Judges 3
TLBCJudges 3:7-11
Othniel (3:7-11)
Israel followed after the Baals and the Asheroth. The last term is the plural of “Asherah,” the name of the female consort of “Baal,” the chief Canaanite god. It is also used in the singular of the wooden pillar which symbolized the goddess at the local shrines. Thus we have here an indication of the lapse of the Hebrew peoples into the loose and licentious paganism of the Canaanite inhabitants. The change from the pastoral ways of the wilderness wandering to the agricultural practices of settled life in Palestine tended to turn their eyes from the God of Sinai to the fertility gods and goddesses whom their Canaanite neighbors regarded as guardians of the soil. Such defection from the religion given to Moses brought down the judgment of God.
The Deuteronomic editor sees this in the invasion of an Aramean group led by a king, Cushan-rishathaim, who has not been identified with any leader mentioned in archaeological sources. The reference defies more accurate definition. Israel repented, however, and God raised up a “judge.” The better rendering of this word is “deliverer” or “savior,” one who has the power to deliver the people from their oppression. The man raised up, Othniel, was a nephew of Caleb and thus a member of the Kenizzite clan in the tribe of Judah. Evidently the issue was more local than national, and the invading force may have been a Midianite tribe, for the Midianites were on the fringe of Judah.
Othniel is described as a charismatic person, one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord had come. The word for “spirit” in Hebrew can also mean “wind.” In the early days the Spirit of the Lord was regarded as a windlike force that could invade a man’s personality and be responsible for extraordinary activity on his part. This activity might vary from brute strength, as in the case of Samson, through skill in war and leadership, as in the case of Gideon, through craftsman’s wisdom, as in the case of Bezalel (Exodus 31:2-5), to moral and spiritual insight, as in the case of the prophets. All were alike gifts of God, and often the windlike nature of the Spirit was manifested in the early days in the abnormal and ecstatic behavior of those who were possessed by the Spirit, as in the case of Saul.
Using his customary formula for the first time, the Deuteronomic editor now declares that the land enjoyed security for forty years.
Judges 3:12-14
Ehud and the Moabites (3:12-30) The Oppression by Eglon (3:12-14) Once more (vs. 12a) Israel did evil in the Lord’s sight, and the judgment descended. As we have noted, there is no indication that the judgeships recounted in this book were either over or on behalf of all Israel or that they were chronologically successive. The editor has gathered a series of detached and often local incidents into a history of the whole people. The locale of this new oppression was not Judah but Ephraim. The invaders penetrated as far as Jericho, the city of palms. The oppressors were Moabites, allied with Ammonites and Amalekites, who were desert Bedouins, and led by Eglon, the Moabite king.
Judges 3:15-25
Ehud and Eglon (3:15-25)
The cycle of penitence was repeated. Israel cried to the Lord and he raised up another deliverer. This time it was a Benjaminite, Ehud. Benjamin bordered on Ephraim, and was probably invaded too, so that one of its tribesmen became the champion of the hill country of Ephraim. Ehud undertook to take the tribute money to Eglon, and secretly prepared a short double-edged sword which he concealed under his clothes and girded to his right thigh. He secured admission to the king and presented the tribute.
Then, on the pretext of having a secret message for Eglon, he managed to secure a private audience from which all the royal attendants were excluded. This audience took place in the king’s roof chamber, a cool single room erected on the roof of the palace. As the king rose to receive the message, Ehud smote him in the belly with the hidden dagger. The Hebrew realism appears in the description of Eglon as a fat man into whose fat the dagger sank beyond the hilt. The assassin withdrew with calm restraint, closing and locking the double doors of the roof chamber. The attendants assumed conditions to be normal, but at last they discovered the murdered Eglon.
Meanwhile Ehud had been given sufficient time to escape.
The story is not an edifying one, but it is paralleled by other stories from this period. That Ehud should be described as a “savior” sent by the Lord may raise questions in our minds, but we need to remember the rough times in which this happened and must judge Ehud’s treachery in this light. Still further, it would appear to be the divine strategy with Israel to educate men by enabling them to move from the physical to the spiritual levels. “Savior” here refers to salvation from oppression and thus to an outward thing; yet the people could learn through it, in the process of the centuries, the deeper lesson that the outward conditions result from the inward state of sin, a truth that the Deuteronomist editor is seeking to elaborate. Then true salvation must be from that inward state and not just from the outward conditions. In this sense the use of the word “savior” or “deliverer” can point beyond itself to God’s final act in Jesus, while the association with God of even a crude act like that of Ehud at least emphasizes the truth that salvation is of God alone.
Judges 3:26-30
The Discomfiture of Moab (3:26-30)
Ehud, aided by the polite attitude of Eglon’s attendants when they discovered the closed doors of the roof chamber, had made good his escape beyond “the sculptured stones” to Se-irah, an unknown location. He summoned Israel to his aid, and the people descended from the hill country of Ephraim. They secured the fords of Jordan so that the Moabite army of occupation, struck into a panic by the news of Eglon’s death, was cut off and completely annihilated. Once more Israel had peace, and this is stated in the customary Deuteronomic formula with its repetitive time pattern.
Judges 3:31
Shamgar and the Oxgoad (3:31)
Shamgar is mentioned as one who delivered or judged Israel, but the customary formula is absent, and the foes are the Philistines, who do not appear until much later chronologically. Shamgar is probably a Human name. The oxgoad was a long wooden pole provided with a metal tip at one end and a metal blade at the other, used to clean the plowshare. With this unusual but formidable weapon, he is said to have slain six hundred Philistines. There is something reminiscent of Samson about Shamgar. The two heroes are described as fighting the same foe, although the mention of Shamgar in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5:6) would imply that the foes were Canaanites rather than Philistines in Shamgar’s case.