Judges · chapter 3 of 21
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Judges 3 introduces the first three judges. Othniel delivers Israel from Cushan-rishathaim, king of Aram, and the land has rest for forty years. Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite, kills Eglon, the king of Moab who oppressed Israel, and leads the victory that brings eighty years of peace. Shamgar, son of Anath, strikes down 600 Philistines with an ox goad.
After explaining the pattern of sin and rescue in Judges 2, the book moves into specific stories. Judges 3 opens the series of judges and shows how God answers Israel's cry through imperfect and sometimes unexpected people, beginning with Caleb's nephew and moving on to a left-handed Benjaminite.
The chapter begins with the nations God left in the land to test Israel, among them the Philistines, Canaanites and Hivites. Israel lives alongside them, intermarries with them and serves their gods. The Lord is angry and sells them to Cushan-rishathaim, king of Aram-naharaim, for eight years. When they cry out, the Lord raises up Othniel, son of Kenaz. The Spirit of the Lord comes on him, he defeats the king, and the land has rest for forty years.
Israel sins again, and the Lord strengthens Eglon, king of Moab, who oppresses Israel for eighteen years. When they cry out, the Lord raises up Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite, who brings the tribute to Eglon with a double-edged dagger hidden on his right thigh. Ehud sends the porters away, returns and says he has a message from God for the king, who is a very fat man. Eglon dismisses his servants and Ehud kills him with the dagger. The servants, thinking the king is relieving himself in the cool room, wait until they are embarrassed.
Ehud escapes, blows the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim and leads Israel to seize the fords of the Jordan. They kill about ten thousand Moabites, and the land has rest for eighty years. At the end Shamgar, son of Anath, is mentioned: he struck down 600 Philistines with an ox goad and also saved Israel.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The Israelites did evil, forgot the Lord and served the Baals and the Asherahs. The book shows that the fall begins with forgetting God, before any military defeat.
When Israel cries out, the Lord raises up a deliverer, Othniel, son of Kenaz. God answers his people's cry with a rescuer he himself chooses.
The Spirit of the Lord came on Othniel, and he judged Israel and went out to war. The victory does not come from his own strength but from the power God places on him.
When they cried out, the Lord raised up Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite. God uses a man others would see as unusual to carry out his rescue.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: To test Israel and see whether they would obey the Lord's commands. — Judges 3:1-4
Answer: Eight years. — Judges 3:8
Answer: He judged Israel, went out to war, and the Lord gave the king of Aram into his hand. — Judges 3:10
Answer: He was left-handed, a man from the tribe of Benjamin. — Judges 3:15
Answer: Under his clothes, on his right thigh. — Judges 3:16
Answer: Eighty years. — Judges 3:30
Judges 3 reminds us that God does not wait for perfect leaders to work. Caleb's nephew, a left-handed Benjaminite and a farmer with an ox goad are his instruments. In a class or small group we can ask which abilities or limits we consider useless that God might use if we surrender them to him.
It also warns against the habit of intermarrying and living without discernment alongside practices that push God aside. Israel's sin began with small alliances, and the rescue came only when they cried out. That invitation to cry out to the Lord is still open today, even when we have failed.
Judges 3 ends with Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar as the first deliverers and with the land at peace for decades. Yet the pattern continues: Israel will sin again. Judges 4 introduces a new oppression, with Deborah and Barak as leaders and an unexpected victory at the hand of a woman.
The story presents it as an act of national deliverance in a situation of oppression and says that the Lord raised up Ehud. It does not say all his methods are an example to imitate, only that God used a specific man to rescue his people in a violent age.
Othniel was Caleb's nephew and the first judge of Israel. His story shows the ideal pattern of a judge: the Spirit of the Lord comes on him, he defeats the enemy and brings rest for forty years.
It was a long pole with a metal point used to guide oxen while plowing. Shamgar used it as an improvised weapon to kill 600 Philistines, which underlines how God uses simple tools.