Dear RTB’ers,
Today we begin the story of Samson, the final judge in this book of Judges, the sixth major judge. We’ll spend three days and read four chapters for this one character. Fundamentally Samson is setting the stage for what comes next in the history of Israel – Samuel, Saul, and finally King David.
The wife of Manoah… We never learn her name. We know of three other barren women for whom divine intervention resulted in their motherhood: Sarai (Sarah, Abram/Abraham’s wife and mother of Isaac), Rebekah (Isaac’s wife and Jacob’s mother), and Elizabeth (Zechariah’s wife and John the Baptist’s mother), but we never learn Samson’s mother’s name. Interesting. She is clearly the hero of today’s reading. The angel appears to her twice (not to her husband) with the same instructions each time; she has wisdom that her husband is lacking (“If the LORD had meant to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things…”, v. 23a); and (left unsaid) she delivers her child in due time. And we never learn her name.
Maybe it’s OK if I have done something “substantial” (in my own estimation), and not received the credit that I thought I deserved. Maybe that’s OK. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory… (Ephesians 3:20-21a)
Blessings!