Judges 13:4

4 Now therefore beware, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing.

Judges 13:4 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 13:4

Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor
strong drink
Any liquor inebriating and intoxicating, neither new wine nor old wine, as the Targum, and so Jarchi; the reason of this appears in the next verse, because the child she should conceive and bear was to be a Nazarite, and to be one from his mother's womb; and from all such liquors, Nazarites, according to the law, were to abstain, ( Numbers 6:3 )

and eat not any unclean thing;
meaning not so much such sort of food as was forbidden by the law to be eaten, which every Israelite was to abstain from, but such as were particularly forbidden to Nazarites, as moist and dried grapes, or anything made of the vine tree, from the kernel to the husk, ( Numbers 6:3 Numbers 6:4 ) . The reason of this is, because the child in the womb is nourished with the same the mother is; and as this child was to be a Nazarite from the womb, and even in it, his mother was to abstain both from eatables and drinkables forbidden a Nazarite by the law.

Judges 13:4 In-Context

2 Now there was a certain man of Saraa, and of the race of Dan, whose name was Manue, and his wife was barren.
3 And an angel of the Lord appeared to her, and said: Thou art barren and without children: but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.
4 Now therefore beware, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing.
6 Because thou shalt conceive, and bear a son, and no razor shall touch his head: for he shall be a Nazarite of God, from his infancy, and from his mother’s womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. And when she was come to her husband, she said to him: A man of God came to me, having the countenance of an angel, very awful. And when I asked him whence he came, and by what name he was called, he would not tell me:
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