Who was Shamgar?

Son of Anath and a judge in Israel: he slew six hundred men with an ox-goad, and delivered Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. Judges 3:31; Judges 5:6.

The Philistines were always a thorn in the side of Israel, just as their successors, the Palestinians, are today. After Ehud (possibly before Ehud had died, but after his work of deliverance) Shamgar, the son of Anath is briefly mentioned as having killed 600 Philistines with an ox-goad. He evidently had no better weapon, but used what he had very effectively, just as we too should use what the Lord puts in our hand, whether for defeating enemies or for the blessing of His people. Both of these ends were accomplished in Shamgar's victory. His history is confined only to one verse, but it is in scripture for eternity.

Shamgar, the son of Anath, who followed Ehud, gained a signal victory over the Philistines: he also delivered Israel. Ehud's sword was mighty, though short. Shamgar wrought deliverance by the means of a weapon which seemed wholly unsuited to such a work; a contemptible instrument, to all appearance only suitable for goading brute creatures. Without wishing to press unduly here a typical meaning — a tendency to do which in teaching is dangerous in more ways than one — I would like to compare the ox-goad of Shamgar with the short sword of Ehud. We have one weapon, the Word of God; it may be presented in different aspects, but it is the only one that the man of faith makes use of in the warfare. To the intellectual and unbelieving world it is like an ox-goad, fit, at the best, only for women, children and uneducated persons, full of fiction and contradictions; yet it is this instrument, despised by men, that God uses to gain the victory. In making use of it, faith finds a weapon where the world only sees folly, for the weakness of God is stronger than men. Doubtless, it is written for the unlearned and suited to their needs and to their walk; but this very ox-goad can kill six hundred Philistines.

Shamgar, the son of Anath, who followed Ehud, gained a signal victory over the Philistines: he also delivered Israel. Ehud's sword was mighty, though short. Shamgar wrought deliverance by the means of a weapon which seemed wholly unsuited to such a work; a contemptible instrument, to all appearance only suitable for goading brute creatures. Without wishing to press unduly here a typical meaning - a tendency to do which in teaching is dangerous in more ways than one - I would like to compare the ox‑goad of Shamgar with the short sword of Ehud. We have one weapon, the Word of God; it may be presented in different aspects, but it is the only one that the man of faith makes use of in the warfare. To the intellectual and unbelieving world it is like an oxgoad, fit, at the best, only for women, children and uneducated persons, full of fiction and contradictions; yet it is this instrument, despised by men, that God uses to gain the victory. In making use of it, faith finds a weapon where the world only sees folly, for the weakness of God is stronger than men. Doubtless, it is written for the unlearned and suited to their needs and to their walk; but this very ox‑goad can kill six hundred Philistines.

"And after him was Shamgar … which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel" (Judges 3:31).

Of this Shamgar we know very little. The Philistines sorely oppressed Israel, at least the southern part of the land, for in his days "the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways" (Judges 5:6). Apparently too they pursued the policy, adopted by their descendants several hundred years later, of extirpating all smiths from the land of Israel, so that the Israelites might be without weapons and defenceless (see 1 Sam. 13:19-21). Shamgar was consequently reduced to an ox goad for a weapon of war. See him as he confronts at least 600 men armed only with a long stick, on the end of which is a small spike of iron! For the farmer or drover an excellent implement, of course, but when Shamgar turned from his oxen and stood as a warrior with this as his only weapon, the thing became supremely ridiculous. Yet the stars looked down that night on 600 Philistines stark dead, slain every man of them by this primitive weapon. Shall we praise the ox goad? Nay, the excellency of the power was not of it.

Shamgar.

1894 142 The Philistines had a way of disarming their conquered foes and cutting off all their supplies of weapons which was peculiar and effective. In Saul's time, when they once got the upper hand, they did not allow the Israelites to have a blacksmith in all their country, lest they should have the means of making swords; the conquered had to go to the conqueror's smithies if they wanted an axe or a coulter ground. This was not at all a bad policy for a conqueror to adopt, and not more cruel than was customary in those times; but it was highly inconvenient to Shamgar, who wanted to deliver his people from their bondage. In his day there was not so much as a single spear or shield amongst forty thousand Israelites. Shamgar had only an ox-goad himself. With this, however, he rose, slew six hundred Philistine warriors, and emancipated the people of God: perhaps as remarkable a feat in its way as when the one-eyed Ziska and his thirty thousand farm-labourers rose up from that vast celebration of the Lord's supper on the hills near Prague, and, armed only with scythes and flails, defeated two hundred thousand of the bravest and best armed troops in Europe. This event forms a suitable pendant to the story of Ehud. Ehud had done great work with crippled faculties; Shamgar does great work with a poor instrument.

When Christian was in the Palace Beautiful, we are told, the three maidens took him into a mansion in which he saw, amongst other relics, Shamgar's ox-goad. Happily the Dreamer had too sound a mind to give the relics themselves more than a passing mention; and perhaps it is as well that nobody else ever saw them. For there is such an inveterate tendency to worship the mere instrument that the whole significance of the event is distorted; and, instead of our learning from it the wholesome stimulating lesson of how great things may be done with small means and giving God the glory, we assume that there is something to be venerated in the instrument itself and burn incense to it, as the Israelites did to the brazen serpent until Hezekiah wisely dashed it to pieces and derisively called it "Nehushtan" — a bit of brass. Thus we perversely attribute all the credit of the work to the ox-goad, instead of to the strong arm and stout heart behind it and to God overhead; as the Rabbis say that the rod of Moses was a magic wand brought by Adam out of Eden and inherited through Seth, etc., etc. Any puerile story will do so long as it takes the glory from God and gives it to the instrument.

Mighty works have been often accomplished by the faith and energy of those who have possessed only small and apparently inadequate or contemptible means. If we take this lesson to heart, we shall not sit down waiting for swords or sceptres before we commence to work; we shall hear the voice of God saying to us, What is that in thine hand? A stick? Moses broke the power of Egypt with such a one. What has not David or the woman of Thebez accomplished with a stone? or Gideon with candles and pitchers? or Samson (and perhaps many another) with the jawbone of an ass? I have no doubt that if men could get hold of the stick, stone, and so forth, they would preserve and adore them like the blood of St. Januarius or the shin-bone of some other defunct old saint; and we may therefore be grateful that they are not extant. I am sufficiently iconoclastic in such matters to be glad to see them destroyed, and "Nehushtan" pronounced by Hezekiah's contemptuous voice over every mere instrument that we are disposed to burn incense to. "This holy candle," said the monk, "has not been extinguished for five hundred years." "Then it is time it was" said the American tourist as he blew it out. Although it was not courteous to blow out the poor monk's treasured candle, and the action is not cited as an example, yet it requires a very abnormal condition of mind to be able to regret that the wretched rush-light, which gave so much occasion of labour and lying to grown people, was at last extinguished.

The Person of Shamgar, the Third Judge

"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." (Jud.3:31)

(b) They had been brought low because of their departure from Him. They had chosen new gods, and thus war was in their gates: the land was stripped and desolate, the inhabitants, pent up within the walls of their cities, dared not venture forth into the open country, and travelers went to their destination by unused and circuitous paths. Up to the very gates swept the tide of war, for Israel was defenceless and unarmed.

And this was in the days of Shamgar, the deliverer of the south, whose victory had not shamed others into faith. It was in the days of Jael, by whom, though but a woman, God had now once more delivered them. It lasted until Deborah herself rose up to be a mother to those who had forsaken their Father-God. How pitifully low had this great people fallen!

I will now go over the principal subjects presented in the history of this book. Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar were, in succession, the first instruments raised up by God to deliver His people.

In Judges 3 we have the details of this. The first two chapters are general. The nations come before us that were left to prove Israel according to the word of Jehovah. The earliest deliverer is brought before us in verse 9: "When the children of Israel cried to Jehovah, Jehovah raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother." So again we are told that afterwards "the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of Jehovah: and Jehovah strengthened Eglon [not the children of Israel, but their enemy] the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of Jehovah. And he gathered to him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees. So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. But when the children of Israel cried to Jehovah, Jehovah raised them up a deliverer Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man left-handed." Then we have details of the killing of the leader of their enemies, the king of Moab. Then again, in the end of the chapter, we are told of "Shamgar the son of Anath," who delivered Israel from the Philistines.