She lived in a land of darkness
oppressed by cruel foreigners.
She carried deep personal shame:
“barren” was her common name.
No hope for a descendant!
No sign she could conceive!
Her husband had not spurned her,
his name must have consoled her:
“place of rest: Manoah.”
So she was quick to tell him
that a God-sent messenger
had brought her stunning news!
What? She would birth a son,
a unique one, set apart
even before he was born
to begin to rescue Israel
from the enemy Philistines!
He would be consecrated
to serve El, their fathers’ God!
She recognized awesomeness,
a supernatural quality,
in this envoy sent from God!
She believed and so she hurried
to pass on the message
to Manoah—not all details,
but a child was coming,
a Nazirite, dedicated in her womb!
Manoah accepted her news,
but needed it signed, sealed,
delivered straight to him.
So he prayed, and Yahweh
heard and sent his envoy
once again—to the woman!
She was unnamed, but chosen
to be herald of the news!
She was out there on their farm
when the “man of God”
showed up again, to her.
This was true, she knew:
he was answered prayer,
confirmation that God heard.
Manoah rose from his rest,
followed his wife to the farm.
Yes! The envoy had returned!
To raise the coming child,
the messenger explained,
his wife must be a Nazirite
right now, her pregnancy
a preparation of their son.
She too was set apart,and known,
essential to God Yahweh’s plan!
The messenger insisted that
he too must stay unnamed,
his name was unintelligible
to someone like Manoah.
He also refused to dine;
instead, he said, burn the food
as sacrifice to Yahweh!
So the couple set on fire
the goat and the grain, on a rock.
As flames rose to the sky
so did the envoy! Shock!
It was all clear: this showed
he was no ordinary man!
They fell face down in awe!
Manoah feared they’d die,
but his wise wife pointed out
the truth: their sacrifice
had been accepted; the rest
was in Yahweh’s great hand.
She remained unnamed
but no longer shamed!
She followed through
and gave birth to a son
named after the Sun,
then did what she could
to teach him to not follow
gods worshiped by the others
around them in those days.
It was now time for Yahweh
to stir up some trouble—the kind
that would remind his people
he was still in charge.
It was a mysterious plan
they would not understand.
I find it hard to read through the Book of Judges; it is so full of despair and violence. But then there are those break-through moments when the God of infinite patience and love finds a way to shake things up and turn his people back to worship him, Yahweh.
This time the unnamed woman, “Manoah’s wife,” caught my attention (see Judges 13). Unlike Sarah and Hannah who also had unexpected pregnancies, she is kept in the background. No name! Just the wife of a man who is identified! Yet God sent his messenger to her, and knew that she would carry through. She did the right thing: she ran to tell her husband and involved him in the story. But it was harder for him to recognize the supernatural nature of the messenger, and that showed up when he offered to feed him, then asked him his name. Names are important, but this messenger was underlining his supernatural origin: no way would he reveal his name, since it was way beyond Manoah’s understanding. Finally Manoah “got it” when the man rose into the sky in the sacrificial flames.
So why does the woman remain nameless? She was important. She had been given the information that her son would “begin” the rescue of Israel from the Philistines—and that is what Samson, her son did. He never conquered them completely, to deliver his people. He slipped and fell in lustful ways and unwisely betrayed the secret to his divinely-endowed strength. His role was to begin to rattle boththe enemy and the oppressed. Yahweh was reminding them of his role in their background and in hope for their future.
His mother, still with no name, was a believer in the God of their ancestors. She recognized that the angel came from El, the generic name of their God, spontaneously while her husband did not. She knew about the rules for dedication to El’s service as a Nazirite, which was usually a temporary vow with dietary restrictions, and she was willing to commit to them. The angel spoke of Yahweh when he told the couple to sacrifice their food to Yahweh, but the only time one of the couple actually used the revealed name of God, “Yahweh,” was when Manoah’s wife said to him: “If Yahweh wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us.” (NET 13:14).[1] She was stepping into a new relationship with Yahweh, trusting his erasure of her sterility and his gift through her of a deliverer for his people.
She named her son “Samson,” a common name in that region which in Hebrew meant something like “sun-like.” I wonder if she hoped he would bring light into their darkness. So how did she feel when he fell in love with a Philistine woman, a daughter from the ungodly oppressers of her people? She must have wondered how God was going to use this strong son of hers, as faulty as he was. When God had sent other leaders, it had been in response to Israel “calling out to God.” In this case, his people were actually silent. How would he act? Then when God began to empower her son (14:6) it was not what she must have expected: he won a fight with a violent lion! And the story goes on.
What we do know is that this woman was a chosen vessel of Yahweh to begin restoring his people to freedom. Manoah is named, so the reader would think he was going to be a hero, but instead “this is an element of the narrator’s art in leading you to expect one thing only to discover another.”[i] What we learn is that God cares for people that society sees as insignificant, and he often chooses to use them for his big purpose.
Any of us who have read this far and feel like we are insignificant, even nameless, actors in God’s story can take inspiration from the role of Manoah’s wife. She stands out as a woman of faith and obedience to her Lord, Yahweh, the God that her people were no longer following with devotion. May we follow her example! We don’t need to be recognized, to have fame. We cannot know what God will do as a result of our daily commitment to him. But we do know that he uses his devoted people—even wives who find themselves in the background—for his purposes! And that is good.
[1] Robert B. Chisholm Jr., A Commentary on Judges and Ruth: Commentary, Kregel Exegetical Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2013), 401–402.
[i] Butler, (2009:323) cited by Mary J. Evans, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. David G. Firth and Tremper III Longman, vol. 7, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2017), 146.
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