We were told in yesterday's passage that Israel's second judge was Ehud of the tribe of Benjamin. He was described as a left-handed man, which will be important later, and today we are told that he was the person selected to take tribute to King Eglon of Moab who had managed, with the help of the Ammonite and Amalekite kings, to subject Israel for eighteen years. When King Eglon sees Ehud, he will appear to him like just another messenger bringing him the taxes he's imposed upon Israel. But the Lord has placed a calling upon Ehud's life; in yesterday's passage we found the Bible calling him "a deliverer".
"The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man." (Judges 3:15b-17) Eglon has lived a life of wealth and excess. He is morbidly obese. The Bible doesn't often provide us with physical descriptions of the characters contained within its pages but when it does there's a reason for it. Momentarily we will see why Eglon's obesity and Ehud's left-handedness set the scene for an Israelite victory.
Ehud has not come to Moab alone. "After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it." (Judges 3:18) The amount of tribute is too large for one man to carry. He is the man chosen to interact with the king but an entourage had to come with him to carry the amount of tribute (gold and silver and perhaps other valuable goods) that had been assessed. After presenting the tribute, Ehud sees his fellow Israelites off on their journey and then turns around and re-enters the king's presence. "But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, 'Your majesty, I have a secret message for you.' The king said to his attendants, 'Leave us!' And they all left." (Judges 3:18-19)
Eglon is currently headquartered at the "City of Palms" which is believed to be Jericho itself or an area just outside of Jericho. In yesterday's study we were told that Eglon took this city away from Israelite control when he and his allies attacked the Israelites and made them the subjects of the kingdom of Moab. Gilgal is within three miles of Jericho and is where the Israelites set up camp before, during, and for a while after conquering Jericho. We find Ehud leaving the king's presence and seeing his entourage off on their journey, but when he reaches "the stone images near Gilgal" (possibly an idolatrous display located there) he turns back and asks for a private audience with the king. The king thinks there's no harm in granting his request. Ehud is alone and is left-handed which was thought to be a handicap in the ancient world. Not only that, but since the majority of people are right-handed (about 90%), a man who is on the alert for a weapon to be drawn will be watching the right hand, not the left hand. It will catch the king off guard when Ehud draws his sword with his left hand.
The king himself is no warrior. He may have been at one time, but his days of being a young and physically fit man are far behind him. A man in his condition is not able to successfully participate in hand-to-hand combat. When Ehud pulls his weapon, the king won't be able to move quickly enough to evade him. "Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, 'I have a message from God for you.' As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them." (Judges 3:20-23) It's easy to see why Ehud left his sword imbedded in the king. Not only was it covered in waste but concealment of it as he made his exit was rendered impossible with blood and offal dripping off it.
"After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, 'He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace.' They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead." (Judges 3:24-25) What an inglorious way for the king of Moab to meet his end! It's doubtful there's anything his servants could have done to save his life since his injury was so grievous but Ehud removed Eglon's slight chance of survival by locking the door. Eglon's servants presumed he had locked the door for privacy while using the bathroom. Their supposition was aided by smelling the aroma of his evacuated bowels coming from underneath the door. They waited quietly and respectfully for quite some time for him to unlock the door but he did not. After a while they must have called or knocked and, receiving no answer, realized something was wrong. Upon opening the door they found him lying dead and his cause of death would not have been immediately apparent, for we were told that the fat had closed completely around the hilt of the sword. There must have been at least a few moments in which the king's servants believed he had perished of natural causes.
While this long scene is playing out, Ehud makes his escape. "While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the stone images and escaped to Seirah. When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them. 'Follow me,' he ordered, 'for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.' So they followed him and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab; they allowed no one to cross over. At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years." (Judges 3:26-30) During the eighteen years Israel was subject to Moab, the people who had turned to idolatry repented and turned back to the Lord and cried out to Him. Though we are not told how and when this happened, the Lord called Ehud to lead Israel to victory over the Moabites and the Lord laid out a plan for Ehud to follow. Ehud, in turn, laid the plan out for the soldiers of Israel, who were waiting for him to blow the trumpet as the signal that the king was dead and it was time to attack his army.
It's interesting how the Lord can take what is considered a weakness (the ancient opinion that a left-handed man was be disqualified as a warrior) and make it into a strength. A right-handed man might not have been successful in killing the king of Moab, for the king of Moab might have caught onto what was happening just in time to evade the sword. Ehud was successful because he possessed this "handicap", not in spite of it.
There might be things about us that we feel disqualify us as mighty soldiers for the Lord but the Lord knows what qualifications are needed for His army! The very thing that we consider a disadvantage may be what gives us the advantage. Moses, as you'll recall, evidently had some sort of speech impediment that he felt disqualified him from delivering the children of Israel from Egypt, yet no one can argue that Moses did a phenomenal job (with the Lord's help) of not only bringing the Israelites out of Egypt but of also leading them in the wilderness for forty years. Moses has given some impressive speeches in the Old Testament, hasn't he? That's because, as the saying goes, little is much when God is in it! God can take our weaknesses and turn them into strengths. God can make advantages out of disadvantages. The very thing we think hinders our progress forward may be the very thing the Lord uses to bring us great victories. His ability to do such things glorifies His name, for when He is strong in our weakness it becomes evident that the power is from Him and not from human strength and ingenuity. His ability to use fragile and weak creatures like us brings honor and praise to Him. And when we honor and praise Him, our faith grows. And when our faith grows, He can use us to do even greater things in His name. And when we do greater things in His name, our faith grows even more, and our testimony becomes more and more impressive, and others want to know Him like we know Him, and souls are saved.
The Bible only provides us with one verse concerning Shamgar, Ehud's successor, but he also did mighty things in the name of the Lord. "After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel." (Judges 3:31) An oxgoad is a strange weapon but when wielded by command of the Lord it became a powerful weapon. Shamgar probably did not kill six hundred Philistines in the same battle, as this is likely the total of Philistines he killed in his lifetime, but it's interesting to note he didn't choose a sword for a weapon. Battles are not always won with the most obvious and most common implements of war. Battles are won when we used the weapons God places in our hands, and those weapons may be unusual and they may appear too weak to do the job, but no weapon the Lord places in His children's hands will ever be too weak to do the job. If we follow His instructions, victory is assured.
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