We must remember that our Bible was not originally set out chapters and verses. This chapter is a continuation of chapter 2. We are told that God left the nations in the land only to teach them a lesson in warfare (3:2) showing that He is loving and those whom He loves He chastens. It is interesting to note that the Philistines, Canaanites, Sidonians, Hivites were to teach the Israelites warfare. So, they lived among the very people who they were told to drive out (v5) and intermarried and served their gods.
It is always so – the downward steps –
1. Failing to recognize the enemy
2. Failing to deal with the enemy
3. Living among the enemy
4. Having close relationship with the enemy
5. Being dragged down to their level,
6. Serving the enemy.
Second Judge – Ehud (3:12-30)
The Children of Israel did evil again and again they were in captivity this time for eighteen years to the King of Moab named Eglon. The Bible describes him as a very fat man. The Moabites were descended from the incestuous son of Lot from Lot’s act of sexual intercourse with his elder daughter when she got him drunk and lay with him. (Genesis 19)
The Moabites worshiped idols which involved sexual impurity. They were close family to Abraham their forefather. The Bible says that a man’s enemies are those of his own household (Micah 7:6) Trust not in a friend (v5). Who is a pardoning God like unto you? He will have compassion subdue our iniquities and cast our sins into the depth of the sea (v18,19)
Ehud was unusual in that he was left-handed. When some of us were very young (older ones will remember) children were discouraged from being left-handed – I recall pencils were taken from children’s left hand and placed in their right hand to encourage right-handedness. However, left-handedness is now more widely accepted and is no longer considered a problem that needs to be fixed. It must be rather difficult being left-handed as most things are geared for right-handed people – scissors, watch winders, can openers etc. In cricket, where I believe 15-25% are left handed, the whole field changes positions from right-handed batsmen for left-handed batsmen. However, it does have its advantages – Neurologists claim that left-handed people adjust more readily to underwater vision. How amazing! Maybe that’s why Mark Spitz won seven swimming gold medals a few Olympics ago. King Charles is left-handed, as is his son, William, heir to the throne, and I believe play a fine game of polo; around 40% of top tennis players are left-handed. Left-handedness is not an obstacle to brilliance – Michael Angelo, Da-Vinci, Picasso, Hans Holbein, Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells to name a few. One of the most fascinating facts that emerged was when NASA searched for suitable people to be astronauts, one in four astronauts were left-handed, 250% greater than the statistical probability. Left-handedness is more common in males.
Once again, the Children of Israel were in captivity and Ehud was their deliverer. He went to pay tax to King Eglon but he felt the time had come when he had to do something, he had had enough of giving him his tax as giving Moab a little didn’t get rid of him off his back rather it extended his rule. Ehud made himself a dagger (v16). It was double edged and around eighteen inches long. He strapped it to his right thigh under his clothes.
Ehud took Eglon by surprise as no doubt most fighters were right-handed so Eglon would not have expected Ehud to strike him with his left hand. We are not spared the details – the blade (v22) went right in, handle and all and came out at his back. Ehud left locking the door behind him.
The servants waited a long time before going in, to the point of embarrassment and by the time they found the king he was dead. Ehud called his army and took possession of the fords crossing the River Jordan thus preventing escape. They slew 10,000 of the best, vigorous and strongest Moabites and regained possession and had peace for 80 years.
What lessons are there here?
The Bible says we should not mind earthly things (Philippians 3:19, Colossians 3:2) meaning we should not set our minds on earthly things or focus on them.
Paul says in Romans 7:18-25 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our LORD! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
We are tempted to follow and indulge in the sins of the flesh, but we are told to wage war against the sinful activities of the flesh, and carnality in the Christian life.
King Eglon lived in pleasure and great ease and no doubt he represents all that the sins of the flesh and self-indulgence can be.
The Bible says that if we sow to the flesh, we reap the flesh but if we sow to the Spirit, we reap the Spirit. Paul says in Philippians 3 that he has no confidence in the flesh…. there are those whose end is destruction; whose god is their stomach. How we need to take the dagger and slay the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will have blessing in our lives and be a blessing to others. The dagger was two edged and this reminds us of the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, a two-edged sword. There are many small ‘daggers’ from God’s word which we can have at our command to use for The Glory of God. We often fumble for verses in our witness. How we need to read the Word and store in our minds to use.
Third judge – Shamgar (3:31)
He makes a brief entrance, one verse only in chapter 3. Very little is known about him – he was the son of Anath, and he slew 600 men with an ox goad (spike about 6/8 feet long) and delivered Israel. The usual pattern is seen after the death of a judge, the Children of Israel went back to their old ways of evil – it was out of sight out of mind, no spiritual leader, so they did their own thing. The only other reference to Shamgar is in chapter 5:6 where we are told that in his days and those of another judge Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and travellers walked through the byways.
All this shows what dire straits backsliding had reduced them to. Idolatry was again rife; people were afraid to walk the streets and even travellers took to roundabout routes to avoid evil and danger that abounded in the towns and the cities. Village life ceased. How this is much like today when people are afraid to walk through the town or city at night for fear.
Shamgar was thought to be a nobody leading a group of peasants who took what instruments were at hand to use as weapons to fight the enemy.
