Every superhero/supervillan needs an origin story
As was typical for this biblical time period, the children of Israel were in bondage to the Philistines because Jehovah was punishing them for being bad. After 40 years the Lord decided it was time to start thinking about letting the Israelites self-govern again. Like so many of these bible stories involving miraculous children, Samson’s mother was barren. Sometimes (as in the case of Abraham’s wife) the woman is barren because she is too old. However, I just sort of assume in the bible that when age isn’t blamed, these women can’t get pregnant because they are too young and they don’t start having babies because God blesses them. They start having babies because they are finally old enough. But I digress . . .
Manoah’s wife hadn’t given birth, ever. Since this story is about her and she is unnamed in the Bible, I am going to call her Cheeky. One day an angel showed up and said to Cheeky, “You can’t have kids. I’m here now though, and I say you are going to have a kid very soon. Here’s the important part, so PAY ATTENTION! You cannot drink wine, or any other strong drink, or eat anything unclean. You are going to have a son and you can never cut his hair because he is going to be a Nazarite from birth until death and he will begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
This was unusual because a man usually became Nazarite temporarily as an adult due to an oath. That person would then avoid drinking alcohol, eating or drinking anything that was related to grapes (raisins, wine, etc), cutting hair, or touching anything dead. At the end of the Nazarite term they would shave their head in the temple courtyard and burn their hair on the altar.
Well, Cheeky found the whole experience rather disconcerting and went to tell her husband all about it. Manoah was a pious man and decided it would be best to get direct instruction himself to make sure he didn’t mess up the whole Nazarite child thing. He prayed to Jehovah and said, “Please send the angel that talked to Cheeky to us again so we can get proper instruction on how to care for this child.”
Jehovah listened to Manoah’s request and sent the angel again. This angel must have been slightly retarded, because he went to Cheeky again when she was working in the fields all by herself. No harm done though; Cheeky saw the angel and immediately ran to fetch her husband. Manoah asked the angel how they should raise the child. The angel just said that Cheeky needed to do everything she had been told previously.
This wasn’t the answer Manoah was looking for, but he didn’t want to anger the angel, so he invited him to dinner. The angel didn’t want to eat and told Manoah to make a burnt offering to the Lord instead. When Manoah made the offering, the angel jumped into the flame and was carried up into heaven. Cheeky and Manoah freaked out when they saw this and immediately threw themselves onto their faces. Manoah said, “OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod! We’re gonna die! OhmyGod we are so gonna die. We’ve seen the face of God and now we’re gonna die! Waaaa!”
Cheeky was a little more clear-headed and said, “Hold on, think for a minute. God isn’t going to kill us. If He was, He wouldn’t have shown us all these cool things about the new baby and He wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering. We’re going to be OK.”
So Cheeky got pregnant and had a son. She named him Samson and as he grew, the Lord blessed him. And he didn’t eat grapes.
Ref: Judges 13
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