17 October 2009

Ehud delivers a message from God

Remember how in his last killing, God was so angry at the Israelites for worshiping other gods that he sold them as slaves to King Cushy?

Yeah, well, pretty much the same thing happens here, except the names, places, and times change.
The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel ... So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. Judges 3.12-14
But then the Israelites cried out to God again ("Yahweh!, Yahweh!").
But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD 3.15a
And he raised up another hero for them. This time it was a left-handed guy named Ehud. God sent him to deliver a present to Eglon.
The LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud … a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab. 3.15b
Ehud’s present to Eglon was a message from God: a knife blade in his belly pushed in so far that "the dirt (feces) came out."
Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man ... And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. ... And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out. 3.16-22
God has a funny way of communicating, doesn't he?

God's next killing: 10,000 lusty Moabites

6 comments:

Matthew Blanchette said...

Eglon... I wonder if he's related to Eglon Spengler?

twillight said...

Look, I dun say nufin, but "Natural Born Killers" had less killing in it than this...

busterggi said...

Doesn't the Mafia send messages like this also?

vp said...

You didn't mention that "dirt" is a euphemism for feces.

Steve Wells said...

Yeah, I thought that was kind of obvious, vp. But I guess it's not. I'll add a note about it.

Bee Neljätoista said...

Interestingly, my native Finnish Bible translation does not mention the good king's shit flying out (an old translation from 1776 does mention that, though); it instead says Ehud simply exited the room after offing the king. Some English translations render the end of 3:22 as "...and it came out behind" and at least one as "...and it came out between the legs." One English TL offers two alternates as "and [1] it came out behind. [1) Or he went out into the antechamber ]"