Jacopo Tintoretto - The Annunciation to Manoah's Wife - WGA22660

Manoah's wife (also referred to as Samson's mother) is an unnamed figure in the

Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom ...

, the wife of Manoah. She is introduced in Judges 13:2 as a barren woman. The angel of the Lord appears to her and tells her she will have a son. She later gives birth to

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution ...

J. Cheryl Exum Jo Cheryl Exum (born May 1946) is a feminist biblical scholar. She is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield. Education and career Exum studied at Wake Forest University, where she received her BA, and Columbia University, ...

argues that Manoah's wife is more perceptive than her husband, in that she "senses at once something otherworldly" about the man of God who visits her, and "recognizes a divine purpose behind the revelation." Bruce Waltke regards her as cynical, noting that, unlike

Hannah Hannah or Hanna may refer to: People, biblical figures, and fictional characters * Hannah (name), a female given name of Hebrew origin * Hanna (Arabic name), a family and a male given name of Christian Arab origin * Hanna (Irish surname), a famil ...

, she neither prays for a child nor praises God afterwards. Ancient Rabbinic tradition identifies this woman as the Hazzelelponi mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4:3, and the Talmud gives her a variant of this name, Zelelponith ( he, צללפונית).

References

{{authority control Book of Judges Samson Angelic visionaries Unnamed people of the Bible Women in the Hebrew Bible

See also

References