Appreciating Shamgar, the Third Judge

(Presented to the "Rooted" Bible Study Class, Faith Baptist Church, Fredericksburg, VA, on March 2, 2022.)

Texts: Judges 3:31, 5:6-8 

I’ve chosen to expand on the significance of the mysterious third judge, Shamgar the son of Anath, and see what practical lessons we can draw from his brief but momentous appearance on the stage of Biblical history.

 

Introduction

It’s definitely a case of quality over quantity, with his small verse footprint, but the two passages where Shamgar briefly appears are, as my old pastor used to say, “pregnant with truth.” Several other judges are only mentioned briefly, and one isn’t mentioned until a later book (Bedan, 1 Sam. 12:11), but there’s definitely value in looking at this judge more closely. 

In our last lesson, we studied the ministry of Ehud, and his triumph over Moab leaves a deep mark in the national soul, since Israel’s next major apostasy and affliction comes eighty years later (cf. Judg. 3:30, 4:1), at some point after Ehud’s death. 

Deborah appears in Judg. 4, and under her oversight the land enjoys forty years of rest after her victory over the Canaanites (5:31). In between the ministries of these two major judges, though, is the ministry of Shamgar. Here’s how I think that his played out.

 

Context of Shamgar’s Judging

Ehud dies, and the people begin to apostasize, and the Philistines invade Israel, perhaps as a call to repentance. God raises up Shamgar to deliver his people, and he does, but the downward trend continues until Jabin king of Canaan afflicts Israel after the Philistines are put down, and that’s where Deborah emerges.

There was a period of decline between Ehud and Deborah, which I think is accurate since scripture is silent about rest in the land after Shamgar’s triumph. Doubtless there was some respite, but likely not for long because of this omission. Shamgar slowed the tide of apostasy, but didn’t break it altogether, and here we can take an application “break.” 

It’s the duty of everyone in [the church] to resist evil in the world and in the church, to the best of your ability. You may not be able to turn evil tides, but you can at least oppose them and leave the final outcome to God. That’s what King Leonidas and his 300 Spartan warriors did when Persia invaded Greece in the 5^th century B.C. His tiny force held off a horde of Persians at Thermopylae to buy the rest of Greece time, and it worked--but at the cost of himself and his entire force. Are we willing to withstand spiritual evil like Shamgar and Leonidas did political evil? In the words of Isaac Watts:

Am I a soldier of the Cross--

A follower of the Lamb?

And shall I fear to own His cause,

Or blush to speak His name?

 

Are there no foes for me to face?

Must I not stem the flood?

Is this vile world a friend to grace,

To help me on to God?

 

Details of Philistine Oppression

The Philistines emerge as heavy oppressors of Israel in Judg. 3, for whatever duration, and details on their oppression can be found or assumed from elsewhere. 

First, the Philistines disarmed the Israelites. Shamgar is armed only with an ox goad, which is “a long wooden stick tipped with metal at one end, and a blade on the other for cleaning the plow” (G. Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay). They do this again in the days of Saul and Jonathan (1 Sam. 13:19-20), when the Philistines won’t even allow the Israelites to have a smith for sharpening their farming tools!

Defenseless in that way, the people leave their villages for walled cities (Judg. 5:7-8).

It's dangerous to travel, with occupation troops using the highways, so if the people need to move about, they use the backstreets or byways (5:6).

4.     Unlikely weapons are used to fight God’s enemies: ox goad (3:31), hammer and tent “nail” (4:21-22), millstone (9:53), and jawbone (15:15).

So into these perilous times steps Shamgar, likely a farmer of some sort, considering his ox goad. Some of the judges had “connections” to better families like Othniel, who married Caleb’s daughter, but many of the judges were nobodies, which in my view magnifies God’s power even more. Shamgar was likely one of these nobodies, since all we know about him was his father’s name and that he fought with an ox goad, an animal husbandry tool.

 

Primary Practical Lessons from Shamgar’s Life (et al.)

Let’s look at a few more practical lessons we can glean from this hero’s life, along with Othniel and Ehud: 

 1. God uses completely different kinds of men

a.      Othniel: important, with ability (1:13)

b.     Ehud: important, with limitation (3:15)

c.      Shamgar: nobody (period) 

2.     God uses people who draw their strength from him

a.      Othniel (3:10)—Spirit of the LORD comes upon him to drive out the Mesopotamians

b.     Ehud (3:28)—appeals to the LORD during the muster to rout Moab

c.      Shamgar (3:31)—compare his exploit to Samson’s slaughter of the Philistines in Judg. 15; in both cases, I think, the Spirit of the LORD came on these men and gave them superhuman strength to do what they did (15:14-16) and…the LORD kept their weapons from breaking!

3.      God uses people who step out in faith and trust him.

a.      Despite the supernatural strength, there still had to be faith that God would enable them to triumph, like David running toward Goliath.

b.     Marvel and DC have nothing on the Bible. Can you picture these scenes? A farmer sees a troop of Philistines bearing down on his village or walled city and confronts them with his ox goad. How they must have laughed at him, like Goliath did at David’s staff!

c.      But when they engaged him, they realized that this was no joke. And yet, they keep coming. I think that God was in that too. They, and the 1000 men that Samson slew, could’ve run, but they didn’t. God wanted them dead for oppressing his people, and faithful men like Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar were his instruments.

 

Conclusion

So I think that my old pastor was right: lots of good stuff to discover by closely examining Shamgar. The details of his identity weren’t the point, just like the “great woman” of Shunem, whose name we’re never given. The point is who he was connected with and what he did in faith for his glory. When we stand before the Lord for our rewards one day, our station in life won’t matter—what we did with what God gave us will, even if it was just an ox goad.

 

Appendix: A Brief History of the Philistines

The Philistines are the ancient enemies of the Israelites, but not at first. In Gen. 21, we see them as allies of Abraham and him even living among them for “many days” (Gen. 21:34).

The “blood goes bad” when the Israelites enter Canaan. God says in Josh. 13:1-3 that that land of the Philistines belongs to Israel.

A partial conquest by Judah ensues (Judg. 1:18—Gath and Ashdod are not subdued). The Philistines recover from this partial conquest, and it’s a seesaw battle for centuries to come.

I’m not sure when the Philistines are completely obliterated, but as late as the sixth century B.C., Ezekiel prophesies against them in captivity (Ezek. 25:15-17), and they’re still around post-captivity trouble the Judeans under Nehemiah (Neh. 13:23-27).

They’re not, however, mentioned in the gospels as part of the Roman world, so I figure that they vanished in the intertestamental period, but I’m not sure.