Judges 3:22

Jdg 3:22 And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.

Ver. 22. And the dirt came out.] Which was a sign of death. And here Ehud was a type of Christ, in that he alone slew Eglon, as Christ alone doth all our enemies.

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 3:22. And the dirt came out — The Hebrew word פרשׁדנה, parschedona, here translated dirt, is found only in this place. It is from the Chaldee that it is thus rendered, and all agree that it signifies the excrements.

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

Verse 22. The haft also went in after the blade] As the instrument was very short, and Eglon very corpulent, this might readily take place.

And the dirt came out] This is variously understood: either the contents of the bowels issued through the wound, or he had an evacuation in the natural way through the fright and anguish.

The original, פרשדונה parshedonah, occurs only here, and is supposed to be compounded of פרש peresh, dung, and שדה shadah, to shed, and may be very well applied to the latter circumstance; so the Vulgate understood it: Statinque per secreta naturae alvi stercora proruperunt.

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

(22) The haft also went in after the blade.—The tremendous violence of the blow marks that resoluteness of character which Ehud shows throughout. The Hebrew for “blade” is “flame,” as the LXX. here render it. It is as though the vivid narrator would make us see the flash of the dagger ere it is buried, hilt and all, in the huge body. So in Nah_3:3 we have, “The horseman lifteth up the flame of the sword and the lightning of the spear.” The only other passage where the word occurs is to describe the polished head of the spear of Goliath (1Sa_17:7).

So that he could not draw the dagger out.—Thus he had disarmed himself by the force of his own blow; but the original only says, “for he did not draw the dagger out.”

And the dirt came out.—The meaning of this clause is excessively doubtful, because the Hebrew word rendered “dirt” (parsedonah) occurs here and here only. (1) Our E.V. follows the Chaldee and the Vulgate with the alternative rendering (2) “it came out at the fundament” (marg.), which is the view of Gesenius. The Jews were themselves uncertain of the meaning and even in Rabbi Tanchum’s commentary we find that some understood it to mean (3) “he (Ehud) ran out into the gallery.” (4) A fourth guess—that of the Syriac version—is, “he went out hastily.” The LXX. omit it altogether, either because they thought that they were consulting propriety—a tendency which they constantly show—or because they could not rightly explain it. The resemblance of the word parsedonah to the word misderônah (“porch”), in the next clause, is certainly in favour of its meaning some part of the house. Ewald renders it, “he rushed out into the gallery,” which runs round the roof. He refers to Eze_42:5. To understand it more exactly, we should require to know the structure of the house. Following the analogy of other Eastern houses, as described by Shaw, it seems that Eglon’s alijah was a separate building (domation, Jos.), or part of a building, with one door opening on a balcony, and another on a private staircase and closet (Jdg_3:24). It was an inner room, and its outer door communicated with the house.

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

22. and it came out behind] i.e. the sword; but this is hardly grammatical, for sword is fem. and came out is mas. The marg. he went out into the ante-chamber is merely based upon a guess of the LXX (τὴν προστάδα). The AV. renders and the dirt came out, so Vulgate statimque per secreta naturae alvi stercora proruperunt, Targ., Jews, and many moderns, correcting the unknown and corrupt Hebr. word parshìdon to peresh = dung. “This somewhat drastic touch is altogether in the vein of the narrator” (Moore); cf. Jdg_3:16-17; Jdg_3:24 b. On the other hand the clause is so much like the words at the beginning of the next verse in Hebr., that it may be a dittograph, a miswritten form of what follows.

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.

Then Ehud went forth through the porch,.... Which the Targum interprets by "exedra", a place, as Kimchi, where there were many seats, either for the people to sit in while waiting to have admittance into the presence of the king, or where the guards sat, and may be called the guard room; through this Ehud passed with all serenity and composure of mind imaginable, without the least show of distress and uneasiness in his countenance, being fully satisfied that what he had done was right, and according to the will of God:

and shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and locked them; joined the doors of the parlour, as the Targum, the two folds of the door, shut them close together upon Eglon within the parlour, and bolted them within, or drew the bolt on the inside, which he was able to do with a key for that purpose; of which see more on Jdg 3:25; and which it is probable he took away along with him; this must be understood as done before he went through the porch, and therefore should be rendered, "when" or "after he had shut the doors", &c. (e); wherefore in the Vulgate Latin version this clause is put first.

(e) "quum occlusisset", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

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

The King James Version and margin give different explanations of the last words of this verse. Others explain it of a vestibule or chamber, through which Ehud passed into the porch where the entrance doors were. He locked the doors, took the key with him; and then retired through the midst of the attendants below (or: more probably, through the door which communicated directly with the outside).

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

CHAPTER III.

With, &c. Hebrew [and] Protestants, "And the haft also went in after the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out." By the word belly, the Jews mean all the vital parts. (Calmet) ---- The wound was so deep, that Aod did not think proper to strive long to extract his sword; and indeed, being all bloody, it would have only tended to excite suspicion. (Haydock) --- The Chaldean agrees with the Vulgate in rendering parshedona "excrements," though it seem to be rather irregularly in construction with a masculine [], &c. If we should read peristana, "a porch," the difficulty would be avoided. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "(23) and Aod went out into the porch, (prostada) and he shut the doors of the upper chamber....(24) and he himself went out." (Haydock)

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).

i.e. His excrements came forth, not at the wound, which closed up, but at the fundament, as is usual when persons die either a natural or violent death.

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

22. The dirt came out — The meaning of the word translated dirt is quite uncertain. The English version errs in making פרשׁדנה, parshedonah, rendered the dirt, the subject of the verb came out; for, as Gesenius says, “the He paragogic implies rather the place to which a thing comes out.” It seems, therefore, better to understand this obscure word as denoting either the place on Eglon’s body where the blade of Ehud’s dagger came out, or else an apartment of Eglon’s palace into which Ehud came out. This latter is, perhaps, preferable. Three apartments seem to be mentioned: the private parlour, (Jdg_3:20,) the hall, and the porch, (Jdg_3:23.) Having buried his dagger in Eglon’s body, Ehud went out through the hall and porch, and so escaped. Bachmann thinks the parshe-donah was a flat roof, upon which Ehud came out from the chamber where he assassinated Eglon, and that it is further defined by the word porch, in the next verse, which, in his view, means not an ordinary porch, but the platform of the roof, enclosed by lattice work.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The haft, etc. Ehud, feeling the necessity of killing Eglon at one blow, plunged the dagger into his body with such force that the handle went in with the blade, and he was unable to draw it out. Leaving it, therefore, buried in his fat, he went out at once into the parshedon, or antechamber, for so it is best to render the last words of the verse, and thence into the misederon, the outer porch, having first locked the door of the summer chamber. The words parshedon and misederon occur only here, and the former is very variously rendered.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The hilt. The iron into which the blade is inserted, called 'hulot' in old French. This balances the sword in its scabbard.

The blade. The sharpened section, called "brant" and "lama" in old French.

The fat closed. His fat. He was extremely corpulent, so that he enclosed the entire length of the dagger.

Waste matter oozed. Yonasan renders, "Spilled waste matter oozed." He reads this as a contraction of two words with the 'shin' serving both. "spilled waste matter" [oozed]. שְׁפַךְ, "spilled", is the translation of שְׁדָא according to Yonasan.

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.