a good host. “Please stay, and let us prepare a young goat for you.” The angel says he will not eat, but if Manoah wants to make a burnt offering, he should offer it to the Lord. Manoah still doesn't realise who he is talking to. “What is your name,” he asks, “so that we can honour you when your words come true?” “Why do you ask my name? It is wonderful.” Some translations say: secret. Beyond understanding. So Manoah lays the young goat and a grain offering on a rock. The fire blazes up toward the sky. And as Manoah and his wife watch, the angel of the Lord goes up in the flame. They fall face down on the ground.

Now Manoah understands, and he is terrified. “We are going to die,” he tells his wife. “We have seen God!” And here his wife shows that she has been paying very close attention.

“If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering and our grain offering. He would not have shown us all these things, or told us all this.”

She is right. In time she gives birth to a son, and she calls him Samson. The boy grows, and the Lord blesses him. And one day, in a camp between Zorah and Eshtaol, the Spirit of the Lord begins to stir him. The deliverer has arrived. His story will be wild, and at times troubling. But it starts here, in a quiet field, with a promise kept.

So what is a Nazirite? The rules are set out in the book of Numbers, chapter six. Any Israelite man or woman could make this special vow to be set apart for God. For as long as the vow lasted, they drank no wine and ate nothing from the grapevine, kept away from dead bodies, and let their hair grow uncut. Usually it was a personal choice, and it lasted for a set time. Samson's case is unusual. God chooses it for him before he is born, and it is meant to last his whole life. His long hair would mark him out, every single day, as someone who belonged to God.

The birth of Samson. You'll find it in Judges, chapter 13. A couple with no children and no hope of any. A promise, given twice. And a woman whose quiet good sense steadied her frightened husband. So here is something to think about. What has God already shown you of his care, that you can hold on to when you feel afraid?