3. (Judges 3:16-25) Ehud's daring assassination of Eglon
Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his cloak. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. It came about when he had finished presenting the tribute, that he sent away the people who had carried the tribute. But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal, and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he said, "Keep silence." And all who attended him left him. Ehud came to him while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. Ehud stretched out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. The handle also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the refuse came out. Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him, and locked them. When he had gone out, his servants came and looked, and behold, the doors of the roof chamber were locked; and they said, "He is only relieving himself in the cool room." They waited until they became anxious; but behold, he did not open the doors of the roof chamber. Therefore they took the key and opened them, and behold, their master had fallen to the floor dead.
Ehud made himself a sword: Ehud devised a plan. He would assassinate King Eglon, thereby causing turmoil and political instability between Moab and their allies. Israel would then have an opportunity to be free. Ehud fashions a specially designed sword that was unusually short in length. One cubit is about 18 inches in length. This particular weapon was a hybrid between a dagger and a sword. It had no cross piece at the top and thus it could lay flat against Ehud's leg.
He bound it under his right thigh under his cloak: Since Ehud was left-handed, he would strap the sword to his right leg. The advantage was that since he was left-handed, he would reach across his body to draw the sword from his right leg and stab the unsuspecting king. Records indicate that very few people were left-handed. So, when Ehud made his move, it was with his left hand. He would not have caused the king to suspect a coming attack. That deception would provide an extra second or two for Ehud to reach under his garment to grasp his sword and kill Eglon.
He sent away the people who had carried the tribute: As was typical, Ehud went with several other Israelites to deliver the tribute. We do not know exactly what the tribute was, but it was probably produce of some kind as this was the standard tribute given. If Ehud had come alone, he would have raise suspicion. So, after the proper respect was given to Eglon, Ehud left with the other Israelites.
But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal: The word translated as idols is the Hebrew word psillim and is better translated as sculpted statues. These were god images, statues of the Moabite gods and goddesses. It is interesting to note that they were located at Gilgal. It was at Gilgal where Joshua had erected the memorial stones in honor of what God had done for Israel in bringing them across the Wilderness, across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. Very likely, the god statutes were located next to Joshua's memorial stones because this was the standard operating procedure for a conqueror. A conqueror would move quickly to place his gods at the holy places of the conquered people as a way of demonstrating that his gods were more powerful. It was a form of constant humiliation and a reminder of who was in charge.
Ehud returns alone and tells the king there is something he must tell him in private. The king believes Ehud. Eglon was so confident in Ehud's loyalty that he dismisses his royal guards. They were in a two-story building. The king, who is said to be fat, was upstairs because a desert breeze would blow through the windows making it cooler for him.
And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you.": Eglon, anxious to hear what juicy piece of news Ehud had for him rose out of his chair. Ehud sprang into action. He reached across his body with his left-hand, pulled out the concealed weapon and plunged it into Eglon. We are given some rather gory details such as that because the weapon had no cross piece at the top, the entire length of the sword entered Eglon's body. The fat engulfed what little of a handle there was. In fact, the sword went completely though Eglon's body and poked out the other side.
Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him: Ehud left the sword embedded in the dying king and left, closing the doors and locking them behind him. Yes, they did have rudimentary door locks and keys in those days. The key was a flat piece of wood that was fitted with pins corresponding to the holes in a hollow bolt. The hole in the door gave access to the bolt, which was located inside. Inserting the flat key into the bolt pushed out the pins of the lock. This allowed the bolt to be removed from the sockets of the doorpost. The way it operated, Ehud could have locked the door without a key, but it wold have required a key to gain entry.
They waited until they became anxious: When the king's servants noticed that Ehud had gone, they went up to check on the king, but the doors were closed and locked. They assumed that he was (as the Hebrew literally translates) "covering his feet". This is a Hebrew euphemism that means he was using the toilet. So, the servants patiently waited and waited. They waited but the door never opened. Finally, they reached the point where they felt that they had to risk bothering the king at a rather private moment. When he did not respond to opening the door, they got the key, opened the door and found him lying dead on the floor. The delay had given Ehud more than ample time to make his escape.
4. (Judges 3:26-30) Ehud leads the Israelites in battle against the Moabites
Now Ehud escaped while they were delaying, and he passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. It came about when he had arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was in front of them. He said to them, "Pursue them, for the LORD has given your enemies the Moabites into your hands." So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross. They struck down at that time about ten thousand Moabites, all robust and valiant men; and no one escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land was undisturbed for eighty years.
He passed the idols and escaped to Seirah: Ehud went back the same route he came, through the area where the god images had been erected in Gilgal. I suspect he looked upon those statues with a sense of dark satisfaction knowing that these gods certainly had not protected the king who had worshiped them. From there, he crossed to Seirah, which would have been on the border territory of Ephraim. Once safely back in Canaan, he went into the hill country and began sounding the shofar. This was a battle cry, a call to arms. Ehud realized that now was the favorable moment for Israel to attack their enemies while amid a vacuum of leadership in Moab. The people of Israel responded, and volunteers flooded in. Ehud would have naturally been their leader.
So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab: Their first move was to capture the fording points of the Jordan. This not only allowed no Moab reserve troops to come to Israel and fortify the garrison there, but it also served to cut-off the escape route of the Moabite soldier stationed in Israel. Ehud led the slaughter of 10,000 troops from Moab, Ammon and Amalek. The Moab's oppression over the southern Israelite tribes was broken. The land then had rest for two generation, 80 years.
The land was undisturbed for eighty years: We must assume from the pattern and what comes at the beginning of the next chapter that Ehud judged the southern tribes of Israel that entire eighty years of rest. Therefore, he must have been a very young man when he assassinated Eglon. No other period of rest was nearly as long in the remaining account of the time of the Judges.
D. The third Judge: Shamgar
1. (Judges 3:31) The brief story of Shamgar
After him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel.
Shamgar: Shamgar is not Hebrew: it is a Hurrian name. Shamgar, however, was a Hebrew. The family name is Anath. We see the terrible influence of the Canaanite pagan society on the tribe of Israel. Anath is the Canaanite goddess of sex and war. So here is a Hebrew man, given a gentile name and his father's family name was made in honor of a pagan god. Nonetheless, God picked this man to deliver Israel from a period of oppression from the Philistines. We are told that he must have been quite a warrior because he personally killed 600 Philistine soldiers. And his weapon of choice was an oxgoad.
Many scholars of the Book of Judges have speculated on why we find the use of improvised weapons mentioned prominently in the Book of Judges, especially as concerns Shamgar and later on Samson. Samson, you recall, killed a slew of Philistines using the jawbone of a donkey as his weapon. Every conqueror had a little different method of subjugation. One of the Philistine's methods was to carefully and completely disarm those whom they conquered. So regular weapons like bows, spears and swords would have been banned.
An oxgoad: An oxgoad, though not designed as a weapon, was deadly and formidable nonetheless. It was used to train teams of oxen. It was an eight or nine foot long wooden pole with a sharp metal point much like a spear on one end and a sharpened chisel-like end on the other end for scrapping dirt off the plow.
Shamgar is a good example of how the characteristics of a Judge cannot always be so easily defined. There is no mention of God raising him up or putting the Holy Spirit upon him. There is no mention of how long he ruled. In fact, he is never called a Judge, but he is referred to as a savior of Israel.
There is also the matter that although it says Shamgar came AFTER Ehud, it does not say it was after Ehud died. And this fuzziness is continued in the first verse of Judges chapter four when it begins with, "But after Ehud died" Israel did what was evil and was handed over to a king from the north that was based in Hazor. So the commonsense of this is that Shamgar delivered another and different region of Israel during Ehud's lifetime. The Philistines were located along the Mediterranean coast and afflicted tribes of Dan and Judah due to their close proximity. This was on the opposite side of Israel from where Moab had conquered sections of Canaan. So very probably, Ehud and Shamgar were contemporaries.
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