God Speaks Through an Assassin

Kari Farnell

Have you ever noticed how many seemingly inconsequential verses or phrases are found in the Bible? You may read a passage and think, "why in the world is that in here", or even "why is that important?" Judges, chapter 3 contains a couples of these examples. Let's look at some of the background leading up to these seemingly unimportant verses.

The Israelites have recently come into their Promised Land and have defeated some of the

neighboring tribes, but there are still a few remaining. Joshua, who had become their leader

after the death of Moses, has now also died. Thus begins a terrible pattern that lasts for

hundreds of years. Evidently, the Israelites were not smart enough on their own to continue in

the ways of God. Without direct leadership, they begin to worship the false gods of the

neighboring countries and begin to intermarry with their women. God becomes angry with

them because He has brought them all this way, protected and kept them safe, and at the

first opportunity, they throw all of that aside and begin to turn their backs on HIm.

Israel is taken over by the king of Mesopotamia and the Israelites realize their sinful ways
and cry out to God for help. God raises up the first of the Biblical judges, Othniel, to come
to their rescue. After their rescue, Othniel lived and judged for 40 years until he died. 

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After 40 years of peace and again with no direct leader, the Israelites begin to “do evil in the
sight of the Eternal”. So God again delivers them into the hands of a neighboring country. This
time it is the country of Moab, whose king is Eglon. After being enslaved by Eglon for 18 years,
the Israelites cry out to God for help again. Seems like they have learned their lesson. This time
God raises up Ehud. The Israelites decide that Ehud should take a tribute to Eglon, the king,
and try to convince him to let them go. What is interesting about Ehud is that he is left-handed
and the writer of Judges makes a point in telling us that. To me this seems like one of those
inconsequential phrases. Who cares if he’s left-handed? Why in the world would God point this out? 

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A couple of things come to mind here. First, being left-handed was rare then, just as it is now. But that still doesn’t seem to be enough reason to mention it in the Bible. The second thing to think about is that in those days most people and most warriors were right-handed. Swords were and still are typically carried on the opposite side of your strong hand for easier reach and easier use. Those in charge of security for the king would generally search the LEFT side of people for weapons since most were right-handed. In the case of Ehud, since he was left-handed, he carried his sword on his RIGHT side and therefore, it was not found during the security search. 
Ehud goes in to see King Eglon, whom the Bible describes as “a very fat man”. Again, why
does God care if we know Eglon’s size or body type? Is this another seemingly
inconsequential part of Scripture? Ehud brings the tribute to Eglon and leaves. After he
starts to leave the palace, he goes back and tells the King that he has a secret message
for him. At this point, King Eglon has gone into the “upstairs room”. This is often said to be
where the chamber pot is and where the king might be relieving himself.

Despite that fact, King Eglon is so pleased by the promise of this secret message that he invites Ehud upstairs
alone. After locking the door, Ehud wastes no time in drawing his sword from his RIGHT side
and plunges it into Eglon. We are told that the king is so fat, the sword AND hilt go in and are
surrounded by skin. Ehud may have been the world’s first assassin! He makes his escape
and eventually Eglon’s guards go in and check on him and find him dead. At first glance,
I'm sure they were confused because they likely were not able to see the sword
that killed him. God had delivered Israel once again and they rested from war for 80 years. 

It would be nice to say that the nation of Israel had learned their lesson after this, but this
pattern of falling into sinful ways and being rescued by a judge becomes a vicious cycle
that lasts for hundreds of years before God finally gives them a king to rule them.
Even after that, Israel’s kings did not always do “what was right in the sight of the Lord”.
Eventually, Israel is defeated as a nation and dispersed for good.

There are a couple closing thoughts about this story. The first thing that we can take away
from this passage of Scripture is that ALL of the Bible is there for a reason. We can always
glean things from the verses that seem insignificant. If it’s in the Bible, it’s there for a reason;
we may just need to pray and research to find the meaning.

The second is that God continues to give second chances to the Israelites when they
disobey and fall away from Him. He does the same for us today. God continues to invite
us into His presence and His kingdom and even when we don’t accept that invitation,
He continues to send it back out. There will come a day, though, that the date on the
invitation expires and God won’t have the opportunity to send it back out. We need to
accept God’s invitation now before that expiration date arrives. 

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