Context No. 2859 of 4322 · Judges

Judges 13:16-25: in context

16The LORD’s angel said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I won’t eat your bread. If you will prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to the LORD.” For Manoah didn’t know that he was the LORD’s angel. 17Manoah said to the LORD’s angel, “What is your name, that when your words happen, we may honor you?” 18The LORD’s angel said to him, “Why do you ask about my name, since it is incomprehensible?” 19So Manoah took the young goat with the meal offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD. Then the angel did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. 20For when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, the LORD’s angel ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife watched; and they fell on their faces to the ground. 21But the LORD’s angel didn’t appear to Manoah or to his wife any more. Then Manoah knew that he was the LORD’s angel. 22Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God.” 23But his wife said to him, “If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he wouldn’t have received a burnt offering and a meal offering at our hand, and he wouldn’t have shown us all these things, nor would he have told us such things as these at this time.” 24The woman bore a son and named him Samson. The child grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25The LORD’s Spirit began to move him in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Manoah and his wife are visited by a stranger who is, though they do not yet know it, the angel of the LORD. Manoah asks his name, and the answer is that it is beyond understanding. When he offers a sacrifice, the angel ascends in the altar flame, and the couple fall on their faces. Manoah panics: we shall surely die, for we have seen God.

But his wife answers with a calm that is really a kind of theology. If the LORD had meant to kill us, she reasons, he would not have accepted our offering, or shown us all this, or told us these things. Her logic is simple and sound: God's past kindness is evidence of his present intention. Where her husband leaps to dread, she reads the pattern of God's goodness and draws comfort from it. Fear rushes to the worst conclusion; faith reasons from what God has already done. And in time she bears Samson.

When I meet the holy and my first instinct is dread, can I reason like Manoah's wife from what God has already shown of his kindness?

Sources

Judges 13:23: "If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he wouldn't have received a burnt offering... nor would he have shown us all these things."
Romans 8:32: "He who didn't spare his own Son... how would he not also with him freely give us all things?"
1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear."