John Gill Commentary Judges 13

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord , &c.] Committed idolatry, which was the evil they were prone to, and were frequently guilty of:

and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty
years : which according to Josephus ^F6 are to be reckoned from the death of the last judge, and the time of Samson's birth; or rather from some time after the death of Jephthah, particularly taking in the two last years of Ibzan, when the Ephraimites having been weakened through the slaughter of them by Jephthah, might encourage the Philistines to break in upon them; from which time to the birth of Samson were twenty years, and twenty more may be allowed before he could begin to deliver Israel out of their hands; so that the oppression lasted forty years.

According to others, it began at the same time as the oppression of the Ammonites did, though it lasted longer, (Judges 10:7) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F6: Ibid. (Antiqu. l. 5.) c. 8. sect. 1.

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the
Danites
Of the tribe of Dan, in which tribe Zorah was, and seems to have lain both on the borders of Judah and Dan, (Joshua 15:33) (19:41) ; (See Gill on Joshua 15:33), (See Gill on Joshua 19:41), andthis man was not a mean man, but of rank and figure, a principal man in the country, according to Josephus{g}; though the Talmudists ^F8 say he was a plebeian:

whose name was Manoah ;
which signifies "rest", and has much the same signification as Noah; and by this name he was well known inthose times, and among his people:

and his wife was barren, and did not bear ;
had no child, as the Targum; and it is observed by many, that several eminent persons were born of women thathad been barren, as Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, and John the Baptist; and it is remarkable, that the strongest manthat ever was born of such a woman, as the following account relates. The name of this woman, the mother ofSamson, is said ^F9 to be Zalalponith; see (1 Chronicles 4:3) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 61. 1.
• F9: T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 91. 1. Juchasin, fol. 10. 8.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman
According to Josephus ^F11, it was in a plain without the city; and that he appeared in a human form is certain from (Judges 13:6); but was not a mere man, a prophet of the Lord, nor a created angel, but the uncreated one, the Angel of the covenant, the Son and Word of God, who often appeared in a human form; since his name is said to be "Wonderful", and he to do wonderful things, and is called "Jehovah", (Judges 13:18Judges 13:23).

and said to her, behold now, you are barren, and bear not;
barren at that time, and so she had been ever since she was married to that time; and this is observed, that it might appear the more wonderful that she should after this have a child:

but you shall conceive, and bear a son;
which to do, must be ascribed to divine power, that one in her circumstances should bear a son; as the prediction of it was owing to divine omniscience, and a proof of it.

FOOTNOTES:

• F11: Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 2.

Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor
strong drink
Any liquor inebriating and intoxicating, neither new wine nor old wine, as the Targum, and so Jarchi; the reason of this appears in the next verse, because the child she should conceive and bear was to be a Nazarite, and to be one from his mother's womb; and from all such liquors, Nazarites, according to the law, were to abstain, (Numbers 6:3)

and eat not any unclean thing ;
Any liquor inebriating and intoxicating, neither new wine nor old wine, as the Targum, and so Jarchi; the reason of this appears in the next verse, because the child she should conceive and bear was to be a Nazarite, and to be one from his mother's womb; and from all such liquors, Nazarites, according to the law, were to abstain, (Numbers 6:3)

For, lo, you shall conceive and bear a son
Which is not only repeated for the confirmation of it, but that she might take notice that he was to be a Nazarite, and therefore must conform to everything agreeable to the law of the Nazarites, and take care that it was observed in him:

and no razor shall come on his head ;
to cut off the hair of it, not from the time of his birth to his death; for he was to be a perpetual Nazarite: other Nazarites during the time of their Nazariteship were not to suffer a razor to come upon them, but afterwards might; but for such an one as Samson, it was not lawful ever to suffer his hair to be cut off; see (Numbers 6:5)

for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb ;
in which he was a type of Christ, who was sanctified by the Lord, separated from sinners, and called a "Nazarene": was born of a virgin, as Samson was of a barren woman, and his birth foretold by an angel as this:

and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the
Philistines ;
for the salvation he wrought for Israel was not complete and perfect; it was only begun by him, and carried on in the times of Eli, Samuel, and Saul, and perfected by David. In this his antitype exceeds him, who is the author of the complete salvation of his people out of the hands of all their enemies, sin, Satan, and the world; though in this there is a great resemblance between Samson and our Lord Jesus, in that what he did he did himself alone; not at the head of an army, and with forces under him, as other judges; so Christ with his own arm, and of himself, and without others, wrought salvation for his people; see (Isaiah 63:5) .