“‘For indeed you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, because the child will be a nazir for God from the womb. Moreover, he will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ The woman came and told her husband; she said, ‘A man of God came to me; his face was fearsome, like that of the angel of God. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.'”-Judges 13:6
When we last off, a mysterious visitor of divine origin had appeared before Tzor‘ah’s wife announcing she was about to have a child who would begin to rescue Israel from the oppression of the Philistines.
The word “begin” is key here.
In other words, Samson would only be the starting point to getting rid of the Philistines.
He wouldn’t finish the job all on his own.
This makes sense because we’ve already studied just how indifferent the Tribe of Dan was to their situation.
I can see why the Lord used someone like Samson who was strong enough to be a one-man army on his own because it wasn’t like he’d be receiving much support from the apathetic Danites.
So after her encounter with the divine being, the woman races home to tell her husband that a “man of God” appeared to her and that “his face was fearsome, like that of the angel of God”.
There’s some interesting Hebrew here we’d be remiss to overlook.
The phrase “man of God” is a pretty straightforward and literal translation from the original Hebrew.
The Hebrew is ISH ELOHIM which was how a prophet was referred to in those days.
ISH means man and ELOHIM is the generic term for any god whether it be YHVH or the pagan gods of the gentile nations.
So from the Hebrew, we can see the woman viewed the being as a human messenger, NOT as an angel or some kind of spiritual being.
Yet, the man had a mysterious quality about him.
That’s why she said “his face was fearsome like an angel of God”.
Actually, that translation is not quite accurate.
The Hebrew word being translated into “face” here is MAR’EH or מַרְאֶה.
But it doesn’t actually mean “face”.
MAR’EH is a word referring to one’s overall appearance from head to toe and not just one’s face.
According to a standard Hebrew lexicon, other possible meanings can be…
- sight, phenomenon, spectacle, appearance, vision
- what is seen
- a vision (supernatural)
- sight, vision (power of seeing)
Other common uses of the word MAR’EH in Scripture are as follows:
“Moshe said,
‘I’m going to go over and
see this amazing sight and
find out why the bush isn’t
being burned up.'”
-Exodus 3:3
“To the people of Israel
the glory of Adonai
looked like a raging fire
on the top of the mountain.”
-Exodus 24:17
“But Adonai said to Sh’mu’el,
“Don’t pay attention to how he looks
or how tall he is,
because I have rejected him.”
-1 Samuel 16:7
Notice how you could swap the word “appearance” or “appears” with the above bolded and underlined words and the meaning would still remain intact without any weirdness creeping in.
So to recap, MAR’EH refers to the whole body from top to bottom of whatever entity we’re talking about.
And MALACH ELOHIM means a messenger from God.
The gentile mind will interpret this as your run-of-the-mill angel but that’s not what was on Tzor‘ah’s wife’s mind.
She was thinking the exact opposite actually.
She was saying she had encountered a regular human man but that he had a heavenly or angelic quality or feeling about him.
In other words, she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of person or being she had just interacted with.
That’s why I’ve said before, a lot of us have probably met and spoke with angelic beings many times in our lives but just weren’t aware of it.
Like the time I’m pretty sure I encountered an angel on Geary Street in San Francisco back in the days of my youth.
It was a Caucasian dude wearing sunglasses and a polo shirt.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by so doing some people have shown
hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
-Hebrews 13:2
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