Judges 13:18-22

Judges 13:18

I. It is clear that this angel was in human form, for twice Manoah's wife, twice Manoah, and once the history itself calls him "man" or "man of God." And yet the Deity of this man is as perfectly evident. When asked His name, He is not afraid to give the one by which Christ is distinctly designated in the ninth chapter of Isaiah, "Secret" or "Wonderful," for the two words in the original are the same. At the sight of Him as He ascends, Manoah and his wife fall on their faces to the ground. In the twenty-second verse Manoah expressly asserts respecting Him, "We have seen God."

II. The language of Christ to Manoah's wife was all concerning "a deliverance," which was to come through her. In whatever garb Christ may visit us, it is still an advent; and the purpose of that advent is to strike off a chain, to give liberty, essential, true, eternal liberty, "deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 249.

References: Judges 13:22; Judges 13:23. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1340; J. Keble. Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity,Part I., p. 95.Judges 13:23. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. viii., No. 440. Judges 13:24. I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament,p. 149.