October 21, 2024
We read in Judges 3:15 how “the Israelites (who were suffering under the oppression of the Moabites) cried out to the Lord, and He raised up Ehud son of Gera, a left-handed Benjamite, as a deliverer for them. The Israelites sent him with the tribute for King Eglon of Moab. Ehud made himself a double-edged sword eighteen inches long. He strapped it to his right thigh under his clothes and brought the tribute to King Eglon of Moab, who was an extremely fat man. When Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he dismissed the people who had carried it. At the carved images near Gilgal he returned and said, ‘King Eglon, I have a secret message for you.’ The king said, ‘Silence!’ and all his attendants left him. Then Ehud approached him while he was sitting alone in his upstairs room where it was cool. Ehud said, ‘I have a message from God for you,’ and the king stood up from his throne. Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into Eglon’s belly. Even the handle went in after the blade, and Eglon’s fat closed in over it, so that Ehud did not withdraw the sword from his belly. And the waste came out. Ehud escape by way of the porch, closing and locking the doors of the upstairs room behind him … He passed the Jordan … and reached Seirah. After he arrived, he sounded the ram’s horn throughout the hill country of Ephraim. The Israelites came down with him from the hill country and he became their leader … and they struck down about ten thousand Moabites … Moab became subject to Israel that day, and the land had peace for eighty years.”
Here we have a gripping and gruesome tale in which God’s chosen deliverer assassinated the Moabite king and then led a successful fight for freedom which established peace in Israel for eighty years. The emphasis on Eglon’s extreme size and how the dagger/sword disappeared into his abundant abdomen conjures up an image of Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars. In the face of the such a striking story many a reader asks: Did God send Ehud to assassinate King Eglon and did Ehud lie when he said he had a message from God, but then stabbed the king to death?
Before we answer these two troubling questions, may I say that although I love history I understand why many students hated history because some teachers and textbooks seemed to get bogged down in dreary details, unpronounceable names, and endless dates. Inspired and inspiring Biblical writers, on the other hand, captivate our attention with surprising and startling if not stark and shocking stories like this one recorded in Judges. While the Bible has many details, names, and dates it is enlivened by eye-catching hyperbole, honesty, humor, and drama that can give our heart, soul, and mind a good work out.
King Eglon, who had allied himself with the Ammonites and Amalekites, had become not only an avenging angel on the sinful Israelites but eventually an insufferable nemesis for eighteen years. In the midst of this heartbreak and misery the Israelites cried out in desperation to God. Desperate times call for desperate means that not only catch Israel’s enemies by surprise but also stagger the imagination of the reader. Even while we 21st century readers might find such gruesomeness distasteful and disturbing, we are watching on our nightly news far more graphic images of death and destruction directly tied to dictator/tsar of sorts Vladimir Putin. We can understand why a prominent leader of the Free World would want to see him “removed.” We are reminded of the ageless truth that war is hell, though sometimes a necessary evil, especially when fought on behalf of defense and judgment, which with God goes hand in hand as in the case of Ehud and the Israelites.
This was a time for judgment when God called Ehud to lead his people in a war for freedom. The message he had for Eglon was one of judgment, spelled out with actions not words. The Apologetics Study Bible explains in its commentary on Judges 3:20: “Ehud was not being deceptive when he declared he had ‘a word from God’ for Eglon and then killed him. God’s messages were not always messages of well being or hope; they were, at times, messages of judgment and death. Nor were they always verbal; the Hebrew term for ‘word’ (dabar) can mean ‘matter’ or ‘thing.’” Ehud knew that the head (King Eglon) of the snake (Moab) had to be cut off. Dietrich Bonhoeffer heroically returned to Nazi Germany from a safe haven in the United States to stand up and speak against the malicious madness of Adolph Hitler that had seduced and engulfed his homeland. He ended up being executed because he was implicated in the unsuccessful plot to assassinate Hitler and end the war.
Perhaps we ought to pause to remember that such “desperate measures” as described in Judges 3 may be a necessary evil, but are always fraught with anguish. We do well to reflect if not accept the always wise words of Albert Barnes, one of those incomparable Biblical scholars who had an inspiring grasp of the entire Bible. He wrote: “We can allow to Ehud faith and courage and patriotism, without being blind to those defective views of moral right which made him and his countrymen glory in an act which in the light of Christianity is a crime. It is remarkable that neither Ehud nor Jael are included in St. Paul’s list in Hebrews ix. 32.” Albert Barnes refers to Jael who welcomed the fleeing commander of the Canaanites defeated by the Israelites into her home only to hammer a tent peg through his temple; what she did might deserve our attention another time.
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Dr. Paul Baxter is the mission strategist in Georgia's Pine Mountain Baptist Association..
