Ehud Defeats Eglon of Moab

The event

After Othniel's generation passed, Israel again did evil, and God strengthened Eglon, king of Moab, along with allies from Ammon and Amalek, to oppress Israel for eighteen years, even seizing "the city of palms" (Jericho). When Israel cried out again, God raised up Ehud, a Benjamite notable for being left-handed — a detail the text mentions twice, since it becomes essential to the plan.

Ehud strapped a short, double-edged sword to his right thigh, opposite where a right-handed man's weapon would normally be searched for, and gained a private audience with the obese Eglon under the pretext of delivering a secret message from God. Once alone with the king, Ehud drew the hidden sword and killed him, then locked the doors behind him and escaped while Eglon's servants assumed the king was simply relieving himself.

Ehud rallied Israel in the hill country of Ephraim, seized the fords of the Jordan to cut off the fleeing Moabites, and struck down some ten thousand of them. The land then had rest for eighty years, the longest period of peace recorded in the entire book — a striking reminder that God is willing to use unconventional people, and unconventional means, to deliver his people.

Scripture references

• Judges 3:12-30