I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD.

And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour?

And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is Wonderful ? *

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

For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground.

But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD.

And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would at this time have told us such things as these.

And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

COMMENT.-Almost at the same time as Samuel the Nazarite was growing up in the tabernacle, another young Nazarite was born, and was being prepared, in the providence of God, to be a defender of the Israelites against the punishment that their sins were storing up for them. It is one of the strangest and saddest histories in the Bible, for while one Nazarite was blessed in all he did, the other made no good use of the gifts of the Lord; and though he seems to have been meant, if we may so speak, to be a great type of the Saviour in His might, he turned aside from his high calling, and only showed the likeness, like the reflection of the sun in troubled waters, all broken and distorted. The beginning of his life was typical, for his birth was promised to his mother "by the message of an angel." His parents were of the tribe of Dan, not of the part of the tribe that had migrated to the north, but of the original settlement between Judah and the Philistines. "Dan shall judge his people," was to be fulfilled in him. The heavenly messenger came first to the mother alone, and bade her to prepare for the birth of the child, by herself observing the laws of the devoted Nazarites, drinking no wine, and being careful never to touch any* This is in the margin and is the correct translation, though "secret" is in the text.

thing that caused defilement, according to the Law, by being emblematic of sin, by connection with death or disease. When she had told her husband, he prayed that the angel might return, and teach them how to deal with the child who was to be given to them. The heavenly visitor came again, and vouchsafed to repeat to Manoah what had before been told to his wife, setting the child apart from all others as one who had a special work from the Lord.

Then followed a scene that shows us that the Angel or messenger was again not a ministering spirit, but a manifestation of God himself, the Word of God. For when, as in the appearance to Gideon, there was the desire to make ready a kid for Him who seemed in outward form a man of God, Manoah and his wife were told that it must not be as a meal, but as a sacrifice unto the Lord; and when, still not understanding that He was more than human, the husband asked His name, the answer reminds us of that given to Jacob on his night of wrestling (Gen. xxxii. 29). His full name was only to be revealed by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin whose name was Mary; but a little more was told to Manoah than to his forefather. "Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is Wonderful ?" "His name shall be called Wonderful," was four hundred years later the promise to Isaiah, and He whose name is Wonderful did wondrously, rising in the flame of the sacrifice on the rock to heaven, even as He had risen before in Gideon's altar fire, and as He would rise in His human body after His own great sacrifice.

Then Manoah knew they had seen a manifestation of God, and was overpowered with fear, thinking that none could see Him and live; but his wife believed that the acceptance of the offering was a sure pledge of His favour, and, besides, the very promise implied their life. And she was right. Her son was born, and named by a word which we call Samson, but which was really Shimshun, probably from Shemesh, the Sun, for she might well believe that the boy so promised would be the Sun, the Light of Israel.

LESSON XLII.

THE CALL TO SAMUEL.

I SAM. iii. I—21.

And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious* in those days; there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see;

And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep;

That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.

And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.

And

And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I ; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son ; lie down again.

Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him.

And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. ceived that the LORD had called the child.

And Eli per

Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.

And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.

In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house when I begin, I will also make an end.

For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth ; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.

And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged + with sacrifice nor offering for ever.

And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.

Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.

And he said, What is the thing that the LORD hath said unto thee? I

* It was very seldom that the LORD spake to men.

↑ Purified.

pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee.

And Samuel told him every whit,* and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.

And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. +

And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD.

And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.

COMMENT. This history, one of the very first that we all know and love, because it tells of a holy childhood favoured by God, is believed to have taken place when Samuel, the young Nazarite of the Temple, was about twelve years old. It was at a time when little of the spirit of prophecy was vouchsafed to the Israelites; the vision or revelation of God was shut up from them, for the priesthood was defiled, and no one at Shiloh seems to have been true and faithful in heart save the young child and the feeble old man, who had failed to restrain his sons, and who was so aged that he began to lose his sight. It seems as though his sons and grandsons had neglected him, for no one was near him at night but the child Samuel, where he was laid down to sleep in the chambers made for the priests in what is here called the Temple, but which was really the Tabernacle of the wilderness, only with walls instead of boarded enclosures. Most likely it was near morning, for the sevenbranched lamp-stand or candlestick, which stood in the Holy Place, outside the Holy of Holies, was fed with fresh oil every evening, and it was nearly gone out--just as the Light of Grace had nearly gone out among the people of Israel-when, even as the Lord had of old spoken to Moses, so now He called Samuel by name. Samuel knew not what voice it was, and started up, thinking that it was Eli who had called him. Just so when children hear the commands of their parents or teachers, they do not know that it is really the Lord whom they obey or disobey.

It is worth noting what the child was like whom the Lord thus favoured out of all Israel. Observe that while his sleep was broken over and over again, and he still thought it was the blind old man

who called him, he showed no impatience, but ran as readily as ever with his "Here I am, for thou didst call me." A little fretfulness or neglect might have unfitted him for ever for the great work for which he had been set apart.

When his words, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," had been uttered, it was a very terrible revelation that followed, confirming the words that the man of God had before spoken, and foretelling the punishment of the wicked sons of Eli. Perhaps they had refused to believe that messenger. Now the Voice came out of the Tabernacle itself, where no one was, save their father and the child.

To the child Samuel himself it was a dreadful load to bear. He lay, no doubt in awe and grief, until morning, and then he feared to tell Eli, perhaps not only in the dread of grieving him, but from fear of the way in which the lawless Hophni and Phinehas might receive such tidings. But when Eli called on him to tell, he simply told the truth, and thus began his mission as a prophet of God. Eli took the sentence in meek resignation. He knew too well that it was deserved, and he did not fight against it: "It is the Lord : let him do what seemeth him good." There is a pattern for us of the blessed way in which to take chastisement! From that time Samuel was known to be a prophet by whom the Lord declared His will, and all Israel owned him, from Dan-the northern city, inhabited by the Danite colony who had robbed Micah of his teraphim-down to Beersheba, the most southern point of Judah towards the desert. This was the whole length of the land.

The books called those of Samuel, or sometimes the First and Second Books of Kings, were counted by the Jews as the first belonging to prophetic times. They seem to have been begun by Samuel himself, and afterwards continued in the schools or colleges of prophets which, as we shall find, he founded.