Wonderful Names

Judges 13:8 (HCSB)
Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.”
God listened to Manoah, and the Angel of God came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly to her husband and told him, “The man who came to me today has just come back!”
So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are You the man who spoke to my wife?”
“I am,” He said.
Then Manoah asked, “When Your words come true, what will the boy’s responsibilities and mission be?”
The Angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife needs to do everything I told her. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine or drink wine or beer. And she must not eat anything unclean. Your wife must do everything I have commanded her.”
“Please stay here,” Manoah told Him, “and we will prepare a young goat for You.”
The Angel of the Lord said to him, “If I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.
Then Manoah said to Him, “What is Your name, so that we may honor You when Your words come true?”
“Why do you ask My name,” the Angel of the Lord asked him, “since it is wonderful.”
Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord, and He did a wonderful thing while Manoah and his wife were watching. When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the Angel of the Lord went up in its flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown on the ground. The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the Angel of the Lord.

The Messenger of Yahweh would not give Manoah his name, because it is “wonderful.” How privileged we are to know the wonderful name that is above all names, in this life and the next! How He has shown us His love and His desire for relationship by introducing Himself to us. Even Abraham didn’t know His name.

Treasure that truth.