Ehud's tribute becomes assassination

Moab's eighteen years meet a tribute-bearer with a hidden dagger

Israel does evil again. The LORD strengthens Eglon king of Moab, who gathers Ammon and Amalek, smites Israel, and possesses the city of palm trees. Israel serves Eglon eighteen years, then cries. The LORD raises Ehud son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded, restricted in the right hand. Israel sends him with tribute. Ehud makes a two-edged dagger a cubit long, girds it under his raiment on his right thigh, offers the present, and sends the bearers away.

Left-handedness here is how the weapon is hidden where guards may not expect it. It is not a mark of deceit or deficiency, and it does not turn bodily difference into a moral type.

A secret message from God becomes a killing in a locked parlor

Ehud turns back from the quarries, says he has a secret errand, and Eglon dismisses everyone. Ehud comes near in the summer parlor and says, I have a message from God unto thee. Eglon rises. Ehud reaches with his left hand, takes the dagger, and thrusts it into the belly. The fat closes on the blade. Ehud goes out, shuts the doors, and locks them.

The narrator's graphic, even grotesque, detail undercuts imperial dignity. The claimed divine message is Ehud's tactic in an oppression story. It does not authorize private assassination, political murder, or any later claim that a word from God removes scrutiny from secret violence. Difficult words about the dagger's length and the bodily discharge remain uncertain; the killing and the locked room do not.