8 Then Manoah prayed to the LORD, and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.”
9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.
10 Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!”
11 So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?” And He said, “I am.”
12 Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?”—Judges 13:8-12
Manoah is my new favorite character in Scripture!
First off... Manoah had no doubt that what the Man of God said would come to pass. Manoah believed God.
Second, Manoah entreated the Lord. Manoah was a “man of prayer”. Manoah was teachable. His desire was to clarify what his duties would be in regard to the child that would be born. I loved that. He was zealous to do what was right. Verse 9 tells us that God listened to the voice of Manoah. God always hears and answers our prayers that come from a humble heart that truly desires to follow and obey Him.
Good and upright is the LORD;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
The humble He guides in justice,
And the humble He teaches His way.—Ps 25:8-9
Thirdly, Manoah also believed his wife and was not insulted when the Angel of God appeared to his wife a second time and not to him. She ran to get him and he gladly and humbly followed her.
Manoah’s faith does falter when he learns the true identity of their visitor.
And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”—Judges 13:22
And here is where I see that although Manoah’s faith was strong, his wife’s was stronger. That made me love them both! She encourages him in a practical way and he listened to her voice.
But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time.”
As a woman, my first and primary God-given ministry is to my husband. Praying to be the kind of helpmeet to my husband that Manoah’s wife was to him. She is not named in Scripture. She is referred to and remembered as the wife of Manoah. I liked that. It made think of being of one flesh with my own husband... being of one accord and of the same mind... serving our God together as one flesh.
Father,
May I be, by Your Spirit, the kind of helpmeet to my husband that encourages his faith. The kind who spends time sitting at the Lord’s feet. The kind whom his heart can safely trust. The kind, as it says in Hebrews 10, that holds fast the confession of my hope without wavering because He who promised is faithful. The kind that thoughtfully considers how she may encourage her husband to love and to do good deeds.
