Judges 3:31

Shamgar. — Mentioned here alone, and alluded to in Judges 5:6.

The son of Anath. — There was a Beth-anath in Naphtali, but Shamgar could hardly have belonged to Northern Israel. We know nothing of Shamgar’s tribe or family, but, as neither his name nor that of his father is Jewish, it has been conjectured that he may have been a Kenite; a conjecture which derives some confirmation from his juxtaposition with Jael in Judges 5:6. Shamgar means “name of a stranger” (comp. Grershom, “a stranger there”). Samgar-Nebo is the name of a Babylonian general (Jeremiah 39:3).

Six hundred men. — It has been most needlessly assumed that he slew them single-handed, and not, as is probable, at the head of a band of peasants armed with the same rude weapons as himself. If he slew 600 with his own hand, the whole number that perished would almost certainly have been added. There is, indeed, no impossibility (even apart from Divine assistance, which is implied though not expressly attributed to him) in the supposition that in a battle which may have lasted for more than one day a single chief may with his own hand have killed this number, for we are told that in a night battle against Moawijah, Ali raised a shout each time he had killed an enemy, and his voice was heard 300 times in one night; and a story closely resembling that of Shamgar is narrated of a Swedish peasant; but the question here is merely one of interpretation, and nothing is more common in Scripture, as in all literature, than to say that a leader personally did what was done under his leadership, e.g., “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7).

With an ox goad. — The LXX. (Codex B) and Vulgate have “with a ploughshare;” and the Alexandrian Codex of the LXX. renders it “besides the oxen.” These translations are not tenable. The phrase occurs here alone — bemalmad ha bâkâr; literally, “with a thing to teach oxen.” There can be little doubt that an ox-goad is meant. In the East they are sometimes formidable implements, eight feet long, pointed with a strong sharp iron head. The use of them — since whips were not used for cattle — is alluded to in 1 Samuel 13:21; Acts 9:5. Being disarmed, the Israelites would be unable to find any more effective weapon (Judges 5:6; Judges 5:8). Disarmament was the universal policy of ancient days (1 Samuel 13:19); and this reduced the Israelites to the use of inventive skill in very simple weapons (1 Samuel 17:40; 1 Samuel 17:43). Samson had nothing better than the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:15). Similarly the Thracian king Lycurgus is said to have chased the Bacchanals with an ox-goad (bouplêgi, II. vi. 134), and that in this very neighbourhood (“near Carmel,” Nonnus, Dionys. 20). The Athenians, in their painting of Marathon, in the Pœcile, represented the gigantic rustic, Echetlus, who was supposed to have slain so many of the Persians, with his ploughshare (Pausan. i. 15, § 4). Comp. Hom. Iliad, vi. 134.

He also delivered Israel. — Josephus (Antt. v. 4, § 3), following some Jewish hagadah, says that Shamgar was chosen judge, but died in the first year of his office. This may have been a mere inference, from his being passed over in Judges 4:1. He does not mention his deed of prowess.