Shamgar

Shamgar son of Anath appears twice in Judges — once as a single-verse notice that places him in the deliverer succession, and once in the Song of Deborah, where his "days" mark a period when Israel's roads were too dangerous to walk. Both passages tie him to the Philistine pressure on the land.

The Ox-Goad Deliverance

The first notice is a one-verse summary appended to the Ehud cycle: "And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad: and he also saved Israel" (Jdg 3:31). The instrument is an agricultural prod — an ox-goad — and the count is six hundred. The verse files him in the same line of saviors as Ehud ("after him") and uses the deliverer-formula "he also saved Israel."

A Marker of Insecurity in the Song of Deborah

Deborah's song reaches back over Shamgar's lifetime and uses him as the chronological anchor for a period of paralyzed travel: "In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, And the travelers walked through byways" (Jdg 5:6). His name is paired with Jael's, and his "days" are characterized not by the ox-goad victory but by the unsafety of the main roads — caravans driven onto byways because the highways could not be used. The song thus situates Shamgar's deliverance inside, not after, an extended era of insecurity.