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It may occur to us that it is almost always to barren women that angels and prophets are sent to announce the promise of a distinguished son. Why is this? There are several reasons. First, that the child may be more manifestly the gift of God. All children are the gift of God—although, unhappily, we do not always so receive them. But it is important to mark this fact, by special arrangements, which shall make it conspicuously apparent in the case of those to whom a peculiarly high function or vocation is assigned. God also desires his highest gifts to be appreciated; and therefore, as in these cases, the gift of a son is bestowed on those who, from long privation and disappointment, will know how to prize it most. Besides, God is very pitiful—He likes to visit with some surprising joy the afflicted soul; and to a Hebrew woman there was no affliction comparable to that of being sonless. It might be safely predicated of any woman of Israel, if she had already many sons, that the gift of another would still be great joy to her—how much more then to her who had none? But main, how is it—owing to what vice is it in our social system, or in ourselves, that there are among us tens of thousands to whom the promise of children would be a sorrow and a trouble, rather than a comfort and a joy? There are tens of thousands among us who would be by no means thankful for such an intimation as that which the angel of God brought to Manoah and his wife. How is this? Alas, for our faith! which will not trust God to pay us well for the board and lodging of all the little ones he has committed to our charge to bring up for Him. Good old Quarles, who was himself the father of eighteen children, enters feelingly into this matter:
“Shall we repine,
Great God, to foster any babe of thine!
But ‘tis the charge we fear; our stock’s but small:
If Heaven, with children, send us wherewithal
To stop their craving stomachs, then we care not.
Great God!
How hast thou crackt thy credit, that we dare not
Trust thee for bread? How is’t we dare not venture
To keep thy babes, unless thou please to enter
In bond for payment? Art thou grown so poor,
To leave thy famished infants at our door,
And not allow them food? Canst thou supply
Thy empty ravens, and let thy children die?”
The idea of Manoah and others that they should perish because they had “seen the face of God,” or of an angel of God—this horror and dread of soul at the presence of a heavenly nature—we may take as a very affecting illustration of the fall, showing that we are the true sons of that father who, when he had sinned, no longer dared look upon God, but hid himself among the trees, “because he was afraid,” when he heard “the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden:”
“O whither shall poor mortals flee
For comfort! If they see thy face, they die:
And if thy life-restoring count’nance give
Thy presence from us, then we cannot live.
On what foundation shall our hopes rely,
See we thy face, or see it not, we die.—Quarles.
When Cain raised the lamentable cry, “From thy face I shall be hid,” Note: Gen_4:14. he had a strong, if not an effectual, sense of this penalty of sin. Well is it for us if we are of those who are even now permitted to “behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ;” Note: 2Co_4:6. and are privileged to realize the assured conviction, that although we can see but as through a glass darkly now, the time is near when we shall see face to face, and know also even as we are known. Note: 1Co_13:12.
Most commentators are apt to think that Samson somewhat infringed the strictness of his Nazarite vow of ceremonial purity, by taking the honey found in “the foul and putrid carcass of a dead beast,” but we have shown that the remains of the lion were perfectly clean and wholesome; and it is forgotten that it is not the dead body of a beast, but the corpse of a human being, that imparts defilement under the law of Moses. Had it been otherwise, a man could not have eaten his dinner without defilement. Nevertheless the pious inferences founded on this misconception are correct and beautiful. So Bishop Hall: “Good must not be refused, because the means are accidentally evil. Honey is honey still, though in a dead lion. Those are less wise, and more scrupulous than Samson, who abhor the graces of God because they find them in an ill vessel. It is a weak neglect not to take the honey, because we hate the lion. God’s children have a right to their father’s blessings wheresoever they find them.”
Most of the old writers are very sharp upon Samson and his Timnite wife—upon her for beguiling him, and upon him for yielding to her entreaties. Christopher Ness quaintly remarks that since his first experiment with Adam and Eve, “Satan hath broke many a man’s head with his own rib.” Bishop Hall sorrowfully observes that “Adam the perfected man, Samson the strongest man, and Solomon the wisest man, were betrayed by the flattery of their helpers. As there is no comfort compared to a faithful yoke-fellow, so woe be to him that is matched with a Philistine.”
Quarles leads us to a still more practical conclusion. After contemplating the perils of a man’s life between open foes and bosom enticements, he bursts out into the fine prayer:
“Lord, clarifie mine eyes, that I may know
Things that are good, from what is good in show;
And give me wisdom, that my heart may learn
The difference of thy favors, and discern
What’s truly good, from what is good in part;
With Martha’s trouble give me Mary’s heart.”
Without entering into the frequent inquiry of old writers in how far Samson may in some things have been a type of Christ, it is pleasant when in these histories we find any circumstance or any expression which wing the thoughts irresistibly to Him. There is a very striking incident of this kind in the surrender of Samson bound to the Philistines by the men of Judah. Whom is there that this does not remind of Jesus delivered up bound to the Romans, that he may die. But the end is very different, and magnifies the glory of our Divine Saviour. Samson submits to be bound by his own countrymen, knowing that he could, by the power given to him, victoriously free himself—Jesus, that he might die, yielding himself up a sacrifice for sin.
Both were victorious—Jesus by dying, Samson by inflicting death. It was not that the Lord’s hand was so shortened that he who had saved others could not save himself. He had far mightier power for his own deliverance than Samson had. One word, one wish, would have brought twelve legions of angels from the Father to his rescue—but how then had the world been saved? That thought made Him more than conqueror over all the malice of his enemies, over all the agonies of the cross, over all the terrors of the grave.
“O thou that art
The Samson of our souls! how can the heart
Of man give thanks enough that does not know
How much his death-redeemed soul doth owe
To thy dear merits.”—Quarles.
Pursuing this line of thought and comparison, Bishop Hall, with reference to Samson’s unaided victory, observes: “It is no marvel if he were thus admirably strong and victorious whose bodily strength God meant to make a type of the spiritual power of Christ. And, behold, as the three thousand of Judah stood still gazing, with their weapons in their hands, while Samson alone subdued the Philistines; so did men and angels stand looking upon the glorious achievements of the Son of God, who might justly say, ‘I have trod the wine-press alone.’”