Week 5

4/6/2025

Spring 2025

  • Central Passage: Judges 1-5, with particular interest in Ehud's story.

  • Check out the Middle School Sunday School Resources page for other books of the Bible resources. Note: click here for the Judges handout.

 

Introduction

The beginning events of Judges overlap with the book of Joshua, reminding the reader of the incomplete conquest of the land. Judges, therefore, contains the fallout from failing to completely drive out the Canaanites from among them. These opening chapters establish the cycle of Judges: Israel abandons God’s leadership to worship other gods and do abominable deeds; Israel receives the curses of the covenant, and God allows foreign nations to oppress them; Israel cries out to God for help;[1] God raises up a judge[2] to deliver them and establish peace. However, as the story of rebellion progresses, Judges portrays a downward spiral for Israel’s ethics and worship—they begin to act more and more like the wicked pagan nations in their midst.[3] The book records sin in greater detail and higher degrees of dismay as the story progresses. The refrain of “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” (Judges 17:6; 21:25) summarizes their great need for a king after God’s own heart to rule them.

As Judges 3 officially begins the story with Othniel, the details are sparse. In fact, the details for the first several judges are lacking compared to the focus of the following judges. As the story progresses, more details emerge, but the details only reveal the twisted worship and morals of the judges. Thus, Othniel has few details to scandalize his story. Ehud seems to judge faithfully, but his story includes some moral ambiguity due to his deception and trickery (more on this later). Deborah’s story of deliverance concludes with the unsettling actions of Jael, a Kenite woman, driving a tent peg into Sisera’s sleeping head. After Deborah, the moral complexity of the stories increases with Gideon. These judges were raised to temporarily solve problems of impiety and oppression, but the story anticipates a real solution. With that being said, take a closer look at Ehud’s story.

Ehud

The cycle of Judges resets itself with Israel rebelling against God, so God strengthens Eglon, king of Moab, to oppress them. The king of Moab unites with the Ammonites[4] and the Amalekites against Israel. Next, they take the City of Palms, which probably refers to Jericho. Thus, these Israelites become servants to Eglon for an even longer duration than the Mesopotamian enslavement that preceded Othniel (compare Judges 3:8 and Judges 3:14). The downward spiral of Judges, both in Israel’s morality and their circumstances, continues.

But God responds to their cries for deliverance and raises up Ehud, a Benjamite. The text notes that he is a left-handed man. We should not take this to mean that he is uniquely left-handed. Rather, the Benjamites were all notably “left-handed” (cf. Judges 20:15-16) This refers to their ambidextrous combat training, making them notably proficient with their left hands (in addition to their right hands) in combat. As a result of this proficiency, Ehud conceals his sword[5] on his right side. When Ehud comes to pay tribute to Eglon, whom the inspired text notes is “a very fat man” (Judges 3:17), Ehud turned back at the idols of Gilgal, a phrase often used to refer to the act of repentance. Thus, Ehud, as Israel’s representative, turns back/repents from the idols (another double meaning) and entices the greedy, incompetent, fat king with “I have a message for you, O King.” Perhaps Eglon believes the message came from the idols at Gilgal, but Ehud has a different message from Yahweh that would result in Eglon’s death. Ehud had baited his trap and earned an audience with the greedy king.

The following scene may have simply taken place in Eglon’s normal private quarters. Some commentators believe that Judges 3:20-23 takes place in a bathroom, and Eglon’s “throne” is actually a toilet. This would be another double meaning, indicating that though Eglon is a king, he may as well rule from a toilet. And then Ehud reveals “the message from God,” a concealed sword that disappears inside his gluttonous stomach, causing his bowels to release. Ehud locks the door to escape, possibly through the toilet and sewer evacuation system. After some time, the guards notice the locked door. I imagine they can smell death and evacuated bowels at this point but are hopeful that the smell is simply the king’s usual business and not the result of leaving him alone with this oppressed Benjamite warrior. Eventually, they embarrassingly find the king lying dead.

Ehud makes his escape, passing beyond the idols at Gilgal. Though he turned back at them earlier, he now rushes past them without even acknowledging them. He blows the trumpet to rally the troops, presenting himself before even Ephraim (not just his own people of Benjamin) that he is God’s chosen leader. He commands them to follow him, for Yahweh has given[6] the Moabites to them. But remember, this is no new revelation. God had given this land to His covenant people already. Instead, this is a re-commissioning to devote the Canaanites to destruction. As a result, they trap and killed 10,000 Moabites.[7] The text notes that the Moabites are stout/robust men of valor, another double meaning that also sarcastically depicts these mighty warriors as fat and round, just like their fallen king. And they rest for eighty years, the length of two generations, compared to Othniel’s one generation of rest.

Conclusion

            Though this story is explicit, grotesque, and violent, it reveals the character of God. He sends His deliverer to do dirty work in disgusting places in real history. It reveals the character of a God who put on flesh to enter into our grotesque, violent world of darkness and sin. As the Israelites cried out to God in pain, God showed that He was more than just a comforting thought, an actor in the distant past, or a concept of wishful thinking. The ambiguity and unsettling stories of Judges show us the ironic tragedy of following other gods. Enslavement to these gods is not liberating to the human spirit. It creates oppression and misery, requiring deliverance from unlikely sources, producing unsettling resolutions. Despite the stubborn folly of His people, He continued to incline Himself to them and work in their present, painful circumstances. He takes action to give mercy to undeserving people. Jesus died a brutal, unjust death, but He lives to give righteousness to indefensibly stubborn people who cry out to Him for deliverance. These unsettling stories in Judges awaken and prepare us for the even more unsettling story of the God who died on Good Friday in our place. We mourn our sin that placed Him there, but rejoice in the hope His death and resurrection provide.

 

Sources

Block, Daniel I. Judges, Ruth. The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Guide of Holy Scripture. B & H Publishing Group, 1999.

Boda, Mark J. and Mary L. Conway. Judges. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament: A Discourse Analysis on the Hebrew Bible. Zondervan Academic, 2021.

 

[1] With the exception of Judges 10:10, when they cry out to God throughout Judges, there is no indication of repentance but simply a cry of pain for God to deliver them. However, Judges 10:10 is the final time they cry out to God. Though there is finally an explicit confession of wrongdoing, God responds, “I will save you no more. Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen.”

 

[2] The judges were likely regional judges, rather than rulers over all of Israel. The story leaves room for many of these judgeships to overlap in time. If we were to read them as successive judgeships over all of Israel, this would lead to an issue of chronology. 1 Kings 6:1 indicates that Solomon begins the temple construction 480 years after the Exodus, but if you add the total years for each judge together, that equates to 410 years. 410 plus 40 years of wilderness wanderings, 30 years of conquest, and 100 years for Eli, Samuel, and David exceeds the 480-year boundary. Thus, more than likely, some judges (if not all) were regional with overlapping chronology to other judges/events.

 

[3] Religious syncretism is a key issue throughout the story as well. Though there are several occurrences when the Israelites abandon Yahweh completely, they also blend pagan practices with Yahweh worship. For instance, Jephthah infamously sacrifices his daughter to Yahweh, a sacrifice that does not please and honor Him but was commonplace for pagan worship.

 

[4] Both Moab and the Ammonites have disturbing family origins from Gen 19:30-38 when Lot’s daughters raped him to conceive children. Both nations are descended from this event, and now both unite in their antagonism to Israel for an inbred family reunion.

[5] The text uses a play on words in 3:16, noting that his sword has “two mouths,” alluding to Eglon being later tricked by Ehud’s two mouths/double entendre.

 

[6] The verb used here indicates that God has given the Moabites as a gift to them.

 

[7] 10,000 could refer to ten clans of Moabite armies since the Hebrew word for “thousand” can be translated this way. Or, the number could be a symbolically round number to signify that the Israelites completely defeated them. Regardless, there is never a need to be completely rigid in Old Testament numbering reports, for this is not an issue for inerrancy but simply a reflection of ancient Near Eastern communication practices. See the “For Funzies” section on the youth Numbers handout for more information.