Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
The angel of the Lord commanded the childless wife of Manoah to drink no wine nor strong drink and to eat nothing unclean in view of the son she would bear to begin delivering Israel. The same abstinence was to be placed upon the child from birth as a Nazarite consecrated to God, with uncut hair marking his special dedication. The prohibition was given twice in solemn form to secure favorable conditions for the child's physical strength, intellectual vigor, and moral purity, because God cares about eating and drinking as they affect life and health. A mother's habits before birth shape the child's appetites, passions, body, mind, and character, since perverted appetite and strong drink confuse the brain, endanger physical, mental, and moral health, and transmit harmful tendencies, while self-denial and temperance help give well-balanced minds and healthy bodies. The instruction to Manoah's wife therefore stands as an obligation upon all fathers and mothers to exercise self-control, restrain appetite and passion by principle and divine grace, and train children from infancy in strict temperance and self-denial.
Setting and Command
The command was spoken to the childless wife of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan at Zorah, when few households remained true amid general apostasy and in the early years of Philistine oppression. It came through God's angel, the Angel of Jehovah, which is Christ instructing and directing, showing that God uses angels to speak with human beings and that Christ teaches self-denial and control of appetite. It was given with the promise that she would conceive and bear a son through whom God would begin to deliver Israel and humble the Philistines, to prepare both mother and child for that work.
The mother herself was commanded to beware and to drink no wine nor strong drink and to eat nothing unclean, a warning given twice in explicit and solemn form and repeated in full to forbid anything that comes of the vine. The same prohibition was to be imposed on the child from the first, with the addition that his hair should not be cut, because he was to be consecrated to God as a Nazarite from birth. That consecration marked special dedication and required training from infancy in strict temperance, as a model for teaching children self-denial and self-control from babyhood.
The warning was part of God's arrangement of favorable conditions for the child's physical strength, intellectual vigor, and moral purity. It regulated the mother's habits to promote physical and moral health in her offspring and to secure the careful thought and vigorous action his work required, showing that God cares about eating and drinking because they affect life and health. The same concern is seen in John the Baptist's upbringing to avoid wine and strong drink in order to prepare him for his work and rebuke excess. Samson's later use of wine broke one of the ties that bound him to temperance, purity, and God, and the command is consistent with never approving the use of fermented wine.
Temperance and Parental Influence
The command lays strict temperance on the mother before the child's birth for the sake of the child, and on both parents afterward in bringing up children in habits of strict temperance. Parents stand in God's place to act His mind and will in every particular, to receive and follow His direction in training their children, beginning with the mother's careful self-denial before birth rather than scolding and punishing them in anger. A mother's appetites are transmitted to her children, so indulging appetite to satisfy craving takes away the child's foundation for a clear record, while maternal self-denial and purity prepare the child for strength and for overcoming through Christ that keeps the name in the book of life.
The ban on every unclean thing rests on sanitary principles rather than merely ceremonial and arbitrary regulation, and observance of the clean and unclean distinction explains in great degree the marvelous vitality distinguishing the Jewish people for thousands of years. True temperance goes beyond spirituous liquors to dispense entirely with everything hurtful and to use judiciously that which is healthful, because stimulating and indigestible food is often equally injurious to health and in many cases sows the seeds of drunkenness. Habits of diet affect health, character, usefulness in this world, and eternal destiny, with appetite ever in subjection to the moral and intellectual powers and the body servant to the mind and not the mind to the body.
Strong drink must be avoided because it confuses the brain, causes disregard for orders, and leaves a person responsible for all done under its influence, and parental abstinence and clean diet are required so children inherit untainted blood because that which composes the blood of parents goes to their posterity. Each drop taken to gratify appetite endangers the child's physical, mental, and moral health and is a sin against God the Creator, who knows what is best. The mother is thereby placed under solemn obligation to exercise self-control rather than follow advice to gratify every wish or impulse during pregnancy.
A child is affected for good or evil by the mother's habits before birth, so temperance and self-denial were required for the child's welfare and calling as one consecrated to God from birth and prepared for his work as deliverer. Her habits influence the child's appetites, passions, physical well-being, mind, and character, and careful conduct during pregnancy is important to upbringing. Practice of temperance helps give children well-balanced minds, healthy bodies, and strength, for no influence on bodily health is unimportant.
Self-indulgence and uncontrolled passions can pass harmful tendencies to the child, while temperance, self-denial, kindness, gentleness, and unselfishness can foster good character. Selfishness, irritability, and instability may leave tendencies toward evil, while kindness, gentleness, and unselfishness may foster those traits in the child. Parental intemperance leaves children lacking physical strength and mental and moral power and passes on insatiable craving, inflamed blood, irritable nerves, unholy desires and even disease, with less power to resist temptation so each generation falls lower.
By God's own command the mother is placed under the most solemn obligation to exercise self-control, to restrain perverted appetite, to control appetite and passions, to resist temptation, and to live by principle, seeking divine grace and recognizing responsibility for influence passed to children. The teaching that she must gratify every wish and impulse is false and mischievous. The fact that the instruction was twice repeated in the most explicit and solemn manner shows how the Creator regards prenatal influences, and makes the parents' inquiry what to do for the child to be born the inquiry of every father and mother, since fathers as well as mothers transmit their own mental and physical characteristics, dispositions and appetites to their children.
The instruction to Manoah's wife is applied to all mothers as guidance for right prenatal influence. A good parental legacy is not enough without careful training and formation of right habits, with lessons of temperance, self-denial, and self-control taught even from babyhood as preparation for the work God gives. The Nazarite calling requiring strict temperance from infancy is thus a model for teaching children self-denial and self-control from infancy, and for bringing them up in strict temperance without scolding and punishing in anger.
The angel of the Lord commanded the childless wife of Manoah to drink no wine nor strong drink and to eat nothing unclean in view of the son she would bear to begin delivering Israel. The same abstinence was to be placed upon the child from birth as a Nazarite consecrated to God, with uncut hair marking his special dedication. The prohibition was given twice in solemn form to secure favorable conditions for the child's physical strength, intellectual vigor, and moral purity, because God cares about eating and drinking as they affect life and health. A mother's habits before birth shape the child's appetites, passions, body, mind, and character, since perverted appetite and strong drink confuse the brain, endanger physical, mental, and moral health, and transmit harmful tendencies, while self-denial and temperance help give well-balanced minds and healthy bodies. The instruction to Manoah's wife therefore stands as an obligation upon all fathers and mothers to exercise self-control, restrain appetite and passion by principle and divine grace, and train children from infancy in strict temperance and self-denial.
Setting and Command
The command was spoken to the childless wife of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan at Zorah, when few households remained true amid general apostasy and in the early years of Philistine oppression. It came through God's angel, the Angel of Jehovah, which is Christ instructing and directing, showing that God uses angels to speak with human beings and that Christ teaches self-denial and control of appetite. It was given with the promise that she would conceive and bear a son through whom God would begin to deliver Israel and humble the Philistines, to prepare both mother and child for that work.
The mother herself was commanded to beware and to drink no wine nor strong drink and to eat nothing unclean, a warning given twice in explicit and solemn form and repeated in full to forbid anything that comes of the vine. The same prohibition was to be imposed on the child from the first, with the addition that his hair should not be cut, because he was to be consecrated to God as a Nazarite from birth. That consecration marked special dedication and required training from infancy in strict temperance, as a model for teaching children self-denial and self-control from babyhood.
The warning was part of God's arrangement of favorable conditions for the child's physical strength, intellectual vigor, and moral purity. It regulated the mother's habits to promote physical and moral health in her offspring and to secure the careful thought and vigorous action his work required, showing that God cares about eating and drinking because they affect life and health. The same concern is seen in John the Baptist's upbringing to avoid wine and strong drink in order to prepare him for his work and rebuke excess. Samson's later use of wine broke one of the ties that bound him to temperance, purity, and God, and the command is consistent with never approving the use of fermented wine.
Temperance and Parental Influence
The command lays strict temperance on the mother before the child's birth for the sake of the child, and on both parents afterward in bringing up children in habits of strict temperance. Parents stand in God's place to act His mind and will in every particular, to receive and follow His direction in training their children, beginning with the mother's careful self-denial before birth rather than scolding and punishing them in anger. A mother's appetites are transmitted to her children, so indulging appetite to satisfy craving takes away the child's foundation for a clear record, while maternal self-denial and purity prepare the child for strength and for overcoming through Christ that keeps the name in the book of life.
The ban on every unclean thing rests on sanitary principles rather than merely ceremonial and arbitrary regulation, and observance of the clean and unclean distinction explains in great degree the marvelous vitality distinguishing the Jewish people for thousands of years. True temperance goes beyond spirituous liquors to dispense entirely with everything hurtful and to use judiciously that which is healthful, because stimulating and indigestible food is often equally injurious to health and in many cases sows the seeds of drunkenness. Habits of diet affect health, character, usefulness in this world, and eternal destiny, with appetite ever in subjection to the moral and intellectual powers and the body servant to the mind and not the mind to the body.
Strong drink must be avoided because it confuses the brain, causes disregard for orders, and leaves a person responsible for all done under its influence, and parental abstinence and clean diet are required so children inherit untainted blood because that which composes the blood of parents goes to their posterity. Each drop taken to gratify appetite endangers the child's physical, mental, and moral health and is a sin against God the Creator, who knows what is best. The mother is thereby placed under solemn obligation to exercise self-control rather than follow advice to gratify every wish or impulse during pregnancy.
A child is affected for good or evil by the mother's habits before birth, so temperance and self-denial were required for the child's welfare and calling as one consecrated to God from birth and prepared for his work as deliverer. Her habits influence the child's appetites, passions, physical well-being, mind, and character, and careful conduct during pregnancy is important to upbringing. Practice of temperance helps give children well-balanced minds, healthy bodies, and strength, for no influence on bodily health is unimportant.
Self-indulgence and uncontrolled passions can pass harmful tendencies to the child, while temperance, self-denial, kindness, gentleness, and unselfishness can foster good character. Selfishness, irritability, and instability may leave tendencies toward evil, while kindness, gentleness, and unselfishness may foster those traits in the child. Parental intemperance leaves children lacking physical strength and mental and moral power and passes on insatiable craving, inflamed blood, irritable nerves, unholy desires and even disease, with less power to resist temptation so each generation falls lower.
By God's own command the mother is placed under the most solemn obligation to exercise self-control, to restrain perverted appetite, to control appetite and passions, to resist temptation, and to live by principle, seeking divine grace and recognizing responsibility for influence passed to children. The teaching that she must gratify every wish and impulse is false and mischievous. The fact that the instruction was twice repeated in the most explicit and solemn manner shows how the Creator regards prenatal influences, and makes the parents' inquiry what to do for the child to be born the inquiry of every father and mother, since fathers as well as mothers transmit their own mental and physical characteristics, dispositions and appetites to their children.
The instruction to Manoah's wife is applied to all mothers as guidance for right prenatal influence. A good parental legacy is not enough without careful training and formation of right habits, with lessons of temperance, self-denial, and self-control taught even from babyhood as preparation for the work God gives. The Nazarite calling requiring strict temperance from infancy is thus a model for teaching children self-denial and self-control from infancy, and for bringing them up in strict temperance without scolding and punishing in anger.