Three Unliklely Heroes

I almost never watch a movie or a show without first reading a review on Plugged In, or a similar site, that tells me what kind of content to expect. I don’t want to be caught surprised by something inappropriate I wasn’t expecting. The problem is that sometimes these parent’s guides reveal key plot points. Most of the time they’ll say something like “spoilers ahead,” but if you read too fast, you can easily miss it and have the story just given away for you.

And if you are a certain kind of movie watcher, having the plot spoiled for you literally wrecks the whole movie.

Last week’s passage was full of spoilers for the book of Judges. It basically told us everything that’s going to happen. The people are going to rebel. They’re going to fall into the hands of their enemies. They’ll cry out to the Lord, He’ll raise up a judge to save them, but when that judge dies they’ll go back and be worse than they were before.

So the question is, now that we know this, does this wreck the rest of the book of Judges? Is this just going to be boring because we know what happens? Did the author of Judges basically wreck all of the excitement and intrigue we could have had?

And the answer is actually “no.” We might know the pattern, but the interesting part now is seeing how that pattern plays out, judge by judge. We know that Israel falls into the hands of their enemies, but which enemies?  We know that the Lord will raise up judges, but how will he do that? What kind of people will he use to save Israel? How will they save Israel? What does it actually look like for Israel to become “more corrupt than their fathers” (2:19)? Those are all key questions that we’re going to seek answers for as we get into each individual account in Judges.

So, there’s no real spoilers. We know the pattern. And looking for the specifics and variations within that pattern is the really interesting part of working Judges together.

1. Othniel (3:7-11)

And that brings us to our first judge, Othniel, who saved Israel. But that means that Israel needed to be saved in the first place. And so before we get to Othniel we need to consider this first example of the sin cycle.

a. The Sin cycle (vv. 7-8)

And that’s in verse 7 which tells us that the people did exactly what we heard last week they would do: they did evil in God’s eyes, and they forgot Him. The word and context behind “forgot” here suggests more than just “oops, I forgot.” It speaks to something more deliberate—they intentionally did not take God into account. So it’s not like they were trying to remember God and He slipped their mind. They chose to forget Him.

And instead, they served the Baals and the Asheroth. “Asheroth” is a plural of “Asherah,” another Canaanite fertility goddess who was the wife of El, the top Canaanite God. She was worshipped extensively throughout Israel’s history—so much so that later Israelites blended Asherah worship with the worship of God by speaking of her as the wife of the God of Israel. That should revolt us, and here is where it started.

So, verse 8, continuing the cycle, God’s passionate anger is kindled and He “sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia.” This is Israel’s first oppressor in the book of Judges, and he’s actually the most significant one.

See, Mesopotamia was the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, the land of Babylon and Assyria. The land that Abram came out of. And so whoever this king is, he’s not local and he’s not puny. This isn’t just a few of the Canaanites banding together to get at Israel. This is a major emperor who has really far reach, so come all the way from Mesopotamia to put Israel under this thumb.

There may be some evidence that this emperor was actually at war with Egypt, and Israel happened to be caught in the middle. They were easy pickings to a kingdom powerful enough to pick a fight with Egypt, if God wasn’t fighting for them and defending them.

Now there’s a lot we don’t know about Cushan-rishathaim, but the basics are that this is easily the biggest and most powerful enemy Israel faces in the whole book. It’s like they’re fighting the boss level right at the start. God is starting them off with a really strong warning. And they serve this king for eight long years. Children grew up, people moved through almost a whole decade of their life, and all they knew was life under the thumb of this king.

b. The Ideal Leader (vv. 9-10)

And we know what happens next. Verse 9: “the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.” And the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and righteousness, raises up a deliverer for His people, who saves them.

But who is this saviour? It’s not a stranger. It’s Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. We met Othniel back in chapter 1. “And Caleb said, ‘He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.’ And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife” (Judges 1:12–13).

So we know this Othniel is a courageous man. He was one of the good examples in chapter one of people doing what God said and taking the land He had given them. His connection to Caleb, one of the two faithful spies, means that he has a good lineage of faith. Othniel is also unique in that he is the only judge with not a hint of anything wrong said about him. He’s the ideal judge, a stand-up guy, and a natural hero for God’s people.

Or is he? If he’s Caleb’s nephew, then the’s not even an Israelite, or at least a full Israelite. These people were Kenizzites, according to Joshua 14. Kenizzites were mentioned all the way back in Genesis 15 as one of the peoples who lived in the land of Canaan. So while Caleb and Othniel became incorporated into the tribe of Judah, they weren’t descended from Abraham.

But what’s so important is to see what verse 10 tells us about Othniel. His connection to Caleb or his track record of faith was not what qualified him to save Israel. And his foreign descent didn’t disqualify him. What qualified Othniel to save Israel? “The Spirit of the Lord was upon him.”

That’s it. Othniel, like so many other leaders of God’s people in the Old Covenant, was qualified and empowered for ministry because God’s Spirit came upon him. This fits with the bigger picture here that it is God who is saving His people. God has raised up a deliverer. God’s Spirit is upon him. This is not about Othniel wanting to save Israel and asking God to help Him. This is about God wanting to save Israel and raising up Othniel and filling him with Himself.

This even comes through back in verse 9 where it says that “the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them.” Who is the “who” referring to there? Is it Othniel? Or is it the Lord? Who saved Israel? And the answer is yes. The text leaves is open, underlining that Othniel was just an instrument in God’s hands.

The next statement in verse 10 is that “he judged Israel.” This is where the book of Judges gets its name. These rulers “judged” Israel. However, when we hear this word we shouldn’t dump in our modern idea of a judge sitting in a courtroom hearing cases all day. Israel’s leaders certainly had a role in passing judgement on difficult cases, but that was not all that they did. They lead and governed the people. So “governor” or “tribal chieftain” might be a better way of capturing all that their role implied.

Don’t miss the way that Israel’s history rises and falls on its leaders. Things went well under Joshua and the elders who outlasted him, and when they died, Israel went downhill. When God wants to help His people, he does what? He raises up a leader. The book of Judges, flowing into Samuel and Kings, traces Israel’s history as a series of leaders. History follows the leader.

But of course, you have the question here—what happens when God raises up a leader for Israel, and Cushan-rishathaim thinks he is the leader? There’s not room for both of them in Israel. And sure enough, verse 10 goes on to say about Othniel, “He went out to war.”

Othniel, a minor player from Debir, goes to war against the emperor from Mesopotamia. I would love to know what that that battle looked like. But we’re not told. All we’re told is the most important part: “The Lord gave Cushan-rithathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim” (v. 10). Don’t miss how these two phrases are related. His hand prevailed because over him because God gave him into his hand.

“So,” verse 11, “the land had rest forty years.” The enemy defeated, and a godly, faith-filled man governing Israel, the land enjoys rest from its enemies for forty years, a full biblical generation. And then Othniel dies, like everybody else does. I can’t help but think of Ecclesiastes here. He wins, he leads, and then he dies like everybody else. Surely there has to be more?

But at this point, the people don’t know anything about eternal life. They just know freedom from their enemies—for five times longer than they were under Cushan-rishathaim’s thumb. Enough time for people who were babies when Othniel was raised up to see their grandchildren. And hopefully those babies would have been told by their parents what God had done in saving them, and pass that on to their children, who would tell their children, so that they’d remember and not repeat the cycle, right?

2. Ehud

Verse 12: “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” The shepherd dies, and the sheep wander. And the cycle repeats. As we move into the account of our second judge here, verses 12-14 tell us about this version of the sin cycle.

a. The Sin Cycle (vv. 12-14)

God’s people do what’s evil in His sight, and so He strengthens the hand of Eglon the kind of Moab against them—“because,” as verse 12 makes sure to remind us—“they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Moab lay just on the other side of the Jordan river from the land of Israel, where they had camped right before coming into the promised land. The king of Moab, Balak, was the one who hired Balaam to curse Israel for him, which ended as an embarrassment. The idea is that this time, instead of a power from far away, God raises up one of Israel’s neighbours against them. Eglon gets together with two more of Israel’s niehgbours—the Ammonites and the Amalekites—and they defeated Israel.

Verse 13 specifically mentions that “they took possession of the city of palms.” That’s Jericho. This is basically like what Israel did when they conquered the promised land, but now it’s happening to them. Enemies cross the Jordan and take Jericho.

Verse 14: “And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.” Ten years longer than they served the king of Mesopotamia. This is embarrassing for Israel. Moab was nothing for them. Years earlier they literally just walked though their land. And now for almost two decades they serve this puny local—because God strengthened his hand against his rebellious people.

b. The Killing of the King (vv. 15-25)

But finally they cry out to the Lord, and he raises up for them a deliverer, introduced in verse 15 as “Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man.”

Now if you’ve read the whole book of Judges, and you know where things end up, you know that Benjamin is a very unlikely tribe for a saviour to come from. Benjamin blew it in a major way and was almost totally exterminated. And those events we’re going to read about at the end of the summer might actually have happened earlier in the history of Judges. The story is saved for the end for dramatic effect, but there’s indications in the story the events themselves happened earlier.

All that to say, if you read the whole book, nobody is expecting a saviour to arise from Benjamin. The other thing we’re told about Ehud is that he’s left-handed. There is some association with left-handedness and the tribe of Benjamin. Some have suggested they actually tied up their right hands to force themselves to be left-handed, giving them an advantage in battle. As a lefty myself, I think this is pretty cool. But this isn’t just fun trivia—it’s going to be clear soon why this detail is mentioned.

Ehud is selected by Israel to bring tribute to Eglon, verse 15 tells us. This is what kings demanded of the territories they conquered. Every year the people would need to bring an amount of money or some other wealth to the kind who conquered them. That’s why kings conquered other nations—to get that tribute from them.

So Ehud is the one who goes to bring tribute to Moab. Now we don’t know if this is a part of the plan. Do the people know he’s going to save them, and send him along on purpose? Or does Ehud get picked to send tribute, and then he comes up with this plan? We don’t know. But we do know that Ehud makes a plan.

Actually, he makes a sword—a cubit in length, about 18 inches, and he ties it on his right thigh under his clothes. Most people are right-handed, and would wear swords on the left side. The details are starting to come together.

Verse 17—he presents the tribute to Eglon. And here we are told an important detail about Eglon: he was a very fat man. Now when we hear these words, we’re inclined to snicker about them. This sounds like an insult or a criticism. But in the ancient world, this wouldn’t have been negative. Being big meant that you had access to lots of rich food, and you could pay other people to do your work for you. It meant you were wealthy, and you were doing well.

Now, from the perspective of Scripture, there is a bit of a criticism here, because godly leaders weren’t just supposed to sit back and relax while living off of their people. But Eglon is not a godly leader, and he’s been really enjoying all of the tribute that Israel has been bringing to him.

Now, in verses 18-20, Ehud kicks his secret plan into gear. After giving the tribute, he sends away his companions, telling Eglon he has a secret message for him. And the king, perhaps feeling flattered and powerful after receiving all of that bounty, falls for it. I mean, come on, this seems like such an obvious trap. But after 18 years, he probably feels invincible. And Ehud isn’t wearing a sword where most people would wear swords, so this seems pretty safe, right?

So Eglon sends away all of his attendants, and receives Ehud, alone, on the roof chamber of his palace. Ehud tells him that he has a secret message or “word” from God for him, and Eglon arises from his seat to receive it. And for Eglon that day, this word from God was very active, a sharp, two-edged sword. Verse 21: “Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.”

Eglon got the point of this message, I think.

Verse 22 goes on to tell us the gory detail of what happened: “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 3:22).

Have you ever heard the phrase “to the hilt”? Like, “they decorated that place to the hilt”? It’s actually a pretty gross phrase, because it comes from the idea of thrusting a sword into something—or, more likely someone—and going as far as you can go—right up to the hilt, the part that you hold on to. “To the hilt” means going as far as you can go.

Well, Ehud had never heard that phrase before. He kept going, past the hilt, pushing all eighteen inches into Eglon’s belly which swallowed the whole thing up. This is gross and it’s darkly humorous and it’s supposed to be. The narrator is typing together details like the size of Eglons’s body to the length of Ehud’s sword and, most importantly, mocking this king who so powerfully oppressed God’s people, and who now dies, surprised and helpless and defenceless.

Verse 22 ends with even more humiliating detail: “And the dung came out.” As he dies, Eglon looses control of his bowels and lies in his own excrement. That’s nasty, and it’s humiliating to Eglon, but it also matters to what happens next in the story.

Look what happens next in verse 23: “Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them” (Judges 3:23). Now this word “porch” is a bit of a guess. It’s the only time this word shows up in the Bible, so its meaning isn’t totally uncertain—and your ESV Bible will actually have a note indicating that.

There’s another way to understand this word, which is that it refers to the hole in the floor through which the king would use the bathroom. Yes, Ehud might have escaped through the toilet. It’s hard to be certain, but either way he locks the door and takes off through some escape route.

Verse 24 tells us what happens next: “When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, ‘Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber’” (Judges 3:24).

This is bathroom humour, and it’s in the Bible. And it’s okay to laugh at this, because it’s supposed to be funny. The servants don’t suspect a thing because they think Eglon is using the toilet. And the smell emanating from that room would have added to the effect.

So they stand there and wait. You know what it’s like waiting for someone to use the bathroom, right? There’s sort of an acceptable time frame. Eglon didn’t have a phone, but maybe he had a good book in there. But then the minutes keep dragging on. The servants start to feel really uncomfortable. Did they make eye contact with each other? Did they stare at the floor? Did they call in “You okay in there?” Verse 25: “And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord dead on the floor” (Judges 3:25).

Ya, he wasn’t okay in there. Eglon out.

c. The Battle for Freedom (vv. 26-30)

Meanwhile, Ehud has been using this delay to get clear of Jericho and start a revolution. He “sounds the trumpet” as verse 27 says, which is a call to battle. The people start to follow him, and in verse 28 he announces with confidence, “Follow after me, for the Lord has given your enemies the Moabites into your hand.’”

Notice how confident he is. God has given your enemies into your hand. He’s already done it. All we need to do now is act on this. And the people follow him. As verse 28 says, “So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites and did not allow anyone to pass over. And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped” (Judges 3:28-29).

The picture that emerges here is that with their leader dead, the Moabites panic and try to flee back across the Jordan into their homeland. Which was a part of Ehud’s plan, and clearly shows that the Moabites were totally unprepared for this attack.

A prepared nation would have a whole contingency plan in place for what to do if the leader died—who would be second-in-command, how orders would be carried out. They should have had plans in place for how to put down an Israelite uprising. But none of that happened. Moab had gotten sloppy, they panicked, they fled, and they get slaughtered as they try to cross the river.

Which, by the way, is why God parted that river for Israel when they came into the land—because river crossings made a people vulnerable. But God did not part the waters for Moab that day. “So,” verse 30, “Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.”

Twice as long as Othniel. Two generations of rest. That might be one of the few times in the book of Judges where the downward spiral peaks upwards for a moment. Two generations of people enjoy God’s provision after deliverance from Moab.

3. Shamgar

Now there’s a third saviour we want to briefly consider before we finish here this morning: Shamgar. Shamgar’s whole story is told in a single verse. “After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel” (Judges 3:31).

There’s not a lot about this guy. And the scarce details here raise a lot of questions about him.

For example, the name “Shamgar” does not appear to be a Hebrew name, but belonging to the Hurrian people to the north. “Anath” could be a town in Israel, but Anath was also another Canaanite deity, worshipped as a partner of Baal and the goddess of war. Some scholars suggest that “sons of Anath” were a group of professional soldiers hired by Pharaoh to fight against the Canaanites.

We don’t know any of this for sure, but it is noteworthy that Shamgar’s tribe isn’t mentioned, suggesting that he probably is a foreigner. But past that, we don’t know a ton. We don’t even know what kind of situation surrounded Shamgar’s life. All we know is there was trouble with the Philistines, and he saved them by killing 600 of them with an ox goad.

An ox goad was not a typical weapon. It was a long pole, pointed at one end, used to prod or “goad” the oxen to keep going when they were pulling a plough through a field. And I guess it could be used as a rudimentary spear.

Now for one guy with a spear to take out a few Philistines is pretty amazing. But 600? That’s better than the guys on the movies. That’s beyond human skill. Obviously God was using this man, whether or not he even knew it. Because remember, Shamgar might have been a complete foreigner who worshipped a Canaanite goddess and didn’t even believe in the God of Israel. We don’t know, but we know God used him and he saved Israel.

Conclusion: Unlikely Saviours

And that’s the conclusion this whole passage leads us to. This is not a story about three great people. Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar are not put forward as role models or action heroes. This is how books like Judges are often taught, especially to children. This is the huge danger of products like the Action Bible, which try to portray Bible characters like muscular superheroes in a comic book for us to be in awe of.

And it totally misses the mount. Because this isn’t a story about these men. It’s a story about the God who used three unlikely men to save His people.

Think about it: Othniel was not even a descendant of Abraham. Ehud was a Benjaminite, a group that’s going to destroy their reputation before too long. Shamgar was probably a total foreigner who, for all we know, worshipped a Canaanite goddess. While each of these men no doubt displayed courage and strength, nothing in the way these stories are written set them as natural leaders or examples for us to follow.

But God uses all three to save His people. God is the real saviour here. “The Lord raised up a deliverer” (v. 9). “The Spirit of the Lord was upon him” (v. 10). “The Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim… into his hand” (v. 10) “The Lord raised up for them a deliverer” (v. 15). “The Lord has given your enemies the Moabites into your hand” (v. 28). God is the saviour, and He uses unexpected and colourful people to accomplish His purposes. In fact, it was their unlikeliness that made them more fit for use by God because He got the glory. Othniel’s only real qualification was the Spirit of God on Him. We know nothing about Ehud and Shamgar—how their life began or ended, what they were like—beyond the fact that God raised them up and used them.

Matthew Henry wisely commented, specifically on the Shamgar story, that “It is no matter how weak the weapon is if God direct and strengthen the arm. An ox-goad, when God pleases, shall do more than Goliath’s sword. And sometimes he chooses to work by such unlikely means, that the excellency of the power may appear to be of God.”¹Commentary on the Whole Bible, 6 vols. [New York: Revell, n.d.], 2:138].

He’s quoting there from 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul points to his weakness and suffering as important parts of His ministry because of how they highlight the power of God in Him.

What makes you feel unusable by God? What is it about you that makes you think, “God could never do much with me”? Whatever you point to there might be the very thing that qualifies you to be used by God, because your weakness or inability or messed-up background, or whatever it is, will highlight that it’s God’s power who works in you and not your own.

But let’s poke just a little bit deeper here. What if we summed up today’s passage like this: “God raises up unexpected outsiders, empowered by His spirit, who risk their lives to bring salvation to His rebellious people.” Does that sound familiar at all?

I hope it does. Because in their own way, even though none of these men are supposed to be the heroes of the story, they each point forward to the hero of all stories, the unexpected outsider from Nazareth who didn’t just risk, but lost His life, to bring salvation to a captive people.

And the salvation that Jesus brings us doesn’t just last 40 or 80 years. It’s forever, and those who follow Him will never go back to slavery to sin again. So don’t miss Jesus here. Don’t miss how the best moments of these leaders point to Christ, and how their short, temporary deliverances —or even just the fact that they all die, and that’s it—make us long for the better leader, the better governor, the better judge—who “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

This is the better shepherd who achieved His greatest victory, buying our eternal rest, as He laid His life down for us, as we now get to celebrate around His table.