MDDM Chs 46-7 Ehud

[s~Z]

453.32-36 Ehud?

Ehud (m)   Biblical, Jewish
"united" (Hebrew). In the Old Testament Ehud killed Eglon, the
king of Moab, and freed the city of Jericho from Moabite rule.

(Judges 3:12-30) Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of
the LORD, and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king
of Moab power over Israel. 13 Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites
to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took
possession of the City of Palms.14 The Israelites were subject to
Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years. Again the Israelites cried
out to the LORD , and he gave them a deliverer-Ehud, a left-handed
man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with
tribute to Eglon king of Moab. 16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged
sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right
thigh under his clothing. 17 He presented the tribute to Eglon
king of Moab, who was a very fat man. 18 After Ehud had presented
the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. 19
At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have
a secret message for you, O king." The king said, "Quiet!" And all
his attendants left him. 20 Ehud then approached him while he was
sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace [7] and said,
"I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his
seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his
right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. 22 Even the
handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did
not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then
Ehud went out to the porch [8] ; he shut the doors of the upper
room behind him and locked them.24 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 house." 25 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. 26 While they waited,
Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27
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. 28 "Follow me," he ordered, "for the LORD
has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands." So they followed him
down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to
Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. 29 At that time they
struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong;
not a man escaped. 30 That day Moab was made subject to Israel,
and the land had peace for eighty years.

"In this reading, we have a rather nasty story, told in
considerably more detail than is usual. Part of the point of the
detail is simply to allow a rather crude story to be told for
crude amusement: it contains elements of a low joke - a fat man
comes to an undignified end. I'm sorry about the 'comic cuts'
aspect of this. But another part of the point is that the 'hero'
of the story - which is not quite the right term - Ehud, is
himself a joker, a deceiver: a trickster, as anthropologists say."
 http://chapel.jesus.cam.ac.uk/sermons/judges3.html