Shamgar and Sisera

Abstract

IT has long been recognized that Jud. iii. 31, which tells how Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, was inserted by one of latest editors of book. It has not, however, been so generally observed that certain recensions of old Greek version (codd. 44, 54, 56, 59, 75, 76, 82, 106, 134 H-P; sub obel. 121), together with Hexaplar Syriac, Armenian, and Slavic versions, have account of Shamgar's exploit a second time after xvi. 31.1 Here, immediately following Samson, Philistine-fighter is quite in order. Comparison of renderings in two places shows that verse was not repeated at end of c. xvi. by an editor of Greek text, but was found there by translators in their Hebrew manuscripts, and in a form more original than that which we now read in iii. 31. The introductory formula, KiU avErTq BlETac TOV :a iv.bo ~qiE/yap vtos Evav = n el7tn %nPw 'IMN fa P1 corresponds closely to x. 1, ~Xl rim rtil* Vninx Pink CpII 1i t J1 , while in iii. 31 Hebrew has awkward and unparalleled 1Lenn '1Vt (LXX. avETTr). There is thus good reason to think that verse at first stood after story of Samson, and was subsequently, for some reason, removed to a place between Ehud and Barak. That Shamgar cannot have been original hero of this story is proved both by earlier position of verse (following Samson), and-more conclusively-by fact that Philistines did not appear upon scene till long after time of Deborah and Barak. The natural hypothesis is that name of champion was accidentally corrupted to Shamgar, under influence of v. 6, which necessarily led to transposition ,of verse from end of c. xvi. to end of c. iii.2 In Jud. v. 6 the days of Shamgar ben Anath, days of Jael, are time of distress and humiliation for Israel which