W. Robert Godfrey

This is the eternal second person of the Trinity who takes on a form that can be seen to communicate the message of God to people in the Old Covenant.

So here comes the angel of the Lord who appeared to the woman and says to her, Behold, you are barren and have not born children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

You shall conceive and bear a son.

That sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

Here is the promise, a proto-messianic promise.

You're going to bear a son.

And it's interesting as we read along here that Samson's mother initially seems to think that this appearance to her is a man.

She thinks he's a prophet.

So he clearly doesn't have wings.

This is not an angel that looks obviously angelic.

No sign on his chest that says angel.

And that's sort of intriguing, too, that we find that a number of times in the Old Testament, that angels appear, but they appear in the form of a man called

and are initially appraised as being a human being.

But a little further in the text, we're told that the appearance was awesome, although literally in Hebrew it sort of was very scary.

And that too, it regularly accompanies the appearances of angels in the Bible, doesn't it?

What are the first words that angels frequently speak?

Fear not, because they're very scary, whether they just look like very impressive human beings or whether they're actually perceived to be angels from their first appearance.

But this angel appears with a promise.

This woman who has been barren and has not born a child will conceive and will bear a son.

And so this has to have been news of great joy to this mother.