Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah
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Introduction
This study is based on the third book of the History of Redemption series, entitled ‘The Unquenchable Lamp of the Covenant: The first fourteen generations in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.’ And we’re looking at chapter 24, which covers the work of the Judges.
So let us go ahead with the scripture reading, Judges 2:16-19.
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.
Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
So here is a list of the judges of Israel.
Othniel
Ehud
Shamgar
Deborah
Gideon
Tola
Jair
Jephthah
Ibzan
Elon
Abdon
Samson
And today we’re looking at the judges from Othniel to Deborah.
Othniel
Othniel
Othniel: God is strength, God moves forward
Tribe of Judah
Caleb’s nephew
Married Caleb’s daughter
Delivered Israel from 8-year oppression by Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia
Rishathaim means ‘double wickedness.’ One scholar writes that ‘in his name we see him through the eyes of his victims.’
Caleb had issued a challenge to capture the land of Kiriath-sepher. Whoever captured it would receive Caleb’s daughter in marriage.
And Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife.
But this land of Kiriath-sepher was where the giants dwelled.
So Othniel volunteers himself, he captures the land and takes Caleb’s daughter Achsah as his wife.
Achsah was both a humble and wise woman. She humbly obeyed her father’s will and married Othniel without protest. We don’t know what Othniel looked like, but it helps to imagine that he’s not prince charming.
And in her wisdom, she asks Othniel to ask Caleb for a field. She, in turn, asks Caleb for springs of water.
When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
So what do you have with a field and water? You can start doing agriculture. She was a practical woman.
Oppression by Cushan-rishathaim
Now, some time later, the Israelites neglect God and start serving idols. And so God hands them over to Cushan-rishathaim, the king of Mesopotamia, for 8 years.
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia. And the people of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years.
The keyword here is “serve”, which is abad in Hebrew, and it means to worship, to serve, and to honor.
And from here we see a pattern here that recurs throughout the Bible and in our own lives too. If you hand yourself over to idols, you’ve handed yourself over into spiritual oppression. Why is that? It’s because no idol treats their worshipers fairly. Only God is just and fair.
If the government misused our taxes for their own benefit, we’d scream oppression.
But Canaanites used to even burn their children as sacrifices to their idols. What did the idols do in return? Nothing. But the Israelites see this and they choose to do the same thing.
They put themselves into spiritual oppression like this. And then the spiritual oppression leads to physical oppression.
Psalm 115:4–8 (ESV)
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
And so after 8 years of oppression, the Israelites repent and cry out to God. And God sends His Holy Spirit to raise up Othniel. And he overcomes the enemy and brings an end to the oppression.
The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.
That’s freedom. The moment you turn back to God, that’s when you’re free. The moment we repent, that’s the Holy Spirit bringing us back to God. And the spiritual freedom results in physical freedom when the Holy Spirit takes action.
So when we’re faced with oppression, spiritually or physically, we must turn back to God and cry out to Him, and ask for His Holy Spirit. That’s how we can overcome and find freedom again. And God tells us that the Spirit of God is within us, and He helps us when we are weak. Even if we cannot cry out to God, the Spirit cries out within us.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
Ehud
Ehud
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of palms. And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.
One thing we can notice here is that the word ‘deliverer’ is moshia, which comes from the word yasha, meaning ‘to save.’ So Moshia means ‘the one who saves,’ or ‘Savior.’
Ehud’s name comes from the word ohad, meaning ‘to unite.’
Ehud: union, unity
Tribe of Benjamin
Left-handed
(ish immer yad yemino) = dysfunctional right hand
Delivered Israel from 18-year oppression by Eglon, king of Moab
It says that Ehud was a left-handed man from the tribe of Benjamin. But it’s a little awkward because Benjamin means ‘son of the right hand.’
The Hebrew term ‘left-handed’ here is ‘ish iter yad yemino,’ which refers more to a person with a dysfunctional right hand rather than a left-handed person. In spite of his weakness, however, God used Ehud because he was united with God.
So how did Ehud defeat the king of Moab? He said he had a secret message for the king. And he went to the king’s roof chamber and killed him with a sword strapped to his right thigh under his cloak
And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.
And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” And he commanded, “Silence.” And all his attendants went out from his presence.
And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” And he arose from his seat. And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.
And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out. Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them.
Can you imagine someone walking into the white house and assassinating the president? It’s almost impossible. But Ehud assassinates the Moabite king in his own palace and gets away.
He then flees to the hill country of Ephraim and blows the trumpet, and the Israelites followed him to battle against the Moabites. And so the Israelites follow Ehud into battle, and they defeat the Moabites and bring an end to the oppression.
But something we can notice in the Hebrew text are the actions Ehud does when there are idols around.
Judges 3:19 (ESV)
But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” And he commanded, “Silence.” And all his attendants went out from his presence.
Judges 3:26 (ESV)
Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Seirah.
What do we see? Ehud turns back at the idols. The word ‘turns back’ in Hebrew is shuv, and it’s used to describe repentance. Ehud also passes beyond the idols. The word ‘passes beyond’ is abar, and it means to cross over. Like how Abraham crossed over from the land of idolatry, across the Euphrates River. Like how Eber crossed over from the construction of the Tower of Babel. Ehud’s actions remind us that we must repent of our idolatry and cross over from the place of idolatry into the place of freedom.
When we read this story in English, we miss out a lot of what’s going on. Here’s what Jewish readers would see.
First, Eglon’s name means ‘cow-man.’
Egel (cow) + On (man) = Eglon (cow-man).
Next, the Hebrew word for Ehud’s blade is lahav, which literally means ‘flame.’ Nowhere else in Scripture does lahav mean ‘blade.’
Judges 3:22 (ESV)
And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out.
Judges 13:20 (ESV)
And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
After Eglon is stabbed with the blade, his poop comes out.
The Hebrew word for poop is parsidon, which is the language of sacrificial offerings.
And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out.
But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung—
So Ehud ‘sacrifices’ Eglon the cow-man in fire using a double-edged blade.
Shamgar
Shamgar
The Bible tells us that during the days of Shamgar, the highways of Israel were deserted.
Judges 5:6 (ESV)
“In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned, and travelers kept to the byways.
Shamgar (שַׁמְגַּר): ‘sword’ or ‘God-given.’
This means that trade and commerce had come to a halt because of Philistine attacks. And so in order to deliver the Israelites from the Philistine attacks, Shamgar used an oxgoad to defeat them. An oxgoad is a thick and rounded stick about 2.5 metres long, and it’s used for prodding oxen or as a farming tool.
After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.
What’s the lesson for us? The secret to victory is not in the quality of our weapons, our equipment, or our numbers. The secret to victory is the power given by God through His Word and His Spirit
Deborah
Deborah
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.
Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.
Oppression (לחץ / lahas) = to bend, to press, to pressure.
Cruelly (חָזְקָה / hozqah) = intensely
The Israelites are oppressed cruelly for 20 years by king Jabin of Canaan, and the commander of his army was Sisera. As we’ve just seen, the previous oppressions lasted for 8 years and 18 years. But now it goes on for 20 years. It’s longer than before, and it’s crueller than before.
Sin doesn’t go round without going down.
Why is the oppression worse this time? It tells us that their sin had increased. Deborah calls it choosing new gods.
Judges 5:8 (ESV)
When new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates. Was shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?
So who was this Deborah, that she could liberate Israel from such a powerful enemy?
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Deborah in Hebrew means bee or honeybee.
Deborah (דְּבוֹרָה): bee, honeybee
Prophetess: Nebiyya (נְבִיאָה)
Delivered Israel from 20-year oppression by Jabin, king of Canaan
Women back then were held in such low esteem. They wouldn’t be included in the family genealogies, and they weren’t counted as part of a tribe’s headcount. But as the only female judge, Deborah received complete support from the Israelites and awoke the Israelite leaders from their senselessness by inspiring them with faith. She was called a mother in Israel.
Judges 5:7 (ESV)
The villagers ceased in Israel; they ceased to be until I arose; I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel.
And Deborah commanded Barak to lead 10,000 soldiers to fight against Jabin. The total size of their army consisted of 10,000 soldiers and 40,000 volunteers.
She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun.
Judges 5:8 (ESV)
When new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates. Was shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?
The Bible doesn’t say how large was the enemy army, only that they had 900 iron chariots.
Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon.
Chariots were the army tanks of the past. They were iron carriages pulled by horses. During the conquest of Canaan, the tribe of Judah couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
So despite the overwhelming odds against them, the Israelites won the battle.
And this is a common theme throughout the judges period, and even throughout the entire battle. God’s people are faced with impossible odds, but their God does impossible things. Amen?
Judges 4:15 (ESV)
And the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot.
Routed (המם / hamam): to break, to step on, to confuse.
So how did God confuse the enemy army? He sent torrential rains to create rapids in the Kishon River so that the land became muddy and rendered the iron chariots ineffective.
Judges 5:4 (ESV)
“Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water.
Judges 5:21 (ESV)
The torrent Kishon swept them away, the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. March on, my soul, with might!
Deborah describes it as the stars fighting for her.
Judges 5:20 (ESV)
From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.
So Sisera, the commander of the army, is forced to flee on foot, but he ends up trusting the wrong person and is betrayed.
But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me; do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. And he said to her, “Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’ ”
But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.
So what we see are two people who trust in different things.
Deborah trusts in God
Sisera trusts in his iron chariots and in Jael
Finally, Deborah gave the Israelites 40 years of peace.
Judges 5:31 (ESV)
“So may all your enemies perish, O Lord! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.” And the land had rest for forty years.
Conclusion: The Secret to Victory
Conclusion: The Secret to Victory
We look at that and think that’s a bad deal, but that’s what everyone in the world is doing today. They sacrifice their long hours in the workplace, their health and efforts, everything goes to an idol. What’s the idol? Anything that isn’t God.
Two things we see that are essential to overcoming.
The Spirit of God and the Word of God.
We saw the Spirit of God coming mightily upon Othniel.
The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.
But what about the Word? Where is the Word of God in all this? We see it in the story of Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah.
The Hebrew word for edge is peh, and it means ‘edge’, but it also means ‘mouth.’
So in Ehud’s story, we see him overcoming the enemy king through a double-edged blade that’s also a flame. That represents the Word of God.
Judges 3:16 (ESV)
And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes.
Edge (פֶּה / peh): mouth, edge
Isaiah 1:20 (ESV)
but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Joshua 15:13 (ESV)
According to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the people of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron (Arba was the father of Anak).
What about Shamgar? Shamgar’s name means ‘sword’ and ‘God-given.’
Shamgar (שַׁמְגַּר): sword, God-given.
He represents a God-given sword.
and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
And we also see this in the story of Deborah.
Judges 4:16 (ESV)
And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.
Furthermore, Deborah’s name has the same consonants for ‘Word.’
Deborah (דְּבוֹרָה): bee, honeybee
Dabar (דבר): to speak, to command
We may not be oppressed physically right now, but we do encounter spiritual oppression. But I believe can we overcome through the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Revelation 1:16 (ESV)
In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
So the secret to our victory is not our own strength or our own power. It’s not in our equipment, our talents, or our diligence. We are the Israelites in this story, and we need to do what they did. No matter how long we’ve been under oppression, whether it’s 8 years or 20 years, all we need to do is cry out to God in repentance, and He will send His Spirit and His Word to us to grant us the victory.
for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’