What is the meaning of Judges 13:2?

Now there was a man from Zorah

• Zorah lay on the border between Judah and Dan (Joshua 15:33; 19:41), a physical reminder that God often works on the fringes.

• God’s choice of an obscure town underscores His pattern of exalting humble places and people (Micah 5:2; John 1:46).

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named Manoah

• Manoah’s name means “rest,” hinting at the deliverance God is about to supply through his son, Samson (Judges 13:24–25).

• Though Manoah himself never becomes a national hero, his obedience shapes Israel’s future, echoing how ordinary believers can have extraordinary impact (1 Corinthians 1:26–29).

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from the clan of the Danites

• Dan had struggled to claim its allotted territory (Judges 1:34; 18:1–2). God raises deliverance from within a tribe feeling hemmed in, showing He has not forgotten any part of His people (Genesis 49:16–17).

• Samson’s future clashes with the Philistines will begin liberating Dan’s inheritance (Judges 13:5; 15:20).

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whose wife was barren

• Barrenness regularly precedes miraculous births: Sarah (Genesis 11:30), Rebekah (Genesis 25:21), Rachel (Genesis 30:22), Hannah (1 Samuel 1:5–20), Elizabeth (Luke 1:7). Each instance magnifies God’s power over life itself.

• The Bible never treats barrenness lightly; it conveys deep pain (Proverbs 30:15–16). God’s intervention here assures the suffering that He sees and answers (Psalm 113:9).

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and had no children

• The double statement intensifies the impossibility, eliminating any natural explanation once Samson is conceived (Romans 4:19–21).

• Israel’s cycle of oppression and deliverance (Judges 2:16–19) intersects with a couple’s personal heartbreak, proving God works in national crises and family struggles simultaneously.

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summary

Judges 13:2 introduces a humble couple in an overlooked town within a struggling tribe—and reminds us that God delights to begin great deliverances in small, impossible places. Manoah and his barren wife stand as living testimony that when circumstances rule out human solutions, the Lord steps in so His glory cannot be missed.