3 Judges - Judges 3

Chapter 3 covers 3 of the Judges that delivered Israel from captivity. Israel did not obey God and instead married among their Canaanite neighbors and worshipped their gods, “and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.” The IM notes “the groves were local worship centers for heathen gods and included a tree of pole and altars, often among groves of trees.” Because Israel turned away from God, God delivered them into the hands of their enemies and they “served” other kingdoms I assume this means some type of servant status or like a tributary type arrangement. Part of Israel became indentured to “Chusham-rishathaim” for 8 years and then they “cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.” There isn’t really a big account of what happened, just that Othniel “judged Israel, and went out to war: and the Lord delivered Chushanrishathiam king of Mesopotamia into his hands; and his hand prevailed.” After being freed from servitude, this group of people were righteous for the rest of Othniel’s life, forty years.

I’m assuming that this isn’t a linear progression, and more like an account of a different group of Israelites around the same time, within that 40 year time span. This account is much more detailed. This group of Israelites rejected God, so they were delivered into the hands of the king od Moab, “because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.” These Israelites served 18 years before they “cried unto the Lord” and when they did, God raised up Ehud from Benjamin, to deliver them. It’s interesting to note that Ehud was left handed and that it was important enough to mention that. TB says that anciently, everything official or important was done with the right hand like legal proceedings, oaths, etc. to the point that being left handed was seen as a disability, so Ehud having this “disability” was important because it showed that God can use anyone regardless of their abilities. In fact, I went to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia with my sister several years ago, and one of the exhibits there talked about left handed people having that “beat out of them as children” so everyone was right handed. It’s just interesting to see how that prevailed for so many thousands of years.

Ehud made a long dagger, about 18 inches, and strapped it to his thigh, and took a bunch of fellow Israelites with him to give gifts to the Moabite king. After giving the gifts and everyone else leaving, Ehud asked the king if he could give him a secret gift. The king said sure and sent his servants away. Apparently the king was very fat and that is important too. So Ehud and the king are in this “summer parlour” which TB says is the second story of a building that would have had a nice summer breeze come through which the king would have liked because he was so fat. They are sitting down, and Ehud says “I have a message from God unto thee,” he stands up and “put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.” TB says that the king wouldn’t have been watching Ehud’s left hand because all things were done with the right hand so the king would have assumed that any threat from Ehud would have come from his right hand, but the left hand was what was ended up being deadly. Looking at this narrative, it seems ingenious as far as strategy goes, I wonder how much this left handedness as a ploy was part of the plan initially. Like I wonder if Ehud came up with this whole plan and thought, “he’ll never see my left hand coming.” Anyway, Ehud stabs the king in the belly and because he’s so fat, Ehud stabbed the whole blade through his belly “and the fat closed upon the blade” so that he couldn’t draw the dagger back out. So Ehud left the dagger in his belly, “went forth through the porch, and shut the doors of the parlous upon him, and locked them.” That is a bold plan, to kill the king, then walk out the front door and lock them behind you.

The king’s servants see Ehud leave and go up to the king’s chamber but the door was locked so they assumed he was going to the bathroom, and so they waited for a while until they became concerned, so they got the key, unlocked the door, and “behold, their lord was fallen down dead on the earth.” In the brief time that Ehud had escaped but before the servants realized that the king was dead, Ehud got away, and went and blew a “shofar” trumpet, “in the mountain of Ephraim” and the Israelite soldiers gathered and followed Ehud into Moab because Ehud said, “Follow after me: for the Lord hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hands,” and they first took out the bridges at the Jordan river and then killed 10,000 men, all healthy, robust, “men of valour; and there escaped not a man.” If this isn’t a demonstration of how God can change everything in one day, then I don’t know what is. It says that “the land had rest fourscore years,” meaning that the people were righteous for 80 years, and we don’t find out that until chapter 4 that it was his entire reign for 80 years that kept the people righteous. This leads TB to assume that Ehud was a very young man when he did all this. This whole account reminds me of Teacum, tactically.

The last judge mentioned in this chapter is only given one verse which says, “And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines sex hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel.” Very little is said in this verse but several things can be implied. First was the name “Shamgar” which TB says is NOT a Hebrew name, meaning that it was a gentile name given to a Hebrew baby. He continues, “we see the terrible influence of the Canaanite pagan society on the tribe of Israel. Anath is the Canaanite goddess of sex and war. So here is a Hebrew man, given a gentile name, and his father’s family name was made in honor of a pagan god. Nonetheless Yehoveh picked THIS man to deliver Israel from a period of oppression from the Philistines.” That was an interesting point that I wouldn’t have picked up on. It’s also noted that he personally killed 600 men with an ox goad, which was used to drive a team of oxen. TB describes, “it was an 8 or 9 food long wooden pole with a sharp metal point, much like a spear, on one end and a sharpened chisel-like end on the other for scrapping dirt off of the plow.” TB also noted the similarity of this story to that of Samson who killed so many men with the jaw bone of an ass and pointed out that these Israelite men would have had to use improvised weapons because they were in captivity and would have had their war weapons stripped from them when they were defeated, so they had to use what was available.

TB also notes that Shamgar “is a good example of how the characteristics of a Judge cannot always be so easily defined. There is no mention of God raising him up or putting the Ruach HaKodesh upon him; there is no mention of how long he ruled, and in fact he is never called a Judge, but he is referred to as a savior of Israel.” It’s also proposed that while Shamgar’s event happened after Ehud’s main event, it still probably happened while Ehud was reigning. It’s also significant to note that killing 600 men with basically a spear would have only been possible by the power of God. There was a story I heard in basic training about a guy, I think in either the Korean or Vietnam war, where he was stuck on a hill that had a cliff on one side and the enemy was surrounding one single guy. He shot until he was out of ammo, and then took out his knife. When they recovered his body a couple of days later, there were like 32 dead enemy soldiers around him that he had killed with his knife. That’s a lot, and was an incredible feat, and in fact, I think he was award the Medal of Honor for it. And that’s still not even close to 600 kills. Something to think about for scale.