Free Rising Darkness by D. Brian Shafer Page A

thoughts. “But I thought the greatest judge was…well…Samson!”
    Upon hearing the name
Samson,
Joshua, who had nearly nodded off, sprang to life. Eli smiled at the boys, as did the men sitting with them. Eli stroked his beard a bit.
    “Ah yes,” said Eli. “Samson is every child of Israel’s hero.”
    He sat back to get his mind ready for the story he was about to relate.
    “Now Samson was a judge who began with great hope for Israel…whose ministry was assigned him even before he was born…whose strength became renowned throughout the land…”
    He glanced at Daniel and added, “And whose petulance and passions eventually destroyed him…”

    Dan, 1126 B.C.
    “Why should the Lord be interested in this woman?” asked Dheer, who was with another angel accompanying Michael through the streets of the little town of Zorah in the western foothills of Canaan. All that the archangel had told them was that they were to be witnesses to a very special grace of the Lord. They had stopped outside a modest little house that seemed identical to all the little homes on the street.
    Through the window the angels could see a woman on bended knees, praying aloud to the Lord. It was always moving to an angel to see a human pray to the Most High in complete humility. Dheer looked quizzically at Michael, wondering who she was and what their interest in her would be.
    “This is yours, Dheer,” said Michael. “This woman—and her family.”
    Dheer took a closer look at the woman to whom he had been assigned. She was an older woman, her hair tinged with gray and her hands leathery from years of hard work. She alternately cried aloud and spoke pleadingly, entreating the Lord on her behalf. She also had a deep compassion that was evident in her teary eyes.
    Michael himself had escorted the two angels to this place, promising them that this was no ordinary assignment. But a woman crying alone in a room seemed fairly typical to Dheer. He continued studying the woman who was to become his charge. He watched her stand up slowly as if in just a bit of discomfort, and move over to the little cooking area, where a piece of meat was slowly roasting.
    She picked up a small pitcher of water and brought it over to a table. She then put a piece of bread on the table along with some fruit, and sat down to await her husband. There was something about her eyes that struck Dheer—teary from anguish and yet with an air of determination—almost a defiant sort of faith that would not relent.
    “Manoah?” she called out. “Is that you?”
    The angels watched as the woman looked toward the doorway from where she thought she had heard something. Nobody was there.
    “Now you will see that yours is no ordinary assignment, my brother,” said Michael.
    “Manoah?”
    She stood to investigate the noise she was certain she had heard.
    Suddenly a man stepped through the darkened doorway into the room. The woman was so shaken she could not even scream. She fell to her knees and began to plead for her life. But the man only stood where he was.
    “The Lord’s Angel,” said Dheer in astonishment. “Here!”
    Michael indicated for him to stop talking and listen.
    Overcoming her initial fright the woman looked up at the man who towered over her little frame. In an instant she knew—somehow knew—that the man intended her no harm. He was dressed in a white cloak that was strange to Zorah. His face was obscured by the darkness of the room, the only light of which was a small oil lamp in the corner. Finally the woman summoned the courage to look up, but could not ask the man who he was and what he wanted. Suddenly the man began to speak, saying:
    “
Do not be afraid, for the Lord Most High has heard your prayers. And though you are barren and can have no children, yet shall you soon bear a son! And he shall be a Nazarite from his birth and shall deliver his people from the Philistines
.”
    And just as suddenly as he had appeared in the doorway, he