Judges 13:1

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Committed idolatry, which was the evil they were prone unto, and were frequently guilty of: and the Lord delivered them into the

And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. The Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

JUDGES CHAPTER 13 The Philistines again oppress Israel, . An angel appeareth to Manoah’ s wife, promising her a son that should be a Nazarite, and deliver Israel, . She informs her husband hereof: he prayeth, and obtaineth a return of the angel, . Manoah is desirous to provide food for the angel, and inquireth after his name, . He sacrificeth to the Lord, and the angel ascendeth to heaven in the flame of the burnt-offering, . Hereat Manoah is affrighted, but comforted by his wife; who beareth him a son; his name Samson, in whom is the Spirit of the Lord, . Did evil, i.e. fell into idolatry, &c., not now after the death of Abdon the last judge, but in the days of the former judges. Forty years, to be computed not from Abdon’ s death, but before that time, as is evident both from , where it is declared that Israel was under the power of the Philistines; and from , where only twenty of these years are said to have been in Samson’ s days. And it is probably conceived, that that great slaughter of the Ephraimites made by Jephthah did greatly encourage the Philistines to rise against Israel, when one of their chief bulwarks was so much weakened; and therefore that the Philistines began to domineer over them not long after Jephthah’ s death.

Judges 13:1 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.Ver. 1. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord.] To whom any sin is an eyesore, but especially apostasy and idolatry, the sins of those Israelites, who were therefore worse than others, because they ought to have been better. Into the hand of the Philistines forty years.] During the days of Samson and Eli. Peace they had enjoyed likely, under the three forementioned Judges, and were the worse for it. “ Luxuriant animi rebus plerunque secundis. ”

(1) Did evil again.—Judges 3:7; Judges 4:1; Judges 6:1-11; Judges 10:6. Of the Philistines.—Hitherto the nation has only been cursorily mentioned (Judges 3:31; Judges 10:7-11); from this time to the reign of David they play an important part. They were not Canaanites, but foreign conquerors. The district which they held, and from which the name of “Palestine” has been derived, was originally in the hands of the Avim (Deuteronomy 2:23). The name means “emigrants.” They seem to have been also called Caphtorim (Jeremiah 47:4), from living in Caphtor, i.e., Crete (Tac. Hist. v. 3); but it is uncertain whether they were Semitic (Ewald, Mövers), or Hamitic (see Genesis 10:14), or Aryan (Hitzig). Their connection with Crete is inferred from the name Cherethites (LXX., Kretes). They were in Palestine by Abraham’s time (Genesis 21:32). Forty years.—These terminated with the battle of Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:13). The ark had been taken and sent back about twenty years before this battle, and the acts of Samson probably fall within those twenty years, so that Eli died about the time that Samson came of age.

CHAPTER XIII The Israelites corrupt themselves, abut are delivered into the hands of the Philistines forty years, 1. An Angel appears to the wife of Manoah, foretells the birth of her son, and gives her directions how to treat both herself and her child, who was to be a deliverer of Israel, 2-5. She informs her husband of this transaction, 6, 7. Manoah prays that the Angel may reappear; he is heard, and the Angel appears to him and his wife, and repeats his former directions concerning the mother and the child, 8-14. Manoah presents an offering to the Lord, and the Angel ascends in the flame, 15-20. Manoah is alarmed, but is comforted by the judicious rejections of his wife, 21-23. Samson is born, and begins to feel the influence of the Divine Spirit, 24, 25. NOTES ON CHAP. XIII Verse 1. Delivered them into the hand of the Philistines] It does not appear that after Shamgar, to the present time, the Philistines were in a condition to oppress Israel, or God had not permitted them to do it; but now they have a commission, the Israelites having departed from the Lord. Nor is it evident that the Philistines had entirely subjected the Israelites, as there still appears to have been a sort of commerce between the two people. They had often vexed and made inroads upon them, but they had them not in entire subjection; see Jude 15:11.

Ch. 13 Samson’s birth 1. the Philistines] The Dtc. compiler treats the age of Samson on the principle of Jdg 3:7 f., which has been illustrated in the foregoing narratives (Judges 3:7-15, Judges 4:1-3, Judges 6:1-7, Judges 10:6-8); but no hostile invasion is mentioned 13–16; while the Philistine domination lasted to the time of David, much longer than 40 years. The Philistines are probably to be identified with the Purasati, who, with other non-Semitic tribes from southern Asia Minor and the Aegean islands, are first mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions of Ramses III (circ. 1198–1167 b.c.). At the beginning of the 12th century these ‘peoples of the sea’ swept down upon Upper Syria and S.W. Canaan; they were twice defeated by the Pharaoh, but he did not succeed in driving them all out of the country. The Philistines settled on the coast between Carmel and Gaza, and in course of time formed a federal state governed by five lords (serβnim, Judges 3:3, Judges 16:5 ff., Joshua 13:3, 1 Samuel 6:17 f.); a kindred tribe, the Cherηthites (translated Cretans1[48] by LXX in Zephaniah 2:5, Ezekiel 25:16), found a home in the Negeb, 1 Samuel 30:14. At the period of the Samson story the Philistines not only held the maritime plain and the Shephηlah, but had made themselves masters of the inland districts belonging to the Israelites; in the period which follows they pushed their conquests further E. and N., and it was to resist these aggressions that the Hebrew monarchy was founded. The foreign origin of the Philistines is recognized by O.T. tradition. Thus in Judg. and Sam. they are called ‘the uncircumcised,’ and their original home is said to have been Caphtor (Amos 9:7 LXX Cappadocia, Jeremiah 47:4, cf. Deuteronomy 2:23), which may be the equivalent of Keftτ, the ancient Egyptian name for the western quarter of the world, especially perhaps Cilicia; the civilization which they brought with them no doubt belonged to the early Aegean type2[49]. But though foreigners by race and civilization, they seem to have adopted the language and religion of the natives whom they conquered. The names of persons and places in Philistia are Canaanite (except perhaps Achish, and serβnim above); the gods whom they worshipped, Dagon (Judges 16:23 f., 1 Samuel 5), Ashtart (1 Samuel 31:10), Baal-zebub (2 Kings 1:2 f.), are Canaanite too; see also Herod, i. 105. Curiously enough, the district inhabited by these foreign invaders (Hebr. Pelesheth) gave its name through Greek influence to the whole country, Παλαιστίνη (Herod. ii. 104, vii. 89), Palestine. The mention of the Philistines in the stories of the patriarchs, Genesis 21:22 ff. E, 26 J, and in Exodus 13:17; Exodus 15:14, is an anachronism; for the Amarna tablets (circ. 1400 b.c.) mention the country and cities afterwards held by the Philistines as in Canaanite possession. [48] The identification is by no means certain, though recent opinion tends to recognize a connexion between the Philistines and Crete; see Evans, Scripta Minoa (1909), pp. 77 ff. [49] In the LXX., Judg.

The Philistines have been mentioned as oppressors of Israel in Judges 3:31; Judges 10:7, Judges 10:11; and the Israelite worship of the gods of the Philistines is spoken of in Judges 10:6.

, Judges 13:1. 1. The Philistines — From the narrative of the Ammonite oppression, and Jephthah’s rule in eastern Palestine or Gilead, the historian now passes to the extreme west — the Shephelah, or