wickedness.180 So it appears that Ehud is not all “right” (!), and is not what he appears to be or is supposed to be: he is a “son of the right hand” who is “bound in his right hand.”181 His left-handedness may be a subtle disparagement.
In many cultures, including cultures in the ancient Near East, the left hand is associated with impurity or deviance. The right is the place of honor and sovereignty, virility, strength, goodness; the left the place of vassalage, subservience, evil, and weakness. . . . [T]he left hand may not be used for eating; it is commonly associated with matters of personal hygiene that discourage its use in the preparation or ingestion of food. The left hand is expressly disfavored in ancient Israelite ritual.182
The sense of Ehud’s deficiency is amplified by these negative connotations of left-handedness. In any case, 3:15 ends up depicting Ehud, the left-handed son of right-handers, as an unlikely hero who has a strange whiff about him. “[I]f the point of the wordplay is indeed to highlight a ‘falling short’ in a core area of one’s identity, . . . can one not further extend this sense of ‘falling short’ and see it as subtly foreshadowing certain of Ehud’s actions in the ensuing narrative?”183 It seems likely, then, that Ehud’s subsequent deceptions in this story are subtly being deprecated from the very start.
Instead of simply highlighting Ehud’s left-handedness, the incongruity revealed by the wordplay may carry deeper symbolic significance in portraying Ehud as someone whose actions and choices are liable to fall short of the standard expected of him on the basis of who he is. Thus, if the choice of Ehud is surprising, it is surprising not only because his restriction in the right hand obviously fell short of the norm expected of a “son of the right-handers,” but also because the tactics he used likewise fell short of the standard expected of a deliverer raised up by YHWH.184
The anomaly of a member of a right-handed tribe being a left-handed man seems to be hinting at the theological oddity of a deliverer raised up by Yahweh (3:15) resorting to underhanded tactics.
It is striking that a unilateral human endeavor without any input from deity is undertaken to solve the eighteen-year-long thorny problem that Eglon and Moab posed for the Israelites. Such an attitude, showing independence from Yahweh, is suggested by the phrase in 3:16, br<x, dWhae Al f[;Y:w: (wayya‘as lo ’ehud khereb), “Ehud made for himself a sword,” seeing wOl as reflexive, “for himself.” There is no inquiry of Yahweh, no input from Yahweh, no imperative from Yahweh. And the sword is for himself, not for tribe, nation, or deity. This, in itself, is not necessarily negative, but in light of Yahweh’s invisibility throughout the account, it certainly is suspicious.
The judge/deliverer then goes to great lengths to prepare for his lethal meeting with the oppressor-in-chief, ostensibly to present a tribute (3:15, 18). Ehud manufactures a weapon fit/appropriate for the corpulent Eglon (3:17, 22): its length is stressed—a “cubit” long (about 12–18 inches)—“custom-designed for Eglon: short enough to conceal; long enough to do him in.”185
The hand-motif recurs in this narrative. For starters, as we have seen, Ehud is “a left-handed man” (Anymiy>-dy: rJeai vyai, ’ish ’itter yad-ymino), and the tribute to Eglon is “sent” (xlv, shlkh) “by his hand” (Ady"B., byado, 3:15). At the climax of the story, Ehud “stretches” (xlv) his “hand” (dy:, yad) to consummate his regicide (3:21). The narrative concludes with a statement that Moab was subdued that day under the hand (dy:) of Israel (3:30).186 The hand of Ehud and the hand of Israel monopolize the story, with but a single mention by Ehud about Yahweh giving the Moabites into the “hand” (dy:) of the Israelites (3:28).
And what of 3:28, itself—was that an unadulterated sign of reliance on Yahweh by Ehud? Thus far, there has been “no hint of any spiritual sensitivity in Ehud’s heart nor any sense of divine calling. On the contrary, Ehud operates like a typical Canaanite of his time—cleverly, opportunistically, and violently, apparently for his own glory.”187 Nonetheless, Ehud’s declaration in 3:28, in the perfect tense, that “Yahweh has given your enemies the Moabites into your hands,” is significant (see similar assertions in 4:14; 7:14–15: all creditable utterances).188 While he has employed deception in his assassination (see below), he is not completely lacking in faith or in knowledge of the Almighty. Remember, the slippage of the judges has only begun with Ehud and, as the first to follow Othniel’s perfect footsteps, one does not expect to see him depicted with too much negativity. Both Othniel and Ehud were, after all, raised by Yahweh (3:9, 15—the only two judges who are called “deliverers,” using a substantival participle), and both brought rest to the land (3:11, 30).189
But notice this: While it is quite appropriate that Ehud, after the assassination and the summoning of his troops, orders them, “Follow after me” (3:28, where he also invokes Yahweh), one again gets the sense of a self-focused individual.190 He appears intent on using himself as a model primarily, with his army following him; he supports his exhortation with Yahweh’s name only secondarily.
[T]he subsequent growing concern of the Judges compiler/redactor with the leadership qualities of Israel’s deliverers leads one, in retrospect, to inquire whether Ehud’s characterization as a self-promoting saviour is an intended nuance. While Ehud claims Yhwh’s guarantee of success in 3:28ab on the basis of his foregoing success, there is something implicitly self-authenticating about it, for by no explicit means had Yhwh disclosed this to any character in the story world.191
Besides, in the case of Gideon, his sharing of victory laurels with Yahweh is subsequently proven to be born of arrogance and conceit (8:17, 20). So much so, one wonders if the narrator’s subtle disparagement is also reflected in the absence of any statement at the end of the narrative that “Ehud judged Israel for X years.” Only Gideon shares that dubious distinction. Even Samson has a statement to this effect.
3.3 Duplicity in life, demonstrating a lack of integrity, receives God’s disapprobation.
After presenting the Israelite tribute to Moab, Ehud leaves, only to return to the king (3:19). Ehud speaks twice to Eglon, employing a mere six words total: “I have a secret message [rbd, dbr, also ‘thing’] for you, O king” (3:19), and “I have a message [thing] from God for you” (3:20). Clearly the utterances were intended to deceive: Eglon expected a “message,” but Ehud gave him a “thing” (the sword). Thus “the duplicity of both speeches’ use of rbd may play on a key feature of Ehud’s sword—its double-edgedness.”192 The tool Ehud fashioned for the assassination was a “sword of (two) mouths,” i.e., a two-edged sword (3:16; for an identical Greek term, see Sir 21:3; Heb 4:12; Rev 1:16; 2:12). Berman concludes: “[T]he double-, or multi-edged sword, which we find . . . in the biblical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature, always bears a metaphorical or figurative meaning pertaining to orality. In all but one case, the ‘sword of [two] mouths’ stands as a trope for the potency of speech.”193 In any case, “sword” and “mouth” are linked frequently: “by edge of the sword” is literally “by the mouth of the sword” (br<x'-ypil., lpi-khareb; see Jdg 1:8; 25; 4:15, 16; 7:22; 18:27; 20:37, 48; 21:10; and elsewhere in the OT). All that to say, there is intentional duplicity here. And so the sword is doubly concealed—physically, under Ehud’s cloak (3:16), and verbally, by referring to it as a “message/thing” (3:3:20). The linguistic parallels between Ehud’s preparation and his assassination of Eglon are also notable194:
This was a carefully plotted undertaking, intended to deceive and to kill. The undercurrent of a perfidious plot is detected in the very commencement of the story, with the tribute literarily hiding (sandwiching) a plot to murder.
Ehud’s use of deception is a significant part of the development of the story: he conceals his weapon on his right thigh, because of his left-handedness (3:16);
