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In Judges 3
● notice that God “left” (1) the nations among God’s people in order “to test” (1) whether or not the people would “obey the commandments of the Lord” (4),
● see that the people of Israel “lived among” (5) these nations, intermarried with them, and “served their gods” (5),
● register the sins of the people of Israel as they, one, “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,” two, “forgot the Lord their God,” and, three, “served the Baals and the Asheroth” (7),
● ponder why Othniel, who is called a “deliverer” (9) and who is said to have “saved” (9) Israel (words suited to the conditions resulting from rescue by military victory), is also said to have “judged” (10) Israel,
● notice the cycle repeats twice more in this chapter, with Ehud, a left-handed man (15) who became a “deliverer” (15), and Shamgar, an oxgoad wielder (31) who “saved” (31) Israel,
● notice the sharp contrast between the abundant detail of Ehud’s story and the one verse Shamgar gets, and
● consider how the last two points perhaps work together to show how God uses unlikely men in unlikely ways to accomplish his purposes. (Othniel by contrast, seems more conventional in background and account.)
Thank you,

Randy Tumlinson