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12And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the LORD. 13He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of palms. 14And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
15Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, and the LORD raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab. 16And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. 17And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. 18And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. 19But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he commanded, "Silence." And all his attendants went out from his presence. 20And Ehud came to him as 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. 21And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. 22And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out. 23Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them.
24When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, "Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber." 25And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord dead on the floor.
26Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27When he arrived, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim. Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader. 28And he said to them, "Follow after me, for the LORD has given your enemies the Moabites into your hand." So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites and did not allow anyone to pass over. 29And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped. 30So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.
The second judge cycle of the book of Judges features a man named Ehud, and his introduction in 3:15 already sounds intriguing. He is of the tribe of Benjamin, and he is left-handed. At first sight, this seems almost banal. But in Hebrew the reference is peculiar. "Benjamin" means "son of the right hand." In other words, Ehud is a "left-handed son of a right hand." What sounds like a parody points to Ehud as an unlikely agent of Yahweh's deliverance.
When you survey the story without the introduction and its closing words, which bring God into the picture, the account reads like a secular assassination thriller involving betrayal, deceit, and lies on the part of the hero. The character of Ehud raises some questions for a critical reader who is hesitant to concede that the end always justifies the means.
But if Ehud mystifies us in some way, there is no question about Eglon the Moabite king. The narrator casts him as a truly comical figure. No Israelite would have missed the ironic implications of his name, Eglon meaning "bull" or "calf." The author even underscores the king's corpulence, saying, "Now Eglon was an extremely fat man." Eglon the buffoon images a fattened calf, going down to the slaughter house. The picture assumes a grotesque nuance in 3:20-22, with the comment that Eglon's layers of fat smothered Ehud's sword when he stabbed the king.
But the man is not only marked by debilitating obesity; he is also slow-witted. He is stupid, because he is courted by Ehud's flattery and dismisses his guard, leaving him alone in the room with the enemy. We can well imagine Israelites laughing heartily at the "toilet joke" about the obese king. When he is stabbed his intestines relax, and he empties himself on the floor of his throne room.
Yes, you can see Israelites laughing at this situation. But the more discerning minds would have had a somewhat uneasy laughter over all this. They would have known that no portion of the Bible was ever written primarily to mock foreigners. The story challenges the readers to reflect upon their own condition. You think Eglon is a laughable figure? Well, then, laugh at those who are subject to this poor fellow! By implication, the story says as much about Israel's spiritual deterioration as it does about the Moabites. Israel was supposed to be a noble people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Ex. 19:3-6). Now they had been reduced to paying tribute to a foreign despot resembling Jabba the Hutt. O Israel, how have you strayed from your high calling!
We may be thinking about how we have strayed from our calling in Christ. Christians too can become entangled and enslaved to things and ideas or desires that we were never meant to serve. But "by whom [or: whatever] a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage" (2 Pet. 2:19). Paul told the Colossian Christians who had been ensnared in a false gospel and were drawn to worship creation rather than the Creator that, "In Christ dwells all the fullness of the deity bodily; and you are complete [filled] in him, who is the head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:9-10). We do not need any other object of worship in our life. Christ answers to all our needs. Hold him, and you are complete in him. The alternative is to sell out our identity, and to squander our high calling in Christ. We are to be for him and him alone.
The author of these devotionals, the Rev. Martin Emmrich, is an ordained OPC minister (Westminster OPC, Corvallis, Oregon) as well as the author of Pneumatological Concepts in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book on the teaching of Hebrews on the Holy Spirit. We are happy to make these devotionals on Ecclesiastes and other passages of Scripture available to you.
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