Judges 3:31, commentary and pictures

God left the Canaanites in the land to test the generation of Israelites too young to have fought in Joshua's time, and their effort to drive them out was necessary for their development and for the formation of essential traits of character. Shamgar was one of the leaders whose deeds the book preserves, men raised up in times of national crisis and called saviors. His administration in the west may have overlapped with Ehud's eight-year administration in the east. He slew six hundred Philistines with an ox goad and delivered Israel.

The ox goad was an unusually large tool, about eight feet long with a sharp point at one end and a small shovel at the other, which he wielded as his weapon like a sword. He was plowing in his field when warned that six hundred Philistines were coming, and he went out alone with his ox goad and finished them. The deed is an example of God accomplishing a great deliverance through a humble, unlikely instrument. It shows that a faith-filled man is effective in real service, since one shall chase a thousand and six hundred were four hundred short of a threat.

As an exploit of physical courage with a weapon, it stands alongside Daniel in the lions' den and the Hebrew children in the furnace of fire. That kind of outward heroic deed with a weapon is not the kind of exploit now needed, which is a quiet but no less heroic determination to keep unspotted from the world and to maintain pure doctrine and life in contrast to worldly Christianity. It sets the way for a returned backslider or a new convert to show faith by acting boldly against odds, in contrast to scant faith where it takes a thousand to fight one.