Here Comes the Judge
One Year Bible (April 24)
Judges 2:10-3:31, AM Reading/ OT
“Here Comes the Judge!”
Rarely do we ever read a eulogy like one recently posted on social media by a woman telling about her deceased husband. She describes everything crummy, no good, and beyond imagination about her “un-dearly” departed spouse. There is nothing much left for the imagination! People’s jaws dropped open; there has been a huge rise in TMJ ever since her post! Her “overshare” went far and wide and her chances of having a future suitor went from null to void!
Our culture loves all of the inside scuttlebutt. Over and over we have been told the inside, private, gory details concerning the death of famous celebrities. Take Elvis for example. I could go for a long, long time without knowing the scoop that he died on “His throne” and suffered from severe constipation. For some reason, certain magazines felt that we needed to know this tidbit of TMI. I prefer to focus on the “Blue Suede shoes” but today’s story is more like “Shake, Rattle, and Roll”.
Today’s Bible Story found in Judges 2-3 is also about a King who died while “on the throne” and it is overflowing with TMI. (Disclaimer, Reader Beware!) The King’s name is Eglon and he encountered the new judge of Israel, named Ehud.
Can you name a left-handed person in the Bible? If you read your passage today, you can! His name was… drumroll, please… Ehud-the-Stud! This dude has “superpowers”!
Ehud is not your stereotypical judge. This lefty is sporting a large double-edged dagger about a foot long which is strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He is no ordinary “Man of the Cloth”. He is a left-handed packin’ priest! (3: 15Ff) He is bearing tribute money and a secret message for the evil King Eglon, who Ehud has taken the time to personally make a house call on.
Ehud, the lefty, goes to share a message with King Eglon, takes his left hand, and shoves his dagger from his right thigh into Eglon’s big belly! The passage tells us this and more…much more! “The handle disappeared beneath the king’s fat and the king’s bowels emptied!” (3:22)
After Judge Ehud’s dagger went “thud” he bolted out of that latrine running for the hills before the King’s men spied the mess left behind! The evil king “broke wind” and Ehud “ran like the wind”! Overshare???
I can still hear my mama’s voice in my head when I read this story out loud to my husband. (“Oh MYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” would be her exact words!) The visualization of this story is hard to shake and I am pretty sure that was exactly what God was going for… an unforgettable visual with an undeniable warning!
This story is an “Elvis-kind-of-moment” and enquiring minds will be enquiring about “The King”, (and I mean Eglon) for years to come, and that is the point!
Our story today ends by telling us that Judge Ehud “took out” 600 Philistines with an “ox goad’. He didn’t even need his hidden dagger. Good thing as he left that thing firmly lodged embedded in the Latrine King’s jelly belly! (I told you that Ehud was a stud!)
Do we think for a minute that the news and details of this “Unholy Encounter” did not spread far and wide among the people to remind them of a “Holy God”?
The people cried out to their God for rescue with a heart of repentance and their God came running to their rescue with a message for all the people to stop and ponder for years to come…
Here Comes the Judge!
“But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord raised up a rescuer to save them.”-- Judges 3:9
Overshare???
