If you are someone who likes a gory story or movie with a bit of comedy and irony thrown in, then todays story of Ehud and Eglon will be right up your alley!
It’s not my cup of tea, but some of the details that are in this chapter of Judges I must admit are really quite comical! And we can wonder at the message there is for us in this story…but there’s definitely a message there. Aside from the cycle of sin to deliverance, in the Ehud story we see how God uses unlikely and unexpected people in unexpected ways. We can wonder if God approved of Ehud’s methods, but God does use him to deliver Israel from their enemies and bring peace to the land.
Before we get to Ehud, there is Othniel. Othniel’s story is much more straightforward and sets up the general pattern we will find in Judges. Othniel himself is already a respected leader who we hear about in Chapter 1. He had showed skill in battle and won the hand of Caleb’s daughter. Caleb being one of the original spies with Joshua who had served under Moses and Joshua.
The pattern goes like this as we read from verse 7.
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lords. They serve other gods.
God’s anger burns against them. He punishes them by allowing them to be defeated/ oppressed by another nation. In this instance it was Cushan- Rishathaim, King of Aram Naharaim. His name apparently translates to Cushan of double wickedness! The Israelites were subject to this King for 8 years.
Israel then calls out to the Lord and he hears them. God shows his mercy and raises up a deliverer. In this case, the deliverer is Othniel and we read that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him so that he became Israels judge or heroic leader, taking them to war.
Through the judge that has been raised up, the Lord delivers Israel from their oppressor and the land has peace. This first time, they have peace for forty years. And then the judge dies, and the pattern begins again!
There is one little word added into the story now – “again”. From verse 12, Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
It seems they did not learn their lesson. God said he would test their faithfulness and they seem bent on being unfaithful, while relying on God’s faithfulness and mercy every time they suffer!
The Israelites reap what they sow. They follow their sinful desires, worship other gods and pay the consequences. They end up in bondage to their enemies again.
Sometimes we look at the immediate pleasure of sin, failing to see what the outcome will be. Satan likes to tempt us, making the sin, whatever it may be, look very attractive, and so we take a bite of the bait and get hooked…and then it can be hard to break free.
This time it is the Moabite King Eglon who attacks Israel, making them his subjects for eighteen years!
Then comes the little extra word… ‘again’! Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer.
This time it is a most unlikely, unexpected deliverer. Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite.
Many of you will remember and may have experienced a time when being left-handed was considered abnormal and something to be corrected. I remember stories of people having their left hand tied behind their back as they were forced to learn to eat or write with their right hand. Did anyone here experience that?
Well back in the days of the Judges being left-handed was definitely seen as a weakness, a physical defect. In the Hebrew the wording in this verse is literally that he could not use his right hand. Possibly it was deformed or paralysed. The comedy here is that Ehud is from the tribe of Benjamin, whose name means son of the right hand!
The right hand is symbolic of the power of God. The words your right hand will save me is very common throughout scripture, especially in the psalms. Jesus of course, sits at God’s right hand. The right hand is a place of authority.
So it is quite ironic that God raises up Ehud, a left-handed man, whose right hand is ineffective, as Israels deliverer!
But God is a God of surprises who strengthens the weak. God did not see Ehuds left handedness as a disadvantage, and neither did Ehud. Rather, he uses his left-hand skills to his advantage. And surprises King Eglon.
Firstly, back to the story. Ehud had been commissioned by the Israelites to take a tribute to the King of Moab. This tribute confirms that the Israelites are subject to this King, the tribute possibly included items like wool and food.
There is no suggestion that anyone knows Ehud was planning to assassinate the King. That plan seems to be all his own making. Though we do read that he was God’s deliverer for Israel. So was it part of God’s plan?
Ehud was clever and cunning and used deception to assassinate the King. This reminded me of the story of Jacob who deceives his father Isaac to get his blessing over his brother Esau. Not a great way to go about things, but even so Jacob was God’s chosen one. We can but wonder at his ways sometimes!
After leaving the King with the tribute from the Israelites, Ehud begins to return home with the crew that had carried the goods, but then we read that he goes back alone to the King of Moab. To the very fat King! You wouldn’t get away with a description like that today!! These little details make for a very authentic, interesting story for our imaginations.
Ehud tells King Eglon that he has a secret message for him. This piques the King’s interest, who wouldn’t want to hear a secret message. And being secret he dismisses his staff. Ehud is not seen as a threat, for he is a left-handed man! And he wasn’t strip searched or had to go through a metal detector to have an audience with the King!
What had he made and was hiding under his clothing? A double edge sword, strapped to his right thigh.
When Ehud and the King are alone, Ehud repeats that he has a message for him, this time saying it is from God. The King rises to hear this message, not at all expecting this left-handed man to deftly draw a hidden sword with his left hand and plunge it into his belly! Again, we have amusing gory details here about how the fat closes over the sword and how he empties his bowels! Uugh, eeew! Do we really want to imagine that?!!
What was the word Ehud had from God for the King? That he was going to die. His evil reign over the Israelites, God’s chosen, (though very evil, weak people) was going to end and God was going to deliver them again.
The symbolism here is rich. What does Hebrews 4 verse 12 say about the word of God? For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
It was a double-edged sword that killed Eglon.
Ehud had been so quick to kill the King that he had no time to call out. Ehud can get safely away locking the doors behind him.
The comedy continues in this story for when the servants come back, they can perhaps smell the King’s empty bowels and so they presume he is on the toilet doing his business. Sounds like he often takes a long time and so they patiently waited, to the point of embarrassment!
When they finally decide they better unlock the doors to check on the King, they discover him dead and Ehud has had plenty of time to get right away and rally the troops. Aside from the assassination, it seems there had been no pre-planning of organizing an army, but at the sound of the trumpet the Israelites come in force and hearing that he had killed the King of Moab, their oppressor, they follow Ehud’s instructions.
The Moabites lack direction without their King and they are easily defeated as they possibly withdraw to their own land. And we read,
That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
Again, God had delivered his people from oppression.
I’m sure you’ve all got some moral and ethical questions as we read this story. And I don’t have the answers! But it did make me draw some parallels to our own history and modern day.
Is it ever right to murder to save others? This was a question the great Christian martyr Diedrich Bonhoeffer contemplated in the second world war as to whether to join with others to plot the assassination of Hitler. Some today may think the assassination of Putin is warranted in the hope of ending the war against Ukraine.
Personally, I don’t think we should go around plotting to murder people. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for them. So, I think that is what we should do!
God raised up Jesus to be our judge and deliverer, and he will judge our enemies.
He has already delivered us so that we can live in complete freedom from sin.
The story of Judges does show us how God hates sin, how he shows mercy and delivers his people. It shows how he might do this in unexpected ways using unlikely people like Ehud.
He chooses us to be his church, to be his ambassadors, to be his leaders. We who may be considered weak or ‘left-handed’, he uses to be his instruments of grace and peace. In 1 Corinthians 1: 26 -31 we read this;
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
God chose left-handed Ehud, considered to be weak with a major defect to deliver his people.
Very briefly after the story of Ehud comes just one verse on the next Judge, Shamgar. The typical pattern is not repeated here, but there is one interesting fact. He defeated the enemies with an oxgoad, a long pointy stick to goad the ox! Again, God uses unlikely methods, just like David slaying Goliath with his sling. God is the deliverer and can use anything or anyone…
Much later God sent his one and only son, prophesied by Isaiah as one not known for his outward appearance either;
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind…
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53 2-3)
Jesus saved us in a most unlikely way too. By death on the cross.
We may not understand God and his ways. But we can trust him. Trust him to forgive us and to save us, and we can ask him to use us for his glory. Amen.