Shamgar

Judges 3:31 NET

After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath; he killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad and, like Ehud, delivered Israel.

Shamgar - a man filled with Noble Discontent

I know when most folks are looking to do some reading in the Bible, the book of Judges isn’t very high on the “Go To” list.

It can be hard book to read through and understand sometimes,...

especially if you don’t have the backstory or context that the those to whom the book was written to did have.

I know this may come as shock to some, but the Bible was not written to us.

It was written for us

God intends for us to mine the scriptures for every wonderful nugget and gem it has,

but it was originally written to an Ancient group of people that held a different view of the world than those of us who live in the 21 century.

So when we read stories from these ancient letters, it helps to get some context and try to see through the eyes of the original intended audience.

The Book of Judges chronicles the nation of Israel’s possession of land that Yahweh, God Most High promised Abraham and all his descendants.

When Joshua and the Israelites first crossover the Jordan into the Promised land.... they came in to Kick Butt and eat cookies... and they were fresh out of cookies.

God told the Israelites that if they remembered him and were loyal to the Covenant that they had made with Him.... that there would be no nation that could stand before them.

The the land and all they touched would be blessed and prosperous.

BUT, if they forgot Him, broke their covenant with Him and worshipped the gods of the pagan nations that he command them to drive out,.... he would curse them and everything they touched.... and He would use those same pagan nations to punish them.

If you read even a little bit of the Old Testament, you’ll soon see that God’s Chosen people were constantly in a cycle of breaking covenant, paying a high price for their disloyalty, crying out to God for mercy, God sending deliverance, a period of peace, they forget him again and the cycle starts all over.

Such are conditions of the story we are about to enter.

The Israelites have broken covenant with God once again and taken to worshipping other gods.

Like earlier instances, God once again brings another nation in to punish and oppress his people for their disloyalty and sin.

100 years earlier it was Moab. The Moabites were harsh and oppressive people but this time, this time God brought in the Philistines...Who were also know as the Sea People.

Allow yourself to imagine hordes of brutal, ruthless Vikings and you’ll start to get a mental image of whose these peoples were.

The Philistines were like a plague on the land, like locust consuming everything in their path.

If an Israelite manage to raise a harvest of some sort, as soon as harvest time was near the Philistines would swoop in and take it all.

If they managed to raise a small flock of sheep or goats, the Philistines would come in and take the flock once it was mature.

The people were living in utter want, humiliation and desperate fear.

The Philistines collected every bit of Weaponry that the Israelites had and made sure that they had NO weapons which they could use to fight back.

They even went so far as to seek out and and remove every blacksmith so that no new weapons could be forged.

The rape and pillaging of the people was so bad that the highways were completely abandoned and overgrown. No one dared travelled in large groups or on open roads.

They carefully travelled on small , hidden footpaths and winding long ways so as to stay out of sight as much as possible.

These people were crushed in spirit and living in utter hopelessness.

The dawning of a new day didn’t bring hope but rather the dreadful awareness that any minute of that day had the strong potential for violations against every fiber of what was left of their dwindling humanity.

The irony of the story is.... it was their own disloyalty to Yahweh that has caused this condition and now they had lost all hope in God at least most of them did

Enter our man Shamgar

Judges 3:31 

After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath; he killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad and like Ehud, delivered Israel.

Judges 5:6

In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael; caravans disappeared, travellers had to go on winding side roads.

Warriors were scarce.

Dr Tony Evans in his Book Kingdom Man says this about Shamgar

“ This man didn’t get much airtime as compared to the likes of Samson, David, or Joshua. Yet the principles found in the two verses about him hold the potential to not only transform lives, but our world. Because, as you will see, it only took one real man named Shamgar to save the entire nation of Israel.”

I don’t know about you but there is something about the idea of ONE REAL MAN and how God Can and will used ONE REAL MAN, that causes something deep inside me to awaken and a low roar stirs in my spirit.

Who is this REAL MAN named Shamgar?

What can we know about him from these passages and what principles do we need to admire and imitate?

Most of what we can know about this man is actually tied to his name and not just the deeds mentioned in these short passages.

First of All, Shamgar is not a Hebrew name. That does not mean that he was not an Israelite.

When the Hebrews left Egypt and even during their wanderings in the Wilderness, there were those of other ethic groups who went with the Israelites and who Swore Allegiance to Yahweh.

Most Scholars today believe that the evidence strongly suggest that Shamgar was Hurrian,

an ethnic group that was a key geopolitical force in the Near East in the mid-second millennium, specifically ca. 1500–1300 bc (Late Bronze Age).

Also worth noting is the term Son of Anath. When you read this, you’d be tempted to think Shamgar’s daddy’s name was Anath but that is very likely not the case here.

Lawson G. Stone, “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth

The puzzle with Shamgar’s patronymic (ancestral name) is that Anath was the name of the Canaanite warrior goddess, hardly fitting for an Israelite hero.1

 Daniel Isaac Block, Judges, Ruth, vol. 6, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 174.

It’s been suggest by scholars that “son of Anath” referred to a specific warrior class or guild.

A number of early Iron Age bronze projectile points bear the inscription bn ‘nt (son of Anath), and others ‘bdlb’t (servant of the Lion Lady), the latter being an epithet of the ancient Near Eastern war goddess, Ishtar in Babylon or Anat in the west (Mobley 2005:27–31).

an inscription from the Wadi Hammâmât dated in the third year of Rameses IV (1166–1160 b.c.), which reads “ʿprw of the troop of ʿAn[ath] eight hundred men.”

On the assumption that the same troop had fought against the Sea Peoples (Philistines) during the reign of Rameses III (1198–1166 b.c.), Shupak suggests that Shamgar may have been one of these ʿprw (Habiru) what the Egyptians called the Israelites, among whom were found a variety of ethnic elements, including Hurrians.

As a member of an ʿApiru troop of mercenaries in Pharaoh’s army named after the Canaanite goddess of war, and a man of valor, he bore the widely used military cognomen (nickname), Ben ʿAnath.1

1

For me, there is something that rings true of this in my spirit and as I have prayed and sought Holy Spirit for understanding and insight; I get the deep sense that this is very likely a part of Shamgar’s story.

So, Shamgar an outsider at first, not a Hebrew but a Gentile; one that likely saw first hand the power and majesty of the God of the Hebrews put on full display....

a man who was likely pressed into military service at a young age as a Hurrian and who served in an group or warriors dedicated to the service of the Canaanite Goddess Anath,

makes a free will choice to abandon that lifestyle and swear his loyalty to Yahweh who he believes is truly God Most High.

This man, a warrior who had likely seen his fill of war was simply looking to live a peaceful life in a land given to them by God and as farmer who worships Yahweh.

And now, that peace has been decimated by the these ruthless Philistines and the people he has chosen to be a part of, his chosen family, his adoptive family if you will suffers greatly under their tyranny.

There in the midst of that darkness and hopelessness Yahweh, stirs ups the in Shamgar’s heart Noble Discontent

Again from the book Kingdom Man- Dr Evans says

God used Shamgar because he exemplified two of the greatest principles of being a kingdom man:

Start where you are

Use what you have

We are left to imagine at this point what could have been in this man’s heart as the Noble Discontent reached its boiling point and Shamgar could no longer stand idle.

In my heart, I feel like my brother Shamgar remembered who he was.

That he wasn’t just an Ox Driver or a farmer, but a man who had been touched by the God of gods.

a man who swore his oath of loyalty to Yahweh alone.

A man who had seen first hand and was gripped by the power of the Almighty.

Yes, he had chosen to lay down his sword for a Ox Goad, a long hardwood stick with a simple iron point, but his identity wasn’t in the Ox Goad, it was in his relationship with Yahweh and the People of God.

When God stirred his soul and reminded him of who he really was, Shamgar embraced it.

He didn’t consider the fact that he wasn’t a natural born Hebrew as a reason to avoid the conflict, Hurrian by birth or not, his allegiance was with Yahweh and all those who were named as Yahweh’s people.

He didn’t rationalize or ask what one man could possible do in the face of such hopelessness.

He didn’t talk himself out of it by telling himself that he was no longer capable of such actions.

He didn’t look at the pointed stick in his hand and convince himself he was to poorly armed to defend against much less defeat so great an enemy.

He didn’t make excuses!

No, he embraced the call.

He took ownership and his covenant with God ....meant something!

He knew he could no longer stand idly by and watch the people of God, his chosen tribe of people be tormented another day.

And, he took what was in his hand, which to any observer would have been seen as useless in such a fight.... and he committed that and himself to God.

Oh, what a REAL MAN, even one woefully underarmed and outnumbered can do, when he simply gets filled with Noble Discontent, Remembers who he truly is in God, Commits what God has placed in his hands back to God and the steps out in Faith, not caring what becomes of him but puts himself to the hazard to bring about freedom and... A Restoration to God.... to those who are living in the destruction and hopelessness of their own choices and disloyalty.

He could’ve said “They’re just getting what they deserve” but a true warrior knows compassion, understands mercy and is moved by love.

Dr Evans Said

“Imagine what our homes, churches, communities, and nation would be like today if our men would take a lesson from the life of kingdom men like Shamgar.

When a kingdom man steps out his door each day, heaven, earth and hell ought to take notice.”

We aren’t told the details of the battle where Shamgar laid 600 Philistines dead with an Pointy Stick, but I can tell you one thing, it must have have been a something Supernatural and oozing with God’s power because it scared the crap out the Philistines, pushed back an entire nation of ruthless enemies, bringing peace to the nation of Israel once again.

So whatever happened, the Philistines came face to face with the power of God, displayed in the actions a single real man and that was more than they could handle.

While this story is ancient, the principles are timeless.

Our Society, the Western Culture that most of you listening to this are living in today is literally crumbling at our feet.... because the people of this culture.... daily chose to reject any knowledge of God.... and instead do only what is right in their own eyes.

Proverbs 14:34

Righteousness exalts a nation,

but sin is a disgrace to any people.

And we are culture that daily becomes more and more disgraceful.

You’ve heard it said that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

The more I live the more this seems to ring true.

My heart is filled with a great discontent for such an attitude and as men of God, as Sons of the Most High, we can no longer be bystanders.

We are called to be men ....who will commit themselves to God, commit what little they have in their hands to Christ.....and bring the Kingdom of God to bear upon the lives of those around us.

We are called to engage!

We are called to be Salt and Light, to push back HARD against the darkness that continues to close in around our communities, our families, our children, our marriages and our own hearts.

Jesus use this message to stir up Noble Discontent in the hearts of faithful men and let us put ourselves to the test for the Kingdom of God and for those who are suffering at the hands of the Kingdom of Darkness.

It’s time stop playing games. it’s time to stop letting the vocational pastors do all the heavy lifting acting as if its their job to do this .....instead of ours.

Like Shamgar, our names may never be well known, but the Kingdom of Darkness and the enemies of God will sure know we’ve been here.

We’ve clearly been given a Mission that has come from directly from the lips of our King and we can no longer sit by and hope that others execute on that mission.

Consider this a call to action.....

If you feel that but you don’t know what to do next, keep listening..I share some next steps at the end of this episode.

Until next week

24 ‘May the Lord bless you

and protect you.

25 May the Lord smile on you

and be gracious to you.

26 May the Lord show you his favor

and give you his peace.’