A Messenger Visited Her Twice. Her Husband Missed Both.

In Judges chapter 13, a woman alone in a field meets a man who was not there a moment before. He tells her she will have a son, and that the boy must never drink wine, never eat anything unclean, and never have his hair cut, because he will be a Nazirite, someone set apart for God from birth. This is the birth of Samson, told exactly as the text tells it. The messenger comes to her twice. Both times her husband Manoah is somewhere else. When he finally meets the man himself, he does not recognize what he is looking at. He asks the man's name and is told, "Why do you ask my name, since it is beyond comprehension?" Only when the sacrifice catches fire and the messenger goes up in the flame does Manoah realize who he has been talking to. "We are going to die," Manoah tells his wife, "for we have seen God!" Her answer, calm and immediate, is the smartest line in the chapter. No traditions added, nothing invented. Where the Bible is silent, we say so. Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain). Part 1 of the Samson story. Part 2: a lion, a riddle, and three hundred foxes. Chapters: 00:00 A man who was not there 01:18 The Nazirite 02:33 She runs to tell him 03:53 Are you the man 05:26 The flame 07:12 Samson