John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 7

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 7

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The Husbandmen

Jdg_3:31

The Philistines were not among the nations devoted to the sword of Israel. They were not, in fact, Canaanites; but foreigners who had at an early period possessed themselves of a portion of the Canaanitish territory. They were there, as we formerly saw, so early as the time of the Hebrew Patriarchs. The fact of their exemption shows how it is that this warlike people have not hitherto appeared upon the scene of the Hebrew history, in which they were destined eventually to make a conspicuous figure. They were not molested by the Israelites; and, therefore, do not seem to have cared whether the territories to which they did not themselves advance any claim were possessed by them or by the Canaanites. Indeed, the nations of Canaan themselves, considering the wonders which the Lord had wrought for Israel, would not probably have attacked the Israelites until put upon their defence; and the Philistines, not being so put upon their defence, may well have been restrained by what they saw and heard, from interfering with a people so signally favored of heaven. We see, also, how their distinct origin, and their appearance in the land as an originally hostile race, prevented such alliances between them and the Canaanitish tribes as might have brought them into conflict with the Hebrews. In time, however, as their power and population increased, they began to manifest a disposition to repel the Israelites from their frontiers, if not to bring such as bordered on that frontier to subjection. Much of the original terror with which the Israelites were regarded would by this time have been abated—if only from the consideration that this favored people had already been twice in a state of subjection—the second time to no greater a people than the Moabites, who seem to have found ten thousand men sufficient to keep in subjection the very tribes—the southern ones only, against whom the Philistines themselves desired to act.

They appear as the next disturbers of Israel—and that merely in the south—after all the tribes had enjoyed eighty years’ peace since the yoke of Moab had been cut off by the dagger of Ehud. There had been probably before this some small operations and petty bickerings, which the sacred historian has not recorded. In the narrative they appear with startling abruptness in the territory probably of either Judah or Dan. They are espied by the husbandmen at work in the fields, who under the conduct of one Shamgar gather together and give them battle with their agricultural implements—having no time to provide themselves better; and the grim Philistines, struck with terror from God, or amazed at this sample of the spirit of the nation, speedily took to flight, and left six hundred of their number dead on the field. This recital gives what we conceive to be the correct interpretation of the single verse of Scripture which records this exploit: “And after him [Ehud] was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad.” This seems to make it the deed of Shamgar alone—but as one man would find it somewhat heavy work to slay six hundred men with an ox-goad, even if they stood still for the purpose—we presume that, as is often the case in all history, the exploit of Shamgar and the rustics he got hastily together is, for conciseness, ascribed to the single arm and weapon of the leader. Still, some of the exploits of Samson, in a later age, come up to this—and it is impossible to affirm positively that this is the more correct interpretation.

We do not know that our own agriculture supplies any implement so well suited to be used as a weapon of war as the ox-goad of Palestine. This may be seen by the description given of the instrument by Maundrell, who was the first to apply his actual observation to the illustration of this passage of Scripture. He says: “The country people are now everywhere at plough in the fields, in order to sow cotton. It was observable that in ploughing they use goads of extraordinary size; upon measuring of several I found them eight feet long, and at the bigger end eight inches in circumference. They were armed at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen, at the other end with a small spade or paddle of iron, strong and massy, for cleansing the plough from the clay that encumbered it in working. May we not from hence conjecture that it was with such a goad as one of these that Shamgar made that prodigious slaughter related of him. I am confident that whoever shall see one of these instruments will judge it to be not less fit, perhaps fitter, than a sword for such an execution. Goads of this sort I always saw used hereabouts, and also in Syria; and the reason is that the same single person both drives the oxen and manages the plough, which makes it necessary to use such a goad as is above described, to avoid the encumbrance of two instruments.” This implement also engaged the attention of Buckingham, who, in describing his journey from Tyre to Acre, remarks of the plowing which he witnessed, “Oxen were yoked in pairs, and the plough was small and of simple construction, so that it was necessary for two to follow in the same furrow, as they invariably did. The husbandman, holding the plough with one hand, by a handle like that of a walking crutch, bore in the other a goad of seven or eight feet in length, armed with a sharp point of iron at one end, and at the other with a plate of the same metal shaped like a calking chisel. One attendant only was necessary for each plough, as he who guided it, with one hand spurred the oxen with the point of the goad, and cleansed the earth from the ploughshare by its spaded heel with the other.”

It claims to be noticed that some versions, such as the Septuagint and the Vulgate, make the instrument employed by Shamgar to have been the coulter of his plough. We do not believe this to be a correct interpretation of the original, and most of our readers will smile at it as an absurdity. Yet it is not quite so absurd as it appears. The hollow piece of pointed iron, which arms the point of the wooden ploughshare, might easily be taken off, and when fitted to a staff as a handle would become a formidable weapon of war. It was no doubt this easy adaptation of agricultural implements to warlike purposes, coupled with a keen remembrance of Shamgar’s ox-goad, which led the Philistines, when they had the upper hand in a later age, not only to disarm the Israelites, but even to deprive them of the means of sharpening their instruments of husbandry: “But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock. Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and to sharpen the goads.” 1Sa_13:20-21.