Samson: Strong in Jehovah, Weak in the Flesh (1): The Announcement of a Nazarite Saviour (Judges 13:1-23) by Rev. Martyn McGeown
I. The Dark Background
II. The Nazarite Saviour
III. The Wonderful Announcer
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch on Judges 13:2-7: “The three prohibitions which the angel of the Lord imposed upon the woman were the three things which distinguished the condition of a Nazarite [cf. Num. 6:1-8] ... The only other thing mentioned in the Mosaic law is the warning against defilement from contact with the dead, which does not seem to have been enforced in the case of Samson. When the angel added still further, ‘And he (the Nazarite) will begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines,’ he no doubt intended to show that his power to effect this deliverance would be closely connected with his condition as a Nazarite. The promised son was to be a Nazarite all his life long, because he was to begin to deliver Israel out of the power of his foes. And in order that he might be so, his mother was to share in the renunciations of the Nazarite vow during the time of her pregnancy. Whilst the appearance of the angel of the Lord contained the practical pledge that the Lord still acknowledged His people, though He had given them into the hands of their enemies; the message of the angel contained this lesson and warning for Israel, that it could only obtain deliverance from its foes by seeking after a life of consecration to the Lord, such as the Nazarites pursued, so as to realize the idea of the priestly character to which Israel had been called as the people of Jehovah, by abstinence from ... everything that was unclean, as being emanations of sin, and also by a complete self-surrender to the Lord.”