This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 31, “Moms in the Bible–Samson’s Mother”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/moms-in-the-bible-samsons-mother
The hundreds of years following the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt were far from easy and carefree. The people continued to struggle with obedience and faith in God. In their struggle, they chose sin more often than not and they received the consequences that the Lord had promised them. Other nations ruled over them. False gods ruled their hearts. Their lives were miserable, for the hand of the Lord was against them. So the Lord “raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.”[Judges 2:16]. Remember Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, and Jephthah, to name a few? Each time the judges brought rescue from the Lord, the “people of Israel again did what was evil” in his sight. So, God “gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years”[Judges 13]. We meet this mother here, living under the rule of an enemy nation, with a people who cannot figure out how to obey God. Though unnamed, the Lord used her in a mighty way in her time. For this chapter, we will simply refer to her as “Mother”. Her story can be found in the book of Judges, chapters 13-16.
Another barren woman, Mother was childless in her marriage to Manoah. Already suffering the embarrassment of living in a conquered nation, her barrenness added personal shame to her life. The Lord saw her in her barrenness and chose her to bear a special child. Appearing just to her, the angel of the Lord gave her the news. “You shall conceive,” he declared, “and bear a son.” “Therefore,” he continued, “be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.” As she was taking this information in, the angel of the Lord added, “No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”[Judges 13:3-5] After their conversation, Mother went to Manoah and reported what was revealed to her. Manoah wanted more information, and prayed that the angel would return.
God listened and the angel of God again visited Mother. This time, she immediately ran to Manoah and brought him to the angel. Manoah began to question the angel who, rather than answering the questions Manoah asked, repeated what he initially told Mother. Manoah, still trying to figure all of this out, asked the angel to stay for food. The angel agreed as long as it was presented as an offering to the Lord. As Manoah and Mother are making their offering, the angel of the Lord goes up toward heaven with the flames. Awe filled their hearts and they immediately fell to the ground in worship. Realizing it was the Lord himself that they had spoken with, Manoah was overcome with fear. Mother spoke words of encouragement to him and in time, the things the Lord had spoken of came to pass. Mother obeyed the Lord and Samson, their son, was born. He grew and was blessed by the Lord. Samson was not an easy child. He was strong, independent, willful and disobedient. Mother watched over and over again as he made wrong and hurtful decisions. Sometime following Samson’s failed wedding to a woman from Timnah, Mother passed away.
A woman of simple faith. That is who I think Mother was. Simple in the sense that she did not require all the details that so many of us seek in order to believe. When the angel of the Lord first visited Mother, she listened to all he said, and then went and told her husband. She described what the angel was like to Manoah and then she said, “I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, but he said to me…”[Judges 13:6] I think she knew Manoah was going to have questions. He was someone who liked to have all of the information in advance. For Mother, what the angel of the Lord said seemed to be enough. She did not know then that he truly was the Lord, but she recognized that he was at least of God. She said he was “very awesome” and that seemed to satisfy her. The angel had given her an incredible promise and a weighty responsibility, and Mother accepted both as truth. She did what the Lord commanded her to do without argument, simply because he had told her to.
Manoah, on the other hand, wanted more information. He had some questions that he wanted answered. After Mother shared all the information she had, Manoah prayed and asked for the man to come back. In his graciousness, God listened and answered Manoah’s request.
It is interesting that Manoah’s questions changed from when he initially prayed to when the angel reappeared. His initial request was that the man of God would “teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.”[Judges 13:8] This sounds like a request for wisdom and guidance. “How should I parent him? How should I raise him?” When the angel of the Lord returned, he instead asked “what is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?”[Judges 13:12] These questions are different. The focus shifts from humbly asking God for wisdom to wanting to know what the future will hold. Manoah wanted a foretelling of the boy’s life.
As parents, I think all of us resonate with the questions that Manoah asked. We want to know how to parent well. Discipline and instruction are difficult and we need God’s guidance to do both in a godly manner. What do I do when my child is screaming in the grocery aisle? How do I stop my child from lying and sneaking out of the house? What do I say when my son moves in with his girlfriend? All of those questions point to Manoah’s request, “teach us what we are to do with the child”!
We also often wonder what is going to happen in our children’s lives. Who will they become? What will their career be? Who will they marry? Will they believe in God? Will they remember what we taught them? There are so many things that we can and do spend our time thinking about and trying to predict. We join Manoah in asking “what is to be the child’s manner of life and what is his mission.”
As we read in the chapter on Eve, the Lord wants us to turn to him for wisdom. He delights when we depend on him for help in our parenting. Manoah’s first question was a good question. It is one that we should ponder before our children ever enter our home. What is our philosophy on discipline? What are things we want him or her to learn during their time with us? How do we show God to them? And it is a question that we will repeat as they grow up, as we continually face situations that are new and we feel helpless or confused as to how to respond. Turn to the Lord for wisdom. He will answer!
As much as we would love the answers to Manoah’s other questions, we do not need to know those answers in order to obey God and parent our children well. When the Lord responded to Manoah, he repeated what he had already told Mother. Manoah gained no new information. The Lord was saying that what he had already disclosed was enough for Mother and Manoah to act upon at this time. When they needed to know more, he would tell them then. Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Vertical Worship sings this truth so beautifully in their song If I Have You,
“I don’t need to see tomorrow’s plans
I just need to trust that You are working
I don’t even need to understand
I just need to keep You as the first thing”
Manoah only stopped asking questions when he realized that he had been speaking with the Lord himself. More than simply an angel doing the Lord’s bidding, the phrase “the angel of the Lord” was used in the Scriptures to indicate when it was the Lord himself who was visiting a person. It was the angel of the Lord who appeared to Hagar in the wilderness whom she named El Roi saying, “You are a God of seeing.”[Gen. 16:13]. The Lord himself had visited and spoken with Mother and Manoah. They saw that he was awesome, that he was of God, but they had not recognized that he was God until they offered a sacrifice to him. “And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.” At this Manoah declares, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”[Judges 13:20,22].
Mamas, how we view God impacts how we interact with him. If we think he is judgemental, unwelcoming, aloof, or angry, we will be afraid to draw near to him, afraid to ask him for help. We will look elsewhere for wisdom, in places that will not be so quick to condemn. If we recognize that he is good, loving, merciful, and generous, we will be quick to draw near and seek his help. We will turn to him for wisdom, trusting him step by step, and finding peace in his presence. A right view of God enables us to have simple faith like Mother had. And it will move us quickly to our knees in praise of him as Mother and Manoah did at the altar, and as David did in Psalm 103. Let’s read that now as we conclude:
Psalm 103
Of David.
1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
15 The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.
19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Praise the Lord, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.
21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.
22 Praise the Lord, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
Image from John Heseltine / Pam Masco / FreeBibleimages.org.
Lyssa Stoyko 