Bible Person

Shamgar

Meaning: named a stranger; he is here a stranger · Male · 2 cross references

Shamgar is the judge who strikes down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad and briefly shines through the dark instability of the judges period. He appears as a surprisingly effective deliverer in a time of repeated oppression. First appears in Judg 3:31.1

AI summary: Shamgar matters because his cross references present him as a flash of deliverance achieved with unlikely means in an era marked by fragmentation and danger. His brief appearance widens the book of Judges beyond its major cycles and shows that God can raise up rescue in unexpected ways. Taken together, the material presents Shamgar as a compact but memorable symbol of surprising deliverance.1

Central Figure

Shamgar

Meaning: named a stranger; he is here a stranger

The Philistines from the maritime plain had made incursions into the Hebrew upland for the purposes of plunder, when one of this name, the son of Anath, otherwise unknown, headed a rising for the purpose of freeing the land from this oppression.