Today’s passage is Judges 13:15-25.
Not realizing the angel is an angel, Manoah wants to prepare a meal for him but he says to make it a burnt offering to the Lord, which Manoa does, and the angel ascends to heaven in the flame, which makes Manoa think he and his wife have seen God and they will die. His wife says they wouldn’t have received so much explanation if God was going to kill them. She gives birth to Samson.
Why does the angel not give his name? Why do Manoa and his wife come to opposite conclusions about the events? Why is Manoa’s wife’s name not given?
Manoah’s wife behaves like Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary.
She trusts what is told to her, is full of hope, and sees things differently from Manoah, who is faithful and but fearful.
The angel appeared to her twice, but only once to Manoah.
The angel tells her that her life will be fulfilled because she will give birth to a spiritual heir.
He says nothing to Manoa other than confirm his identity as the one who told Manoa’s wife she would conceive and what her dietary restriction was.
Because the angel had identified himself as “I am” (11) with a name “beyond understanding” (19), Manoa naturally sees him as God when he ascends in the flame of the burnt offering, and he worries about death.
His wife’s mind, on the other hand, is full of life.
After being childless for a long time, she is told that not only will she conceive but that the child will be special to God.
A woman’s dream! Full of hope, she sees the angel’s ascension as confirmation of God’s blessing that has taken away her shame and exalted her above other women.
#65279;
Manoa sees the outside of things, his wife the inside.
That sometimes happens with me and my wife. She sees things from a different perspective.
My daughter Tess is coming to stay with us for a few months.
She lives what, to my mind, is a very affluent life because her rich grandparents make sure that she lives in a big, well furnished house, that she goes to elite summer camps, that she visits them in Hollywood, and that she goes with them and her cousins on exotic family vacations.
Her grandparents’ money makes sure that Tess does not see herself as the financially poor member of a rich family.
I said to my wife that Tess would be bored at our church and a little constrained by living in our circumstances because she has everything back in the States.
I said that, like Pastor Kim’s granddaughter, Tess had experienced no hardship.
My wife said Tess had a big hardship.
Her parents weren’t married and her father didn’t live with her.
As soon as she said it I felt the great truth of that.
I looked at my daughter’s life with Manoa’s perspective, from the outside.
My wife saw it from the inside. She understood.
Application: to have a lot more sympathy for my daughter.
Lord, let me have more sympathy for my children, for the hardships I have inflicted on them and rarely consider. Let me pray more diligently for their salvation and their eternal life.
