Ehud and Shamgar: God Uses the Unlikely

There is a kind of young person we learn to root against: the one who shows up already having it all. Good-looking, articulate, with a full résumé and a flawless feed. And there is another kind — the one no one would bet on. The left-handed person in a right-handed world. The foreigner with a strange name. The one who holds in his hand only a work tool, and it is not even a proper weapon.

Today's lesson is about those two. Ehud and Shamgar — the second and third judges of Israel — are living proof of a sentence that the quarterly sums up without beating around the bush: God accomplishes His purposes through those whom the world considers incapable. After Othniel dies, the people relapse into the old cycle, fall under the oppression of Moab, and God raises up deliverers who would not pass a job interview for "hero." It is on purpose. God is dismantling your criteria.

And, in the middle of this, the text also faces head-on a question you may have already heard from a skeptical friend: what do you mean, a God who commands killing? Isn't that violence? The lesson does not run away from it. Let us face it. But hold the big answer until the end, because it flows — like everything in Judges — into Christ.

I — Ehud: God Uses the Unlikely

A bitter defeat

The chapter opens by repeating the saddest refrain in the book: the children of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord (Judges 3:12). Othniel has barely been buried, and the spiral is already going down again. And here is a hard lesson right from the start: the deliverance the judges brought was partial and temporary. Every vessel God uses in this world is imperfect and passing. The judges managed to save some people, from some enemies, for some time — they, like us, needed something much greater. And that "something greater" God would provide in Christ. Hold on to that; it is the thread that ties the whole lesson together.

As discipline, the Lord strengthened Eglon — He gave strength to the king of Moab against Israel. Eglon allied himself with the Ammonites and Amalekites and took the city of palm trees, which was Jericho. Notice the size of the humiliation: the city conquered miraculously in the days of Joshua (Joshua 6) was lost. Outside of God's direction, even what you received by grace can slip through your fingers (cf. John 15:6; Hebrews 10:26-27; Revelation 2:4-5). The result: eighteen years of servitude to Moab (Judges 3:14).

🏛 Archaeology — Moab and the city of palm trees. Moab lay east of the Dead Sea, and the Moabites were distant relatives of Israel (descendants of Lot). The "city of palm trees" is the region of Jericho, in the Jordan Valley — a strategic, warm, and fertile crossing point. To control that spot was to control the gateway into the land. Eglon did not choose just any place: he planted Moabite rule right on the symbol of Israel's former victory. Oppression often likes to sit right on the spot of your memory of faith.

An unlikely deliverer

The people cry out, and God answers with an unexpected name: Ehud, the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a left-handed man (Judges 3:15). And that detail about being "left-handed" is not mere decoration — it is the key to the story.

In that world, the right hand and the right side were symbols of divine strength (Psalm 118:15-16) and of blessing (Genesis 48:13-14). A warrior was right-handed. Calling Ehud left-handed is saying, loud and clear: this one is outside the norm. And there is a delicious irony in the text: Ehud was from the tribe of Benjamin, a name that means "son of the right hand" (Genesis 35:18) — and the "son of the right hand" is precisely the left-handed one. God has a sense of humor with our labels.

אב In the original — Hebrew.

• Benjamin (ben-yamin) literally means "son of the right hand." That the deliverer coming from this tribe is left-handed is a deliberate theological irony: God turns our categories of "strong" and "weak" inside out.
• "left-handed man" — the Hebrew expression is, word for word, "bound/restricted as to his right hand." We do not know whether it was a birth limitation or war training. In 1 Chronicles 12:2 and Judges 20:16, left-handed and ambidextrous Benjamites appear, skilled in battle. Whatever the case, what looked like a "lack" became the secret weapon.

Scholars are not unanimous about this trait. One stream understands that it was a natural limitation in his right hand; another, that "left-handed" describes warriors trained on purpose to fight with the left — and there is a record of ambidextrous Benjamites, who held a decisive tactical advantage over those who only knew how to fight sword-against-shield. Whatever the explanation may be, the point is that what the world would read as a disadvantage, God used as a distinctive advantage. It is 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 in the flesh — God chooses the weak to put the strong to shame.

❤ For your life. Your generation lives under what one thinker called the "achievement society": the pressure to perform at the maximum, always. The feed is a showcase of seemingly perfect people, and comparison whispers to you that you are not good, attractive, or capable enough. Ehud is the antidote. What you hide out of shame — your "wrong hand," your different way of being, the thing that does not fit in — may be exactly what God wants to use. He did not look for the perfect warrior; He looked for the available one and filled him with courage.

A great victory

Ehud's plan is a masterclass in strategic courage. First, when sent to deliver the tribute to Eglon, he takes the opportunity to scout the terrain (vv. 15-17). Second, he makes his own weapon — a short two-edged sword, about 45 cm long — and hides it on his right thigh, precisely where the guards of a right-handed man would never search a left-handed man. Third, he waits for the right moment: he dismisses the company, returns alone, claims to have a "secret word," and secures a private audience in a cool upper chamber. There, alone with him, he strikes the blow (vv. 18-22). Fourth, after escaping, he summons Israel to battle, confident that the Lord would give the victory (v. 28). That day, about ten thousand Moabites fell, all strong men; not one escaped. And the land had rest for eighty years.

An honest observation from the text: God did not dictate every step to Ehud like a script. Yet He guides the circumstances and the outcomes to fulfill His purpose — which here was to deliver the people. God does not always use the methods we would call "normal" or "obvious." The left-handed tool, the bold plan, the unlikely timing — all of it entered into the account of grace.

🔬 Our reading — Pentecostal keys.

1. Limitation becomes anointing. What the world would read as a "defect" was, in God's hand, the distinctive mark of victory. The Spirit does not erase your particularities — He uses them.
2. Availability above aptitude. Ehud did not wait to become "the right guy." He made himself available, with courage, and God did the rest.
3. The victory belongs to the Lord. Confident that the Lord would give the victory (v. 28) — the strategy was human, but the trust was in God. Boldness without arrogance.

II — Shamgar: God Uses What We Have Available

An unknown judge

After the eighty years of peace, the text records, in a single verse, the feat of Shamgar, the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred men of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also delivered Israel (Judges 3:31). Just that. No speech, no long genealogy, no detailed cycle. One verse — and even so he is there, on the list of God's deliverers. Sometimes what looks like "little" in the record is huge in the Kingdom.

A foreign name

Here things get even more interesting. The name "Shamgar" is not Hebrew — it is foreign, possibly of Hittite or Hurrian origin. And his father's name, "Anath," was that of a Canaanite goddess. Most likely Shamgar was a foreigner converted to the faith of Israel. And this raises an uncomfortable question that the lesson itself notes: why did a foreigner, armed with a farm tool, have to deliver Israel? Were there no Israelites to get the job done? Perhaps it is a subtle clue that the people were truly in dire straits.

Yet the theological point is beautiful: God is not limited by labels, social status, or ethnic barriers. Being sovereign, He uses whomever He wills — just as He used the Persian king Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1) and the prostitute Rahab (Joshua 2). Grace reaches and transforms Gentiles into instruments of the plan of redemption (cf. Romans 11:17; Ephesians 3:6). God raises up preachers, teachers, leaders, and many other "Shamgars" whom no one had in their forecast — and He owes no one an explanation for His choices. He simply acts.

🏛 Archaeology — Shamgar's oxgoad. The oxgoad (in Hebrew, malmad) was a common agricultural tool: a long pole, 2.5 to 3.5 meters in length, with a sharp metal point on one end to prod cattle and, often, a blade on the other to scrape dirt off the plow. The Philistines, at that point, dominated iron metallurgy and restricted Israel's access to weapons (1 Samuel 13:19-22). In other words: Shamgar had no sword — he had a cattle-prodding stick. And it was with that stick that God brought down six hundred armed warriors. When tools are lacking, God is more than enough.

A different weapon

While Ehud made his own sword, Shamgar used what was already in his hand: his work tool. And right here lies one of the lesson's most direct blows against our favorite excuse. How many times have you put off doing something for God by saying you lacked the means, the structure, the tool?

We live in the age of spectacle. Things have to be big to look valuable — the big car, the big house, the big phone. And so we keep waiting for the ideal scenario: waiting to have a car to evangelize, a powerful sound system to worship, a big church to serve. Yet the Bible insists on the value of small things (Zechariah 4:10; Luke 16:10; Matthew 10:42). Shamgar proves that God uses you with what you already have at hand. The tool may be simple; the power is divine.

Ehud	Shamgar
Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin	Converted foreigner (non-Hebrew name)
A "limitation": he was left-handed	"Nothing in his hands": only an oxgoad
Made his own weapon	Used his work tool
Long and detailed account (vv. 12-30)	A single verse (v. 31)
God uses your differences	God uses what you already have

❤ For your life. Stop waiting for ideal conditions. You do not need other people's resources to start serving — you need to surrender the oxgoad that is already in your hand. The gift you have, the spare time, the beat-up guitar, the pen, the phone, the friendship, the school subject you are good at: that is it. Place what you have in God's hands, and watch the "little" become deliverance.

III — The Question of Violence

We have reached the part that usually stalls conversations about faith. Judges is full of battles and deaths, and critics use this to make the accusation: the God of the Bible is violent, unjust, bloodthirsty. The lesson faces the objection on three fronts. It is worth keeping them in mind, because sooner or later someone will ask you.

An unjust God?

The first answer is philosophical and disarms the critic with his own weapon. To accuse something of being "unjust," you need an absolute standard of justice — a measuring stick above everyone. But where does that measuring stick come from? If there is no God, "justice" becomes merely opinion, taste, culture. By accusing God of being unjust, the atheist is, without realizing it, presupposing that real and objective good and evil exist — and that only makes sense if there is a moral Lawgiver. The criticism of God's justice, instead of tearing down faith, actually leans on it.

Innocent people?

The second answer dismantles the romantic idea of "wholly innocent peoples." Scripture is direct: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23); "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" (Romans 3:10). There was not a bunch of little angels on one side and wicked Israel on the other. Ehud did not act out of personal revenge or a taste for blood — he acted as a judge instituted by God, on a specific mission of national deliverance, in a setting of war and prolonged oppression against a hostile pagan power. And not even Israel escaped that judgment: when the chosen people themselves became corrupt and fell into idolatry, God allowed them to be defeated and exiled (cf. 2 Kings 17:7-23; 2 Chronicles 36:15-21). The measuring stick was the same for everyone.

🔬 Our reading — Pentecostal keys. Ehud's action was not a murder, but an act of war under God's direct command at that moment in history (v. 15). Here is the point that changes everything for us: under the New Covenant, the follower of Christ does not wage physical war. Our battle is spiritual — real, serious, but of another order. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12) Ehud's sword has become the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). We have traded the iron oxgoad for prayer and the Word.

Progressive revelation

The third answer is the most important: some biblical texts are descriptive, not prescriptive. They report what God did at a given moment in the history of redemption — they are not a command for you to repeat today. And God's revelation is progressive: He revealed Himself little by little throughout history, culminating in Christ, who showed us the fullness of grace and truth (John 1:17). This means that judgment through war, recorded in the Old Testament, must be read within the unfolding redemptive plan — and not mechanically transported into the age of grace. The God who judged the nations in Judges is the very same God who, in Christ, fully revealed His grace and His justice. They are not two gods; He is one God, told in full only at the cross.

Christ in the Book of Judges

Now the question that ties everything together: where is Christ here?

Start with the refrain from the beginning of the lesson: the judges only saved some people, from some enemies, for some time. Ehud delivers — and peace lasts eighty years, then war returns. Shamgar delivers — in a single verse, and disappears. Every deliverance is real, yet provisional. And it is precisely this "provisional" character that opens a question-shaped hole across the entire book: where is the Deliverer who saves everyone, from every enemy, forever?

The answer is Jesus. He is the definitive Deliverer whom the judges only sketched. Where Ehud gave relief for eighty years, Christ gives eternal life. Where the sword delivered from Moab, the cross delivers from sin and death — the real enemy behind all enemies.

And there is more. Ehud and Shamgar preach the grace of God even before the Gospel is written: God uses the unlikely. That has a name and a face in the New Testament — Christ Himself became God's Unlikely One. The King who was born in a manger, grew up in Nazareth (from which people asked whether any good thing could come, John 1:46), was rejected, and conquered not with a two-edged sword, but with two nails and a cross. The greatest victory in history was won with the most unlikely instrument of all. If God saved the world like that, He can certainly use you.

Practical Application

Stop disqualifying yourself. The voice that says "I'm no good for this, I'm too different, I have too little" is the same voice that would have vetoed Ehud and Shamgar. God does not recruit by résumé. He empowers those who surrender themselves. Your "left hand" may be Dishonesty-free... wait: Your "left hand" may be precisely your anointing.

Use the oxgoad that is in your hand. Do not wait for other people's resources. The gift you already have, however small it may seem, placed in God's hands, sets people free. Start with the little — God makes it multiply.

Know how to answer the skeptic with respect. When someone accuses you by saying that "the God of the Bible is violent," you already have three keys: the standard of justice presupposes God, there are no absolute innocents, and revelation is progressive and culminates in Christ. And remember: our warfare today is spiritual, fought on our knees and with the Word — not with the sword.

Closing Prayer

Lord, God of the unlikely, thank You because You do not choose by appearance, by strength, or by résumé, but by a willing heart. Heal in us the shame of who we are and teach us to surrender to You our "left hand" and the humble oxgoad we hold in our hand. Deliver us from the age of spectacle, which despises small things, and make us faithful in the little. Give us gentle and firm answers for those who doubt Your justice, and fill us with Your Spirit for the warfare that is ours today — the spiritual one, fought on our knees and with Your Word. And, above all, thank You for Jesus, the unlikely Deliverer who conquered on the cross what no sword could ever conquer. In His name, the perfect Judge and our Savior. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria — Scripture governs; everything else, on its knees.

Teacher's Guide

Essence of the class

God does not recruit by résumé — He empowers those who surrender themselves. Your "left hand" may be precisely your anointing.

The three summary sentences from the quarterly itself tie the class together (use them in the closing): "With Ehud, God uses our differences. With Shamgar, God uses what we have in our hands. With both, God uses unlikely people."

Map of the class

Time	Stage
0–5 min	Opening — the hook
5–17 min	Point 1 — Ehud, the unlikely one (quarterly, Topic I)
17–22 min	Class activity — "The wrong hand"
22–30 min	Point 2 — Shamgar and the oxgoad (quarterly, Topic II)
30–40 min	Point 3 — "What about violence in the OT?" + Christ (quarterly, Topic III)
40–45 min	Wrap-up + challenge + prayer

Start like this

Before opening the Bible, ask the class:

"Who here has ever felt like the person no one would bet on?"

Let two or three answer. Do not comment yet — just listen. Shyness, comparison with others, "I'm the odd one out in the group," or "I'm not good enough" will very likely come up. Hold those remarks in your memory: the whole lesson answers them.

Then follow up: "Today's lesson is about two men no one would bet on — a left-handed man in a right-handed world and a foreigner with a cattle-prodding stick. And it was with those two that God delivered Israel. Let's see why."

Prep tip: the quarterly includes a Weekly Reading (Mon 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 · Tue Ephesians 3:6 · Wed Philippians 2:5-8 · Thu Matthew 10:42 · Fri Luke 16:10 · Sat Zechariah 4:10). If your class has a WhatsApp group, send one verse a day during the previous week — the class will arrive "warmed up."

Point 1 — Ehud: God uses the unlikely

• In the quarterly: Topic I — "Ehud: God uses the unlikely", sub-items 1 (A bitter defeat), 2 (An unlikely deliverer), and 3 (A great victory). Covers the 1st Objective of the lesson.
• What to teach: After Othniel dies, the people sin again and fall under Moab for 18 years (they even lose Jericho, the "city of palm trees"). God raises up a deliverer with a detail the text makes a point of highlighting: Ehud was left-handed (Judges 3:15). In that time, strength and blessing were tied to the right hand — calling Ehud left-handed is saying "this one is outside the norm." And there is irony: he was from the tribe of Benjamin, which means "son of the right hand." What the world would read as a disadvantage, God used as a secret weapon (the 45 cm sword hidden on his right thigh, where no one would search a left-handed man).
• Anchor verse (KJV): "But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab." (Judges 3:15)
• Key question: "What is your 'left hand' — that trait you hide out of shame, which might be precisely what God wants to use?"
• Likely answers: being different, shyness, being "too quiet," a messy family background, a limitation. Go deeper: "What if God wants to use you not in spite of that, but because of that?"
• If no one speaks: share yours first. "My left hand is ___." When the teacher opens up first, the class loosens up. Or rephrase it simply: "what in you does not fit the 'standard' the feed demands?" (The quarterly itself cites the philosopher Byung-Chul Han and the "achievement society" — the pressure to always perform at the maximum. It is the perfect hook with the social media feed.)

Point 2 — Shamgar: God uses what is already in your hand

• In the quarterly: Topic II — "Shamgar: God uses what we have available", sub-items 1 (An unknown judge), 2 (A foreign name), and 3 (A different weapon). Covers the 2nd Objective. See also Resource 2 (text by Pastor Valmir Nascimento, "The power of small things").
• What to teach: Shamgar appears in a single verse — he struck down 600 Philistines with an oxgoad (a 2.5 to 3.5 m pole for prodding cattle, a farm tool, not a weapon). His name is not even Hebrew: he was, most likely, a converted foreigner. Two truths: God is not bound by label, status, or ethnicity (He used Cyrus and Rahab — He uses whomever He wills); and God uses what you already have in your hand. While Ehud made his weapon, Shamgar used the tool of his own work. The excuse "when I have the resources, I'll serve" falls apart right here.
• Anchor verse (KJV): "And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel." (Judges 3:31)
• Key question: "What 'oxgoad' is already in your hand right now — a gift, time, a skill — that you have been putting off using for God while waiting for ideal conditions?"
• Likely answers: "I know how to play an instrument a little," "I can draw," "I'm good at math," "I like writing," "I know how to listen to people." Go deeper: "and what is stopping you from placing that in God's hand this week?"
• If no one speaks: point to something concrete in the room. "That beat-up guitar over there. That phone. The subject you do well in. That is an oxgoad." Concrete examples pull young people out of paralysis.

Point 3 — "What about the violence in the Old Testament?"

• In the quarterly: Topic III — "The question of violence", sub-items 1 (An unjust God?), 2 (Innocent people), and 3 (Progressive revelation). Covers the 3rd Objective (discussing the divine standard of justice). Reinforced in Resource 1.
• What to teach: the text itself is honest and faces the objection young people hear from skeptical friends. Three keys: (1) to call something "unjust," you already need a standard of justice above everyone — and that only exists if there is a God who defines it; (2) the Bible does not paint "100% innocent peoples" — there is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10); (3) these accounts are descriptive, from a specific moment in the history of salvation, and revelation is progressive, culminating in Christ (John 1:17). Ehud acted as a judge raised up by God, in wartime — he is not a model for personal revenge. Today our warfare is spiritual (Ephesians 6:12).
• Anchor verse (KJV): "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" (Romans 3:10)
• Key question: "If a friend told you today that 'the God of the Bible is violent,' how would you answer?"
• Likely answers: silence or "I wouldn't know what to say" — that is normal; it is a tough topic. Then hand them the three keys as a tool. Go deeper: "which of the three do you think would disarm your friend the most?"
• If no one speaks: do not force a philosophical debate. Give the three keys yourself, slowly, one at a time, and close: "you don't need to memorize everything — just keep one sentence: anyone who accuses God of being unjust is already using a measuring stick that only exists because of God."

Class activity — "The wrong hand"

• Goal: to feel firsthand that what looks like a "defect" can be what God uses.
• Materials: paper and pen for each student.
• Step by step: everyone writes the sentence "God uses me" with the wrong hand (right-handed students write with the left; left-handed students, with the right). Give them 30 seconds. It will come out crooked, slow, imperfect — and everyone will laugh a little. No one is put on the spot: the whole class does it together.
• Wrap-up (back to the text): "It came out crooked and uncomfortable, right? That is more or less how the world looked at Ehud: the wrong hand. Yet it was with the wrong hand that God delivered a people. What in you seems crooked and outside the norm may be Dishonesty-free... wait: may be precisely where God is going to act."

Alternative from the quarterly itself: in the Pedagogical Guidance, the quarterly suggests making paper strips with three sentences and putting them up on the wall — "With Ehud... our differences," "With Shamgar... what we have in our hands," "With both... unlikely people" — and asking: "What do you think God could use in your life today that you never imagined would be useful to Him?" You can use both: the "wrong hand" to feel it, the strips to lock it in.

If they ask you this

• "Isn't the God of the Bible violent and unjust?" The three keys from Point 3 (the standard of justice presupposes God / there are no absolute innocents / progressive revelation that culminates in Christ). This is question 4 in the quarterly's Review Time — it will come up.
• "Wasn't Ehud's action a murder?" No. It was an act of war by direct command of God, at a specific moment in history (Resource 1 of the quarterly, from the Pentecostal Study Bible). Today the Christian wages not physical war, but spiritual war (Ephesians 6:12).
• "A cattle-prodding stick brings down 600 armed men? Is that literal?" The point of the text is the contrast: the Philistines dominated ironworking and limited Israel's access to weapons. Shamgar had no sword — he had a farm tool. When weapons are lacking, God is more than enough.

Closing with the quarterly: the Review Time brings 5 questions with answers (the city of palm trees = Jericho; what Ehud being left-handed highlights; what the oxgoad was; violence in the OT; what progressive revelation is). They work well as a quick review in the final 3 minutes.

Wrap-up + challenge of the week

• Wrap-up: "Where is Christ here? The judges saved some people, from some enemies, for some time. Every deliverance was real, yet provisional — and that opens a question across the whole book: where is the Deliverer who saves everyone, forever? It is Jesus. And notice: the greatest victory in history did not come with a two-edged sword, but with two nails and a cross — the most unlikely instrument of all. If God saved the world with the unlikely, He can certainly use you."
• Challenge of the week: use your "oxgoad" once this week — the gift you already have, to serve a real person. Come back next Sunday with the story of what happened. (Start the next class by following up on this.)

Teacher's kit

• Before: read Topics I–III in the quarterly, the two Resources, and the Pedagogical Guidance; watch the video lesson (when it premieres) and reread Judges 3:12-31.
• Bring: a Bible, paper and pen for the class activity. (If you are going to use the strips from the quarterly, prepare them at home.)
• Pray beforehand: ask God to open the eyes of the young people who feel like "the wrong hand."

Homework

Your mission for the week

Choose a simple gift you already have — drawing, writing, listening, cooking, a subject you do well in — and use it once this week to serve a real person.

Why

Shamgar delivered Israel with a cattle-prodding stick: God uses what is already in your hand (Judges 3:31). Your "oxgoad" only becomes an instrument when you surrender it.

How to know you did it

One person, with a name, was served by something you did. If you know the name, you did it.

On Sunday, come back with the story

Next week's class starts with those who share what happened. Do not stay out of it.