Judges 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens by naming the nations the LORD left in the land to test Israel and to teach war to the generations that had not fought in Canaan. Israel intermarries with those peoples, serves their gods, and falls under foreign rule; twice they cry out and the LORD raises up a deliverer. Othniel defeats Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia, and Ehud, a left-handed Benjamite, kills Eglon of Moab and leads Israel to seize the fords of the Jordan. A brief note about Shamgar, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad, closes the chapter.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • These are the nations that the LORD left in the land.
   • The LORD left them in order to test Israel by them.
   • The testing was aimed at all in Israel who had not known the wars of Canaan.
2. 3:2
   • The purpose was that the generations of the children of Israel might know war.
   • The purpose was to teach them war.
   • This applied to those who had not previously known war.
3. 3:3
   • The nations included the five lords of the Philistines.
   • The nations included all the Canaanites.
   • The nations included the Sidonians.
   • The nations included the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon.
   • The territory of the Hivites extended from Mount Baal-hermon to the entrance of Hamath.
4. 3:4
   • These nations existed to test Israel by them.
   • The test was to find out whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD.
   • The LORD had commanded those commandments to their fathers.
   • The LORD gave those commandments through Moses.
5. 3:5
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites.
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Hittites.
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Amorites.
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Perizzites.
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Hivites.
   • The children of Israel dwelt among the Jebusites.
6. 3:6
   • The Israelites took the daughters of those peoples as wives for themselves.
   • The Israelites gave their own daughters to the sons of those peoples.
   • The Israelites served the gods of those peoples.
7. 3:7
   • The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD.
   • The children of Israel forgot the LORD their God.
   • The children of Israel served the Baals.
   • The children of Israel served the Asherahs, which were cultic poles or images of the goddess Asherah.
8. 3:8
   • The anger of the LORD burned against Israel.
   • The LORD sold Israel into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim.
   • Cushan-rishathaim was king of Aram-naharaim, the region of Mesopotamia.
   • The children of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years.
9. 3:9
   • The children of Israel cried out to the LORD.
   • The LORD raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel.
   • The deliverer saved them.
   • The deliverer was Othniel son of Kenaz.
   • Kenaz was Caleb's younger brother.
10. 3:10
    • The Spirit of the LORD came upon Othniel.
    • Othniel judged Israel.
    • Othniel went out to war.
    • The LORD gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram into Othniel's hand.
    • Othniel's hand prevailed against Cushan-rishathaim.
11. 3:11
    • The land had rest forty years.
    • Othniel son of Kenaz died.
12. 3:12
    • The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD.
    • The LORD strengthened Eglon king of Moab against Israel.
    • The LORD did this because Israel had done evil in the sight of the LORD.
13. 3:13
    • Eglon gathered to himself the children of Ammon and Amalek.
    • Eglon went and struck Israel.
    • They took possession of the city of palm trees.
14. 3:14
    • The children of Israel served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years.
15. 3:15
    • The children of Israel cried out to the LORD.
    • The LORD raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud son of Gera.
    • Ehud was a Benjamite.
    • Ehud was restricted or impeded in his right hand, that is, left-handed.
    • The children of Israel sent a tribute to Eglon king of Moab by Ehud's hand.
16. 3:16
    • Ehud made himself a sword.
    • The sword had two edges.
    • The sword was a cubit in length.
    • Ehud strapped the sword under his clothing on his right thigh.
17. 3:17
    • Ehud brought the tribute to Eglon king of Moab.
    • Eglon was a very fat man.
18. 3:18
    • Ehud finished presenting the tribute.
    • Ehud sent away the people who had carried the tribute.
19. 3:19
    • Ehud himself turned back from the carved images near Gilgal.
    • Ehud said he had a secret word for the king.
    • The king said to keep silence.
    • All those standing by the king went out from him.
20. 3:20
    • Ehud came to the king.
    • The king was sitting alone in his cool upper chamber.
    • Ehud said he had a word from God for the king.
    • The king arose from his seat.
21. 3:21
    • Ehud put forth his left hand.
    • Ehud took the sword from his right thigh.
    • Ehud thrust the sword into Eglon's belly.
22. 3:22
    • The handle went in after the blade.
    • The fat closed over the blade.
    • Ehud did not draw the sword out of Eglon's belly.
    • Something came out, the meaning of the word being uncertain: the King James takes it as the contents of the bowels.
23. 3:23
    • Ehud went out through the porch or vestibule.
    • Ehud shut the doors of the upper chamber behind him.
    • Ehud locked the doors.
24. 3:24
    • Ehud went out.
    • Eglon's servants came.
    • The servants saw that the doors of the upper chamber were locked.
    • The servants said that the king must be relieving himself in the cool chamber.
25. 3:25
    • The servants waited until they were embarrassed.
    • The king did not open the doors of the upper chamber.
    • The servants took a key and opened the doors.
    • Their lord was fallen to the ground dead.
26. 3:26
    • Ehud escaped while the servants delayed.
    • Ehud passed beyond the carved images.
    • Ehud escaped to Seirath.
27. 3:27
    • When Ehud arrived, he blew a horn in the hill country of Ephraim.
    • The children of Israel went down with him from the hill country.
    • Ehud went before them.
28. 3:28
    • Ehud told them to follow after him.
    • Ehud said the LORD had given their enemies the Moabites into their hand.
    • They went down after Ehud.
    • They seized the fords of the Jordan toward Moab.
    • They did not allow any man to cross over.
29. 3:29
    • They struck down about ten thousand men of Moab at that time.
    • All of them were stout or robust.
    • All of them were men of valor.
    • Not one man escaped.
30. 3:30
    • Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel.
    • The land had rest eighty years.
31. 3:31
    • After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath.
    • Shamgar struck down six hundred Philistines.
    • Shamgar did this with an ox goad.
    • Shamgar also delivered Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"To test" here means to put someone in a situation that reveals what they will actually do, the same word used of assaying metal. It is not a test in the sense of an examination with a score.

3:3

The Philistines lived on the southern coastal plain in five cities (Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath) each under its own ruler; the Hebrew title used for these five (seren) is not the ordinary word for king, and the five acted together as a league. The Sidonians were the people of the port city of Sidon, on the coast of what is now Lebanon; their name often stands for the Phoenicians in general. "The entering in of Hamath" (Lebo-hamath) was a pass or town at the far north, used throughout the Old Testament as the standard marker of the northern edge of the land.

3:4

These commands were the laws God gave Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai, long before the people ever entered this land.

3:5

These six names are the conventional list of the peoples already living in Canaan before Israel arrived. Some are known from outside records (the Amorites, the Hittites), others only from the Bible. The Jebusites held Jerusalem, which Israel had not yet taken.

3:6

Marriage between Israelites and these peoples had been forbidden in the law given to Moses, on the stated grounds that it would lead to worshiping their gods. The verse reports the marriages and the worship in that order deliberately.

3:7

"The Baals" is plural because Baal ("lord, master") was worshiped in many local forms, each tied to a particular town or shrine. Asherah was a goddess; the objects named here were wooden poles or stylised trees set up beside an altar as her emblem. The King James word "groves" reflects an old guess that these were plantations of trees.

3:8

"He sold them into the power of" is a legal image, handing people over the way an owner transfers a slave for a price. It is used repeatedly in Judges for Israel falling under foreign control. The name Cushan-rishathaim looks like a mocking nickname: the second half means something like "double wickedness." The territory called Mesopotamia here is Aram-naharaim, "Aram of the two rivers," the region of the upper Euphrates in northern Syria, not the whole of what is now Iraq.

3:9

The Hebrew is ambiguous about who is described as "Caleb's younger brother": it can be read as Kenaz being Caleb's younger brother, or as Othniel himself being younger than Caleb. Both readings are old and neither can be ruled out.

3:10

"Judged Israel" does not mean he sat in a courtroom. The word covers governing, leading and settling disputes; the men and women called judges in this book are chiefly military leaders who then hold authority for life. The book takes its name from this word.

3:11

"The land had rest for forty years" is a recurring formula in Judges marking a period of freedom from foreign attack. Forty is a round figure standing roughly for a generation, as is the eighty of verse 30; these numbers are not necessarily precise counts.

3:12

Moab was a small kingdom east of the Dead Sea, just across the border from Israel.

3:13

The Ammonites and Amalekites were neighboring peoples east and south of Israel; Moab lay east of the Dead Sea. The City of Palms is Jericho, or the oasis settlement at its site, which controlled the western end of the Jordan crossings.

3:15

The Hebrew for "left-handed" is literally "restricted as to his right hand," and the phrase carries a joke: Ehud is a Benjamite, and Benjamin means "son of the right hand." His left-handedness also matters practically, a weapon on the right thigh is where a guard searching a right-handed man would not look. The "present" is tribute: the compulsory payment a subject people made to the ruler who controlled them, delivered by a formal delegation.

3:16

The word translated "cubit" here is a rare one found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, and its exact length is uncertain; an ordinary cubit was about eighteen inches, the length of a forearm. Either way the blade is short enough to conceal under clothing.

3:17

In a world where most people worked hard and ate little, obesity marked wealth and idleness. The detail is pointed: Eglon has grown fat on tribute extracted from the people Ehud represents.

3:19

The King James "quarries" and the modern "carved images" translate one Hebrew word meaning carved or hewn stones, either standing idols or simply cut boundary stones. Both senses are possible and translators still divide over it. Gilgal was a site near Jericho. The king's "Quiet" (King James "Keep silence") is an order that clears the room so the secret message can be given in private.

3:20

The room is a chamber built on the flat roof of the house, with latticed openings to catch the breeze, the coolest and most private space in the building, reached by an outside stair. "I have a message from God for you" uses a word that can mean either a spoken message or a thing; Ehud is carrying both.

3:22

The last phrase of this verse is one of the most obscure in the Hebrew Bible. The word rendered "the dirt came out" occurs nowhere else and has been taken to mean the contents of the bowels, or the blade coming out the other side, or Ehud going out through an antechamber. Translators pick one and note the doubt.

3:24

"He covereth his feet" is a polite Hebrew euphemism for relieving oneself, long robes were drawn down over the legs while squatting. The servants assume the locked door means privacy, not murder.

3:25

"They tarried till they were ashamed" is an idiom for waiting past the point of comfort, hanging about until embarrassment turns into worry that something is wrong.

3:26

Seirah is otherwise unknown; it was somewhere in the hill country north-west of Jericho.

3:27

The horn is a shofar, made from a ram's horn. Blowing it was the standard signal to call fighting men out of their villages, the equivalent of sounding a general alarm across a district. "The hill country of Ephraim" is the high ground of central Canaan.

3:28

The fords are the few shallow places where the Jordan could be waded. Holding them sealed the only route by which the Moabite force west of the river could get home, or reinforcements come across.

3:29

The King James "lusty" means physically robust, not lustful, the sense of the English word has shifted since 1611. The Hebrew word is literally "fat," the same idea used of Eglon in verse 17.

3:30

"Fourscore" is the old English for eighty; a score is twenty.

3:31

Shamgar's name is not Hebrew, and Anath was the name of a Canaanite war goddess, so "son of Anath" may be a place name, a title of a warrior, or an ordinary parentage: it is disputed. An oxgoad was a pole roughly eight feet long with a metal point at one end, used for driving plow oxen: a farm tool, not a weapon. Shamgar is given one verse and no dates, and is never said to have judged Israel.