W. Robert Godfrey

Neither she nor Manoah seem to be praying about this situation.

And there's this sense throughout the Samson story that sort of the life has gone out of Israel.

The hope has gone out of Israel.

It's almost after 40 years they're not even looking for the Lord to act anymore.

They're resigned to their fate.

And so we are introduced to a family in Israel that expresses the character of Israel in these days as pretty hopeless, pretty cast down, pretty despondent.

And then, as so often happens in the Bible, in our worst moments, in our worst moments,

The Lord intervenes.

The Lord acts.

The Lord surprises us.

And that's what we have in verse 3.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman.

Now, you know the Hebrew word for angel.

Angel is actually a Greek word.

And both the Hebrew word and the Greek word mean the messenger of the Lord.

Angels are always messengers of the Lord.

They bear a word from the Lord.

That's why they come.

That's their function.

And, of course, we also know that among angels there's a special angel that most scholars believe, most conservative scholars anyway, believe is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.