What does Judges 13:18 Mean?

Context Summary

Manoah's wife comforted her husband with admirable tact. How often her words come back to us, at the different stages of life! The fact that God continues to bless and use, to answer prayer and give revelations of Himself, may be quoted as a reason for believing that He has not cast us off. Would He have showed us such things as these and then kill us? His love in time past forbids us to think so.

Samson means sunny. A happy, laughing lad, with his profuse crown of unshorn hair-is it any wonder that the soldiers of the garrison, situated on the Dan-frontier, welcomed him? And the Spirit of God began to play on his young soul, as a minstrel plays on his harp. Such is the literal rendering of "began to move." Oh, happy are they whose natures lie open to God's touch, so that the least movement produces a quick and glad answer! As the Aeolian harp will respond to the kiss of the zephyr or the moan of the rising storm, so be it with our hearts and lives. Thus our unconscious influence may become as songs without words. [source]

Chapter Summary: Judges 13

¹  Israel is delivered into the hands of Philistines
²  An angel appears to Manoah's wife
⁸  The angel appears to Manoah
¹⁵  Manoah's sacrifices, whereby the angel is discovered
²⁴  Samson is born