Judges 3:21

Jdg 3:21 And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:

Ver. 21. And thrust it into his belly.] This he did by an extraordinary call from God; {Jdg 3:15} and therefore this example was traitorously misapplied to Ravillas, that desperate assassin, who murdered the French king by the instigation of the Jesuits, and defended it when he had done. Our own chronicles {a} tell us of one Birchet in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, who by the example of Ehud, thought he might lawfully have killed a great personage in this kingdom, whom he took to be God’s enemy. Upon the same account he wounded Hawkins, and slew his keeper. The Janizaries have learned of the Jesuits the art of king killing: but to preserve him from harm by strangers, they allow none to come into the presence of the grand signior, but first they search him that he have no weapon; and so clasping him by the arms under colour of doing him honour, dissemblingly bereave him of the use of his hands, lest he should offer him any violence. {b}

And thrust it into his belly.] Eglon stabbed into the guts, finds his bane the same way with his sin. It was good counsel that one gave Henry IV of France, after that he had been first stabbed in the mouth and lost a tooth only, to take heed he denied not God with his heart, as he had already done with his mouth where now he was wounded, lest the next stab were to the heart, as indeed it proved.

{a} Camden’s Elisab, 174.

{b} Turk. Hist.

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.

Jdg 3:21. Ehud put forth his hand and took the dagger — It is justly observed by Dr. Dodd, that this action of Ehud “is certainly among the number of those which are not to be imitated without that which gave it all its sanction; namely, a divine commission. The text expressly says, The Lord raised up Ehud; and it is well known that all the deliverances which the Jews had under the judges, were directed and conducted by the immediate hand of God, according as the people, by their repentance, became fit to receive them. A divine warrant, in such a case, is a clear ground to go upon, but it can be no precedent for others to go upon, who have no divine warrant at all, but quite the contrary. What are reason and understanding given us for, but to distinguish upon cases and circumstances?” As reasons why God excited Ehud to this action, it may be observed, that Eglon had been the aggressor, and that he was the oppressor of God’s people, and held them under a cruel subjection and bondage; that he was undoubtedly guilty of great injustice and violence toward them, and, in all probability, continued to make many thousands of them miserable daily, by means of their servitude, which he had no right to do. Therefore God, who had called Ehud to the office of delivering and governing Israel, stirred him up on this occasion, to take this method of cutting off their enemy and oppressor.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ehud put forth his left hand--The whole circumstance of this daring act--the death of Eglon without a shriek, or noise--the locking of the doors--the carrying off the key--the calm, unhurried deportment of Ehud--show the strength of his confidence that he was doing God service.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(21) Thrust it into his belly.—This would involve certain, though not necessarily instant death. Josephus says, inaccurately, that he stabbed him to the heart (Antt. v. 4, § 2). The assassination is exactly similar to that of Henry III. of France, by the Dominican monk, Jacques Clement, who had provided himself with a commission from a friend of the king: “On Tuesday, Aug. 1, at 8 a.m.,” says L’Estoile, “he was told that a monk desired to speak with him. The king ordered him to be admitted. The monk entered, having in his sleeve a knife, unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to the king, who had just got up, and had nothing but a dressing-gown on, and presented him despatches from the Comte de Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the king privately something of importance. Then the king ordered those who were present to retire, and began reading the letter. The monk, seeing his attention engaged, drew his knife from his sleeve, and drove it right into the king’s small gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole.”—Guizot, “Hist. of France,” iii. 479.

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

And the haft went in, after the blade,.... The handle of the dagger, as well as the blade; so strong and violent was the thrust, he determining to do his business effectually:

and the fat closed upon the blade; being an excessive fat man, the wound made by the dagger closed up at once upon it, through the fat:

so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; being not able to take hold of the haft or handle, that having slipped in through the fat after the blade, so that he was obliged to leave it in him:

and the dirt came out; the margin of our Bibles is, "it came out at the fundament"; that is, the dagger did, the thrust being so strong and vehement; but that is not so likely, the dagger being so short, and Eglon a very fat man. The Targum is,"his food went out;''which was in his bowels; but as the wound was closed up through fat, and the dagger stuck fast in it, it could not come out that way: rather therefore this is to he understood of his excrements, and of their coming out at the usual place, it being common for persons that die a violent death, and indeed others, to purge upon it; some, as Kimchi observes, interpret it of the place where the guards were, the guard room, through which Ehud went out, but that is expressed in another word in Jdg 3:23; the Syriac and Arabic versions read, "he went out in haste", that is, Ehud.

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

But when the king stood up, Ehud drew his sword from under his garment, and plunged it so deeply into his abdomen that even the hilt followed the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade (so that there was nothing to be seen of it in front, because he did not draw the sword again out of his body), and the blade came out between the legs. The last words have been rendered in various ways. Luther follows the Chaldee and Vulgate, and renders it "so that the dirt passed from him," taking the ἁπ. λεγ. פּרשׁדנה as a composite noun from פּרשׁ, stercus, and שׁדה, jecit. But this is hardly correct, as the form of the word פּרשׁדנה, and its connection with יצא, rather points to a noun, פּרשׁדן, with ה local. The explanation given by Gesenius in his Thes. and Heb. lex. has much more in its favour, viz., interstitium pedum, the place between the legs, from an Arabic word signifying pedes dissitos habuit, used as a euphemism for anus, podex. The subject to the verb is the blade.

(Note: At any rate the rendering suggested by Ewald, "Ehud went into the open air, or into the enclosure, the space in front of the Alija," is untenable, for the simple reason that it is perfectly irreconcilable with the next clause, "Ehud went forth," etc. (consequently Fr. Bttcher proposes to erase this clause from the text, without any critical authority whatever). For if Ehud were the subject to the verb, the subject would necessarily have been mentioned, as it really is in the next clause, Jdg 3:23.)

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.)

The tip of the sword came out of his back

"The sharp end of the sword came out of his back"

porch

an outside room with low walls and a roof covering

translationWords

sword

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.