13 - Judges 3 - The LORD Raised Up a Deliverer

After the death of Joshua, the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, adopted many of their practices including worshiping their gods, and intermarried with them. Israel had departed from following the Torah of the LORD who brought them out of Egypt and gave them the Land of the Canaanites. This inaugurates the period of the judges of Israel which lasted roughly four hundred year.
In this chapter, the Bible relates the accounts of two instances, lasting eight and eighteen years, respectively, when God sold Israel into the hands of oppressors. When the children of Israel cried out to God, He gave them two judges, Othniel and Ehud, and one deliverer, Shamgar. Othniel and Ehud ruled Israel for a combined one hundred twenty years. Out of all those years, God allowed Israel to be oppressed only twenty-six years! What do these two judges tell us about God’s rest?