The Judge Shamgar - Page 2 of 2 (series: Lessons on Judges

by John Lowe
(Woodruff, S.C.)

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1(Judges 4.1) “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.”
2Ox-goad. Mentioned only in Jdg 3:31, the weapon with which Shamgar slew six hundred Philistines. "The ploughman still carries his goad, a weapon apparently more fitted for the hand of the soldier than the peaceful farmer. The one I saw was of the 'oak of Bashan,' and measured upwards of ten feet in length. At one end was an iron spear, and at the other a piece of the same metal flattened. One can well understand how a warrior might use such a weapon with effect in the battle-field."
3(Jg. 5.6) “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.” This song by Deborah proceeds in these verses to describe the sad condition of the country, the oppression of the people, and the origin of all the national distress in the people's apostasy from God. Idolatry was the cause of foreign invasion and internal inability to resist it.