Judges 3:8

Verse 8 opens with “Therefore”, which ties it to the verse before. In Judges 3:7 the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, forgot the LORD their God, and served the Baals and the Asherahs. These were the gods of the Canaanites: Baal was worshipped as the god of the storm, and Asherah as his consort, a goddess of fertility, and their worship promised good harvests and success in war. Israel had left many of the people of the land in place (Judges 1), and living among them, they took up their gods. Verse 8 tells us what the LORD did about it.

“The anger of the LORD was hot against Israel.” The Hebrew word for anger, ʼaph, properly means the nose or the nostrils, and from there it came to stand for the face and for anger, so the phrase pictures a face burning with wrath. It is the anger of a holy God at idolatry among the people he had made his own. That is why his anger burns against Israel in particular: they had broken faith with him.

“He sold them into the hand of Chushanrishathaim.” The verb mâkar is the ordinary word for selling, used for goods and for slaves, and it is also used figuratively for surrendering someone into another’s power. Here it is a picture of judgment. The LORD himself handed his people over to their enemy. He had told them this would happen. The law sets out at length what would come on Israel for disobedience (Leviticus 26:14–39, Deuteronomy 28:15–68), and among the curses Moses declared stands the warning, “there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen.”

“And the children of Israel served Chushanrishathaim eight years.” They had chosen to serve the Baals, and now they served a foreign king, with the subjection, forced labour and tribute that went with it. The eight years were long and real, and they were also a discipline with a purpose, meant to humble Israel and bring them back to the LORD.

After eight years “the children of Israel cried unto the LORD”. The verb zâʻaq means to cry out, to shriek in anguish or danger, and especially to cry for help in hardship. It is a loud call from people who have come to the end of their own strength and turn to the only One who can help them. The verse records the cry, and it records that the LORD answered it. The psalms speak of the same thing, that the LORD hears the cry of the righteous (Psalm 34:17). When Nehemiah’s generation looked back on these years, they confessed that God gave Israel saviours when they cried to him in their distress (Nehemiah 9:27), and Isaiah speaks of God’s presence with his people in their affliction and of his saving them (Isaiah 63:9). The LORD had acted this way before, when he heard Israel’s cry in Egypt and sent Moses to bring them out (Exodus 3:7–10).

“The LORD raised up a deliverer.” The verb qûwm means to rise or stand, and in the form used here it means to raise up or set up. Othniel did not put himself forward and was not chosen by the people. God set him in his place for this work. The word for deliverer comes from yâshaʻ, a root whose sense is to be free and safe, and in its causative form to set free or to help. A deliverer is one who brings salvation, and Othniel’s power to save came from the God who raised him.

This is the pattern Judges 2:11–19 lays out for the whole period: the people forsake the LORD, he gives them into the hands of their enemies, they groan under them, he raises up judges, and the judges save them. Verse 9 is the first time we see it happen in a named story, and it shows that the LORD’s mercy is ready to meet his people even when their trouble is the fruit of their own sin.

Verse 10 gives the source of everything Othniel did: “the Spirit of the LORD came upon him.” The word rûwach means wind, breath or spirit, and joined to the name of the LORD it is God’s own Spirit, his power and presence. The Spirit came upon Othniel to equip him for the work of delivering Israel, giving him the wisdom, courage and strength it needed. The same is said later of Samson, when the Spirit came on him for strength (Judges 14:6), and of Saul, when Samuel told him the Spirit would come upon him (1 Samuel 10:6).

“And he judged Israel, and went out to war.” The verb shâphaṭ means to judge, decide or govern. In this book a judge is a leader raised up by God who governs his people and leads them in war against their oppressors. Othniel led Israel and restored order to the nation, and then he took the field against Chushanrishathaim.

“And the LORD delivered Chushanrishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand.” Here “delivered” means “gave” or “handed over”, so this verse and verse 9 share only the English word. The victory belongs to the LORD, who gave the enemy king to Othniel. Then “his hand prevailed against Chushanrishathaim”, literally “his hand was strong” against him. The word yâd, hand, stands for power and control as well as the hand itself, and “hand” stands twice in verse 10, first for the LORD giving the king into Othniel’s power and then for Othniel’s strength over him. In verse 8 the LORD had sold Israel “into the hand of Chushanrishathaim”, and now he gives Chushanrishathaim into the hand of Israel’s deliverer. A psalm tells how people cry to the LORD in their trouble and he saves them out of their distresses (Psalm 107:19–20), and verse 10 is one such rescue.

“And the land had rest forty years.” The land, ‘erets, is the land of Israel, the inheritance God had given his people, and the rest was national, reaching every tribe within its borders. The verb shâqaṭ means to be quiet, still or at rest. After eight years under a foreign king, the land was quiet. There was no war and no oppressor, and Israel could live securely in its own country.

The number ‘arbâ’îym is simply “forty”. It is the same number as the years of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33), Moses’ days on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:28) and the days of Jesus’ fast before his temptation (Matthew 4:2). Here it gives the length of the peace, a long time and about the span of a generation, all of it a gift from the LORD. God had given Israel rest once before, after the conquest, when not one of his good promises failed (Joshua 21:43–45), and the law had promised peace and safety in the land to an obedient people (Deuteronomy 28:1–14).

“And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.” The verb mûwth is the plain word for dying, and the notice is short. Even a judge on whom the Spirit came and through whom the LORD gave victory was a mortal man. In the next verse the children of Israel again do evil in the sight of the LORD (Judges 3:12), and the cycle begins once more.

Othniel’s story points beyond itself. He was a deliverer raised by God, filled with the Spirit, who judged his people and freed them from an enemy, and every part of that is true in a far greater way of Jesus Christ. The Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism (Matthew 3:16), and God gives him the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22).

Othniel freed Israel from a foreign king. Christ frees his people from the bondage of sin, from death and from the devil. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Sin’s wages are death (Romans 6:23), and Christ bore the anger of God against sin so that those who believe are set free indeed (John 8:36). Through his death he delivers those who were held in fear of death all their lives (Hebrews 2:14–15), and at the cross he triumphed over the powers arrayed against us (Colossians 2:15). God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption (Colossians 1:13–14). He did this for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8), just as the LORD heard Israel’s cry when their trouble was their own doing.

The end of verse 11 shows the difference most clearly. Othniel died, and the rest ended with him. Christ died and rose again, and by his own blood he obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). He says, “I am he that liveth”, and he holds the keys of hell and of death (Revelation 1:18). The rest he gives is rest for the soul, offered to all who labour and are heavy laden (Matthew 11:28–30), and the letter to the Hebrews says that a rest remains for the people of God, which the rest of the land under Joshua and the judges only foreshadowed (Hebrews 4:1–11).

These verses show us both the holiness and the mercy of God. He is angry when his people give their hearts to other gods, and he takes their unfaithfulness seriously enough to hand them over to the very bondage they chose. Yet the same God hears them when they cry, though their trouble was their own fault, and he sends a deliverer of his own choosing, fills him with his Spirit, and gives him the victory. The rest that follows is his gift.

The story also shows how short every human rescue is. Forty years of peace ended at a graveside, and the cycle turned again. Israel needed a Deliverer who would not die and leave them, and in Jesus Christ God has given one. The God who heard Israel in the days of Chushanrishathaim is the same God who hears those who call on him now, and his greater Deliverer lives for ever.