Judges 3:12-31--Ehud and Shamgar

Judges 3:12-31
English Standard Version

Ehud
12 And 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. 13 He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of palms. 14 And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

15 Then 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. 16 And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. 17 And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. 18 And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. 19 But 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. 20 And 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. 21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. 22 And 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. 23 Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them.

24 When 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.” 25 And 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.

26 Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27 When 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. 28 And 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. 29 And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped. 30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.

Shamgar
​31 After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.

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When Israel once again rebelled against the LORD and sinned against Him, the LORD raised up Eglon, king of Moab (along with the Ammonites and the Amalekites) to conquer Israel and rule over them for 18 year.  After this period of servitude, the LORD heard the people's cries for deliverance and the LORD raised up Ehud, a Benjamite, to kill the king of Moab and call the Israelites to battle.

Two important facts about this story before we get started.  First is that King Eglon is very fat, and the second important fact is that Ehud is left-hand.  Ehud appears from everything in this account to be trained as an assassin both because of his choice of weapon (a double-edged short sword or dagger) and his tactics (he was skilled in infiltration, diversion and making an clean get-away).  He is less honorable than the first judge, Othniel because Ehud used deception to accomplish his task, and we'll see a downward progression in the moral fabric of not only the culture, but the judges throughout the book of Judges so that by the end even though the deliverance provided is great, we are still desiring the perfect and Righteous Judge who is not tainted by sin.

Ehud goes with the group that is paying tribute to the king (money that is show that the people consider themselves subjects of the king beyond regular taxation), then when the tribute had been delivered, Ehud sent those carrying the tribute away and told the king that he had a secret message for him.  The king went to a private chamber on the roof to meet with Ehud and when Ehud arrived he told the king "I have a message from God" and stabbed the king with a dagger that he had concealed beneath his clothes.  The reason Ehud was able to do this was that since he was left-handed, the dagger was sheathed on his right side, but the guards at that time only expected people to carry weapons on their left side since most people were right-handed (just like today), so if Ehud was searched, they were unlikely to have searched the side where his dagger was hidden.

Now Ehud drove the dagger in so deep that even the hilt went into Eglon's belly.  Remember that it is a double-edged dagger that would cut both ways, so even if the dagger is pulled out, it would just cut deeper and more severely.  However, King Eglon is so fat that his fat enveloped the dagger and it was unable to be pulled out.  The text says that the king's bowel was pierced because dung came out of the wound--it's extremely dangerous if the bacterial and waste from the bowel enters the bloodstream--and the king died very quickly.

Ehud locked and closed the door behind himself to delay the guards from checking on the king, and when the king did not come out right away and the door was locked, the guards assumed that he was relieving himself (using the chamber pot) inside this cool, private space.  When the king did not come out for such a long time that the guards were embarrassed by their assumption that he was simply going to the bathroom, they got the key, unlocked the door and entered to find the king dead.  By that time, Ehud was long gone as his tactic to delay the guards had worked.

When Ehud got back to the territory of Ephraim, he blew the trumpet to sound that all Israel should gather for battle, and the Israelites rose up and made war with the Moabites, killing about 10,000 of them, and not a single strong, able-bodied man escaped.  Moab was subdued and was no longer a threat to Israel even until the time this was written (right before the time of King David) and Israel had peace for another 80 years.

I included this last part because there is only one verse about Shamgar and I didn't want to dedicate an entire article to one verse tomorrow.  Shamgar was raised up after this to judge the Philistines and he killed 600 of them with an oxgoad.  Since that's probably a term most are not familiar with, "An ox goad is a wooden tool, approximately eight feet long, fitted with an iron spike or point at one end, which was used to spur oxen as they pulled a plow or cart." (https://www.gotquestions.org/oxgoad-Bible.html).  We'll see Sampson do something similar with the jawbone of a donkey later in the book of Judges.  This happened during the "peace" that the LORD gave to Israel during the time that Ehud was judge, because the next chapter starts with "And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died."  So again we see that the Israelites are following a person/leader who is an example for them and not really following after the LORD in their own personal relationship with Him.  As their leaders become more and more tainted and corrupt, so will the the nation as they will follow the example of their leaders.