Judges 13:5 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Judges 13:5
For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct
Philistines
פְּלִשְׁתִּֽיםpe.lish.Tim
H6430
a Pelishtite or inhabitant of Pelesheth · noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 6:5 All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth h…
1 Samuel 1:11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forge…
Numbers 6:2-3 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to sepa…
1 Chronicles 18:1 Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the Phili…
1 Samuel 7:13 So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all th…
2 Samuel 8:1 And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them: and David took Metheg-ammah out of the hand of the Phili…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Judges 13:1-7
The first verse gives us a short account, such as we have too often met with already, of the great distress that Israel was in, which gave occasion for the raising up of a deliverer. They did evil, as they had done, in the sight of the Lord, and then God delivered them, as he had done, into the hands of their enemies. If there had been no sin, there would have needed no Saviour; but sin was suffered to abound, that grace might much more abound. The enemies God now sold them to were the Philistines, their next neighbours, that lay among them, the first and chief of the nations which were devoted to destruction, but which God left to prove them (Jdg 3:1, Jdg 3:3), the five lords of the Philist…
thou shalt conceive, and bear a son--This predicted child was to be a Nazarite. The mother was, therefore, for the sake of her promised offspring, required to practice the rigid abstinence of the Nazarite law (see on Num 6:2).
he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines--a prophecy encouraging to a patriotic man; the terms of it, however, indicated that the period of deliverance was still to be distant.
John Gill on Judges 13:5
For, lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son,.... Which is not only repeated for the confirmation of it, but that she might take notice that he was to be a Nazarite, and therefore must conform to everything agreeable to the law of the Nazarites, and take care that it was observed in him:
and no razor shall come on his head; to cut off the hair of it, not from the time of his birth to his death; for he was to be a perpetual Nazarite: other Nazarites during the time of their Nazariteship were not to suffer a razor to come upon them, but afterwards might; but for such an one as Samson, it was not lawful ever to suffer his hair to be cut off; see Numbers 6:5.
for the child shall be a Nazarite u…
Angel — A word signifying, both in the Hebrew and Greek, a “messenger,” and hence employed to denote any agent God sends forth to execute his purposes. It is used of an ordinary messenger (Job 1:14: 1 Sam.…
Hair — (1.) The Egyptians let the hair of their head and beard grow only when they were in mourning, shaving it off at other times. “So particular were they on this point that to have neglected it was a…
Manoah — Rest, a Danite, the father of Samson (Judg. 13:1-22, and 14:2-4).
Nazarite — (Heb. form Nazirite), the name of such Israelites as took on them the vow prescribed in Num. 6:2-21. The word denotes generally one who is separated from others and consecrated to God. Although there…
Philistines — (Gen. 10:14, R.V.; but in A.V., “Philistim”), a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the…
Razor — The Nazarites were forbidden to make use of the razor (Num. 6:5; Judg. 13:5). At their consecration the Levites were shaved all over with a razor (Num. 8:7; comp. Ps. 52:2; Ezek. 5:1).
Samson — Of the sun, the son of Manoah, born at Zorah. The narrative of his life is given in Judg. 13-16. He was a “Nazarite unto God” from his birth, the first Nazarite mentioned in Scripture (Judg. 13:3-5;…
Wine — The common Hebrew word for wine is yayin, from a root meaning “to boil up,” “to be in a ferment.” Others derive it from a root meaning “to tread out,” and hence the juice of the grape trodden out.…
Abstinence, Total · .Sam — .Sam
Children · .Sam — .Sam
Conception · .Manoah’s wife — .Manoah’s wife
Whilst the Israelites were given into the hands of the Philistines on account of their sins, and were also severely oppressed in Gilead on the part of the Ammonites, the angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah, a Danite from Zorea, i.e., Sur'a, on the western slope of the mountains of Judah (see at Jos 15:33). Mishpachath Dani (the family of the Danites) is used interchangeably with shebet Dani (the tribe of the Danites: see Jdg 18:2, Jdg 18:11, and Jdg 18:1, Jdg 18:30), which may be explained on this ground, that according to Num 26:42-43, all the Danites formed but one family, viz., the family of the Shuhamites. The angel of the Lord announced to this woman, who was barren, "Thou…
Nazarites · Different kinds of: From the womb — Different kinds of: From the womb
Philistines · Samson: Promised as a deliverer from — Samson: Promised as a deliverer from
Samson · any ceremonially unclean thing during gestation — any ceremonially unclean thing during gestation
Shaving · Forbid — Forbid
Wine · Sam — Sam
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
