Judges 13:19

offered it upon the rock i.e. the rock which formed the altar(Judges 13:20), and lay close at hand. Such an altar, hewn out of the living rock and reached by steps leading to a platform, actually exists near Ṣar-a (Zorah), and may have been in the writer's mind; see the illustration in Driver, Schweich Lectures (1909), 66, based on Schick, ZDPV.

10. (1887), 140 f., who first gave details of the discovery. The surface of the altar itself is almost covered with cup-shaped depressions connected in many cases by shallow channels. These hollows look as if they were intended to receive liquid offerings, and certainly there is little room left on the surface for a burnt sacrifice. Hence Kittel, Studien z. Hebr. Archäol.(1908), 97 108, concludes that the altar was primarily a table for a meal offering, and that its use as a hearth for a burnt offering marks the difference between Israelite and pre-Israelite practice. Jehovah would not receive a meal like a Canaanite god; He does not inhabit the sacred stone or tree; His offerings must be consumed by fire which rises to the heaven where He dwells. Kittel works out suggestively the theological significance of Gideon's and Manoah's sacrifice; but it must be remembered that his argument turns on the cup-like hollows found on the surface of this and similar altar-rocks 1 [52]; and the purpose of these is by no means certain at present.

[52] At Marmita, 2 m. S.E. of Ṣar-a, at Nebî Samwîl = Mizpah, el-Jib = Gibeon, Petra, all ancient high-places. Rock-surfaces uncovered at Megiddo, at Taanach, at Gezer, exhihit similar cup-marks; see Driver, l.c. 51, 67, 81, and Vincent, Canaan(1907), 95 f.

with the meal offering See on Judges 6:18. Some scholars regard the words here and in Judges 13:23 as a later addition made for the sake of ritual completeness.

andthe angel did wondrously As it stands the text is hardly grammatical; so the angelis inserted in the EV. to make sense. LXX. cod. A and Vulgate read with a slight change -unto the Lord who doeth wondrously," and many adopt this correction. The clause following is accidentally repeated from Judges 13:20, where it is in place. Perhaps both clauses (and did wondrously2 [53], and … looked on) came in here from Judges 13:20.

[53] If restored to Judges 13:20 read w-hû maflî"for umaflî".