“There was a man from Tzor‘ah from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoach; his wife was barren, childless. The angel of Adonai appeared to the woman and said to her, “Listen! You are barren, you haven’t had a child, but you will conceive and bear a son. Now, therefore, be careful not to drink any wine or other intoxicating liquor, and don’t eat anything unclean. 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 Isra’el from the power of the P’lishtim.'”-Judges 13:2-5
From verse 2 of Judges Chapter 13, we’re introduced to a man named Tzor’ah from the tribe of Dan who had a wife who was barren.
Biblically speaking, to be “barren” meant two things.
It meant a woman married late in life at an age past her ability to have children.
Or it meant she was physically incapable of having children due to some condition.
If a young woman was biologically incapable of having kids, unfortunately she was blamed for her condition and in some cases considered as one cursed by God.
This was quite unfair because who knows?
It could have been the man who had a condition which prevented him from being able to get a woman pregnant.
Fortunately, Tzor’ah’s wife was about to receive some good news from a divine source.
In verse 3, we’re told the Angel of the Lord appeared to her and announced she would soon give birth to a son.
By now, you should be quite familiar with that phrase the “Angel of the Lord”.
The original Hebrew is MALACH YHWH.
Contrary to popular misunderstanding, MALACH does not mean “angel” per se.
More accurately it means a “messenger”.
It could be a regular human messenger (like the postman who delivers a piece of mail to your home) or it could be a message of divine origin.
Obviously in this case, we’re dealing with a messenger of divine origin.
Now Tzor‘ah’s wife had no idea who this messenger was but he must been quite impressive in appearance and spoke with great authority.
Because we’re told she carefully listened to him and followed his instructions.
Those instructions were…
“…be careful not to drink any wine
or other intoxicating liquor,
and don’t eat anything unclean.“
The reason why is because her son would be a NAZIR (a Nazarite) from the day of his birth and stay that way for the rest of his life.
To be a Nazarite from birth was actually a rare thing in the Bible.
Normally, a person became a Nazarite after taking a vow.
But after fulfilling the terms of the vow, the person was no longer bound by any special rules.
The rules a Nazarite had to obey are spelled out in Numbers chapter 6.
There were actually 3 negative commandments.
FIRST, a Nazarite could not eat or drink anything made from grapes whether the fruit itself or grape-based products like wine or grape juice.
SECOND, they were forbidden from ever touching a dead body (animal or human).
THIRD, they could never get their hair cut…by themselves or another person.
As we’re going to see, Samson’s attitude towards obeying some of these commands was quite loose at times…and in the end would cost him greatly.
One thing I should add is that tradition expanded upon the rules a NAZIR was required to obey
For instance, the Torah says NO grape-based products.
But tradition took that a step further and said no alcohol was allowed.
The Torah says a NAZIR cannot touch a dead NEPHESH which would only be referring to a HUMAN dead body.
But again, tradition went beyond what the Torah required and said no touching of any dead thing period…whether human or animal.
Um, actually let me clarify that.
When it came to dead animals, the Rabbis meant only UNCLEAN animals who had passed away.
Otherwise, a NAZIR would never be able to eat meat.
Okay, I’m done.
Leave a Reply