Judges 3:12–31

July 5th, 2022| Topic: aBeLOG, Judges | 2

Integrity, driven by reverence for God and reliance upon him, receives divine approbation.

We are told twice that Israel “did evil in the sight of Yahweh” (Jdg 3:12). So, what’s new? And Yahweh, therefore, empowered Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel (3:12). Yet God has mercy and he raises up an Israelite deliverer, Ehud (3:15). But quite surprisingly, for the rest of the passage, Yahweh does not seem at all involved with the goings on. And the final victory won by the Israelites is not attributed by the narrator to any work of Yahweh, either (3:29–30). Not a good sign.

But something’s not right. Yahweh raises up Ehud, “the Benjaminite [literally, “son of the right hand”], a left-handed man [literally, “bound in his right hand]” (3:15). 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.” His left-handedness is a subtle disparagement, the left hand being associated with impurity in many cultures in the East. All this seems to be hinting at the oddity of a deliverer raised up by Yahweh (3:15).

And his tactics? Underhanded, to say the least (or “sinister,” from the Latin sinister, “on the left”). In 3:16, we are told that “Ehud made for himself a sword.” 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. Considering Yahweh’s invisibility throughout the narrative, this is certainly suspicious.

In the assassination story, Ehud speaks twice to Eglon: “I have a secret message [the Hebrew also means “thing”] for you, O king” (3:19), and “I have a message [thing] from God for you” (3:20). Eglon expected a “message,” but Ehud gives him a “thing” (the sword). Oh, and the tool Ehud fashioned for the assassination was literally “a sword of (two) mouths,” i.e., a two-edged sword (3:16). So the double-mouthed guy does the king in with a double-mouthed weapon. Intentional duplicity!

Then, there is that one-verse note about Shamgar (3:31). A son of Anath, he was likely a foreigner. And the guy’s weapon? An oxgoad, is a strange implement with which to do war. But it succeeds in “striking down” (3:31) six hundred Philistines! Shamgar’s mini-account is explicitly linked to Ehud’s narrative: 3:31 commences with “And after him [Ehud]” and tells us that “he [Shamgar] also delivered Israel.” If he, also, like Ehud “delivered” Israel, then Yahweh, who raised Ehud as a “deliverer” (3:15), may well have been behind Shamgar’s being raised up as a deliverer of Israel, too. And, since 4:1, in the next passage, refers back to Ehud again, 3:31 appears to be a deliberate interpolation of Shamgar’s story into Ehud’s, before the formal conclusion of the latter’s narrative, causing the reader to take a second look at this man.

So here’s a foreigner whose genealogy is unknown (unlike Ehud, an Israelite, whose antecedents are pointedly provided: “son of Gera, the Benjaminite,” 3:15), who has no specific characteristics of note (unlike the left-handedness of Ehud, 3:15), who, as far as we can tell, is not a leader (unlike Ehud who was appointed by the “sons of Israel” to take tribute to Eglon, 3:15), who does not muster troops to aid his endeavors (unlike Ehud, 3:27–29), who does not speak in the narrative (unlike Ehud and his double-mouthedness, 3:19), who has no fancy weapon (unlike Ehud who, strategizing carefully, fashioned for himself a fancy sword, 3:16), and who, without any obvious planning (unlike Ehud who seems to have meticulously orchestrated his moves, 3:16–23), “also delivers Israel” (like Ehud, 3:15). In other words, Shamgar is a positive foil for Ehud, a counter to the latter’s negative profile: integrity, not duplicity, is what one needs if one is to be an agent of God!

[For more details, see my Judges commentary.]