Judges 5:6

In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath,.... Of whom see Jude 3:31; who succeeded Ehud as a judge, but lived not long, and did not much; at least wrought not a perfect deliverance of the children of

In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways. In the days of Shamgar ... in the days of Jael.

In the days of Shamgar; whilst Shamgar lived, who was, if not a judge, yet an eminent person for strength and valour, . In the days of Jael: Jael, though an illustrious woman, and of great authority and influence upon the people, did effect nothing for the deliverance of God’ s people till God raised me up, &c. Through by-ways; partly because of the Canaanites, who, besides the public burdens and tributes which they laid upon them, waited for all opportunities of doing them mischief secretly; their soldiers watching for travellers in common roads, as is usual with such in times of war; and partly because of the robbers even of their own people, who having cast off the fear and worship of God, and there being no king or ruler in Israel to restrain or punish them, and being also many of them reduced to great want, through the oppression of the Canaanites, it is not strange, if, in those times of public disorder and ataxy, divers of the Israelites themselves did break forth into acts of injustice and violence, even against their own brethren, whom they could meet with in convenient places, which made travellers seek for by-paths.

Judges 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.Ver. 6. In the days of Shamgar.] From the death of Ehud until this conflict with Jabin: for though Shamgur did worthily, - especially if without help of others he slew at one time six hundred of the enemy with an ox goad, Scanderbeg is said to have slain eight hundred Turks at several times with his own hands, some say three thousand, - and though Jael, a woman of a public spirit, and active beyond her sex, did her utmost; yet the times were very troublesome, "neither was there any peace to him that went out, or to him that came in, but great vexations"; and no free commerce, or safe abode in any village, but “ Luctus ubique, metus, et plurima morris imago. ” Thus the dangers bypast are fitly recounted, that the present freedom may be the better prized. The miseries also of war, especially civil, when “ vi geritur res, ” are lively described, an evil so great as no words, how wide soever, are able to express. See Lamentations 1:4; Lamentations 4:18.

(6) In the days of Shamgar.—In this and the two next verses is described the misery and dejection of Israel; and the names of Shamgar and Jael are mentioned to enhance the glory of Deborah, by showing that even the presence among the Israelites of two such heroic souls as Shamgar and Jael was unavailing to deliver them until Deborah arose. That Shamgar is thus (apparently) alluded to as a contemporary of Jael has an important bearing on the chronology; for it at least shows that simultaneous struggles may have been going on against the Philistines in the south and the Canaanites in the north. In the days of Jael.—It has been thought so strange that Deborah should mention the name of the Bedouin chieftainess as marking the epoch, that some have supposed “Jael” to be the name of some unknown judge; and some have even proposed to read Jair. Others render it “the helper,” and suppose that Ehud, or Shamgar, is referred to. But (1) Jael is essentially a woman’s name (see Judges 4:17; Proverbs 5:19); (2) she is mentioned prominently in this very song as having put the finishing stroke to the victory of Israel; and (3) she may have been—and various incidents in the history lead us to suppose that she was—a woman of great importance and influence, even independently of her murder of Sisera. The highways were unoccupied.—Literally, kept holiday. This had been foretold in Leviticus 26:22. The grass grew on them; there was no one to occupy them. “The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth” (Isaiah 33:8). “The land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned” (Zechariah 7:14). (Comp. 2 Chronicles 15:5; Lamentations 1:4; Lamentations 4:18.) Travellers.—Literally, as in the margin, walkers of paths. Those of the unhappy conquered race whose necessities obliged them to journey from one place to another could only slink along, unobserved, by twisted—i.e., tortuous, devious—bye-lanes. A traveller in America was reminded of this verse when he saw the neutral ground in 1780, with “houses plundered and dismantled, enclosures broken down, cattle carried away, fields lying waste, the roads grass-grown, the country mournful, solitary, silent.”—(Washington Irving’s “Life of Washington,” ch. 137)

Verse 6. The highways were unoccupied] The land was full of anarchy and confusion, being everywhere infested with banditti. No public road was safe; and in going from place to place, the people were obliged to use unfrequented paths.

6–8. The recent oppression.

Words dcscriptive of a state of weakness and fear, so that Israel could not frequent the highways. It is a graphic description of a country occupied by an enemy.

6. Shamgar — See on Judges 3:31. In the days of Jael — Many scholars understand that this Jael was not the wife of Heber, mentioned in chap.