Judges 3:31 - Meaning and Application

When it says that the land had rest for eighty years, some think this mainly refers to the part of the land east of the Jordan, which had been oppressed by the Moabites. But this verse suggests that the other side of the country, the southwest, was also troubled at that time by the Philistines, and Shamgar stood against them.

Israel clearly needed rescue, because he “delivered Israel.” Deborah later showed how serious the trouble was in her song (Judges 5:6). In the days of Shamgar, the main roads were unsafe, so people could not travel without fear of being attacked and robbed. They also dared not live in the open villages, so they had to take refuge in fortified cities.

God raised Shamgar up to save them, and it seems this happened while Ehud was still alive, though old and no longer active. The enemies were so weak in number that the killing of 600 of them counted as a real deliverance for Israel. Shamgar killed them with an ox-goad, or, as some translate it, a plowshare. It is likely that he was working in the fields when the Philistines came to plunder the land, and God moved him to resist them. He had no sword or spear, so he took the tool nearest to hand, one of the implements from his plow, and with it he struck down so many men and escaped unharmed.

This shows that God can make people very useful for his glory and for his church’s good, even when they come from humble, ordinary lives. He who has the full measure of the Spirit can, when he chooses, make plowmen into judges and leaders, and fishermen into apostles. It also shows that the strength of the weapon does not matter if God directs the hand and gives the power. An ox-goad, when God pleases, can do more than Goliath’s sword. God sometimes chooses to work through unlikely means so that the power is clearly seen to be from him.