Judges 3:31

_AND AFTER HIM WAS SHAMGAR THE SON OF ANATH, WHICH SLEW OF THE PHILISTINES SIX HUNDRED MEN WITH AN OX GOAD: AND HE ALSO DELIVERED ISRAEL._ AFTER HIM WAS SHAMGAR. No notice is given of the tribe or family of this judge; and from the Philistines being the enemy that roused him into public service, the suffering seems to have been local-confined to some of the western tribes. SLEW ... SIX HUNDRED MEN WITH AN OX-GOAD, х_ MALMAD_ (H4451) _ HABAAQAAR_ (H1241), from _ LAAMAD _ (H3925), to beat with a rod, to strike, also to teach, to train (cf. Hosea 10:11); Septuagint, en too arotropodi toon booon, a plowshare]. This implement is eight feet long, and at the larger end about six inches in circumference. It is armed at the lesser

31 The side of the country which lay south-west, was infested by the Philistines. God raised up Shamgar to deliver them; having neither sword nor spear, he took an ox-goad, the instrument next at hand. God can make those serviceable to his glory and to his church's good, whose birth, education, and employment, are mean and obscure. It is no matter what the weapon is, if God directs and strengthens the arm. Often he works by unlikely means, that the excellency of the power may appear to be of God....

Verse Judges 3:31. _AND AFTER HIM WAS SHAMGAR THE SON OF ANATH_] Dr. Hales supposes that "Shamgar's administration in the West included Ehud's administration of eighty years in the East; and that, as this administration might have been of some continuance, so this Philistine servitude which is not noticed elsewhere, might have been of some duration; as may be incidentally collected from Deborah's thanksgiving, Jude 1:5, Judges 5:6." _SLEW - SIX HUNDRED MEN WITH AN OX-GOAD_] מלמד הבקר _malmad habbakar,_ _the instructer of the oxen_. This instrument is differently understood by the versions: the _Vulgate_ has _vomere, with the_ _coulter or ploughshare_, a dr

From this verse and Judges 5:6 we may gather that Shamgar was contemporary with Jael, and that he only procured a temporary and partial deliverance for Israel by his exploit. He may have been of the tribe of Judah. AN OX GOAD - An instrument of wood about eight feet long, armed with an iron spike or point at one end, with which to spur the ox at plow, and with an iron scraper at the other end with which to detach the earth from the plowshare when it became encumbered with it. The fact of their deliverer having no better weapon enhances his faith, and the power of his divine helper. At the same time it shows how low the men of Judah were brought at this time, being disarmed by their oppressors Judges 5:8, as was also the case later...

EXPOSITION JUDGES 3:13 THE CHILDREN OF AMMON. The technical name of the Ammonite people (see Genesis 19:38; Deuteronomy 2:19, Deuteronomy 2:37; Judges 10:6, Judges 10:11, Judges 10:17, etc.). Sometimes, however, they are called _Ammon_, or _Ammonites _(see...

AND AFTER HIM WAS SHAMGAR THE SON OF ANATH,.... That is, after the death of Ehud, when the people of Israel were in distress again from another quarter, this man was raised up of God to be a judge and deliverer of them; but who he was, and who his father, and of what tribe, we nowhere else read: WHICH SLEW OF THE PHILISTINES SIX HUNDRED MEN; who invaded the land, and came in an hostile manner into it; or rather, as it seems from Judges 5:6; they entered as a banditti of thieves and robbers, who posted themselves in the highways, and robbed travellers as they passed, so that they were obliged to leave off travelling, or go through bypaths, and not in the public road; and this man, who seems to have been called from the plough to be a judge of Israel, as some among the Romans were called from thence to be dictators and deliverers of them from the Gauls: with an ox

2. SECOND DECLENSION UNDER MOAB--EHUD AND SHAMGAR CHAPTER 3:12-31 _ 1. The second declension: serving Eglon, king of Moab (Judges 3:12)_ 2. Ehud raised up (Judges 3:15) 3. Eglon, king of Moab, slain by Ehud (Judges 3:16) 4. The deliverance by Shamgar (Judges 3:31) When they continued to do evil Jehovah used Eglon, king of Moab to punish their disobedience and evil-doings. With him there is Ammon and Amalek, a trinity of evil. The city of Palms is Jericho (Deuteronomy 34:3) a type of the world, as we saw from Joshua

JUDGES 3:31. THE EXPLOIT OF SHAMGAR. The absence of D's formulæ, and of a chronological scheme, suggests that this verse was introduced by an editor who wished to bring the number of the Judges up to ten, not counting Abimelech worthy to rank as one. The verse interrupts the flow of the narrative observe when Ehud was dead in Judges 4:2. Shamgar ben Anath is a foreign and heathenish name, Anath being a goddess whose name is found on an Egyptian stele now in the British Museum; and a reference to Shamgar in the Song of Deborah suggests that he had been an oppressor rather than a deliverer of Israel (_cf._ Moore, 143). The ox-goad, with which Shamgar performed his exploit, is a pole from 6 to 8 ft. long, tipped with an iron spike....

SHAMGAR. Compare Judges 5:6. AN OX GOAD. See note on Judges 3:21. No weapons. Compare Jdg 5:8. 1 Samuel 13:19....

_Shamgar the son of Anath_ was unknown to the author of Judges 4:1, who passes at once from Ehud to Deborah. Shamgar is often reckoned as one of the minor Judges, but the account given of him is not modelled on the form of Judges 10:1-5; Judges 12:8-15; no date is attached to the period of his activity, and he is not included in the chronology of the Book. It is clear that this brief notice was inserted after the Dtc. compiler had done his work. Further, an exploit against the Philistines in the period between Ehud and Deborah comes too early; the Philistines do not appear in history as enemies of Israel till the time of Saul (in the Samson story they are not yet the aggressors); the verse would be more in place after...