Judges 13:19

So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) Did wonderously.—With a reference to the word pelî in the previous verse. (Comp. Judges 6:20-26.)

Benson Commentary

Jdg 13:19-20. And offered it upon a rock — The presence and command of the angel being a sufficient warrant for the offering of sacrifice by a person who was no priest, and in a place otherwise forbidden. Vitringa, however, supposes that “it was the angel who upon this occasion performed the principal functions of the priest; the most essential of which was to put the fire to the burnt-offering.” Manoah, he observes, “dared not to perform the offices of the priesthood in the presence of a personage whom he took for an extra-ordinary prophet, commissioned from God. All that he did was done by order of the angel, or as his minister; just as the Israelites obeyed Elijah afterward,” 1 Kings 18:34. The angel, or rather he, (for there is nothing for angel in the original,) did wondrously — Bringing fire out of the rock, as in the case of Gideon, Jdg 6:21, to consume the burnt-offering, and then ascending in the midst of the flame, hereby manifesting his nature and essence to be spiritual. Off the altar — That is, from that part of the rock which served instead of an altar, upon which the sacrifice was laid. Manoah and his wife fell on their faces — Partly out of reverence for so glorious a person manifested in so wonderful a manner, and partly out of a religious horror and fear of death; for the prevention whereof they fell down in the way of supplication to God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:15-23 What Manoah asked for instruction in his duty, he was readily told; but what he asked to gratify his curiosity, was denied. God has in his word given full directions concerning our duty, but never designed to answer other questionings. There are secret things which belong not to us, of which we must be quite contented to be ignorant, while in this world. The name of our Lord is wonderful and secret; but by his wonderful works he makes himself known as far as is needful for us. Prayer is the ascent of the soul to God. But without Christ in the heart by faith, our services are offensive smoke; in him, acceptable flame. We may apply this to Christ's sacrifice of himself for us; he ascended in the flame of his own offering, for by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, Heb 9:12. In Manoah's reflections there is great fear; We shall surely die. In his wife's reflection there is great faith. As a help meet for him, she encouraged him. Let believers who have had communion with God in the word and prayer, to whom he has graciously manifested himself, and who have had reason to think God has accepted their works, take encouragement from thence in a cloudy and dark day. God would not have done what he has done for my soul, if he had designed to forsake me, and leave me to perish at last; for his work is perfect. Learn to reason as Manoah's wife; If God designed me to perish under his wrath, he would not give me tokens of his favour.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Secret - Rather, "wonderful," as in the margin. In Judges 13:19 the Angel "did wondrously," probably as the Angel that Appeared to Gideon had done, bringing fire from the rock. See the marginal references and notes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17-20. Manoah said unto the angel …, What is thy name?—Manoah's request elicited the most unequivocal proofs of the divinity of his supernatural visitor—in his name "secret" (in the Margin, "wonderful"), and in the miraculous flame that betokened the acceptance of the sacrifice.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Meat-offerings were generally joined with the chief sacrifices.

Offered it upon a rock; the angel’s presence and command being a sufficient warrant for the offering of sacrifice by a person who was no priest, and in a place otherwise forbidden.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering,.... The kid which he proposed to make an entertainment with, for the man of God, he took him to be, he fetched and brought for a burnt offering, at the hint which the angel had given him, and joined to it a meat offering, as was usual whenever burnt offerings were made; see Numbers 15:3,

and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord; for though Manoah was not a priest, nor was this a proper place for sacrifice; high places were now forbidden, and only at the tabernacle in Shiloh were offerings to be brought; yet all this was dispensed with, and Manoah was justified in what he did by the warrant of the angel, Judges 13:16. The rock was probably near the place where this meeting of Manoah and his wife with the angel was, and where the discourse between them passed; and which served instead of an altar, and on which Manoah sacrificed, not to idols, but to the true Jehovah, as the angel directed:

and the angel did wondrously; agreeably to his name, which was "Wonderful", Judges 13:18 or "he, Jehovah, did wondrously" for this angel was no other than Jehovah the Son. The instance in which he did wondrously was, as Kimchi observes, by bringing fire out of the rock, which consumed the flesh of the kid, and the meat offering; and so Josephus (q) says, that he touched the flesh with a rod he had, and fire sparkled out, and consumed it with the bread, or meat offering; just in the same manner as the angel did with the kid and cakes that Gideon brought, Judges 6:21.

and Manoah and his wife looked on; to see either fire come down from heaven, or spring up out of the rock, which consumed the sacrifice, and showed the Lord's acceptance of it, and also the angel's ascending in it, as follows.

(q) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 3.)

Geneva Study Bible

So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did {i} wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.

(i) God sent fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice, to consume their faith in his promise.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. offered it upon the rock] i.e. the rock which formed the altar (Jdg 13:20), and lay close at hand. Such an altar, hewn out of the living rock and reached by steps leading to a platform, actually exists near Ṣar‘a (Zorah), and may have been in the writer’s mind; see the illustration in Driver, Schweich Lectures (1909), 66, based on Schick, ZDPV.

10. (1887), 140 f., who first gave details of the discovery. The surface of the altar itself is almost covered with cup-shaped depressions connected in many cases by shallow channels. These hollows look as if they were intended to receive liquid offerings, and certainly there is little room left on the surface for a burnt sacrifice. Hence Kittel, Studien z. Hebr. Archäol. (1908), 97–108, concludes that the altar was primarily a table for a meal offering, and that its use as a hearth for a burnt offering marks the difference between Israelite and pre-Israelite practice. Jehovah would not receive a meal like a Canaanite god; He does not inhabit the sacred stone or tree; His offerings must be consumed by fire which rises to the heaven where He dwells. Kittel works out suggestively the theological significance of Gideon’s and Manoah’s sacrifice; but it must be remembered that his argument turns on the cup-like hollows found on the surface of this and similar altar-rocks1[52]; and the purpose of these is by no means certain at present.

[52] At Marmita, 2 m. S.E. of Ṣar‘a, at Nebî Samwîl = Mizpah, el-Jib = Gibeon, Petra, all ancient high-places. Rock-surfaces uncovered at Megiddo, at Taanach, at Gezer, exhihit similar cup-marks; see Driver, l.c. 51, 67, 81, and Vincent, Canaan (1907), 95 f.

with the meal offering] See on Jdg 6:18. Some scholars regard the words here and in Jdg 13:23 as a later addition made for the sake of ritual completeness.

and the angel did wondrously] As it stands the text is hardly grammatical; so the angel is inserted in the EV. to make sense. LXX. cod. A and Vulgate read with a slight change ‘unto the Lord who doeth wondrously,’ and many adopt this correction. The clause following is accidentally repeated from Jdg 13:20, where it is in place. Perhaps both clauses (and did wondrously2[53], and … looked on) came in here from Jdg 13:20.

[53] If restored to Jdg 13:20 read w‘hû maflî’ for umaflî’.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - Offered it, etc. He had the angel's sanction for doing so in ver. 16. But we must not look for strict compliance with the Levitical law in the lawless days of the Judges, though we find many of its prescribed ordinances in use, as, for instance, the institution of Nazarites, and here the offering of the meat offering with the burnt offering (Leviticus 2:1, etc.). And the angel. These words are rightly inserted, to give the sense of the original, as more fully explained in the following verse. Did wonderously - literally, was wondrous in his doing. The verb here is the same root as the substantive or adjective wonder, or wonderful, in ver. 18. Compare the similar account in Judges 6:21. Judges 13:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Manoah then took the kid and the minchah, i.e., according to Numbers 15:4., the meat-offering belonging to the burnt-offering, and offered it upon the rock, which is called an altar in Judges 13:20, because the angel of the Lord, who is of one nature with God, had sanctified it as an altar through the miraculous acceptance of the sacrifice. לעשׁות מפלא, "and wonderfully (miraculously) did he act" (הפליא followed by the infinitive with ל as in 2 Chronicles 26:15). These words form a circumstantial clause, which is not to be attached, however, to the subject of the principal clause, but to ליהוה: "Manoah offered the sacrifice to the Lord, whereupon He acted to do wonderfully, i.e., He performed a wonder or miracle, and Manoah and his wife saw it" (see Ewald, Lehrb. 341, b., p. 724, note). In what the miracle consisted is explained in Judges 13:20, in the words, "when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar;" that is to say, in the fact that a flame issued from the rock, as in the case of Gideon's sacrifice (Judges 6:21), and consumed the sacrifice. And the angel of the Lord ascended in this flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell upon their faces to the earth (sc., in worship), because they discovered from the miracle that it was the angel of the Lord who had appeared to them.