Judges 13:4
Now therefore beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing.
Open Judges 13:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cave ergo ne bibas vinum ac siceram, nec immundum quidquam comedas :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ νῦν φύλαξαι δὴ καὶ μὴ πίῃς οἶνον καὶ μέθυσμα, καὶ μὴ φάγῃς πᾶν ἀκάθαρτον·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְעַתָּה֙ הִשָּׁ֣מְרִי נָ֔א וְאַל תִּשְׁתִּ֖י יַ֣יִן וְשֵׁכָ֑ר וְאַל תֹּאכְלִ֖י כָּל טָמֵֽא
Haydock's commentary
Thing. Exhortations to observe the law are not unnecessary. (St. Augustine, q. 50.) Besides the things which common people might take, such as wine, grapes, &c., were unclean for the Nazarites. The mother of Samson was required to abstain from every species of uncleanness as much as possible, at least while she bore and nursed her child. (Calmet)
Abulensis says, she was unquestionably under peculiar restrictions till her delivery. (Menochius)
This was a preparation for the child who should abstain from all unclean things, not only for a time, (Numbers vi.) but during his whole life, that he might be a more perfect figure of Christ. (Worthington)
His dignity was not of choice, nor could he forfeit it by touching any thing unclean, nor by the violent cutting off his hair. As the deliverer of the people, he must often have been obliged to touch dead bodies. (Calmet)
Begin. The power of the Philistines was greatly broken by Samson, chap xvi. 13. (Menochius)
But Samuel, Saul, and David had still to contend with them, 1 Kings vii. 13. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Aphrahat Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations, Of Persecution
7. As to those that reproach us (saying): “Ye are persecuted and are not delivered,” let them be ashamed themselves, that at every time they have been persecuted, even for many years before they were delivered. They were made to serve in Egypt two hundred and twenty-five years. And the Midianites made Israel serve in the days of Barak and Deborah. The Moabites ruled over them in the days of Ehud; the Ammonites in the days of Jephthah; the Philistines in the days of Samson, and also in the days of Eli and of Samuel the Prophet; the Edomites in the days of Ahab; the Assyrians in the days of Hezekiah. The king of Babylon uprooted them from their place and dispersed them; and after he had tried and persecuted them much, they did not amend, as He said to them: In vain have I smitten your sons, for they did not accept chastisement . …