was fulfilled that "which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarite"  303 (Matthew 2:23).

And it is at any rate remarkable that ancient Jewish tradition, in referring to the blessing spoken to Dan

(Genesis 49:17, 18), applies this addition: "I have waited for Thy salvation, Jehovah," through Samson the

Danite, to the Messiah.304

1. Samson's birth. According to the chronological arrangement already in dicated, we infer that Samson was

born under the pontificate of Eli, and after the commencement of the Philistine oppression, which lasted

forty years. If so, then his activity must have begun one or two years before the disastrous battle in which

the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines, and in consequence of which Eli died (1 Samuel 4:18).

While in the east and north the Ammonites oppressed Israel, the same sin had brought on the west and

south of Palestine the judgment of Philistine domination. Then it was, that once more the Angel of Jehovah

came, to teach the people, through Samson, that deliverance could only come by recalling and realizing their

Nazarite character as a priestly kingdom unto Jehovah; and that the Lord's Nazarite, so long as he remained

such, would prove all-powerful through the strength of his God. The circumstances connected with the

annunciation of Samson were supernatural. In the "secluded mountain village" of Zorah,305 the modern

Surah, about six hours west of Jerusalem, within the possession of Dan, lived Manoah ("resting") and his

wife. Theirs, as we judge from the whole history, was the humble, earnest piety which, despite much

apostasy, still lingered in Israel.

It is to be observed that, like Sarah in the Old, and the mother of the Baptist in the New Testament,

Manoah's wife was barren. For the child about to be born was not only to be God-devoted but God-given -

and that in another sense even from his contemporary, Samuel, who had been God-asked of his mother. But

in this case the Angel of the Covenant Himself came to announce the birth of a child, who should be "a

Nazarite unto God from the womb," and who as such should "begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the

Philistines." 306

Accordingly, He laid on the mother, and still more fully on the unborn child, the Nazarite obligations as

these are detailed in Numbers 6:1-8, with the exception of that against defilement by contact with the dead,

which evidently would have been incompatible with his future history.

The appearance of the Angel and His unnamedness had carried to the woman thoughts of the Divine,

though she regarded the apparition as merely that of a man of God. Manoah had not been present; but in

answer to his prayer a second apparition was vouchsafed. It added nothing to their previous knowledge,

except the revelation of the real character of Him Who had spoken to them. For, when Manoah proposed to

entertain his guest, he learned that He would not eat of his food, and that His name was "Wonderful." The

latter, of course, in the sense of designating His character and working, for, as in the parallel passage, Isaiah

9:6, such names refer not to the being and nature of the Messiah, but to His activity and manifestation - not

to what He is, but to what He does. As suggested by the Angel, Manoah now brought a burnt-offering unto

Jehovah - for, wherever He manifested Himself, there sacrifice and service might be offered. And when the

Angel "did wondrously;" when fire leaped from the altar, and the Angel ascended in the flame that

consumed the burnt-offering, then Manoah and his wife, recognizing His nature, fell worshipping on the

ground. No further revelation was granted them; but when Manoah, in the spirit of the Old Testament,

feared lest their vision of God might render it impossible for them to live on earth, his wife, more fully

enlightened, strove to allay such doubts by the inference, that what God had begun in grace He would not

end in judgment. An inference this, applying to all analogous cases in the spiritual history of God's people.

And so months of patient, obedient waiting ensued, when at last the promised child was born, and obtained

the name of Samson, or rather (in the Hebrew) Shimshon.307 His calling soon appeared, for as the child grew

up under the special blessing of the Lord, "the Spirit of Jehovah began to impel him in the camp of Dan,

between Zorah and Eshtaol."  308