The prophet Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet”. For over forty years he preached to the southern kingdom of Judah without response.
The tears of his broken heart moisten every page of his prophecy. He called his people to repentance and foretold Jerusalem’s destruction and the deportation of her people because of sin (Jer 15:2-3, 5-9). He was rejected and abandoned by his own family which tried to murder him (Jer 11:21-23; 12:6; 16:2). He was whipped and jailed (Jer 20:1-3), attacked by a mob (Jer 26:1-9), mocked and disbelieved (Jer 28), arrested, beaten, accused of treason and thrown into a deep pit to die (Jer 37:1-15; 38:1-6).
His life and ministry are types (symbols or illustrations) of the life and ministry of Jesus, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Is 53:3; Mk 10:33-34; Lk 18:31; 1 Pet 2:21-24).
Yet in one of Jeremiah’s songs written shortly after God used the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and carry away her people as captives, he wrote these comforting words: Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23). A nation is only as good as its leaders, and Israel’s history in Judges was one of failing God in dramatic fashion when a leader died, yet the God of the mercy and compassion sent deliverers to His people.

I. The Word Shamgar (Judg 3:31). The name Shamgar is not Hebrew, suggesting this man who is never given the title judge, was not of Jewish descent, but likely a pagan convert to Judaism. He’s called the son of Anath. Anath was the Canaanite goddess of war and sex and wives of the god Baal. Such was his weakness among the shophets of Judges.

II. The Word Ox Goad (Judg 3:31). Shamgar was not a skilled warrior, but in all likelihood a farmer. He didn’t use a sword or bow to kill 600 Philistines, but an ox goad, an 8 to 10 foot long pole, often made of iron. One end is sharpened to a point and used to poke an ox to make it move; a flat spade is attached to the other end for cleaning dirt from a plow. Shamgar’s power wasn’t in himself or his tool, but in God.
The Philistines were originally a people from the island of Caphtor (Jer 47:4), modern Crete off Greece. This highly civilized people arrived in Canaan about the same time as Israel left Egypt in 1445 BC. God directed Israel to avoid them (Ex 13:17) yet they became Israel’s great antagonists from the time of the Judges into David’s reign almost 500 years later.

III. The Word of God. God used Shamgar to deliver Israel. The previous judge, Ehud, wielded a small handmade dagger to deliver Israel; Shamgar used an ordinary tool meant for ordinary work. Both were mighty weapons, not because of the men, but the God who empowered His servants (1 Sam 17:38-50).

The Bible is the weapon in the Christian’s spiritual arsenal. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians about spiritual warfare, he listed one offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:17). The word Paul uses for sword is machaira (Mt 26:47; Mk 14:43; Heb 4:12), a short dagger kept razor sharp and used by soldiers to cut meat and perform surgery. It was not a weapon of attack but self-defense.
For many, the Bible is despised as an ineffectual weapon used by the uneducated, unrefined, and impotent, not unlike a farmer’s ox goad or an 18-inch dagger. These people invent other weapons of their warfare, but God has given His people His Word, the same weapon Jesus used to repel Satan and his temptations in the wilderness (Mt 4:4, 7, 10).
When used by the Holy Spirit, the Scripture is all-sufficient for the spiritual need of the believer (Is 55:8-11; 2 Cor 10:3-6; 2 Tim 3:16-17; Heb 4:11-13). We are careful to remember that the written Word reveals the sinful failure of man and the glory of the living Word, Jesus (Lk 24:27-32, 44-45) our Deliverer!