But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man.
And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:
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.
The Tale of Ehud the Assassin and Eglon the Fat (Judges 3:12-30)
Fact One: It's always tricky to translate "hinneh," the Hebrew narrative exclamation that gets translated as "behold" in old-timey translations.
Fact Two: I have always wanted to translate hinneh as "HOLY SHIT."
Fact Three: I've been getting into Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, which involves a lot of "sneak into an upper room, stab a dude in the belly."
THUS I PRESENT TO YOU one of my sillier enterprises: a colloquial translation of the Tale of Ehud the Assassin and Eglon the Fat. (Strangely enough, Veggie Tales has never tackled this particular story. But the Brick Testament has!)
Yet again, the Israelites had pissed off YHWH. So YHWH put his power behind Eglon, the king of Moab, to fight against Israel. He gathered together the Ammonites and Amelekites, and they went and conquered Israel. (They even took over the City of Date Palms, wherever that is.) The Israelites served Eglon for eighteen years before they finally started to complain to YHWH, so YHWH raised up a hero to rescue them: Ehud ben Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man.
So the Israelites planned to send Ehud to Eglon with their tribute delivery. But first, the dude made himself a big dagger — double-edged and a half-meter long — and fastened it underneath his robes, on his right thigh.
Then he went and presented the tribute to Eglon — who, BTW, was a very burly guy [1]. Once he had finished presenting the tribute, he sent back the rest of his crew. But he turned around at the Gilgal statues, went back to the king, and said, "I have a SECRET MESSAGE for you, Mister King."
"Everyone else, GTFO!" the king said, so all his servants left the room. (At that point, he was sitting alone in his nice cool kingly chambers.)
Then Ehud stepped closer and said, "Hey. I have a Message From God for you."
So the king got up from his chair to hear this Secret Message. BUT INSTEAD, Ehud reached out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and STABBED IT INTO THE KING'S BELLY. He stabbed so deep that the hilt went in after the blade, and the king's stomach fat closed over it, so he just left the dagger in there. Soon enough, the bowel excrement started coming out of the king's belly. Mission accomplished, Ehud sneaked out through the bathroom [2], but he closed and locked the doors of the upper room behind him.
When Ehud had gone, Eglon's servants came and discovered that the doors of the upper room were locked. So they said, "Oh, he must be taking a dump [3] in his room." They kept waiting until it was legit embarrassing, but the doors of the room didn't open. So they finally got the key and opened the doors — and HOLY SHIT, their master was lying on the ground, DEAD!
(Meanwhile, Ehud had already escaped while they were screwing around — he'd traveled past the statues and escaped to a city called Seirah.)
So when Ehud got there, he blew a trumpet (QUEST COMPLETED!) that echoed through the hills of Ephraim. Then all the Israelites joined him and marched behind Ehud. "Follow me," he said. "YHWH has given us victory over our enemies, the Moabites!"
They marched down after him, captured the fords of the Jordan River, and refused to let anyone through. Then they killed ten thousand of the Moabites — and BTW they were all buff, strong dudes — without letting a single one escape.
And that is how Israel kicked Moab's ass. Then things were quiet for another eighty years.
THE END.
[1] Okay, so the word that describes King Eglon usually gets translated as "fat," but in English that has certain implications of non-athletic inclinations. But the Hebrew word is actually really a positive one: fleshy, muscled, robust. Hence my translation as "burly."
[2] It's unclear whether the king was sitting in his bathroom and invited Ehud to chat while he was occupied, or whether they were simply in private rooms that included a toilet. Either way, the word for "chair" is the same one as "throne," so there could be a euphemism going on about Eglon rising from his "throne" to talk to Ehud.
[3] "Taking a dump" is the modern English idiom for defecating. The equivalent idiom that I'm translating literally works out to "covering his lower half," i.e. wiping his butt.
Dale Pollard
“Now Eglon was a very fat man” (Judges 3.17).
King Eglon of Moab shows up in Judges three as, perhaps, the biggest enemy of God’s people. After Israel turns away from the Lord, God allows Eglon to oppress them for eighteen long years. Though Eglon was a huge ruler, his story teaches us several bigger lessons.
First, Eglon reminds us that earthly power is temporary. He was a…
Judges 3: 20-23.
And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.
And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:
And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could…
Joshua 10:1-4
Now it came to pass, when Adonizedek king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;
That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because…
