nikolai_42
Well-known member
Did Samson's parents see God (Judges 13)?
Christians: Who do you pray to?
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Did Samson's parents see God (Judges 13)?
However, the words that he speaks are Spirit, and how many different Greek words are there for "to see", "to behold", and so on? And why do English translators notoriously render five or six different such Greek words all as, "to see", when that many different words cannot all imply exactly the same kind of "seeing"?
John 1:18a KJV - "No man hath seen [G3708 ὁράω] God at any time;"
G3708 ὁράω horao (ho-raō') v.
1. (properly) to stare at.
2. (by implication) to clearly see or discern (physically or mentally).
3. (thus, by extension) to clearly see to it (i.e. to take care or attend to).
4. (of mental imagery) to clearly envision.
[a primary word]
KJV: behold, perceive, see, take heed
Compare: G1492, G1896, G2300, G2334, G3700
Please do indeed compare: G1492, G1896, G2300, G2334, G3700, and G3708.
For example the companion passage to John 1:18a has a different Greek verb:
1 John 4:12a KJV - "No man hath seen [G2300 θεάομαι] God at any time."
However this really is not the topic so I will leave it at this point alone.
I have never spoken to Samson's parents.
What does that have to do with Jesus' statement?
Maybe Christ knew Samson's parents.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
You need to read Judges 13 for the whole story, but one verse underscores the point :
And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
Judges 13:22
There are many questions here - including the metaphysical possibility of actually capturing God with one's eyes. Moses came the closest on the mountain - and even he had to be shielded from God's "hinder parts". But the one thing here that is of immediate interest is what it means when scripture talks about "seeing" God. How could Samson's parents have actually seen God when they only saw an "angel of the Lord"? How could the disciples have seen God when they only saw Jesus in the flesh? They certainly beheld His glory - and those on the mount of Transfiguration had even more revealed to them - but if you have brought God down to a visible object, you are violating scripture. Christ's flesh and His physical appearance was not eternal (though His resurrection body was glorified). He didn't "look like that" in heaven before He came to earth. The very thought that this could be so makes heaven a mere locality - travel far enough away and you will eventually reach it on your own. Who Jesus is (and what the disciples "saw") could not be limited by the physical ability to see and describe (just ask Paul).
So were Manoah and his wife wrong in saying they saw God? No. But it wasn't in the same sense as John 1:18 and John 6:46 carry.