Judges 13:2

Zorah Judges 13:25; Judges 16:31; Judges 18:2; Judges 18:8; Judges 18:11, usually mentioned with Eshtaol; in Joshua 19:41 counted as Danite, in ib.Joshua 15:33 as belonging to Judah, which later on absorbed the Danite settlements in the south; re-inhabited after the exile, Nehemiah 11:29. Zorah was an ancient Canaanite town, and is referred to in the Amarna Letters (173, 21) along with Aijalon. The name is preserved in the modern Ṣar-a, 15 m. west of Jerusalem. The situation of the town just opposite Beth-shemesh (prob. = Mt Ḥeres Judges 1:35) exposed it to Philistine influences.

of the family of the Danites … Manoah The Danites were a small tribe, hence -family" is used here and in Judges 18:2; Judges 18:11; Judges 18:19, though -tribe" also occurs in Judges 18:1; Judges 18:19. Originally they attempted to settle in the southern lowland, but the Amorites forced them into the neighbouring hill country (Judges 1:34 f.), a district which afterwards passed into the possession of Judah. From their southern settlements the Danites, probably owing to Canaanite or Philistine pressure, migrated to the north, and established themselves at Laish or Leshem-Dan, near the sources of the Jordan (Judges 18:2; Judges 18:11 ff., Judges 18:27 ff.; Joshua 19:47). The account of this migration, though given at the end of Judges, probably belongs to the period of ch. 1. The Danites were already settled in their northern home at the time of Deborah (Judges 5:17). But ch. 18 does not say that the entire tribe migrated; some families remained behind in the south, as the present narrative implies. Manoaḥ must have been closely connected with the Manaḥathites of Zorah, a family which traced its origin to the Calebite clans (1 Chronicles 2:52-54), and had affinities both with the Horites of Seir (Genesis 36:23 P) and with Judah (1 Chronicles 4:1). This Horite family lived in Zorah and was absorbed into the mixed tribe of Dan: such seems to be the conclusion suggested by the genealogies. Manoaḥ thus becomes, the eponymous ancestor of the family which bore his name, and in popular tradition Samson was known as his -son," just as Jephthah is called the -son" of Gilead in Judges 11:1.

was barren, and bare not Cf. Sarah Genesis 11:30, Hannah 1 Samuel 1:2, Elisabeth St Luke 1:7. The child in such cases was a special gift of God, and marked out for a special career.