Judges, Chap. XIII

When Israel’s sins th’ Almighty did provoke,
To make them subject to Philistine yoke
For forty years: in Zorah dwelt a man,
His name Manoah, of the tribe of Dan;
His wife was barren, unto whom appeared
The angel of the Lord, and thus declared:
Though thou, said he, art barren, time shall come
Thou shalt enjoy the blessing of thy womb;
Now therefore I entreat thee to refrain
From wine, strong drink, and things that are unclean,
For lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son,
Upon whose head there shall no razor come:
For he to God a Nazarite shall be,
And shall begin to set his people free
From the Philistine yoke. The woman came
And told her husband, she had seen a man
Of God: his dreadful look made me, said she,
Think him an angel of the Lord to be:
But I inquired not from whence he came,
Neither did he make known to me his name:
But thus he said, Thou shalt conceive a son;
Wherefore strong drink and wine, see that thou shun,
And have a care that thou be not defil’d
With things that are unclean; for why, the child
Shall from his separation from the womb,
Become a Nazarite, ev’n to his tomb.
Manoah then did supplicate the Lord,
And said, O Lord, be pleased to afford
This favour unto me, to send again
The man of God, more fully to explain
Thy will to us, that we may rightly know,
When this child shall be born, what we must do.
And to Manoah’s prayer God gave ear,
And to his wife the angel did appear
Again, as she did in the field retire,
At such time as her husband was not nigh her.
And she made haste, and ran, and strait declared
Unto her husband, that the man appeared
Again, whom she had seen the other day.
Manoah then arose, and went his way,
And when he came, he said, Art thou the man
That spakest to my wife? He said, I am.
Manoah said, Now let thy words be true;
How shall we use the child, What must we do?
Then said the angel of the Lord, let her
Of all that I have charged her beware:
She may not taste of what comes of the vine,
Nor may she drink strong drink, or any wine,
Nor may she eat of things that are unclean,
From all that I have said let her refrain.
Manoah said unto the angel, stay
With us, till we have dress’d a kid, I pray.
But he reply’d, though thou shalt me detain,
I’ll eat no bread, but if thou dost design
A sacrifice unto the Lord, then offer:
For ne’er till now, Manoah did discover
It was a man of God he spake unto.
Then said he to the angel, Let me know
Thy name, that when these things shall be perform’d,
The honour due to thee may be return’d.
Whereto the man of God made this reply,
Why askest thou, since ’tis a mystery?
So he a kid, and a meat-off’ring took,
And offer’d to the Lord upon a rock.
And there the man of God did wond’rously,
The whilst Manoah and his wife stood by:
For as the altar did send up the flame,
The man of God ascended in the same.
Manoah and his wife stood looking on,
And on their faces to the ground fell down.
But then the angel did appear no more.
Manoah then knew who he was: therefore
He said unto his wife, most surely we
Shall die, for we the face of God did see.
But she reply’d, If God would such a thing,
He would not now accept our offering,
Or would he have to us these things made known;
Or told us, as at this time he hath done.
And now, according to the angel’s word,
The woman bare a son, to whom the Lord
Was pleas’d, his blessing graciously to give:
She call’d him Samson, and the child did thrive.
And lo! the spirit of the Lord began,
At times to move him in the camp of Dan.