Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - October 4, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Judges 13:1-24.

Vows.  Vows don’t seem to be in fashion today.  Not like it was in Biblical times.  Biblically,  what is a vow?  A promise made to - GOD!  One vow that is still with us today is our wedding vow, but it is just barely hanging on.  When you said that you promised to stick by your spouse in sickness and health, you weren’t making that promise to your spouse or the preacher or your new Father-in-law. You were promising God that you would honor and take care of your spouse no matter what might happen.  God is the one who will hold us accountable for sticking to that commitment.  Since a vow is a promise made to God, making a vow should be a serious business.  And this vow can cover just about anything.  Scarlet O’Hara vowed that she would never be hungry again.  I’m not sure that Scarlet realized that she was getting God involved in renovating Tara.  Are there any other famous vows we are called on to make?  Appearing in court, putting your hand on a Bible and lifting your right hand vowing to tell the truth.  The pledge of allegiance to our flag is a vow.  So, you see, we make vows all the time and don’t even realize it or how important what we say might be.

Sometimes we might make a vow and not realize it because we didn’t say the right words.  Anything that ends in “so help me God” is probably a vow.  You accelerate through an intersection while the light is pink and vow that if you don’t get caught, you’ll never do it again.  Well, at least not until the next stop light. When you did that, you just made a vow to who?  God. A lot of prayers include vows.  “If you get me out of this mess, God, I will never mess up again.”  That’s a vow made to God.

Well, in today’s study we find a woman making a vow to God that her son will be dedicated to God and, to cement the vow, she agrees to do certain things.  But, before we get to that, what has happened since our last time together?  Last week, we studied Jephthah who was as unlikely a judge as there could be.  Here were his credentials.  He was the son of a prostitute who was kicked out town.  He ends up in a small town where formed a gang of crooks.   He was no Biblical Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.  In fact the people he stole from became poorer as he became richer.  Does this sound like the kind of guy who should lead a religious movement? 

So, what did Jephthah have going for him? He was a guy who had to fight just to survive and this made him the perfect person to lead the people of Gilead, the very people who had kicked him out of town.  God used those aggressive character traits of Jephthah to overcome the Ammonites who had been causing the Israelites so much trouble.  Jephthah made a vow to God that if he won the battle, what would he do?  Sacrifice the first person who came out of his house to greet him after the battle.  Who was the first person?  His daughter, but he fulfilled his vow which was hastily and unwisely made.  After Jephthah there were three more judges who evidently didn’t do anything dramatic because they are only listed, but, nothing is said about their accomplishments.  In all they reigned for twenty five years during which time the people behaved themselves for the most part.  That brings us up to today’s study and God is ready to raise up yet another judge.  A very unique judge.  A guy named Samson.

When you hear the name Samson, what comes to mind?  Strength.  A guy admired by friends.  Maybe even loved by everybody.   Remember the show “Everybody Loves Ramon.”  And in that show we found a lot of people who didn’t exactly love Ramon.  They barely tolerated him.  Back in the Palestine of our study, I think we can safely say that “Everybody Loves Samson.”  He is the Alpha male of his day.  He had everything going for him.  He was good looking.  He was a man’s man.  He was strong and nobody was going to kick sand in his face.  He liked to pull pranks on others.  A fun guy to hang out with.  He was so self assured, he is arrogant. Samson is such an interesting character that four chapters in Judges, are devoted to his exploits and weaknesses. 

We are all familiar with Samson.  So what do you know about the man?  He was a superman without a red cape.  He had muscles that made Arnold Schwarzenegger jealous.  I remember one of my favorite movies as a kid  was “Samson and Delilah” starring Victor Mature and one of my dream girls , Hedy Lamar.  If I close my eyes right now I can still see Victor Mature being led blind to the pillars that supported the temple where the king of the Philistines was throwing a party.  Placing a hand on each pillar, Victor Mature strained flexing all of his muscles as he pushed out against the pillars.  Suddenly, you see the base of the pillars start to crumble as slowly they started to move.  Then the pillars fractured midway up and the whole temple started to tumble down on the partying Philistines.  That’s what we remember about Samson.  Great acts of strength.  Dating good looking women.  Partying.  And anger like no one else’s anger that resulted in thousands of Philistines being killed.  There was very little in the movie about how Samson came to be the chosen champion of the Israelites.  That is what this study is all about - where did Samson come from and why was he special?

Judges 13: 1 The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. 

In this first verse, what had the Israelites been up to?  Evil in the sight of God.  Does scripture tell us what that evil was?  What’s your guess?  In all likelihood, they had forgotten the lessons of the past and were messing around with idols again.  What does God do?  Let the Philistines take over their land and bully them for how long?  Forty years.  Is this the first time God punished the Israelites for idol worship by letting another bunch of bad guys occupy their land?  No.  He did the same thing over and over, but the Israelites just couldn’t remember God or obey Him.  To try to improve their memory, God made the occupation by their enemies last longer and longer each time they slipped.  This time the oppression had lasted for forty years - two whole generations.

So, the Israelites had fallen off of God’s wagon, again.  It’s like Reagan telling Jimmy Carter in their debates, “There you go again.”  What they were doing again  was they were running after pagan gods.  The most popular pagan god was Baal, the fertility god.  Now, you might even understand why they might have been attracted to Baal.  If you were a farmer, then you might have hedged your bets on God taking care of your crops by paying a little attention to Baal.  Maybe Baal might give you a little rain when God was concentrating on giving you a little dry spell.  Or, he might make the crop be an abundant one.  As a result of their running after Baal, God allowed the Philistines to defeat them and occupy their land.  

The Philistines were always plaguing the Israelites and that continued right down to David’s dual with Goliath.  Just who were the Philistines anyway? The Philistines were known as the Sea People because they came from an area on the Mediterranean coast.  Some believe that they may have been descended from Greeks who had sailed across the Mediterranean centuries before and settled there.  The Philistines had moved into Southern Palestine in about the 12th century BC and were one of the first countries to update their weapons from bronze to iron giving them a big advantage over their enemies.  For centuries they were a major force in Palestine.  In fact the word “Palestine” is derived from the Greek word for Philistine.

Judges 13: 2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children. 3 And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, "Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or to eat anything unclean, 5 for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines." 

There is a guy named Manoah who comes from the city of Zorah which is about fifteen miles west of Jerusalem.  He is a member of the tribe of Dan and his name means “rest”.  With a name like that, he must have been a laid back sort of guy.  We know he is married, but, what is his wife’s name? Not given.  We don’t know her name, but, what is the one thing we know about her? She is barren.  Let me clue you in on something about the Bible.  Whenever scripture tells us that a woman is barren, you know right off that she won’t be barren long.  Who are some of the famous barren women in the Bible who ended up having a child?  Sarah had Isaac.  Rebekah had Jacob.  Rachel had Joseph.  Hannah had Samuel.  And in New Testament times, what barren woman had a special son?  Elizabeth had John the Baptist. 

Mrs. Manaoh was minding her own business when all of the sudden what happens?  An angel appears.  It doesn’t seem that the appearance of an angel rattled Mrs. Manoah.  In fact she doesn’t even know that it is an angel.  Initially she thinks he is just another man - a man from God but a human man.  But, what he said to her rattled her more than anything else.  After all of those childless years, she was going to become what?  A momma.  She is told that during the time that she is carrying the baby, she can’t do what?  Drink any wine or strong drink or eat anything that is unclean.  Actually, she was told not to drink from the fruit of the vine which would include even grapes or grape juice.  No more buying Welches at Food Lion. She can’t drink wine, so what is the strong drink that the angel tells her she can’t drink either? Beer.  Millers Draft is off the shopping list too.  Now a days, would this be good advice to give a pregnant woman?  Cut out alcohol while your pregnant?  Doctors today might give her the same advice.   For Mrs. Menoah, the command had more importance than the babies health.  It would define the baby’s whole life.

The angel goes on to give her what instructions about the boy’s hair?  The boys hair shall never be cut.  Our youngest son had a mass of curly dark hair when he was born.  When it came time for his first hair cut, I had to tie Jackie to a chair and huzzle Gary to the barbershop before Jackie chewed her way through the ropes.  It was hard for her to see those curls lopped off of her baby boy’s head - and he was fifteen years old!  Why did Mrs. Manoah have to do this?  The son was going to be the person to begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.  Notice how this is worded.  Does it say that her son will end the Philistine occupation?  What will he do?  Begin to deliver.  In other words unlike other judges who come in and ended an oppression by an enemy nation like Gideon and Jephthah did, Samson will only start the process of getting rid of the Philistines.  The final solution to the Philistine question will be accomplished by others.

Judges 13: 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, "A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name; 7 but he said to me, “You shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death."

Mrs. Manoah has gotten her marching orders.  What’s her next move?  To tell her husband. After all, he needs to know that he’s about to become a daddy.  She tells her husband everything that had happened.  Can’t you just picture her standing there in front of her husband?  Her face is flushed.  It’s hard to comprehend the idea that after wanting a child for so long, it will finally happen.  And now to be able to share this great news with her husband was the icing on the cake.  I imagine that she must have been nearly breathless and excited as she tells him that a man of God has told her some big news.  Notice that she doesn’t identify the guy as an angel but just as a man of God.  This identification could have fit a prophet since that is what prophets  were called back then.  It is obvious that she recognizes that what happened was something special, because she say’s that it was awe inspiring.  She just isn’t too sure who this man was.  In fact, she was so excited about the news that she didn’t even ask him where he was from or even his name.  In other words, it never occurred to her to engage this man in idol chit chat.  There is no doubt in her mind that the man was speaking for God.  Manoah listens and then with a little impatience asks, “Great.  You met an awesome guy.  So, what is the big news?”  With maybe a giggle in her voice and with her eyes shining she blurts out, “You’re going to be a daddy.”

She repeats what the angel had told her about what she should eat and drink and that their son won’t get a haircut.  At the price for haircuts in Jerusalem, Manoah’s eyes brightened.  From what she had been told, she understood what all of these requirements boiled down to.  Their son would be a what?  Nazerite.  For how long?  All of his life.

What does it mean to be a Nazerite?  A Nazerite was someone who is set aside or dedicated to serve God.  This setting aside took the form of a vow - the Nazerite vow.  The vow required three things: (1) Avoiding wine and strong drink.  This included vinegar, grapes and even raisons.  (2) They would not cut their hair.  (3) Avoid getting near a dead body - either human or animal.  Normally, the vow was made by a young man to address something that needed doing and the vow lasted only for a set period of time.  But, this time a son was dedicated to God by his mom even before conception and it lasted for as long as the son would live.  No term limits on this vow.  This made this Nazirite vow very unique.  What the angel did in this case was to extend the consumption restrictions of the vow to the mother, also, by not allowing her to drink wine or beer or eat anything unclean while she was pregnant.  Why include mom in the Nazirite vow?  This made good sense.  If she drank wine or ate something unclean it would certainly inter the body of the baby in her womb. So, Mrs. Manoah was required to follow the vow herself, if the child in her womb is to be a Nazerite from birth to death. One thing is sure.  Since God is initiating the Nazerite vow, this is a baby from whom a lot will be expected.

Judges 13:8 Then Manoah entreated the LORD, and said, "O LORD, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born." ...

Manoah listened as his wife told him all that had happened and what was expected of her.  Does he question her?  No.   What does Minoah do?  Entreat the Lord.  What does that mean?  He prays to God.  This tells us that Minoah accepted as truth everything that his wife told him.  What do you think he prayed for?  If God has called is son, then Menoah has a responsibility to prepare his son.  The Angel told his wife how to prepare for this special baby. What is expected from him?  How is he suppose to raise this boy?   Manoah prays to God and says, “Send that guy back who talked with my wife and he can help me understand what I’m suppose to do.”    

In verses 9-14 God answers Menoah’s prayer.  God sent his angel back, but did the angel go to Menoah?  No.  God sent the angel back to Mrs. Menoah.  She was in a field all alone.  When the angel appeared, the first thing she did was to send for Menoah.  Why didn’t God send the angel directly to Menoah?  Manoah was trying to put God on the spot and force God to satisfy him.  Menoah was exerting his rights as a husband.  He expected to be put in charge.  If Manoah kept this up he would be the fly in the ointment.  God was ready to bring in a new judge for Israel and here Manoah was working on the details that he couldn’t control anyway.  Maybe God was having a little fun with Menoah.   God say’s, “All right.  If you want my man to come back, I’ll send the him back.”  Instead of having the angel come and knock on Manoahs front door, He waits until Mrs. Manoah is all alone and then the angel appears again, but, only to her.  So Mr. Manoah has to be told to follow Mrs. Manoah back to where the angel was.  If Manoah wanted to hear what the angel said he had to follow after his wife.  This was a needed humbling mission for Menoah.

Manoah faced the angel and started to question him.   “What is my son going to be?  What will be his purpose in life?  How should we raise him?”  The angel replied, “I’ve already told your wife everything you need to know.  But, just for you, I’ll repeat what I told her.”  He then went over the Nazerite vow.  The angel repeated everything that he had told Mehoah’s wife.  This repetition emphasized what Menoah’s son would do.  Menoah’s job will be to help his wife live by the requirements of the Nazerite vow. 

Remember, at this time Menoah and his wife still do not realize that this being is an angel and not a mortal man.  As an act of hospitality, Manoah invites the angel home for supper.  The angel told him to take the goat he was going to kill and cook for supper and make it as a sacrifice to God along with a cereal offering.  Manoah did as he was told and as the smoke from the sacrifice curled it’s way up to heaven, all of the sudden, the angel seemed to float into the smoke and rise right up into heaven.  This really scared Manoah.  He must have gone along with his wife’s idea that this person was a prophet - a human man who told them what God wanted them to know.  Now with the way he was lifted up into heaven, it finally dawned on Manoah that this guy was either an angel or God himself.  He started to shake and moan to his wife that they were in big trouble, because if they saw God they were going to die.  Again, it was his wife who seemed to have a better spiritual understanding of what was happening.  She assured him that God wouldn’t have promised to give him a son and, before the conception happened, strike him down.  It just didn’t make any sense.

Judges 13:24 The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 The spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

The blessed event happens.  Finally the baby is born and what do Mr Manoah and Mrs. Manoah name him?  They named him Samson.  Were they told what name to give the baby?  No.  The angel never told them what to name the boy.  His name wasn’t important.  The important thing was not his name, but, what he was going to do.  You can’t read this story and not be puzzled.  In these verses, who is the lead character?  Mrs. Manoah, but, we don’t even know her name.  Wouldn’t you have thought that the most important person would have a name?  After these verses, Mr. and Mrs. Manaoh fade from the scriptures.  But not their son.  By the way, do you know what Samson means in Hebrew?  “Sunny.”  Some people think he got that name because in Zorah there was a pagan temple dedicated to the Sun god and when Samson started to doing all of those superhuman displays of strength, the people attributed his strength to the local Sun god and not to the Lord.  Or maybe, his mom just considered him the sunshine of her life, so she called him “Sunny.”  If she did, she wouldn’t be the only mom who thought that.

So there you have it.  A mom takes a vow and passes it on to her son.  But how did he handle this vow?  Not too well.  He drank wine and got drunk, messed round with pagan women and, finally, told Delilah why he was so strong which led to his first hair cut.  Through all of Samson’s bad behavior, God stuck with him.  In the end God let Samson regrow his hair and regain his strength.  Now he could fulfill his mission in life - beginning to drive out the Philistines.  In his last feat of strength, pushing over the pillars of the temple and sacrificing his life, Samson finally became worthy of his mission and the Nazirite vow made for him.  The sad part was that so much was expected of Samson.  He could have been one of the great Israelite leaders right up there with Joseph, Moses and David.  How did God allow him to go so wrong?  God didn’t.  It was all Samson and the free will God gives all of us.  God’s power is only restricted by the way we exercise our free will.  At every turn, Samson’s free will negated God’s plans for him.  If Samson is a hero, he is a tragic hero.

How would you react to taking a vow?  Especially, a Nazirite vow?  This is where I have a problem.  First off, letting my hair grow is like me playing in the NBA.  It ain’t gonna happen.  But, we won’t be called on to make a Nazirite vow.  Our vow is a very simple one and doesn’t involve an angel.  Our vow is like that old hymn, “Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow.”

Prayer: Father, grant us the wisdom to make vows that leads to a closer more obedient walk with you and the courage to pass this vow on to the next generation.  In Christ name we pray.  Amen.