Judges 3 Footnotes

3:1-5 The fact that God did not drive out the enemies of his people did not indicate that he was incapable of doing so, or that he had broken his promises to his people. God’s promises to Israel were, at times, unconditional; that is, he would act in certain ways no matter what his people did. At other times they were conditional; that is, he would act in a specific way if they first acted in a given way (see Mt 13:58 with Mk 6:5).

3:5-7 The issue here was not interracial marriage but interfaith marriage. God did not want his people to marry unbelievers (Dt 7:1-5). Nowhere in Scripture does God issue an outright condemnation of, or even express reservation about, either interracial or international marriages. He said nothing against Moses’s marriage to a Cushite woman and, in fact, defended it against the protest of religious leaders in Israel (Nm 12:1-9). In Jesus’s lineage there were several international and perhaps interracial marriages, e.g., Salmon’s marriage to Rahab (a Canaanite), Boaz’s marriage to Ruth (a Moabite), and David’s marriage to Bathsheba (quite probably a Hethite; see Mt 1:4-6).

3:10 To have the Spirit come upon one, or to be filled by the Spirit, meant that the individual was guided or empowered by God to perform his will in a special way. In ancient Israel, the Spirit of the Lord came upon certain individuals (see 6:34; 11:29; 14:6,19; 15:14; 1Sm 10:10; 11:6; 19:20,23; 1Ch 12:18; 2Ch 20:14), or filled them (see Ex 31:3; 35:31; Dt 34:9; Mic 3:8), to perform specific tasks—such as designing the temple, prophesying, or leading Israel to victory in battle.

3:12-22 Why did God destroy Eglon, whom he originally commissioned to bring judgment against his own people (vv. 12-13,20-21)? As the “carved images” in his territory (v. 26) indicated, Eglon did not acknowledge God’s role in empowering him to defeat and rule Israel, but still worshiped idols. Moreover, Eglon’s rule was not benevolent but harsh, as the cry of God’s people for deliverance suggests (v. 15).

3:29-31 How accurate are biblical numbers, such as the ten thousand Moabites killed by the Israelites (v. 29), the eighty years of peace, (v. 30), or the six hundred Philistines killed by Shamgar (v. 31)? Numbers in Scripture function in various ways. Some are intended to be precise and are recorded as such (see Ezr 2). Other figures that may appear to be precise are to be understood as approximations and are often designated as such by the use of the modifier “about”; an example is the number of Israelites killed at the battle of Ai: “about thirty-six” (Jos 7:5). Some figures, intended as approximations, lack the modifier “about.” The six hundred Philistines killed by Shamgar (Jdg 3:31) may be such an approximation since it is unlikely that someone counted each person he killed. Some numbers may not be numbers at all, but have another meaning. The number “thousand” can mean a military unit (Nm 31:5; 1Sm 10:19). Other numbers, whether exact or not, are theologically significant; the number “seven” (related to the Hb word for swearing an oath, ?saba?) can be an indicator that the Lord’s covenant is what is in view in a passage (Jos 6:2-15; Rv 15:6–16:1).