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Ehud (and Shamgar)

Judges 3:12–31

[Ehud’s Lack of Integrity; Shamgar the Foil]

REVIEW, SUMMARY, PREVIEW

Review of Pericope 2: In Jdg 2:6—3:11 (Prologue II and the Othniel story), the religious decline of the Israelites is detailed—the infidelity of the post-Joshua generation of Israelites. Things spiral from bad to worse, creating a paradigm that reflects this descent in each of the subsequent judge stories. Othniel, the first judge, however, is a parade example of a godly leader, whose story follows the paradigm precisely. With divine aid, he becomes Israel’s deliverer.

Summary of Pericope 3: The third pericope of Judges (3:12–31) depicts the second major judge in the series, Ehud. His duplicitous words and deceptive actions are subtly deprecated in his story: his left-handedness is suspect; his meticulously planned skullduggery is disfavored; he is equated to Joab, and with excrement. And, finally, the cameo of Shamgar makes this minor judge a foil for the major judge who lacks integrity. With the implicit disapproval of Ehud’s actions and the approval of Shamgar’s, integrity in leadership forms the thrust of this pericope.

Preview of Pericope 4: The next pericope, Jdg 4:1–24, is the story of Barak. Raised up by God’s representative, Deborah, he refuses to fulfill his commission unless she go with him into battle, despite God’s unambiguous promise of triumph. As a result of his faithless fear, Barak loses out on the honor of victory and the capture of the enemy general, Sisera, being preempted in the latter’s execution by another woman, a non-Israelite, Jael.

3. Judges 3:12–31

THEOLOGICAL FOCUS OF PERICOPE 3
3	Integrity in life, driven by reverence for God and reliance upon him, receives divine approbation (3:12–31).
	3.1	God who remains ever faithful to his people is worthy of their reverence.
	3.2	Unilateral, self-reliant strategies show a lack of dependence upon deity.
	3.3	Duplicity in life, demonstrating a lack of integrity, receives God’s disapprobation.
	3.4	God uses those who avoid self-reliance, duplicity, and disdain for deity.

OVERVIEW

This pericope follows the standard paradigm of 2:11–19 and simulates the ideal model of Othniel (3:7–11), though with some critical differences (see below).

Pericope 3 is carefully structured, centered on the assassination of Eglon by Ehud168:

In this story, there is plenty of suspense, tension, intrigue, caricature, and “scatological humor.”169 Block calls it “a literary cartoon” that is “polemical and coarse.”170

3. Judges 3:12–31

THEOLOGICAL FOCUS 3
3	Integrity in life, driven by reverence for God and reliance upon him, receives divine approbation (3:12–31).
	3.1	God who remains ever faithful to his people is worthy of their reverence.
	3.2	Unilateral, self-reliant strategies show a lack of dependence upon deity.
	3.3	Duplicity in life, demonstrating a lack of integrity, receives God’s disapprobation.
	3.4	God uses those who avoid self-reliance, duplicity, and disdain for deity.

NOTES 3

3.1 God who remains ever faithful to his people is worthy of their reverence.

Deviations from the model judge’s account—the Othniel story—point to the less than stellar nature of the second judge, Ehud. Both leader and people evidence a lack of reverence for Yahweh.

In the Othniel and Ehud stories, there is, in each case, a single enemy king (Cushan-rishathaim and Eglon, respectively), though in the first account, Cushan-rishathaim is never the subject of a verb and so does not act, at least not literarily. Eglon, on the other hand, is active and vocal in this pericope, symbolic of his active oppression of the Israelites (3:14, 17, 19)—an oppression they deserved as punishment from God for their infidelities and evildoing. Things are quickly beginning to slip and slide away from the relative perfection of the Othniel account.171

Right at the start, we are told twice that Israel “did evil in the sight of Yahweh” (3:12). Indeed, in its first iteration in that verse, the text declares: “And the sons of Israel continued to do evil in the sight of Yahweh”—they had never stopped doing evil, it seems, after they first engaged in it in 3:7. And unlike the preceding Othniel narrative, in the Ehud account there is no mention of the Israelites being “sold” into the hands of the enemy; instead we are told that Yahweh “strengthened” (qzx, khzq) Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel (3:12). The verb occurs in the exodus stories, to describe God “hardening” (qzx) Pharaoh’s heart (Exod 4:21; 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8) and that of the Egyptians (14:17). That is, of course, not a good sign.

The result of Yahweh “strengthening” the hand of the king of Moab was that Moabites “took possession” (vry, yrsh) of the city of the palm trees (Jdg 3:13).172 Once Yahweh had prohibited the Israelites from infringing upon Moabite territory, land he had given those peoples (Deut 2:9). Now the Moabites were encroaching upon land allotted to the Israelites, and with Yahweh himself behind that invasion. Evildoing has its consequences. “Taking possession” (or “driving out,” also vry), was exactly what the Israelites were supposed to do, and at which they had failed (see vry in Jdg 1:19, 20, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33; and 2:6, 21, 23).173 Countering his own “strengthening” of the hand of the Moabite oppressor, Eglon (3:12), Yahweh then “raises up” an Israelite deliverer, Ehud (3:15). But quite surprisingly, for the rest of the pericope, Yahweh does not seem at all involved with the goings on. We are not told that Yahweh “was with the judge” (as the paradigm had it, 2:18), or that his Spirit came upon that individual (as with Othniel, 3:10). And the final victory won by the Israelites is not attributed by the narrator to any work of Yahweh, either (3:29–30).

This virtual absence of Yahweh in the story also raises suspicions about how his people, in particular his leader, regarded him. While one assumes that God’s commissioning a deliverer and endowing that judge with the Spirit is a guarantee of the individual’s upright behavior and exemplary life, that is not necessarily so: from Othniel to Samson, several of the judges are empowered by God and endued by the Spirit, yet there is a progressive and inexorable deterioration of behavior and morality despite this special divine intervention and/or connection. So too, here, with Ehud; his being “raised up” by Yahweh does not necessarily imply that all his actions were scrupulous and virtuous. Rather, Yahweh’s curious absence from the main event of Eglon’s assassination (3:16–25), as well as from the dénouement of the story, the routing of the Moabites (3:26–30), give the reader pause and raise suspicions.

In the case of Othniel’s victory over Cushan-rishathaim, at the onset of Israel’s military engagement with the enemy, the narrator asserted that Yahweh “gave” the enemy king into Othniel’s hand (3:10). Here, however, things are more indirect: Yahweh’s role in the pericope (for the only time after 3:15) is described in Ehud’s voice and not by the narrator, and that as part of Ehud’s exhortation to his troops after the assassination of the enemy king (3:28).174 Both in Othniel’s story and in Barak’s, God’s role in the military victory is explicitly noted by the narrator (3:10; 4:23). Here, in Ehud’s story, Moab is merely the subject of a passive verb: “Moab was subdued . . . under the hand of Israel” (3:30). So, outside of Ehud’s declaration in 3:28, there is no sign of Yahweh or his activity. As we will see, Ehud’s self-interest, self-reliance, and duplicity preclude any involvement by deity. Apparently God is not needed in those precincts.

Another structural element underscores the disdain of Yahweh in the story. The mention of “idols” (from lysip', pasil) in 3:19 and 3:26 brackets the heart of the pericope—the story of Eglon’s killing. These religious objects were manmade cult images; and Ehud passes by them on his way in to kill, and again as he leaves from his kill. The noun is derived from the verb ls;p' (pasal) meaning to “hew/carve” (Deut 10:1, 3); in the OT lysp/lsp always indicates hewn/carved idols.175 Obviously these are anti-Yahwistic: Jdg 2:2, 11–13, 17, 19. Judges 3:6 had already warned of the Israelites’ predilection for Canaanite gods and, indeed, 3:12 asserts that such evildoing had “continued’ into the time of this narrative. “[T]he twin references to the pēsîlîm articulate the decisive and dramatic core of the adventure. Everything that precedes 3:19–26 is preliminary; everything which follows is anticlimactic.”176 Bookending the critical core of the Ehud story (3:19, 26), one wonders why these idols are markers for the narrative. Where did they come from and what was Ehud doing in relation to them? “Cultic indolence,” O’Connell, called it:

The predominant deuteronomic concern, that of cultic disloyalty, remains implicit in Ehud’s failure to remove from the land the twice-mentioned idols that frame the portrayal of Eglon’s assassination (3:19aab and 3:26b). This failure to remove the idols characterizes negatively both Ehud (as microcosm) and the tribe whom he delivers (as macrocosm) and ostensibly leads to the religious apostasy that begins the following deliverer account (cf. 4:1).177

Even if they were Moabite installations, it would certainly have been a lot easier to sabotage these idols than to assassinate the highest-ranking Moabite official. After all, the command to the Israelites to destroy them was unambiguous (lysp in Deut 7:5, 25; 12:3; lsp in Deut 4:16, 23, 25; 5:8; 27:15).178 If Ehud accomplished the murder of the king with relative ease, surely he could have done something about the idols.

But, despite this disdain for Yahweh, all is not lost. One must remember that this is only the account of the second judge, the one who immediately follows the paradigmatic model of the first judge, Othniel. So not everything has gone awry yet. Ehud, we will see, “escapes” (3:26 [×2]) after his daring single-(left)handed assassination of Eglon; but, following the attack of the Israelites, none of the Moabites “escapes” (3:29). And as the pericope concludes, Israel succeeds in overthrowing the yoke of the oppressor: though the Moabites “smite” (hkn, nkh) Israel at the beginning of the narrative (3:13), in the end they are the ones who are “smitten” (3:29). And, finally, the land is said to enjoy rest for eighty years, an unusually long period, the longest span of rest in Judges (the next closest is forty: 3:11; 5:31: 8:28).

All that to say, evidently Yahweh was at work, even though he seems to have been (literarily) absent: there are fingerprints of providence all along.

3.2 Unilateral, self-reliant strategies show a lack of dependence upon deity.

Right at the start of the Ehud story we get a sense that something is not right. Yahweh raises up Ehud, “the Benjaminite, a left-handed man” (3:15). There is an assonant repetition of ynIymiy>, ymini, in ynIymiy>h;-!B, (ben-haymini, “the Benjaminite,” literally “son of the right [hand]”) and in Anymiy>-dy: rJeai (’itter yad-ymino, “bound in his right hand”), both relatively rare terms. The first, the gentilic or demonymous form of the tribal affiliation, ynymyh-!b, is unusual and used only in about a dozen out of seventy references to Benjaminites in the OT; elsewhere it is the collective !miy"n>bi (binyamin, “Benjamin”) or !miy"n>bi ynEb. (bne binyamin, “sons of Benjamin).179 And the only other use of Anymiy>-dy: rJeai in Scripture is in 20:16, where it is used of the Benjaminites who aid and abet wickedness.180 So it appears that Ehud is not all “right” (!), and is not what he appears to be or is supposed to be: he is a “son of the right hand” who is “bound in his right hand.”181 His left-handedness may be a subtle disparagement.

In many cultures, including cultures in the ancient Near East, the left hand is associated with impurity or deviance. The right is the place of honor and sovereignty, virility, strength, goodness; the left the place of vassalage, subservience, evil, and weakness. . . . [T]he left hand may not be used for eating; it is commonly associated with matters of personal hygiene that discourage its use in the preparation or ingestion of food. The left hand is expressly disfavored in ancient Israelite ritual.182

The sense of Ehud’s deficiency is amplified by these negative connotations of left-handedness. In any case, 3:15 ends up depicting Ehud, the left-handed son of right-handers, as an unlikely hero who has a strange whiff about him. “[I]f the point of the wordplay is indeed to highlight a ‘falling short’ in a core area of one’s identity, . . . can one not further extend this sense of ‘falling short’ and see it as subtly foreshadowing certain of Ehud’s actions in the ensuing narrative?”183 It seems likely, then, that Ehud’s subsequent deceptions in this story are subtly being deprecated from the very start.

Instead of simply highlighting Ehud’s left-handedness, the incongruity revealed by the wordplay may carry deeper symbolic significance in portraying Ehud as someone whose actions and choices are liable to fall short of the standard expected of him on the basis of who he is. Thus, if the choice of Ehud is surprising, it is surprising not only because his restriction in the right hand obviously fell short of the norm expected of a “son of the right-handers,” but also because the tactics he used likewise fell short of the standard expected of a deliverer raised up by YHWH.184

The anomaly of a member of a right-handed tribe being a left-handed man seems to be hinting at the theological oddity of a deliverer raised up by Yahweh (3:15) resorting to underhanded tactics.

It is striking that a unilateral human endeavor without any input from deity is undertaken to solve the eighteen-year-long thorny problem that Eglon and Moab posed for the Israelites. Such an attitude, showing independence from Yahweh, is suggested by the phrase in 3:16, br<x, dWhae Al f[;Y:w: (wayya‘as lo ’ehud khereb), “Ehud made for himself a sword,” seeing wOl as reflexive, “for himself.” There is no inquiry of Yahweh, no input from Yahweh, no imperative from Yahweh. And the sword is for himself, not for tribe, nation, or deity. This, in itself, is not necessarily negative, but in light of Yahweh’s invisibility throughout the account, it certainly is suspicious.

The judge/deliverer then goes to great lengths to prepare for his lethal meeting with the oppressor-in-chief, ostensibly to present a tribute (3:15, 18). Ehud manufactures a weapon fit/appropriate for the corpulent Eglon (3:17, 22): its length is stressed—a “cubit” long (about 12–18 inches)—“custom-designed for Eglon: short enough to conceal; long enough to do him in.”185

The hand-motif recurs in this narrative. For starters, as we have seen, Ehud is “a left-handed man” (Anymiy>-dy: rJeai vyai, ’ish ’itter yad-ymino), and the tribute to Eglon is “sent” (xlv, shlkh) “by his hand” (Ady"B., byado, 3:15). At the climax of the story, Ehud “stretches” (xlv) his “hand” (dy:, yad) to consummate his regicide (3:21). The narrative concludes with a statement that Moab was subdued that day under the hand (dy:) of Israel (3:30).186 The hand of Ehud and the hand of Israel monopolize the story, with but a single mention by Ehud about Yahweh giving the Moabites into the “hand” (dy:) of the Israelites (3:28).

And what of 3:28, itself—was that an unadulterated sign of reliance on Yahweh by Ehud? Thus far, there has been “no hint of any spiritual sensitivity in Ehud’s heart nor any sense of divine calling. On the contrary, Ehud operates like a typical Canaanite of his time—cleverly, opportunistically, and violently, apparently for his own glory.”187 Nonetheless, Ehud’s declaration in 3:28, in the perfect tense, that “Yahweh has given your enemies the Moabites into your hands,” is significant (see similar assertions in 4:14; 7:14–15: all creditable utterances).188 While he has employed deception in his assassination (see below), he is not completely lacking in faith or in knowledge of the Almighty. Remember, the slippage of the judges has only begun with Ehud and, as the first to follow Othniel’s perfect footsteps, one does not expect to see him depicted with too much negativity. Both Othniel and Ehud were, after all, raised by Yahweh (3:9, 15—the only two judges who are called “deliverers,” using a substantival participle), and both brought rest to the land (3:11, 30).189

But notice this: While it is quite appropriate that Ehud, after the assassination and the summoning of his troops, orders them, “Follow after me” (3:28, where he also invokes Yahweh), one again gets the sense of a self-focused individual.190 He appears intent on using himself as a model primarily, with his army following him; he supports his exhortation with Yahweh’s name only secondarily.

[T]he subsequent growing concern of the Judges compiler/redactor with the leadership qualities of Israel’s deliverers leads one, in retrospect, to inquire whether Ehud’s characterization as a self-promoting saviour is an intended nuance. While Ehud claims Yhwh’s guarantee of success in 3:28ab on the basis of his foregoing success, there is something implicitly self-authenticating about it, for by no explicit means had Yhwh disclosed this to any character in the story world.191

Besides, in the case of Gideon, his sharing of victory laurels with Yahweh is subsequently proven to be born of arrogance and conceit (8:17, 20). So much so, one wonders if the narrator’s subtle disparagement is also reflected in the absence of any statement at the end of the narrative that “Ehud judged Israel for X years.” Only Gideon shares that dubious distinction. Even Samson has a statement to this effect.

3.3 Duplicity in life, demonstrating a lack of integrity, receives God’s disapprobation.

After presenting the Israelite tribute to Moab, Ehud leaves, only to return to the king (3:19). Ehud speaks twice to Eglon, employing a mere six words total: “I have a secret message [rbd, dbr, also ‘thing’] for you, O king” (3:19), and “I have a message [thing] from God for you” (3:20). Clearly the utterances were intended to deceive: Eglon expected a “message,” but Ehud gave him a “thing” (the sword). Thus “the duplicity of both speeches’ use of rbd may play on a key feature of Ehud’s sword—its double-edgedness.”192 The tool Ehud fashioned for the assassination was a “sword of (two) mouths,” i.e., a two-edged sword (3:16; for an identical Greek term, see Sir 21:3; Heb 4:12; Rev 1:16; 2:12). Berman concludes: “[T]he double-, or multi-edged sword, which we find . . . in the biblical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature, always bears a metaphorical or figurative meaning pertaining to orality. In all but one case, the ‘sword of [two] mouths’ stands as a trope for the potency of speech.”193 In any case, “sword” and “mouth” are linked frequently: “by edge of the sword” is literally “by the mouth of the sword” (br<x'-ypil., lpi-khareb; see Jdg 1:8; 25; 4:15, 16; 7:22; 18:27; 20:37, 48; 21:10; and elsewhere in the OT). All that to say, there is intentional duplicity here. And so the sword is doubly concealed—physically, under Ehud’s cloak (3:16), and verbally, by referring to it as a “message/thing” (3:3:20). The linguistic parallels between Ehud’s preparation and his assassination of Eglon are also notable194:

This was a carefully plotted undertaking, intended to deceive and to kill. The undercurrent of a perfidious plot is detected in the very commencement of the story, with the tribute literarily hiding (sandwiching) a plot to murder.

Ehud’s use of deception is a significant part of the development of the story: he conceals his weapon on his right thigh, because of his left-handedness (3:16); he makes an innocent first visit to allay suspicion and, subsequently, a second one for his tactical and homicidal operation (3:18, 19); he leaves his weapon in the stout Eglon’s belly and lets the man’s fat close around it, preventing any blood stains getting on his person (though fecal matter did seep out—the smell of which apparently fooled the king’s courtiers, 3:22; see below); and he locks the doors behind him as he makes his escape (3:23) to keep the courtiers out longer.195 Of course, all of this could be interpreted positively as Ehud’s actions undertaken with a trust in Yahweh’s ability to give him victory.196 But, again, the absence of Yahweh in these transactions is a hint of pejoration from the narrator’s quill.

The action is fast-forwarded from the moment the king rises to greet Ehud the second time around (3:20)—eight wayyiqtol verb forms cascade through 3:21–23 as the assassination is accomplished: Ehud stretched, he took, he thrust, the handle entered, the fat closed, he did not draw out, excrement (implied) came out, Ehud came out, closed the doors, and locked them (xl;v.YIw:, xQ;YIw:, h'[,q't.YIw:, aboY"w:, rGOs.YIw:, aceYEw:, aceYEw:, rGOs.YIw:; wayyishlakh, wayyiqqakh, wayyitqa‘eha, wayyabo’, wayyisgor, wayyetse’, wayyetse’, wayyisgor)!197 He knows what he is doing—it is intentional, deliberate, and delivered with malice aforethought. “Taken together therefore, the unexpected left-handed ‘son of the right-handers’ wielding a double mouthed weapon would constitute a fitting symbolic introduction to an incongruously deceptive deliverer who would attempt an assassination with the help of verbal double entendres.”198

There is yet another argument for seeing Ehud negatively in this story: the parallels between Ehud and Joab—their respective assassinations are remarkably similar.199

Scripture clearly is disapproving of Joab’s actions: see 2 Sam 3:28–39; 1 Kgs 2:5–6, 31–32. That there was a deliberate attempt to link Joab’s killing of Amasa with Ehud’s killing of Eglon seems evident. The elaborate details of Joab’s attire (2 Sam 20:8) seem to be quite unnecessary, unlike in the case of Ehud where covertness was critical. Also, it is Joab’s left hand that delivers the coup de grâce (his right hand held Amasa’s beard, 20:9), though it would not have mattered to the story had Joab held Amasa’s beard with his left hand and thrust the sword in with his right; for Ehud, his other-sidedness helped him smuggle in a weapon. The notice of Amasa’s disembowelment (20:10) also seems somewhat adventitious; that of Eglon was crucial to Ehud’s escape cloaked in nasty odors. All that to say, Joab’s actions seem to have been described with an intentional allusion to Ehud’s.