m: When thy word shall come to pass, what
wilt thou that the child should do? or from what shall he keep himself?

13:13. And the angel of the Lord said to Manue: From all the things I
have spoken of to thy wife, let her refrain herself:

Let her refrain, etc... By the Latin text it is not clear whether this
abstinence was prescribed to the mother, or to the child; but the Hebrew
(in which the verbs relating thereto are of the feminine gender)
determineth it to the mother. But then the child also was to refrain
from the like things, because he was to be from his infancy a Nazarite
of God, ver. 5, that is, one set aside, in a particular manner, and
consecrated to God: now the Nazarites by the law were to abstain from
all these things.

13:14. And let her eat nothing that cometh of the vine, neither let her
drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: and whatsoever I
have commanded her, let her fulfil and observe.

13:15. And Manue said to the angel of the Lord: I beseech thee to
consent to my request, and let us dress a kid for thee.

13:16. And the angel answered him: If thou press me I will not eat of
thy bread: but if thou wilt offer a holocaust, offer it to the Lord. And
Manue knew not it was the angel of the Lord.

13:17. And he said to him: What is thy name, that, if thy word shall
come to pass, we may honour thee?

13:18. And he answered him: Why askest thou my name, which is wonderful?

13:19. Then Manue took a kid of the flocks, and the libations, and put
them upon a rock, offering to the Lord, who doth wonderful things: and
he and his wife looked on.

13:20. And when the flame from the altar went up towards heaven, the
angel of the Lord ascended also in the same. And when Manue and his wife
saw this, they fell flat on the ground;

13:21. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them no more. And forthwith
Manue understood that it was an angel of the Lord,

13:22. And he said to his wife: We shall certainly die, because we have
seen God.

Seen God... Not in his own person, but in the person of his messenger.
The Israelites, in those days, imagined they should die if they saw an
angel, taking occasion perhaps from those words spoken by the Lord to
Moses, Ex. 33.20, No man shall see me and live. But the event
demonstrated that it was but a groundless imagination.

13:23. And his wife answered him: If the Lord had a mind to kill us, he
would not have received a holocaust and libations at our