Bible Commentaries

Othniel

Judges 3:9-11

A GREAT prayer marks a historical point in the life of any man or any people. We know when we have prayed. The people who ask questions in a controversial tone about prayer never prayed themselves, and so long as they are in that spirit they cannot pray. This exercise is not to be explained to outsiders; this is an inner mystery. The publican knew that he had prayed when he said, "God be merciful to me a sinner." He needed not to ask any man whether a prayer had been offered, for he himself, the contrite suppliant, had the answer in his heart before the last word escaped his lips. We are dull indeed if we do not know when we have struck a full chord. Something in us says, That is right. We have uttered many words, and at the end we have said, That is not prayer; the words are devout, the phrases are devotional, they would read well in print, some good spirits might turn them into prayer, but we who uttered them did not pray. Why then debate about this matter, or talk about it as if it were subject for analysis and definition and formal treatment of any kind? We know when we have touched the hem of Christ's garment by the healing that instantly takes place in the spirit. Answers in detail may require long time to work out, but the great answer is in the healed heart, the comforted soul, the quieted and resigned spirit. Other replies there may or may not be,—all these must be left: the great answer to prayer is an answer to the soul which the soul only can hear and apply.

"When the children of Israel cried unto the Lord "—an energetic term is that—"cried." It was a piercing shout of the heart. The words did not come out of the mouth only; they were hardly in the mouth at all; they shot from the heart within—the burning, lowly, broken heart. We know a cry when we hear it or when we utter it; there is fire in it, a touch of immortality, a strange ghostliness. Truly in such case the voice is the Judges 3:4.

This may show us the part which our enemies have to play in the education and development of our lives.—The Lord left so many nations, as the Canaanites, the Zidonians, and the Hivites, that they might subject Israel to continual testing to prove their quality.—It is so that hardships are permitted to continue in the life.—When we ask why we should be surrounded by limitations so exact, and even by opponents so hostile, we should remember that this was the plan which God pursued in the training of his ancient people.—This is the divine purpose of all human affliction.—God must be left to determine what tests are best for our quality.—Men are not to choose their own tests and standards, but are to accept the chastening of the Lord, and to go into the furnace which the Almighty has specifically appointed.—Different men are tried in different ways, but the object of the trial is the same.—Your business perplexities are sent to prove your honesty; your bodily afflictions are imposed to test your courage and trust; your family difficulties are allowed to continue that the life of the household may be strengthened and refined; your bitterest rival is permitted to run his course side by side with you that your temper may be sweetened, your charity enlarged, and your whole tone of mind elevated.—Thus we are brought to consider the religious uses of opposition and hardships, and to identify their very presence with the distinct purpose of God.— When we can take this view of them we shall use them rather than fear them, and in due time shall come to account them as in some sort friends and teachers.—"My Judges 3:15

A DELIVERER with a lefthand seems to be a contradiction in terms or a piece of practical irony. The Divine Being, in sending Ehud in reply to the cry of the children of Israel, seems to mock the very prayer which he answers. Such a reply is full of subtle suggestion, to the effect that the Israelites really need not have made such a cry about their circumstances, because even in their forlorn condition a lefthanded man would show himself to be equal to the occasion. When we pray to God for help it is with some idea that an angel will be sent, and that all Heaven's artillery will be placed at our disposal that we may resist or destroy the foe. Instead of an angel there comes a man with a lefthand, or as he is elsewhere called an "ambidexter"—that Judges 3:15-30).

Shamgar

Judges 3:31

SHAMGAR was the third judge in Israel. He was at the beginning a labouring Judges 5:6) life was very insecure at that time:—"In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways." What is termed an "ox goad" in the text is literally "a thing to teach oxen." Ox goads have always been regarded as formidable instruments some eight feet long and pointed with a strong, sharp iron head. The Thracian king Lycurgus is said to have chased the Bacchanals with an ox goad. According to Ellicott's Bible—"The Athenians in their painting of Marathon represent the gigantic rustic Echetlus, who was supposed to have slain so many Persians with his ploughshare." A traveller who had seen Eastern ploughing thus writes: "It was observable that in ploughing they used goads of an extraordinary size; upon measuring several I found them about eight feet long, and at the bigger end six inches in circumference. They were armed at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen, and at the other end with a small, spade or paddle of iron, strong and massy, for cleansing the plough from the clay which encumbers it in working." Shamgar was working in the field with one of those goads when six hundred Philistines made their appearance but so vigorously did he wield it that not a man of the whole crowd escaped with his life. According to the authority already quoted, "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.... 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."

One of the most obvious lessons deducible from this incident is that we should not complain of our tools when we have hard work to do. When the work is done badly we are apt to blame the tools. Shamgar used an ox goad; Samson wielded the jawbone of an ass; David had but a sling and stone. Sometimes we think what wonders we should do if we had better instruments. The bad writer blames his pen. The unskilful carver grumbles at his knife. The unsuccessful preacher says that he could do better if his church were in a better locality, or if some rearrangement of woodwork could be made. Who ever blames himself for failure? Or even if blaming himself, who does not suggest that he could have done much better if the tools had been more distinctly adapted to the service he had to accomplish? Our success in the great battles of life depends more upon spirit, intelligence, devotedness, and enthusiasm, than upon merely mechanical arrangements. What is a feeble instrument in the hands of one man is a mighty instrument in the hands of another, simply because the spirit of that other burns with holy determination to accomplish the work that has to be done. There is one thing which ought to be noticed with special care, the proper noticing of which will greatly enlarge the charitableness of our social judgments; namely, men should work with those instruments which they can handle most skilfully. Shamgar knew how to use the ox goad, and David knew how to use the sling and stone. Other instruments may be far heavier, keener, and likelier altogether, but if we are not accustomed to them why should we run the risk of a failure? Men are strong in proportion as they keep within the circle of their own tried ability and experience. The instrument may be the grandest in the world, but if we do not know how to handle it we can accomplish infinitely better results with instruments which expose themselves to the contempt of advanced civilisation. There are preachers who could do incalculable good if they would confine themselves to the subjects which they understand and to language which is spoken by the people whom they address. The moment such preachers begin to talk finely they lose all their ease and power, and stumble like men who are endeavouring to speak in a foreign tongue. How foolish it would be to ridicule the instrument when the results are so obviously good! Look at the six hundred dead men; look at the slain giant; look at the prostrate walls of Jericho. The rule applies to every department of life. Why set up some arbitrary standard of judgment when the results are open to scrutiny and estimate? This rule should be applied to preaching. Why say that the sermons are not skilfully proportioned or expressed according to the usages of the schools, and therefore are not valuable sermons, when sinners are being converted and believers are being edified through their instrumentality? Let the result determine everything. Whilst military critics might be unfavourably criticising the ox goad, Shamgar was standing rejoicingly over six hundred defeated foes. This is the best answer of the Church to unfriendly criticism. When souls are converted, when households are reconstructed, when lives are inspired and encouraged, when clouds of distress and fear are driven away, the Church may well point to such results and be stirred to multiplied efforts rather than be deterred by the criticism of men who pay more attention to instruments than to results. God hath chosen the weak things of this world to throw down the things that are mighty. We are not called upon to defend this divine method; it is enough for us to know that it is God's way, and to accept it and obey it with loving thankfulness. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." "All this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord"s." He who fights for the right has God upon his side. If God be for us, who can be against us? The army on the other side is but a multitude of shadows; one ray of light from the rising sun shall disperse the host of emptiness. What meaner instrument can there be than the Cross of Christ? Hath it not pleased God, by the foolishness of the thing that is preached, to save them that believe? Were not Peter and John accounted unlearned and ignorant men? Are not the highest; things hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes? Such is the way of God, that no flesh should glory in his presence. All these thoughts are necessary to comfort the earnest worker against the pitiful criticism which is directed against Christian service. There are men so skilled in the use of bitter words that they might even discourage Shamgar himself by dwelling upon the ugliness and the unwieldiness of the weapon which he used. They might laugh him into a kind of shame. The thing to be done is to point men to the results which they have been enabled to secure, and to ask them to trust the instruments which have served them in good stead in the day of opposition and conflict. David said concerning the sword of Goliath—"Give me that; there is none like it." Do not easily give up tried methods, proved instruments, machineries and utilities which have been of service in the time of war. The same rule applies to trusty comradeships. We fight better in the society of some men than we could do in the society of others: we know their voices in the dark: we know their touch even when they do not say a word to us: we can depend upon them when the strain is greatest. New methods should be well studied in secret before they are tried in public, or they may bring their patrons to disappointment and chagrin. The Cross of Christ will stand when all things fail. Let us be determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified. God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our speech and our preaching should not be with enticing words of man's wisdom but with demonstration of the Spirit and with power. The instrument indeed is mean enough. To the Jews it is a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; nevertheless it works its daily miracles and finds in renewed hearts and brightened lives the only needful proof of its divinity and sanction.

Prayer

Almighty God, thy word is full of love. It draws us towards thee with a sweet compulsion. It is a word of grace, of light, of pity, and tenderness. Thy word knows us; it is familiar with our nature, and all the mystery thereof, and it speaks to us in music, in thunder, in judgment, in sharp exhortation, and in tender consolation; it is in very deed a wondrous word, coming all the way from heaven, and yet touching our hearts as the light touches the flower. We bless thee for thy word, for thy house, and for everything that is specially thine. We know that all things are thine: but some things seem to be twice thine, specially and wholly thine—the Lord's Day, the Lord's Book, the Lord's Portion, the Lord's own Spirit Take not thy Holy Spirit from us! May it abide with us—a sun that never sets, a gracious presence that never tires, a gift that grows by giving. We bless thee for all the love we have seen in all the way of life. The way of life has been made beautiful by thy love; even the uphill parts have been rendered quite easy because of thy sustaining grace; and the winding ways and the dark valleys have not been so fearsome when we have come to them, because thou didst go before us and prepare a path. Thy comforts have been our strength; thy grace has been our sun and our shield, and we have good hope of heaven. We pray thee to regard us as sinners, and have pity upon us, yea, mercy—saving pity and redeeming mercy, such as we have seen in Christ Jesus thy Son , bleeding, dying, rising, praying for us. If thou hast freely delivered him up for us all, thou wilt with him also freely give us all things; so we shall have no necessity; we shall carry no burden, because, though the weight be great, the strength shall be more than equal to it. Let the whole year be a new year—new in thought, new in resolve, and new in sacrifice: thus shall the years not take away from our strength, but add to it, and make us younger as they fly, because bringing us nearer to the land where there is no sin, no death. Be this our good hope in Christ Jesus; in this hope may we stand together as Christian students and worshippers, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let our prayer prevail in heaven; let us have the answer hidden in our heart, a secret treasure, a great, yea, an infinite prize. Amen.