¶“In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the roads were deserted, And travelers went by roundabout ways.
Parallel translations
- WEB “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways.
- KJV In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.
- BSB In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways.
- NKJV “In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, In the days of Jael, The highways were deserted, And the travelers walked along the byways.
- NLT “In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, and in the days of Jael, people avoided the main roads, and travelers stayed on winding pathways.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
In Shamgar and Jael's days the roads were deserted because of danger.
Overview
The song recalls the misery of oppression, when travel was unsafe and life was disrupted. This dark backdrop magnifies the deliverance God has now brought. By naming the hardship, the poem heightens the wonder of the LORD's intervention.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Isa 33:8The highways are desolate. The traveling man ceases. The covenant is broken. He has despised the cities. He doesn’t respect man.
- Judg 3:31After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck six hundred men of the Philistines with an ox goad. He also saved Israel.
- Lam 1:4The ways of Zion mourn, because no one come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
- Lev 26:22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
- Judg 4:17–18However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
- Lam 4:18They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come.
- Mic 3:12Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Ps 125:5But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be on Israel.
- 2 Chr 15:5In those times there was no peace to him who went out, nor to him who came in; but great troubles were on all the inhabitants of the lands.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 5:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.