Bible Geek Word Nerd - Samson - Manoah

Manoah has Resting Father Face

We have been exploring the story of Samson in the Book of Judges.  We have not gotten very far into the story because to be honest, Samson’s story is not very interesting to us because it is so familiar.  Everyone’s heard something of it from somewhere, including reading it in Judges 13 to 16.  (And if you read past Delilah’s part in the story to what happens after?  Well, you might need therapy.  No way the vegetables tell the rest of Judges!  Nope.)

 

So we are telling the fringes of the story…the background and contours hidden in the shadows that might get missed in the frequent telling of the jawbones and foxes and hair-trimming that everyone knows so well.  It’s not that we are slow in our passage.  Rather, the hidden details offer us interesting story nooks and crannies.  Hang with us a bit and let the story unfold a bit differently.

 

Verse 2 of Chapter 13 reads thus (in the RSV):

 

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Mano′ah; and his wife was barren and had no children.

 

We have already discussed “barren”, “certain man”, and “tribe”.  Let’s talk about Samson’s dad, Mano’ah, from the tribe of Dan.

 

The first thing to note might be that the tribe of Dan does not come off very well, either in the Scriptures or in extra-Biblical writing.  In the Scriptures, we have the present story of Samson, which darkens the tribe’s legacy.  But before this tale, Leviticus 24 tells the story of an infamous blasphemer.

 

and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. And they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelo′mith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.
Leviticus 24:11

 

And we ought not to forget what the tribe of Dan did, as recorded in Judges 18:30:

 

And the Danites set up the graven image for themselves; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

 

In extra-biblical writing of the rabbinic sages and Church Fathers, Dan is seen as the archetype for evil-doing.  Church Fathers believed that Anti-Christ would come from the line of Dan.  It seems that Manaoh – and Samson – might have been starting from behind when Judges 13 begins.

 

Manoah is the only Manoah mentioned in the Scriptures.  He’s a one-off.  This is odd because his name is derived from the same root word as Father Noah the Ark Builder.  Why did nobody else name a famous child after Noah in this way? 

 

Their names derive from the verb NUACH (נוּחַ), which means “to rest”.  It occurs about 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, from its first appearance in Genesis 8:4, where the Ark came to REST, to its final one in Zechariah:

 

Then he called to me, ‘Look, those going towards the north country have given my Spirit REST in the land of the north.’
Zechariah 6:8

 

You might be saying to yourself, “Hold on a minute there, Bible Geek Word Nerd.  How can Genesis 8 be the first place where NUACH/rest is used?  Does not Genesis 2 tell us that G-d rested on the Seventh Day?”  We are delighted to be asked.  You are correct that the Text does tell us that G-d rested on the Seventh Day.  But the Hebrew uses a different word to describe the rest: SHABATH (שָׁבַת).  You might recognize it.  It’s the word from which Sabbath comes.  It can mean rest, but it primarily means “cease” (as in “cease working on the Sabbath”).  The words are qualitatively different in the Scriptures, describing a different sort of rest.

 

Some interpreters read the story and see a less-than-ideal father described in Manoah.  The Angel of the LORD visited his wife, and not him, to announce their promised child, for example.  He does not rule over his house well – his MISHPACHAH seems disordered.  Some interpreters take his name to mean that MANOAH was a passive, perhaps even lazy man (the Angel chose to bypass him because he was too “resty”).

 

And indeed, as the tragic story of his son of promise unfolds, we surmise many ways in which an active father might have averted the corruption of Samson.

 

Rest might be a good thing, but it is not always what’s required in life.