At the LST alumni conference this month, we were treated to a talk on Faith by my former colleague Mary Evans, who has just finished writing a commentary on Judges. One of the stories that she told us from there really struck me. It’s from Judges 13, about Samson’s parents. The mother-to-be had been unable to give birth, but an angel came to her and told her that despite that, she was going to have a son, and when he was born, he should never shave and should live a certain way and he would defeat the Philistines. Wow.
So she went and told her husband, repeating the detail of how she and the boy were to act. But the dad-to-be prays to God “I beg you to send the messenger again, to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.” What? The mom has already been told and has told the dad. But the man, apparently, wants God to send a messenger to tell him, not some woman.
God does send the messenger a second time. But to whom? Not to the two of them when they’re together…. and not to the man when they’re alone… but again, it is again to the woman that the angel comes, and she runs and invites the man to come and see too.
I can’t wait for Mary’s commentary. I really liked the one on Samuel!