Judges Chapter 3:12-30 – Israel’s 2^nd Judge: Ehud

Tonight we’re going to be studying a rarely taught and often forgotten story from the book of Judges. Just real quick to give you guys a little more background on this book of the Bible, historically it covers roughly a 350 year period that fell between the triumph of entering the Promised Land during Joshua’s Day and King Saul being crowned King in the book of I Samuel.  Samuel is in fact believed to likely be the author of the book of Judges and if you recall from Pastor Sam’s sermon a few Sundays ago, Samuel is also the very last of Israel’s 15 Judges (depending on some technicalities on who is officially counted as a Judge, this count varies from about 13-15).  These Judges are recorded throughout the entire book of Judges and the first part of 1^st Samuel.

 

I don’t want to give it away just yet, but this story has the kind of story line that would make an excellent underdog secret agent movie plot.  For those of you who are maybe thinking, “Judges? I haven’t turned in my Bible over there in a while!”, I want you to know it’s not by accident we find ourselves here.  In fact we will be studying the very same verses and very same story that God used to capture my full attention the night I rededicated my life to Jesus, my Lord and Savior.  Because of this, what we are studying tonight is very near to my heart and I have often turned back in my Bible to this particular story over the years.  Don’t worry, I’ll get to what it is we’re studying soon, but first to help set the scene for you, It was my Sophomore year of High School and I was attending a youth retreat right here in Denver (In fact to be very specific, I remember many precise details from that trip to Denver, the Youth Retreat this year was at that nice Sheraton hotel off of the 6^th Ave Freeway in Lakewood).  I came to this retreat with the Youth Group from a dear friends’ church in Billings, Montana, where this friend’s dad was also a Pastor.  We would drive down from Billings for it every year in the Spring in a big school bus (I made the trip down to Denver for this retreat all 4 years of High School, each time to a different hotel & convention center location).  Thinking back to Pastor Matt’s story about writing “Saved” and “Serious” on his two shoes, you could definitely say that was the night I became “Saved and Serious”.  Yes, no doubt I had been a Christian for many years prior to that night, for my faith was in Jesus Christ and I was secure in Him, but I had sure given up a lot of ground to various sins and idols in my life.  On that wonderful night, right here in Denver, I reaffirmed my wholehearted commitment to Jesus, to be a follower – a Disciple – of Him, for real.

 

So you see – the book of Judges sets the stage with the children of Israel cohabiting with wicked idolatrous nations and they would have cycles of unfaithfulness, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.  The book of Judges describes the scene best with a key verse from Judges 17:6 which says, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  The cycle of wickedness and idolatry would lead to enslavement to their enemies, which was followed by Israel crying out to God.  Then God would faithfully send the children of Israel a Judge to deliver them from their enemies.  These Judges were really just leaders that God would raise up since Israel didn’t have a King yet.  Then through Israel’s true repentance and turning from their sinfulness to serve and honor the Lord, they would once again find rest in the land.  Unfortunately, this cycle would continue over and over again.  I think we can all relate to this cycle that we see throughout Israel’s history on some level though in our own lives, at least I know I sure can.  One thing we can see embedded in this cycle is a picture of the battle against our own flesh as well as a picture of repentance, so be looking for that as we go through the study tonight.  It is during those restful times that a new generation would rise up in Israel and fall again to the wicked and idolatrous lifestyle of the inhabitants they allowed to stay in their land. 

 

To give more background here Judges starts out by describing the failure of the tribes of Israel to drive out various inhabitants from the Promised Land.  Each tribe listed failed to drive out at least one type of people, whether it was Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, or some other kind of ites!  Don’t need to turn there, but for note takers in Numbers 33:50-56, The LORD specifically gave Moses instructions for what to do when they reached the promised land, and one of the stipulations found in verse 55 was “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell.”  So because the children of Israel failed to completely drive out their enemies from the Promised Land, these nations that God allowed to be left behind would be used to test Israel, to know if they would obey His commandments.  Inevitably, Israel would begin to do evil in the sight of the LORD, forget the LORD their God, and serve the Baals and Asherahs of whatever “ites” were inhabiting the land with them at the time.

 

Now if you will, please go ahead and find your way to Judges Chapter 3.  We are going to begin in verse 12 and the story of Israel’s 2^nd Judge Ehud and King Eglon of Moab. Now EE-hud is the Phonetic pronunciation and what I have always called this guy is EE-hud, so that is how I will say his name tonight.  The Hebrew pronunciation is eh-hood, but being the Montanan that I am I would say ey-hood anyway.  What I mean by this is that I say egg.  I have been told I am saying this incorrectly and that it is in fact pronounced ehgg.  So eh-hood to me is ey-hood, because I just can’t do that with the short e sound.  And of course EG-lon is the proper pronunciation for the King’s name, but based on my previous explanation, that is why I will be calling him Egg-lon.  Now that we have the pronunciation down, hopefully you’ve found Judges 3:12 which says:

 

[12] And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD strengthened Eglon king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD.

 

So here we find ourselves at the start of that cycle I was describing.  Israel just had 40 years of rest after being delivered by Othniel, their first judge.  Now they have started the sinful cycle, doing evil in the sight of the LORD because they failed to drive the Moabites from their land.

 

It is interesting to think that God would strengthen this evil and wicked King Eglon of Moab, isn’t it?  Romans 13:1 says, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”  It is God who appointed Eglon in the first place and gave authority for Eglon to continue reigning, and Eglon grew in strength during this time, but we will see it was ultimately for God’s Divine purpose.

 

You may ask yourself why would God allow Israel to go through difficult times?  Why does He allow us to go through difficult times?  I want to echo something Pastor Sam preached just 2 1/2 weeks ago:   “God loves us, which is precisely why he allows us to go through these things.  It is through these trials and difficulties that God keeps us humble and desperate for Him.  He knows the incredible benefits the outcome of these trials will have in our life.  Anything we go through in life, no matter how tragic, if the end result is that you are at Jesus’ feet, then it’s worth it!”

 

You see, in verse 12 Israel wasn’t desperate for God, times were good and they were off serving lowercase ‘g’ gods of Moab and doing evil in the sight of the Lord.  But the Lord allowed Eglon, the leader of the wicked nation of Moab, to grow in strength.  He knew the outcome of this trial would benefit the Israelites.

 

[13] Then he gathered to himself the people of Ammon and Amalek, went and defeated Israel, and took possession of the City of Palms.

[14] So the children of Israel served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years.

 

Wow, do you guys realize where the City of Palms is? –remember, it’s Wednesday night! – [Jericho] [2Ch 28:15]

 

What just happened back in the book of Joshua in Chapter 6? [Battle of Jericho]

 

There wasn’t that much time that passed between Joshua and the defeat of Jericho and where we find ourselves here in Ehud’s day.  How defeated must Israel have felt to see Eglon bring in the Ammonites and Amalekites to take back possession of Jericho, a place where they had a mighty victory because of their obedience to God!  This generation allowed their enemies back into the land.  Doesn’t this just remind you of allowing sins and idols back into your life? 

 

God tarried 18 long years, allowing Israel to continue serving  King Eglon right there in the city of palms during this time.   I thought the number 18 was interesting here.  Now you guys know I am a numbers guy.  Math was always my favorite subject.  So recently in our discipleship group in an effort to add a little more pep to my teaching, I was asked to break it up a bit with some dancing.  I don’t know anything about dancing really, so in very short order after looking into dance moves I came across the Math Dance. [ Break into math dance ]   So this is just who I am.  You ask me to dance, you’re going to get some math!  So back to the number 18! I don’t see this number occur very often in the Bible so I was curious what I could find on this.  I did find from a few sources that the number 18 is often associated with bondage and slavery thanks in part to this number’s usage in the book of Judges.  Israel found themselves in bondage for 18 years twice in the book of Judges – right here in 3:14 and also in 10:8.  In Luke 13 we also see a woman Jesus healed on the Sabbath who Satan had bound with a spirit of infirmity for 18 years.

 

[15] But when the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them: Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. By him the children of Israel sent tribute to Eglon king of Moab.

 

Now we see this beautiful picture of prayer with the Israelites crying out to God, truly seeking Him again, coupled with God’s abundant love and mercy in once again raising up a deliverer for them and answering their prayer.  Each time the book of Judges mentions God raising up a deliverer for Israel, I am reminded of the deliverer He raised up for me and for you, His only Son, Jesus, raised up on that cross to die for us.

 

And here, we are introduced to Ehud, and the story for this secret agent plot line will begin to unfold.  Ehud was a descendant from Gera’s lineage, who was one of Benjamin’s 10 sons according to Genesis 46:21, therefore Ehud was a Benjamite.  Ironically, Benjamite means “a son of the right hand”.  But we see here Ehud is a left-handed man, which was pretty uncommon in ancient times as left-handed people were often forced to become right-handed.  I found the only other occurrence of left-handed in the Bible was in Judges 20:16 where it speaks of 700 select men who were left-handed Benjamites.  So apparently being a left-handed son of the right hand wasn’t exactly unheard of, but it was still extremely uncommon if you didn’t happen to be a Benjamite.  So in case you’re wondering why I’m camping out on this detail of Ehud being left-handed, you will see soon enough.  Plus it’s mentioned specifically in God’s Word, so we know it is important.

 

We also see here that by Ehud a tribute would be sent to King Eglon.  God would use this to ultimately unite Ehud and King Eglon face-to-face.  It is likely this tribute was what we would consider a tax of some kind since Israel was under King Eglon’s rule.

 

[16] Now Ehud made himself a dagger (it was double-edged and a cubit in length) and fastened it under his clothes on his right thigh.

 

A cubit is typically estimated to be a length of 18 inches (that’s 1 inch for every year of bondage under King Eglon!).  The word for dagger here is typically translated as sword (401x) and rarely translated as dagger (3x), with all 3 occurrences being here in Judges chapter 3!  I don’t know about you, but when I think of an 18 inch two edged weapon, I’m thinking sword and not dagger, but they’re interchangeable really.

 

We have this picture of a double-edged sword and we have to make the connection to God’s Word.

 

In Ephesians 6 where the Bible speaks of the Armor of God we are told to “take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:17)

 

Hebrews 4:12 says “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Revelation 1:16 says “He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.” 

 

The two-edged sword comes out of Jesus’ mouth – the sword is the Word of God!  The Word of God is Jesus’ weapon; the Word of God is our Weapon against our enemies.  And I tell you what, our flesh, those sinful tendencies, God’s Word is a powerful weapon against it!  Have you ever memorized a verse or studied something in the Bible that God has used to equip you to overcome sin in your life?  Maybe to overcome an idol, such as money or entertainment, or perhaps an addiction?  Maybe to overcome laziness or a bad attitude at work?  Maybe to remind you to serve your spouse or honor your parents?

 

Now we come to another small detail that we could very easily overlook.  It says Ehud fastened his dagger under his clothes on his right thigh.  Obviously a right-handed person would draw a dagger from their left thigh and left-handed person from their right thigh.  So presuming that guards searched Ehud for a weapon before allowing him to go before King Eglon, the fact he was left-handed would have equipped him, in secret agent fashion, to sneak by with the weapon on his opposite side.  I have to say, if God has a purpose for us, He will certainly equip us for it!  When he raised up Ehud to deliver Israel it was not by chance that Ehud was left-handed, nor was it by chance that he fastened his 18 inch dagger to his right-thigh.

 

[17] So he brought the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. (Now Eglon was a very fat man.)

[18] And when he had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who had carried the tribute.

[19] But he himself turned back from the stone images that were at Gilgal, and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” He said, “Keep silence!” And all who attended him went out from him.

 

Ehud brought the tribute to Eglon and sent the peole away who carried it there with him.  Yet again we are given an interesting detail – that Eglon was a very fat man.  It turns out that Eglon means “calf-like” so essentially we have this picture of a fatted calf.  This tribute Ehud brought was meant to be an offering to the King, but it is Eglon we will find out who would live up to his name and be the fatted calf sacrificed on this day.  We also see this picture of King Eglon and the Moabites ruling Israel… ruling them with gluttony and greed and his selfish desires.  This is exactly what Ehud is standing up and fighting against... this picture of the flesh and fighting this battle for Israel’s freedom.

 

When Ehud told King Eglon he had a secret message, King Eglon sent everyone out of the room, which left the two of them alone!

 

[20] So Ehud came to him (now he was sitting upstairs in his cool private chamber). Then Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” So he arose from his seat.

[21] Then Ehud reached with his left hand, took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.

[22] Even the hilt went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the dagger out of his belly; and his entrails came out.

 

King Eglon rose from his seat to hear this message from God.  This was possibly out of respect.  And it is at this very moment that Ehud reaches for his two-edged dagger and thrusts it into King Eglon’s belly!  To me this really just triggers thoughts of repentance.  Israel cried out to God, but repentance also requires action.  It is through Ehud’s action of thrusting his dagger into Eglon’s belly which finally defeats the leader of their enemy, the Moabites.  To again borrow from Pastor Sam’s sermon, this really stuck with me and fits so well here when he said, “Repentance requires an action… not just saying sorry, not just crying out to God… true repentance means you have made up your mind to no longer go and do those sins.  The Israelites continually fell back into their sin of idolatry.  Repent, turn away from your sin, cast away your idols.  Our fellowship with God and our growth in the Lord will be stifled otherwise.”

 

Are you guys familiar with the phrase “To the hilt”?  You know, you could have your credit cards maxed out and be in debt to the hilt.  Here in Judges, we go beyond the hilt!  Not a good situation for Eglon to have Ehud’s dagger in him beyond the hilt.  The handle and all went into him and his fat closed over the blade.  Now I don’t want to get graphic and get too into the details of this, but if you take anything away, take away this picture of battling the enemy and going all-out with the weapon being the two-edged sword, God’s Word!  If you are facing battles in your life today and you don’t understand them, first question is are you reading God’s Word?  Are you studying it?  Are you memorizing it?  The second question is have you reached that place of repentance?  Not just crying out to God… but responding to him and turning from the sin for real.

 

Have you ever responded to sin in your own life in such a way?  That you repent to never be subject to it again… to rid it from your life once and for all and be real in your relationship with God?  That night right here in Denver back in High School, while studying these very verses… it inspired me to do just that.  To rid my life of the idols and trash that were destroying my relationship with God, my family, my friends.

 

I have an illustration of my own life that I could liken to thrusting a dagger into the flesh of my oppressor, but it actually involved a BB gun.  A very select few of you will know what I’m referring to, and I intend to keep it that way for now!  However, I do have another illustration.  For those of you who have seen the movie Fireproof, do you remember how the husband has an addiction to pornography on his computer?  He struggles with it, his wife knows about it… it’s one of many things tearing their marriage apart.  He’s battling it out… wondering why it’s so hard to overcome… then he resolves to destroy this parasite once and for all… he rips the computer monitor from the wall, takes it outside, and smashes it with a baseball bat!

 

So the last part of verse 22 says “and his entrails came out.”  There is a whole other rabbit trail here and a bridge we don’t have time to cross right now.  But I will say this:

 

I studied Engineering in college and a common situation in many Engineering text books was to be looking through example problems and ultimately run into a situation that says “Left as an Exercise for the Reader”.  This meant something would show up as a really challenging and frustrating homework problem!  And in this case, there is definitely an interesting study on the side regarding the precise details of what went down in the details in the end of verse 22… but I will leave it as an Exercise for the Reader for you guys to look into if you would like to extend your Bible study on the story of Ehud.

 

[23] Then Ehud went out through the porch and shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

[24] When he had gone out, Eglon’s servants came to look, and to their surprise, the doors of the upper room were locked. So they said, “He is probably attending to his needs in the cool chamber.”

[25] So they waited till they were embarrassed, and still he had not opened the doors of the upper room. Therefore they took the key and opened them. And there was their master, fallen dead on the floor.

 

Basically, Ehud escapes locking the doors behind him.  Eglon’s servants wonder what’s going on and decide King Eglon is attending to his needs in the cool chamber.  Some commentary suggests they believe he is sleeping, and others suggest they believe he is using the restroom.  If you do that whole Exercise for the Reader thing and study this further on your own, you will reach a conclusion on your own, but I believe both are very valid possibilities, among others I am sure.  The important takeaway here is that God provided Ehud abundant time to escape!

 

Finally when King Eglon’s servants opened the doors they found their king had fallen dead on the floor.

 

[26] But Ehud had escaped while they delayed, and passed beyond the stone images and escaped to Seirah.

[27] And it happened, when he arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the mountains of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mountains; and he led them.

[28] Then he said to them, “Follow me, for the LORD has delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand.” So they went down after him, seized the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross over.

[29] And at that time they killed about ten thousand men of Moab, all stout men of valor; not a man escaped.

 

God’s provision is so good.  Not only did he provide Ehud a reason to meet King Eglon through the tribute, He also provided Ehud with left-handedness, the means to craft a two-edged dagger, a way to get alone with King Eglon, and a means of escape. 

 

We started out the story with Israel being subject to Moab, but now the Moabites were subject to Israel.  Israel took out about 10,000 more Moabites and none of them escaped.  With true repentance – crying out to God and taking action – there is complete victory!  None of the Moabites escaped, meaning they wouldn’t be able to get a foothold in the land again later.

 

[30] So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.

 

The children of Israel were under King Eglon for 18 years, but after Moab was subdued, the Israelites had rest for 80 years, which turned out to be up until Ehud’s death according to Judges 4:1.  This was the longest period of rest recorded in the book of Judges.  God is so good, He gave Israel more than 4x the amount of rest than the time they were under King Eglon… whatever we face and go through in this life, it will be much shorter than a blink of an eye in comparison to Eternity with Jesus Christ.

 

In closing, I feel like there are 1,000 directions we could take with this set of verses.  There is so, so much here.  There are themes of God’s love, goodness, longsuffering and patience with His people, Israel.  There are themes of battling the flesh, crying out to God in prayer, and repenting in such a powerful way that we overcome the flesh and the sins in our life that have us beat down.  There is a powerful story of God using a left-handed man that many would look at and say isn’t equipped or isn’t capable.  I could go on and on…

 

I do want to mention something very profound that Pastor Matt said… I can’t remember where or when he said it, but it has come up a few times and it has really stuck with me.  It is this question:  If we could see what our sin would lead to, then would we even mess with it? 

 

If we could see what our sin would lead to, then would we even mess with it?  Think about it… I think the answer is we would absolutely not mess with it.  Unfortunately, in the moment we don’t always see what sin will lead to, but we often find out after the fact.  We see all around us that it leads to broken homes, it leads to strife in marriages, it leads to rebellious children, it leads to debt, it leads to the love of money, it leads to poor health, it leads to pride, it ultimately leads to death.

 

I don’t know what my sins and idols I repented from back in high school would have led to, but I do know I’m thankful that Jesus set me free from that junk.  I’m thankful that I’m still a work in progress and that I’m still desperate for Him, just like we sang about tonight!

 

If you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, then stand up and fight the fight.  There is a Spiritual battle waging, arm yourself with the Word of God, remember the power of prayer, and in those times of repentance, remember Ehud.  Remember his two-edged dagger, and his powerful thrust, right into the flesh of Eglon’s belly.

 

After we pray in a moment, I would encourage you that if God has put it on your heart and you’re going through a trial now, maybe facing an addiction or overcoming an idol or difficult situation in your life, then just cry out to God in prayer during closing worship or please come forward and find someone to pray with.