Shamgar, son of Anath ( he, ''Šamgar''), is the name of one or possibly two individuals named in the
Book of Judges
The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom ...
. The name occurs twice:
#at the first mention, Shamgar is identified as a man who repelled
Philistine incursions into
Israelite regions, and slaughtered 600 of the invaders with an
ox goad (
Judges 3:31);
#the other mention is within the
Song of Deborah
According to the Book of Judges, Deborah ( he, דְּבוֹרָה, ''Dəḇōrā'', "bee") was a prophetess of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. Many scholars ...
, where Shamgar is described as having been one of the prior rulers, in whose days roads were abandoned, with travelers taking winding paths, and village life collapsing (
Judges 5:6).
Unlike the descriptions of Biblical Judges, the first reference to Shamgar has no introduction, conclusion, or reference to the length of reign,
['' Peake's Commentary on the Bible''] and it is not said that he judged Israel. The subsequent text follows on directly from the previous narrative.
In several ancient manuscripts this reference to Shamgar occurs after the accounts of
Samson
Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...
rather than immediately after the account of
Ehud
Ehud ben‑Gera ( he, אֵהוּד בֶּן־גֵּרָא, Tiberian ''ʾĒhūḏ ben‑Gērāʾ'') is described in the biblical Book of Judges chapter 3 as a judge who was sent by God to deliver the Israelites from Moabite domination. He is d ...
, in a way that is more narratively consistent; some scholars believe that this latter position is more likely to be the passage's original location.
[
The act of this Shamgar is similar to that of '' Shammah, son of Agee'', mentioned in the ''appendix'' of the ]Books of Samuel
The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...
as being one of '' The Three'', a distinct group of warriors associated with King David.[ The term usually translated as ''oxgoad'' is a biblical ]hapax legomenon
In corpus linguistics, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a word or an expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written record of an entire ...
,[ the translation into English being made on the basis of the ]Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...
's translation into Greek.
The other mention of Shamgar, that in the Song of Deborah, connects Shamgar with a low period of Israelite society.
The Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
suspects him of having been a foreign oppressor of the Israelites, rather than an Israelite ruler.[ From the form of the name, it is suspected that Shamgar may actually have been a Hittite, a similar name occurring with Sangara, a Hittite king of ]Carchemish
Carchemish ( Turkish: ''Karkamış''; or ), also spelled Karkemish ( hit, ; Hieroglyphic Luwian: , /; Akkadian: ; Egyptian: ; Hebrew: ) was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during it ...
; more recent scholars have hold that the name is of Hurrian origin and may well be ''Šimig-ari''.
The Bible also indicates that he was the "son" of '' Anath'' (the name of a Canaanite deity). In recent years, arrowheads bearing the names ''ben-anat'' and Aramaic ''bar anat'', dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC, have been discovered. This has led several recent scholars to theorize that the expression "son of Anath" probably designates a warrior title.
See also
*Gershom
According to the Bible, Gershom ( ''Gēršōm'', "a sojourner there"; la, Gersam) was the primogeniture, firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah. The name means "a stranger there" in Hebrew, ( ''ger sham''), which the text argues was a reference to ...
References and citations
External links
*
{{Authority control
Judges of ancient Israel
Book of Judges
Massacres in the Bible
Anat
Heroes in mythology and legend
Warriors
Hurrian people