Judges 13
New English Translation
Samson’s Birth
13 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight,[a] so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.
2 There was a man named Manoah from Zorah, from the Danite tribe. His wife was infertile and childless.[b] 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “You[c] are infertile and childless,[d] but you will conceive and have a son. 4 Now be careful! Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean.[e] 5 Look, you will conceive and have a son.[f] You must never cut his hair,[g] for the child will be dedicated to God[h] from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power[i] of the Philistines.”
6 The woman went and said to her husband, “A man sent from God[j] came to me! He looked like God’s angel—he was very awesome.[k] I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name. 7 He said to me, ‘Look, you will conceive and have a son.[l] So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean.[m] For the child will be dedicated[n] to God from birth till the day he dies.’”
8 Manoah prayed to the Lord,[o] “Please, Lord, allow the man sent from God[p] to visit[q] us again, so he can teach[r] us how we should raise[s] the child who will be born.” 9 God answered Manoah’s prayer.[t] God’s angel visited[u] the woman again while she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman ran at once and told her husband,[v] “Come quickly,[w] the man who visited[x] me the other day has appeared to me!” 11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met[y] the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”[z] He said, “Yes.”[aa] 12 Manoah said, “Now, when your announcement comes true,[ab] how should the child be raised and what should he do?”[ac] 13 The angel of the Lord told[ad] Manoah, “Your wife should pay attention to everything I told her.[ae] 14 She should not drink[af] anything that the grapevine produces. She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any food that will make her ritually unclean.[ag] She should obey everything I commanded her to do.” 15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please stay here awhile,[ah] so we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”[ai] 16 The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If I stay,[aj] I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, you should offer it.” (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.)[ak] 17 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Tell us your name, so we can honor you when your announcement comes true.”[al] 18 The angel of the Lord said to him, “You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it.”[am] 19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched.[an] 20 As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the angel of the Lord went up in it[ao] while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown[ap] to the ground.
21 The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the angel of the Lord. 22 Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen a supernatural being!”[aq] 23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us.[ar] He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
24 Manoah’s wife[as] gave birth to a son and named him Samson.[at] The child grew and the Lord empowered[au] him. 25 The Lord’s Spirit began to control him[av] in Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Footnotes
- Judges 13:1 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
- Judges 13:2 tn Heb “and had not given birth.”
- Judges 13:3 tn Heb “Look, you.”
- Judges 13:3 tn Heb “and have not given birth.”
- Judges 13:4 tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”
- Judges 13:5 tn Another option is to translate, “you are already pregnant and will have a son.” The earlier reference to her being infertile (v. 3) suggests that her conception is still future, but it is possible that the earlier statement only reflects her perspective (as far as she is concerned, she is infertile). According to this interpretation, in v. 5 the angel reveals the truth to her—actually she has recently conceived and is now pregnant (see the translation in R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 217). Usage favors this interpretation. The predicate adjective הָרָה (harah, “[be/become] pregnant”) elsewhere has a past (1 Sam 4:19) or present (Gen 16:11; 38:25; 2 Sam 11:5) translation value. (The usage in Isa 7:14 is debated, but a present translation is definitely possible there.) A final, but less likely possibility, is that she miraculously conceived during the angel’s speech, sometime between his statements recorded in vv. 3 and 5.
- Judges 13:5 tn Heb “a razor should not go up on his head.”
- Judges 13:5 tn Or “set apart to God.” Traditionally the Hebrew term נָזִיר (nazir) has been translated “Nazirite.” The word is derived from the verb נָזַר (nazar, “to dedicate; to consecrate; to set apart”).
- Judges 13:5 tn Heb “hand.”
- Judges 13:6 tn Heb “The man of God.”
- Judges 13:6 tn Heb “His appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome.”
- Judges 13:7 tn See the note on the word “son” in 13:5, where this same statement occurs.
- Judges 13:7 tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”
- Judges 13:7 tn Traditionally “a Nazirite.”
- Judges 13:8 tn The Hebrew text adds “and said.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Judges 13:8 tn Heb “the man of God.”
- Judges 13:8 tn Heb “come to.”
- Judges 13:8 tc The LXX has “enlighten,” understanding the Hebrew to read וִיאִירֵנוּ (viʾirenu, “to give light”) rather than the reading of the MT, וְיוֹרֵנוּ (veyorenu, “to teach”).
- Judges 13:8 tn Heb “what we should do for.”
- Judges 13:9 tn Heb “God listened to the voice of Manoah.”
- Judges 13:9 tn Heb “came to.”
- Judges 13:10 tn Heb “and said to him.” This phrase has not been translated for stylistic reasons.
- Judges 13:10 tn Heb “Look.”
- Judges 13:10 tn Heb “came to.”
- Judges 13:11 tn Heb “came to.”
- Judges 13:11 tn Heb “the woman.”
- Judges 13:11 tn Heb “I [am].”
- Judges 13:12 tn Heb “Now, [when] your word comes [to pass].”
- Judges 13:12 tn Heb “what will be the child’s rule [i.e., way of life] and his work?”
- Judges 13:13 tn Or “said to.”
- Judges 13:13 tn Heb “To everything I said to the woman she should pay attention.” The Hebrew word order emphasizes “to everything,” probably because Manoah’s wife did not tell her husband everything the angel had said to her (cf. vv. 3-5 with v. 7). If she had, Manoah probably would not have been so confused about the child’s mission.
- Judges 13:14 tn Heb “eat.”
- Judges 13:14 tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”
- Judges 13:15 tn Heb “Please allow us to detain you.”
- Judges 13:15 tn Heb “so we can prepare before you a young goat of the goats.”
- Judges 13:16 tn Heb “If you detain me.”
- Judges 13:16 tn The words “he said this” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Manoah should have known from these words that the angel represented the Lord. In the preceding narrative the narrator has informed the reader that the visitor is the angel of the Lord, but Manoah and his wife did not perceive this. In vv. 5 and 7 the angel refers to “God” (אֱלֹהִים, ʾelohim), not the Lord (יְהוַה, yehvah). Manoah’s wife calls the visitor “a man sent from God” and “God’s angel” (v. 6), while Manoah prays to the “Lord” (אֲדוֹנָי, ʾadonay) and calls the visitor “a man sent from God” (v. 8).
- Judges 13:17 tn Heb “Who your name? For [when] your word comes [to pass], we will honor you.” Manoah apparently gets tongue-tied and uses the wrong pronoun (“who” instead of “what”). He starts to say, “Who are you?” But then he switches to “your name” as if he began the sentence with “what.” See R. G. Boling, Judges (AB), 222.
- Judges 13:18 tn Heb “Why do you ask for my name, for it is incomprehensible?” The Hebrew adjective e פִּלְאִי (pilʾi, “wonderful, incomprehensible”) refers to what is in a category of its own and is beyond full human understanding. Note the use of this word in Ps 139:6, where God’s knowledge is described as incomprehensible and unattainable.
- Judges 13:19 tc Heb “Doing an extraordinary deed while Manoah and his wife were watching.” The subject of the participle is missing. The translation assumes that the phrase “the Lord’s messenger” was lost by homoioteleuton. If the text originally read לַיהוָה מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (layhvah malʾakh yehvah), the scribe’s eye could have jumped from the first יְהוָה to the second, accidentally omitting two of the three words. Later the conjunction וּ (shureq) would have been added to the following מַפְלִא (mafliʾ) for syntactical reasons. Another possibility is that a pronominal subject (הוּא, huʾ) has been lost in the MT due to haplography.
- Judges 13:20 tn Heb “in the flame from the altar.”
- Judges 13:20 tn Heb “on their faces.”
- Judges 13:22 tn Or “seen God.” Some take the Hebrew term אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim) as the divine name (“God”) here, but this seems unlikely since v. 21 informs us that Manoah realized this was the Lord’s messenger, not God himself. Of course, he may be exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. Another option, the one followed in the translation, understands Manoah to be referring to a lesser deity. The term אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim) is sometimes used of an individual deity other than the Lord (see BDB 43 s.v. 2.a). One cannot assume that Manoah was a theologically sophisticated monotheist.
- Judges 13:23 tn Heb “our hand.”
- Judges 13:24 tn Heb “the woman.” For clarity this has been specified in the translation as “Manoah’s wife.”
- Judges 13:24 tn The name appears to mean “sun-like” or “solar.”
- Judges 13:24 tn Traditionally, “blessed.”
- Judges 13:25 tn Or “move him to action”; or “stir him.”
Judges 13
Expanded Bible
The Birth of Samson
13 Again the ·people [L sons; T children] of Israel did ·what the Lord said was wrong [L evil in the eyes/sight of the Lord]. So he ·handed them over to [L gave them into the hand of] the Philistines for forty years.
2 There was a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan, who lived in the city of Zorah [C fifteen miles west of Jerusalem; v. 25]. He had a wife, but she [L was barren/infertile and] could not have children [C a cause of both sadness and shame; Gen. 11:30; 29:31]. 3 The ·angel [messenger] of the Lord [C angelic spokesperson for God, sometimes identified with the Lord himself; 2:1; 6:11; Gen. 16:7; Ex. 14:19; 23:20] appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “·You [L Look/T Behold, you are barren and] have not been able to have children, but you will ·become pregnant [conceive] and give birth to a son. 4 Be careful not to drink wine or ·beer [or other fermented drink; T strong drink; C an alcoholic beverage made from grain] or eat anything that is unclean [C in a ritual sense], 5 because you will ·become pregnant [conceive] and have a son. You must never cut his hair, because he will be a Nazirite [Num. 6:1–12], given to God from ·birth [L the womb]. He will begin to ·save [rescue; T deliver] Israel from the ·power [hand] of the Philistines.”
6 Then Manoah’s wife went to him and told him what had happened. She said, “A man from God came to me. He looked like an angel from God; ·his appearance was frightening [very terrifying/awesome]. I didn’t ask him where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he said to me, ‘You will ·become pregnant [conceive] and will have a son. Don’t drink wine or ·beer [or other fermented drink; T strong drink; v. 4] or eat anything that is unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite [v. 5] to God from his birth until the day of his death.’”
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, I beg you to let the man of God come to us again. Let him teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born to us.”
9 God heard Manoah’s prayer, and the ·angel [messenger] of God came to Manoah’s wife again while she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 So she ran to tell him, “·He is here [L Look; T Behold]! The man who ·appeared [came] to me the other day is here!”
11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”
The man said, “I am.”
12 So Manoah asked, “When what you say happens, what kind of life should the boy live? What ·should he do [is his mission/vocation]?”
13 The ·angel [messenger] of the Lord said, “Your wife must be careful to do everything I told her to do. 14 She must not eat anything that grows on a grapevine, or drink any wine or ·beer [or other fermented drink; T strong drink; v. 4], or eat anything that is unclean [C in a ritual sense]. She must do everything I have commanded her.”
15 Manoah said to the ·angel [messenger] of the Lord, “We would like you to stay awhile so we can cook a young goat for you.”
16 The ·angel [messenger] of the Lord answered, “Even if I stay awhile, I would not eat your food. But if you want to prepare something, offer a burnt offering [Lev. 1:1–17] to the Lord.” (Manoah did not understand that the man was really the ·angel [messenger] of the Lord.)
17 Then Manoah asked the ·angel [messenger] of the Lord, “What is your name? Then we will honor you when what you have said really happens.”
18 The ·angel [messenger] of the Lord said, “Why do you ask my name? It is ·too amazing for you to understand [beyond comprehension; wonderful; Is. 9:6].” 19 So Manoah sacrificed a young goat on a rock and offered ·some grain as a gift [a grain/gift/tribute offering; Lev. 2:1] to the Lord. Then ·an amazing thing happened [or the Lord did an amazing thing] as Manoah and his wife watched. 20 As the flames went up to ·the sky [heaven] from the altar, the ·angel [messenger] of the Lord ·went up [ascended] in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw that, they bowed facedown on the ground. 21 The ·angel [messenger] of the Lord did not appear to them again. Then Manoah ·understood [realized; knew] that the man was really the ·angel [messenger] of the Lord. 22 Manoah said, “We have seen ·God [or a divine being; C Hebrew: Elohim; v. 3], so we will surely die [6:23; Gen. 16:13].”
23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering [Lev. 1:1–17] or ·grain [L gift; tribute] offering [Lev. 2:1]. He would not have shown us all these things or told us all this.”
24 So the woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson [C related to the Hebrew word for “sun”; perhaps “sun-like” or “light from God”; Mal. 4:2]. He grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 The Spirit of the Lord began to ·work in Samson [move/stir/empower him] while he was in the city of Mahaneh Dan, between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol.
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