John Gill Bible Commentary

So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering,.... The kid which he proposed to make an entertainment with, for the man of God, he took him to be, he fetched and brought for a burnt offering, at the hint which the angel had given him, and joined to it a meat offering, as was usual whenever burnt offerings were made; see Num 15:3, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord; for though Manoah was not a priest, nor was this a proper place for sacrifice; high places were now forbidden, and only at the tabernacle in Shiloh were offerings to be brought; yet all this was dispensed with, and Manoah was justified in what he did by the warrant of the angel, Jdg 13:16. The rock was probably near the place where this meeting of Manoah and his wife with the angel was, and where the discourse between them passed; and which served instead of an altar, and on which Manoah sacrificed, not to idols, but to the true Jehovah, as the angel directed: and the angel did wondrously; agreeably to his name, which was "Wonderful", Jdg 13:18 or "he, Jehovah, did wondrously" for this angel was no other than Jehovah the Son. The instance in which he did wondrously was, as Kimchi observes, by bringing fire out of the rock, which consumed the flesh of the kid, and the meat offering; and so Josephus (q) says, that he touched the flesh with a rod he had, and fire sparkled out, and consumed it with the bread, or meat offering; just in the same manner as the angel did with the kid and cakes that Gideon brought, Jdg 6:21. and Manoah and his wife looked on; to see either fire come down from heaven, or spring up out of the rock, which consumed the sacrifice, and showed the Lord's acceptance of it, and also the angel's ascending in it, as follows. (q) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 3.)