Judges 3:17

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He offered the tribute to Eglon king of Moab: now Eglon was a very fat man.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

לְעֶגְל֖וֹן

ʻEglôwn

H5700

“to/for · Eglon”

Preposition + Noun, Proper

Appears 13× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Joshua 10:3

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5695

TWOT: None

Eglon = "calf-like" - king of Moab who oppressed the children of Israel for 18 years before he was killed by the judge Ehud (noun proper masculine) - a royal city in Canaan that opposed the conquest; located in the low lands of Judah (noun proper locative)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

10: words
9: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לְעֶגְל֖וֹן Eglon H5700 — appearing just 13 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לְעֶגְל֖וֹן Eglon H5700 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
6 nouns
1 adjective
1 adverb
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיַּקְרֵב֙ Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

לְעֶגְל֖וֹן Eglon H5700 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 19 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 10 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Judges 3:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Job 15:27 Because he has covered his face with his fatness, And gathered fat on his loins.
Ezekiel 34:20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh to them: Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.
Judges 3:29 They struck of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, every lusty man, and every man of valor; and there escaped not a man.
Psalms 73:19 How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.
Jeremiah 5:28 They are grew fat, they shine: yes, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they don't plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and the right of the needy they don't judge.
Jeremiah 50:11 Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out [the grain], and neigh as strong horses;
1 Samuel 2:29 Why kick you at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?
Psalms 73:7 Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Judges 3:17 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּקְרֵב֙ אֶת הַמִּנְחָ֔ה לְעֶגְל֖וֹן מֶ֣לֶךְ מוֹאָ֑ב וְעֶגְל֕וֹן אִ֥ישׁ בָּרִ֖יא מְאֹֽד

He offered the tribute to Eglon king of Moab: now Eglon was a very fat man.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 3:17 Septuagint · lemma form

καί πορεύομαι καί προςφέρω ὁ δῶρον ὁ εγλωμ βασιλεύς μωαβ καί εγλωμ ἀνήρ ἀστεῖος σφόδρα

And he went, and brought the presents to Eglom king of Moab, and Eglom was a very handsome man.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, Adam Clarke's Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְקָרֵיב יַת תִּקְרוּבְתָּא לְעֶגְלוֹן מַלְכָּא דְמוֹאָב וְעֶגְלוֹן גְבַר פַטִים לַחֲדָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Judges 3:17 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jdg 3:17 And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon [was] a very fat man.

Ver. 17. And Eglon was a very fat man.] And so the better mark for Ehud, and less able to resist. His soldiers also were fat men, and stewed in their own broth. {Jdg 3:29}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 17. Eglon was a very fat man.] The איש בריא ish bari of the text is translated by the Septuagint ανηρ αστειος σφοδρα, a very beautiful or polite man, and in the Syriac, a very rude man. It probably means what we call lusty or corpulent.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) He brought the present.—Literally,”caused it to come near.” Josephus, in his version of the story, evidently means to insinuate a parallel between the deed of Ehud and that of Harmodius and Aristogiton. He calls Ehud a young man who lived in familiarity with Eglon, and who had won his favour by frequent presents (Antt. v. 4).

A very fat man.—Vulg., Crassus nimis. Such seems to be the undoubted meaning, and the notice is inserted with reference to Jdg_3:22. The LXX. render it by the word asteios, a word which may mean either “graceful,” or, as more probably in this place, “ridiculous.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

17. he offered the present] The place is not mentioned; we are to think of some royal city in Moab, rather than of Jericho.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And when he had made an end to offer the present,.... Had delivered the several things contained in it, and very probably made a speech to the king in the name of the people of Israel from whom he brought it:

he sent away the people that bare the present; not the servants of Eglon that introduced him, as if they assisted in bringing in the present to the king; for over them he could not have so much power as to dismiss them at pleasure; but the children of Israel that came along with him, and carried the present for him: these he dismissed, not in the presence of the king of Moab, but after he had taken his leave of him, and when he had gone on some way in his return home; and this he did for the greater secrecy of his design, and that he might when he had finished it the more easily escape alone, and be without any concern for or care of the safety of others.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Fat. The ancient version used by St. Augustine had , "lean," which he justly took in an ironical sense. Septuagint asteios, signifies "beautiful and genteel." (Calmet) --- Serarius explains it in the same sense as the Vulgate. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The present was to be paid to him as a part of his tribute.

A very fat man, and therefore more unwieldy and unable to ward off Ehud’s blow.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

The present - Which was to be paid to him as a part of his tribute.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

Provided with this weapon, he brought the present to king Eglon, who - as is also mentioned as a preparation for what follows - was a very fat man.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

Obese. Fat.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Judges, in the Historical, opens this verse with 10 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻEglôwn (“Eglon”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʻEglôwn carries the sense “Eglon.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Joshua 10:3, which shares the word «Eglon», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “Eglon” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַיַּקְרֵב֙» is a Hiphil Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Adam Clarke's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“Eglon” occurs 2× in this single verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.