Shamgar, son of Anath ( ''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 in the ...

. The name occurs twice: #at the first mention, Shamgar is identified as a man who repelled

Philistine Philistines (; Septuagint, LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philist ...

incursions into

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

regions, and slaughtered 600 of the invaders with an

ox goad The goad is a traditional farming implement, used to spur or guide livestock, usually oxen, which are pulling a plow or a cart; used also to round up cattle. It is a type of long stick with a pointed end, also known as the cattle prod. The wo ...

( Judges 3:31); #the other mention is within the

Song of Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (, ''Dəḇōrā'') was a Prophets in Judaism, prophetess of Judaism, the fourth Hebrew Bible judges, Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, and the only female shophet, judge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Many ...

, 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 ''Peake's Commentary on the Bible'' is a one-volume commentary on the Bible, first published in 1919. It gives special attention to biblical archaeology and the then-recent discoveries of biblical manuscripts. Editions First edition ''Peake's ...

'' 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 (Software for Adaptive Modeling and Simulation Of Nanosystems) is a computer software platform for molecular design being developed bOneAngstromand previously by the NANO-D group at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science an ...

rather than immediately after the account of

Ehud Ehud ben‑Gera (; , 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 described as being left-handed and a me ...

, 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 Shammah is a name mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Samuel, Shammah () was the son of Agee, a Hararite (2 Samuel 23:11) or Harodite (23:25), and one of King David's three legendary " mighty men". His greatest deed was the ...

, son of Agee'', mentioned in the ''appendix'' of the

Books of Samuel The Book of Samuel () is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Book of Joshua, Joshua, Book of Judges, Judges, Samuel, and Books of ...

as being one of '' The Three'', a distinct group of warriors associated with

King David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

. Scholars are not certain as to whether the same individual was originally meant, and that the passage in the book of Judges was later moved to its present location, or whether each of the two figures were different heroes. Scholars also believe that the name of the individual may originally have been ''Shammah'', and became corrupted under the influence of the ''Shamgar'' in the Song of Deborah. 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 Fixed expression, expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written re ...

, the translation into English being made on the basis of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

'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 the ...

'' 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 ( or ), also spelled Karkemish (), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian ...

; more recent scholars hold that the name is of

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

origin and may well be ''Šimig-ari''. The Bible also indicates that he was the "son" of ''

Anath Anat (, ), Anatu, classically Anath (; ''ʿnt''; ''ʿĂnāṯ''; ; ; Egyptian: '' ꜥntjt'') was a goddess associated with warfare and hunting, best known from the Ugaritic texts. Most researchers assume that she originated in the Amorite ...

'' (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 A warrior is a guardian specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal society, tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracy, social class, class, or caste. History ...

title.

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* {{Authority control Book of Judges people Hebrew Bible judges Massacres in the Bible Anat Heroes in mythology and legend Warriors Hurrian people

See also

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