7 Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar
Othniel
Here we find the first 3 judges God raised up to lead Israel. The Bible tells us that “the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs”(Judges 3:7). Before we get too quick to assign blame, are we much different? Do we not “forget” God? Do we not worship other gods? My wife gets upset when church activities are planned around things like college sports or other events. Rather than go off on the tangent (maybe I’ll take that up another time), I would highly recommend gods At War by Kyle Idleman. Back to Othniel. God allows disobedient Israel to be ruled by the king of Aram Naharaim for eight years. God sent his Spirit to Othniel and allowed him to overpower the king. Othniel was Israel’s judge and there was peace for forty years until Othniel died.
A pattern we see over and over in the Old Testament, Israel will be obedient to God and things go well. Then at some point probably victims of their own good fortune, they move away from God and follow their own path. That never seems to work out too well. Is it any different today? When we as individuals, families, churches, states, countries stay close to God don’t thing work out much better than when we essentially tell God: that’s OK Lord, we’ve got this?
Ehud
Again starting in verse 12, we see that Israel has turned away from God doing evil in his eyes. So what happens? Yep, God allows Israel to be conquered by Moab. King Eglon of Moab also got the Ammonites and Amalekites to band together and they took the City of Palms. Israel was ruled by Eglon for eighteen years. The Israelites cried out to God again and God sent Ehud. Ehud makes a double-edged sword and hides it by strapping it to his thigh under his clothes. Ehud presents King Eglon with Israel’s tribute. Those that took the tribute went on their way but Ehud comes back and tells the king he has a secret message. The king has everyone else leave the room. The king stands up as Ehud approaches, Ehud pulls out the blade and stabs the king in his fat belly, Ehud did not remove the sword but let the king’s fat close over it. Ehud escapes and is joined by an army of Israelites who then follow Ehud and after the battle Moab was a subject of Israel for eighty years during which there was peace.
Once again we see God’s people doing things their way and very much not God’s way. That doesn’t go well for them as usual so yet another judge is raised up by God and with God’s help and guidance, Israel is rescued. We might be tempted to shake our heads “why don’t they learn???”. But before we do that, we should look at ourselves.
The third judge doesn’t get much mention. Two sentences. Shamgar follows Ehud as Israel’s judge and the Philistines are on the wrong end of this judge.
In the next post we’ll look at chapter 4 and Deborah, one of the better known judges.