Theopedia

Manoah

Manoah was a man of the tribe of Dan, from Zorah, whose wife was barren until the angel of the LORD appeared to her and promised the birth of a son who would be a Nazirite from the womb and would begin Israel’s deliverance from the Philistines (Judg. 13:1-5). Manoah is known only from this one episode, in which he twice encounters the angel of the LORD, offers a sacrifice at the angel’s direction, and concludes, wrongly according to his wife, that he and his wife will die for having seen God (Judg. 13:22-23). The son born to them was Samson (Judg. 13:24).

Biblical Basis

The angel of the LORD first appeared to Manoah’s wife alone, telling her she would conceive and bear a son who was to be a Nazirite to God from birth, bound to the same abstentions from wine, strong drink, and unclean food that she herself was told to observe during the pregnancy (Judg. 13:3-5, 7). She described the visitor to Manoah as “a man of God,” whose “countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible,” but she had not asked where he came from or what his name was (Judg. 13:6).

Manoah prayed that the man would be sent again “to teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born” (Judg. 13:8). The angel returned to the woman while she was in the field, and she ran to bring Manoah, who questioned him directly and received the same instructions a second time (Judg. 13:9-14). Manoah, still not recognizing who he was speaking with, offered to prepare a kid for his guest; the angel declined the meal but told him that if he wished, he should offer a burnt offering to the LORD instead (Judg. 13:15-16). When Manoah asked the angel’s name, so that he could honor him once his words came to pass, the angel answered, “Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” (Judg. 13:17-18).

Manoah then offered a kid and a meat offering on a rock to the LORD. As the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame, and Manoah and his wife fell on their faces to the ground (Judg. 13:19-20). Only then, once the angel did not appear again, did Manoah realize who he had been speaking with (Judg. 13:21). Frightened, he told his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Judg. 13:22). She answered that the LORD would not have accepted their offering, or shown them what he had, or told them what was still to come, if he had meant to kill them (Judg. 13:23). She bore a son and named him Samson; he grew, the LORD blessed him, and the Spirit of the LORD began to move him in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol (Judg. 13:24-25).

Doctrinal Significance

The angel of the LORD

Manoah’s encounter is one of several Old Testament episodes theologians have pointed to as evidence that “the angel of the LORD” describes a real, personal appearance rather than a figure of speech for God’s providence in general. Nineteenth-century Baptist theologian James Petigru Boyce argued against reading all such angelic language figuratively: “there are some instances of the appearance of angels which cannot thus be explained away. The interview between the angel and Hagar, Gen. 16:7-14, is one of these. That with the wife of Manoah is another, Judges 13:2-21.”1 Boyce grouped the Manoah narrative with the angelic appearances to Zacharias and to Mary as “signal instances” of the same kind.1

Samuel Parkison likewise lists the Manoah episode among a set of Old Testament “angel of the LORD theophanies,” alongside the angel’s appearances to Hagar (Gen. 16:7-16), to Jacob (Gen. 32:22-32), and to Joshua (Josh. 5:13-15).2 Parkison distinguishes these theophanies from “Christophanies” proper, cases where “the angel of the LORD is more specifically conceptualized as the pre-incarnate Son taking on a temporary form of a man,” and cautions that this stronger reading applies to some but “not all” angel-of-the-LORD appearances.2

Providence over conception

Manoah’s wife is also cited as one of a recurring set of biblical women whose earlier barrenness and later conception illustrate God’s providence. Christian ethicist Ken Magnuson lists her alongside Rachel, Hannah, the Shunammite woman, and Elizabeth: “That God opens the womb of Manoah’s wife is made clear by the appearance of an angel who announces to her that she will have a child (Judg. 13:3).”3 Magnuson draws a common conclusion from the set: “Those who are barren are not scorned but shown compassion by God, who hears their cries. He opens their wombs and grants them children, and they are taken up in his redemptive purposes. What is more, all of the children born to barren women are prominent figures in Israel who are used by God in significant ways.”3

Related Doctrines

References

  1. James Petigru Boyce, “Chapter XVIII. Creation of Angels,” in Abstract of Systematic Theology, 2nd printing, 1st published ed. (Baltimore: H. M. Wharton & Company, 1887), 175. ↩ ↩2

  2. Samuel G. Parkison, To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2024), chap. 2, “Biblical Foundations for the Beatific Vision,” 25. ↩ ↩2

  3. Ken Magnuson, “11. Infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” in Invitation to Christian Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2020). ↩ ↩2