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Judges 13:1-5 (ANIV)
The birth of Samson
1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, 5 because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

DRAWING NOTES:

TIME OF DAY:
The Bible doesn’t specify the time of day. I’ve set this scene in the early afternoon.

LIGHTING NOTES:
The sun is high in the sky (unseen, on the left), casting shadows to the right of people and objects.

CHARACTERS PRESENT:
The un-named wife of Manoah. An angel

RESEARCH/ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Zorah (aka Zoreah, Zareah) was the birth place of Samson (see map below). A town west of Jerusalem, its inhabitants were known as Zorathites or Zareathites.

This scene shows Manoah’s wife planting in a little field just outside their home (which we can see to the right). An angel of the Lord is standing before Manoah’s wife, who looks shocked… which is understandable!

The angel gave instructions regarding the child Manoah’s wife was soon to conceive. No doubt this would have been good news for her, since in the Hebrew mind, childlessness was a stain on the character of those men and women it affected.

In this scene I have shown the angel complete with my usual feather-like wings. In the next scene, when Manoah looks, he doesn’t see that it is an angel, so I have drawn the figure as a wingless being instead, to represent this.

Here is the scene without the figures in the foreground.

Background of Judges 13 – The birth of Samson – Scene 01 – Angelic message

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Background of Judges 13 – The birth of Samson – Scene 01 – Angelic message

Maps of Samson’s life
Below are several maps I have created outlining the various journeys Samson undertook during his life time. I hope they help to illustrate where Samson was in Israel & Philistia during the various amazing events & miracles that he was involved in.

Here is a map showing all of Samson’s journeys throughout his whole life. The lines are colour coded into 4 main periods of Samson’s 20 year reign as Israel’s Judge.

Map of Israel showing Samson’s journeys

Click on the colour bar below to view/buy this map, NOTE – the purchased map doesn’t have the watermark on it:
Map of Israel showing Samson’s journeys

It can be a bit confusing trying to see where Samson was at any particular time on the map above, as the coloured lines tend to cross over each other! For this reason I have broken down Samson’s life into 4 main periods, & drawn 4 maps that show each period separately – much easier to see & understand!

Here are 2 maps showing the first part of Samson’s journeys, starting where he was born (in Zorah) & going to the coastal Philistine city of Ashkelon during his wedding. The top map shows the whole of Israel, viewed from above & looking along the country, from south towards the north, with perspective applied. The black box shows the extent of the more detailed map below this one.

Map of Israel – Samson 01 – Early life and marriage

Click on the colour bar below to view/buy the upper small-scale map, NOTE – the purchased map doesn’t have the black box & diagonal lines or watermark on it:
Map of Israel – Samson 01 – Early life and marriage

Click on the colour bar below to view/buy the lower, large-scale map, NOTE – the purchased map doesn’t have the watermark on it:
Map of Southern Israel – Samson 01 – Early life and marriage DETAIL

Background information on the tribe of Dan
“Samson was a Danite and in his day there were many Danites still living in the portion assigned to them by Joshua [1]. Zorah, Eshtaol, Timnah, Eltekeh, and Ekron were “Danite” cities (Josh 19:41-46; cf. 21:23), although the last was in the days of Samson one of the five cities of the lords of the Philistines (Judg 13:2, 25) and others were more or less under their control.”
[Source: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Danites]

“Dan was the last tribe in the book of Joshua to receive their allotment of land. Dan’s inheritance was located in the Shephelah, or low foothills between the coastal plain and the Judah mountains. The Philistines lived to the west on the coastal plain and were superior to the Israelites militarily because they had the technology of iron (1 Samuel 13:19-20). They constantly gave the Danites problems. To the east were the allotments for the tribes of Judah and Ephraim and their tribes kept the tribe of Dan from expanding towards their land. God had placed them between a rock and a hard place, with a formidable enemy close by. The story of the most famous Danite, Samson (Judges 13:24), echoes the problems that Dan had with the Philistines.

Dan never really liked where God had placed them. When the situation got particularly tough, they decided as a group to look for a better place to live (Judges 18:1-2). Dan sent out five spies who traveled about one hundred miles north to a city called Laish. This was a beautiful lush area, with lots of water and grass. The spies liked this area a lot better than where they were in the Shephelah. They came back to the Danites and told them how great it was and that it would be easy to defeat the people living in Laish. The tribe agreed and sent 600 armed soldiers to capture Laish and take their land. The story of their trip to the north is a bizarre one and is found in Judges 18.”
[Source: https://acts242study.com/the-grass-is-always-greener-the-story-of-the-tribe-of-dan/]

[1]
Joshua 19:40-48 (NIV)
Allotment for Dan
40 The seventh lot came out for the tribe of Dan according to its clans. 41 The territory of their inheritance included:
Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh, 42 Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah, 43 Elon, Timnah, Ekron, 44 Eltekeh, Gibbethon, Baalath, 45 Jehud, Bene Berak, Gath Rimmon, 46 Me Jarkon and Rakkon, with the area facing Joppa.
47 (When the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and attacked Leshem, took it, put it to the sword and occupied it. They settled in Leshem and named it Dan after their ancestor.)
48 These towns and their villages were the inheritance of the tribe of Dan, according to its clans.