Selections on Judges · §3 · Origen of Alexandria

Barrenness as temporary, not natural

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Origen is commenting on Judges 13:2, where Manoah's wife is introduced as barren.

And his wife was barren and had not given birth. He calls her barren not from nature, but from her service for the present.

Greek

Καὶ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ στεῖρα καὶ οὐκ ἔτεκεν. Οὐκ ἀπὸ τῆς φύσεως, ἀλλ᾿ ἀπὸ τῆς διακονίας ἐπὶ τοῦ παρόντος στείραν καλεῖ.

About this text

Origen's selections on Judges, answering hard passages such as Jephthah's vow and the Shibboleth test.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 254) wrote these selections on Judges. They are not his homilies on Judges, and they are not his notes on Judges. He addressed them to readers who found certain passages morally troubling or hard to understand. His purpose was to defend the text against objections and to explain difficult words, customs, and objects.

He responds to apparent problems such as Jephthah's rash vow, the pronunciation test used against the Ephraimites, and the temporary barrenness of Samson's mother. Origen argues that divine help and human error can be distinguished in Jephthah's case, and that the Benjamites' early defeats were a just punishment for a prior wrong.

A reader should know that the test word rendered here as "ear of grain" is the Hebrew term behind the famous "shibboleth" episode in Judges 12:6. The "books of Kingdoms" refers to what are now called the books of Samuel and Kings. The "preceding cause" of the Benjamites' punishment is the atrocity described in Judges 19–20. Origen also explains that the ephod was a priestly garment, while the theraphin were idolatrous objects.

New English from the Greek base text; no published English used as wording.

Printed text used

Translated from Migne PG 12 (1862) (Greek)

This work has passed this project's source check. This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.