Judges 3:30

Jdg 3:30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.

Ver. 30. And the land had rest fourscore years.] That is, To the end of fourscore years, reckoning from the death of Othniel.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 3:30. The land had rest fourscore years — Not the whole land of Israel, but the eastern part of it, which had thus shaken off the yoke of Moab. For in the mean time the Philistines invaded the western parts, as it here follows, and were repulsed by Shamgar; and Jabin afflicted the northern, as it follows in the next chapter.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hebrew, humbled.

Meaning, the Israelites.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 30. The land had rest fourscore years.] This is usually reckoned from the deliverance under Othniel, that being a term from which they dated every transaction, as in other cases they dated from the exodus, from the building of Solomon's temple, c., and as other nations did from particular events: the ROMANS, from the building of the city the MOHAMMEDANS, from the Hijreh, or flight of Mohammed to Medina; the CHRISTIANS, from the birth of Christ, &c., &c. But see the preface, and the different chronological schemes there mentioned.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(30) The land.—Meaning, probably, the southern tribes.

Fourscore years.—The LXX. add, “And Ehud judged them till he died.” Josephus (Antt. v. 5, § 1) seems to have read “eight years.”

As to the moral aspect of the assassination committed by Ehud, it is only necessary to say that while his courage, and capacity, and readiness to sacrifice himself, if need be, for the deliverance of his country were thoroughly noble, the act by which he achieved his end was unjustifiable. To quote his example in defence of the principle of assassination is a gross abuse of Scripture. Those who defend the murder do so by assuming that the Divine call to Ehud to deliver his people sanctioned and possibly even suggested the means by which it was accomplished. But such methods of inferential exegesis undermine the very bases of morals. It is not in the least surprising that, when adopted, they are liable to the grossest abuse, and made to cover the most horrible crimes. Thus, when Jacques Clement asked whether a priest might kill a tyrant, he was told that “it was not a mortal sin, but only an irregularity”; and when Pope Paul V. heard of the murder of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, he said, “The God of nations did this, because he was given over to a reprobate mind.” If it has been always true that

“The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose,”

he has done so not rarely by the lips of those who have professed to teach it. “Worse than the dagger,” says Prof. Cassel, “is such doctrine.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

30. was subdued] Similarly in the conclusions to the other stories, Jdg_4:23, Jdg_8:28, Jdg_11:33; 1Sa_7:13. The expression, which seems to form a more integral part of the narrative proper than the rest of the recurring phrases, “may mark the portions due to the pre-Deuteronomic compiler,” Driver, Introd., p. 167. The rest of the verse certainly belongs to the framework; cf. Jdg_3:11 note.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath,.... That is, after the death of Ehud, when the people of Israel were in distress again from another quarter, this man was raised up of God to be a judge and deliverer of them; but who he was, and who his father, and of what tribe, we nowhere else read:

which slew of the Philistines six hundred men; who invaded the land, and came in an hostile manner into it; or rather, as it seems from Jdg 5:6; they entered as a banditti of thieves and robbers, who posted themselves in the highways, and robbed travellers as they passed, so that they were obliged to leave off travelling, or go through bypaths, and not in the public road; and this man, who seems to have been called from the plough to be a judge of Israel, as some among the Romans were called from thence to be dictators and deliverers of them from the Gauls:

with an ox goad; which he had used to push on his oxen with at ploughing, cleared the country of them, and with no other weapon than this slew six hundred of them, either at certain times, or in a body together; which is no ways incredible, being strengthened and succeeded by the Lord, any more than Samson's slaying a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, Jdg 15:15. So Lycurgus is said to put to flight the forces of Bacchus with an ox goad (q) which is said to be done near Carmel, a mountain in Judea, which makes it probable that this is hammered out of the sacred history; or that Shamgar and Lycurgus are the same, as Bochart conjectures (r). The ox goad, as now used in those parts, is an instrument fit to do great execution with it, as Mr. Maundrell (s), who saw many of them, describes it; on measuring them, he found them to be eight feet long, at the bigger end six inches in circumference, at the lesser end was a sharp prickle for driving the oxen, and at the other end a small spade, or paddle of iron, for cleansing the plough from the clay:

and he also delivered Israel, from those robbers and plunderers, and prevented their doing any further mischief in the land, and subjecting it to their power, and so may very properly be reckoned among the judges of Israel; but how long he judged is not said, perhaps his time is to be reckoned into the eighty years of rest before mentioned; or, as Abarbinel thinks, into the forty years of Deborah, the next judge; and who also observes, that their Rabbins say, Shamgar judged but one year.

(q) Homer. Iliad. 6. ver. 135. (r) Hieozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 39. col. 385. & Canaan. l. 1. c. 18. col. 446. (s) Journey to Aleppo, &c. p. 110, 111.

Next: Judges Chapter 4

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The land - i. e. that portion of it which had suffered from the oppression of Moab, probably Benjamin and Ephraim chiefly (see Jdg 3:11).

In judging of the nature of Ehud’s act there are many considerations which must greatly modify our judgment. Acts of violence or cunning, done in an age when human society applauded such acts, when the best men of the age thought them right, and when men were obliged to take the law into their own hands in self-defense, are very different from the same acts done in an age when the enlightened consciences of men generally condemn them, and when the law of the land and the law of nations give individuals adequate security. We can allow faith and courage and patriotism to Ehud, without being blind to those defective views of moral right which made him and his countrymen glory in an act which in the light of Christianity is a crime. It is remarkable that neither Ehud nor Jael are included in Paul’s list in Heb 11:32.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Eighty. The Hebrews use the letter p to express this number; and, as it is very like their c, which stands for 20, Houbigant suspects that he first number is a mistake of the transcribers. Usher confesses that it is "extremely improbable" that Aod should have governed so long, after he had slain Eglon, as he must have been at that time, about 40 years old; and the Israelites were not often so constant for such a length of time. (Houbigant, Proleg.) --- But this difficulty does not affect Usher, as he brings Aod forward only in the 80th year from the peace of Othoniel; and instead of allowing him 80 years of peaceful sway, he says Samgar appeared after him; but, it seems, both together did not reign a year, since in that 80th year, he commences the servitude, which Jabin brought upon Israel, from the year of the world 2679 till 2699, and peace was not restored by Barac for about 20 years! (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

How these are to be understood, see Poole "Jdg 3:11". Instead of eighty, some copies read eight years.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Fourscore years - Chiefly that part of it which lay east of Jordan: for the other side of the country, which lay southwest, was even then infested by the Philistines.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Thus Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest for eighty years.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)