Ehud's Secret Message: A Judge's Unlikely Victory

Show Notes

Episode 485: 
In this episode, Jeff and Chris discuss the story of Ehud, a left-handed judge from the tribe of Benjamin, who delivers Israel from the Moabite king Eglon. They explore the details of Ehud's assassination of the obese King Eglon, emphasizing the unique advantage of Ehud's left-handedness. They discuss how Ehud's overlooked ability was used by God to bring about a significant victory for Israel, leading to 80 years of peace.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. So Jeff I was approached last Sunday. You know the Roland currently says a couple of guys, a couple of friends talk about the Bible and fun and practical ways. That's correct. And he said that he thought for several episodes apparently that it was impractical ways. Fun impractical ways. Yes, yeah, well it's probably more accurate fun comma impractical ways. That's great. They talk about the Bible and fun and practical ways. It is a little presumptuous for us to say that everything we say is practical. That's true. That's true, So fun impractical ways. And he keeps listening. He funny figured out. He's like, oh, it's it's and practical way. Yes, we should reshoot that Roland to have a us fun and practical ways. Right, and also things that are practical ways of practice. So whichever way works for you, that's the way we're doing it. How much correct? That's correct. So today we're going to open up with Friday. This is so incredibly important, right. We hope that you had an amazing week last week, yes, and this week also. Right, it's kind of been a staycation for you. This is yes, all right, we drug you out of your staycation into the studio today. Yes, for our listeners. Right. The sacrifices you make for our listeners are incredible, boundless. Now I've found staycations are mostly work caations. Yes, is that what it is? That's exactly what I'm doing. Yeah. I always tell me I don't want to do staycations. I want cation, want I want a vacation, and I want to stay cation because staycations are work cations. Yeah. I've actually worked harder in the last three days than i've. Physically than I have in like months and months and months. Yeah. So if you're watching on YouTube right now or one of the other platforms, and you see how haggard and worn out Chris looks, he's not dying, he's not sick, he's just been doing chores all week. That's right? Is that it? In fact, I look sort of tan in my face and in my arms, But look at. This, you got that farmer look. It's not even it's that's what I have too. Yeah, it's crazy. Well that's great. Well, nothing says, welcome back, like jumping into our favorite segment, right, and so nothing, So what made you mad this week? Well? I have one, Jeff. Really, that's incredible. There are sometimes go ahead and pause. And think about it for a second. You know you're already ready. There are sometimes I do have to think. But I was so mad yesterday. So but I'm mad for the world, jes okay, not for me, not for you. So what ends up happening is. My wife and I just had our thirty second wedding anniversary yesterday. Wow, congratulations thirty two years and thirty two years. So what's the same to you, Liz, Yeah, that's right. So I had to run because we were having company. We had company over and so I only had a limited amount of time. So I run into the florist and I have this thing. It's not been every year, but I try on our anniversary to buy the number of roses that were married. So it started off just as one rose. That was easy. Year one was easy, right, and you never expected to make it as far so three right? Right? So now the bill is quite high. Right, So I go into a place and I say, hey, give me thirty two roses. Uh, you know, fully made up an arrangement. Well she's like, well that's two hundred dollars right. I'm like, well, you know it is what it is. This is an anniversary tradition that I've been doing for a very long time. And again I've missed a couple of years for sure. But anyway, so I want to get these thirty two red roses. Well, this time, I don't have time for her to wait to make it. So I called her on the oh and I said, hey, if I would have you make this arrangement, how much would it be? She said two hundred dollars and I was like, I don't know if I had the time. Well, then our guests were late, so I decided to run over there and I said, you know what, I'll just grab them, like, I'll just have them wrap them up. I'll come home and I'll make the arrangement, right, So just just wrap them up for me. So I went into the place and I said, hey, just just wrap up these roses, grab me that vase over there and throw some baby's breath and wrap those up. And how much will it be? So she adds up on a calculator and. She goes one hundred and ninety eight fifty five, and I said, wait a minute. If I would have called and waiting forty five minutes, you would have done the arrangement. You'd have only gotten paid two dollars of labor. Like, are you like I'm doing the I'm doing the arrangement myself. I'm coming home and I'm cutting all of them. I'm putting them all together. I was like, and it's gonna be one hundred ninety dollars and she's like, I don't have to tell you, it's just the price. And I was like wow. But then I started to think, well maybe they were giving me a deal on making the arrangement. So I'm like, no big deal. So I go to pay and she goes, okay, it's going to ask you a series of questions, okay. To leave a tip, and literally. Instinctively I hit the ten percent button because there's ten fifteen, twenty twenty five, you know, it's ten percent of two hundred dollars, this twenty bucks, And I hit the button and there's no way to go back. So now I have this uncomfortable because I instinctively hit it real quick, and I thought I didn't mean to hit that because then it says you're going to add twenty dollars under your right And I'm like, this lady who literally turned around and grabbed something wrapped up and gives it to me a twenty dollars tip. For a florist? Are you super generous? Are you kidding me? So guess what I do. I'm literally like cancel and I canceled it, and she goes, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm like, uh, I'm forced to say, well, I believe that there are certain jobs that are created for tips and certain jobs that aren't supposed to be tips. Oh right, because this isn't a tip. A tip is like somebody who serves you right, like, you know, like they wait on you right. Like they actually make an arrangement for you. Well, yeah, this lady, if she made you arrangement, that'd be fine, But she just grabbed the flower stuck on in the box for the same price. I don't know. I don't think I would have tipped it even if she would have done the arrangement, because it was their job. It's not a tip paying job, right right? Okay, So anyway, here's here's what makes me mad. You can't blame a person for hustling. Is not become a thing until COVID, Right, yeah, since COVID, people have said, oh, there's a series of questions. I saw a meme. It was like one of these little church memes. You know, the church and there's a there's a worship leader in the lobby at a church. This is like a little not a meme, uh, little video whatever. The guys walking around the church lobby and somebody walks out there and says, oh, they're like the worship was so great today. And the guy turns around with his iPhone it has tip, and he goes, oh, that's so great, thank you so much. Here go ahead and answer a series. Of questions like you're going to worship leader. But that's what makes you mad, the idea that you are somehow socially obligated, and they play on the idea that, like, you know, people who aren't like me would absolutely hit ten percent a twenty dollars tip to turn around and hand me a vase. Right, I'm gonna pay you twenty bucks. Wow, no, thanks, Wow. I wonder why the price was so close. I know, I know, maybe maybe when you buy the flowers they do a free arrangement. Well maybe maybe, because at first I was mad, and then I thought the positive side of things, giving them the benefit of that, which is like, hey, maybe the service just comes with free arrangements, or. She knows that you're under the gun. Maybe, but listen, I wasn't going to bark. I wasn't going to bark at the price because I know that. So I just had some friends that celebrated, like their sixty seventh anniversary. Are you going to do that? It's going to cause you like one thousand dollars for flowers? Well no, Jeff, do the math. Math is math? Yeah, Well, inflation is inflation. Oh that's true, right, thirty two years ago, where you're spending the kind of money you're spending now per Rose. No, well, well hopefully I'm making you one thousand dollars more. That's a So congratulations to you. Yeah, right, you're punching way above your weight. Yeah, and my condolences to live. So your thirty second anniversary is also this this year? Yeah? Is it thirty thirty two or thirty three thirty two? Is it thirty two to get married sometime? Yeah? Yeah, okay, yes, thirty two. Yeah, and it's coming up with December. December. Yeah, yeah, so and I'm the luckiest guy in the world, So okay, so we should move into Hey, here's another audible. We're calling because we were supposed to move on to Deborah, which is we're going to move to next week. H it's really great. She's the the first woman judge of Israel, so that's gonna be really cool. But I didn't want to miss this one. So if all of the judges, the one I used to giggle the most about when we would read them is this one. E Hud so Afnil was the first judge. He delivered the people of Israel. He defeated a king that was such a bad guy and all this kind of stuff, and the people followed him for what was it like forty years, But then I Hud comes along because the people forget. And it says this in Judges chapter three, verse twelve. Once again, the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight, and the Lord gave King Eglon, a Moab, control over Israel because of their evil. So God took this wicked king and used him to put control over Israel, right, So it's pretty amazing. Egglin enlisted the Ammonites and the Amalekites as allies, and they went out and defeated Israel, taking possession of Jericho, the city of Poems, and the Israelites served Eglon of Moab for eighteen years. But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord again raised up a rescuer to save them. His name was Ehud, son of Gera, a left handed man of the tribe of Benjamin. The Israelites sent Ehud to deliver their tribute money to King Eglon of Moab. So Ehud made a double edged dagger that was about a foot long, and he strapped it to his right thigh, keeping it hidden under his clothing. He brought the tribute money to Eglon, who was very fat. After delivering the payment, Ehud started home with those who had helped carry the tribute. But when he had reached the stone Idols near Gilgal, he turned back and he came to Eglon and said, I have a secret message for you. So the king commanded his servants be quiet, and he sent them all out of the room. Ehud walked over to Eglon, who was sitting alone in a cool upstairs room, and Ihud said, I have a message from God for you. As King Eglon rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled out the dagger strapped to his right thigh, and plunged it into the king's belly. The dagger went so deep that the handle disappeared beneath the king's fat, so Ehud did not pull out the dagger, and the king's bowels emptied. Then Ehud closed and locked the doors of the room and escaped down the latrine ill yes After Ehud was gone, the king's servants returned and found the doors to the upstairs room locked. They thought he might be using the latrine in the room, so they waited, but when the king didn't come out after a long delay, they became concerned he got a key. When they opened the doors, they found their master dead on the floor. While the servants were waiting, he had escaped, passing the stone Idols on his way to Sira. When he arrived in the hill country of Ephraim, Ehud sounded a call to arms, and then he led the band of Israelites down from the hills. Follow me, he said, for the Lord has given you victory over Moab. Your enemy. So they followed him, and the Israelites took control of the shallow crossings of the Jordan River across from Moab, preventing anyone from crossing. They attacked the Moabites and killed about ten thousand of their strongest, most able bodied warriors. Not one of them escaped. So Moab was conquered by Israel that day. There was peace in the land for eighty years. Eighty years, right, he does, well, then let me read one more verse, because here's the another one. Shamgar says, after Ehud Shamgar of an As rescued Israel, he once killed six hundred Philistines with an ox gode the end, the end. Yeah, one verse, good job, Shamgar. Yeah, hey, uh, an ox gode. What's an ox gode? It's it's it's what you're used to. Yeah, it's to prod the cattle to keep going. Yeah, that must have been just a little poker. Well, it must have been one heck. Of a poker, ye, Silistines. Yeah, I mean you would think that if you were like in the four hundredth you know, regiment of Philistines going against this guy swinging an ox gode, that you would figure out how to you know, overcome the fighting pattern of the ox gode. Yeah, but nope, apparently not. Yeah, so people could use it like a fighting spear, not a throwing spear, but a fighting spears. How it would have been used. Yeah, So that's that's quite a feat either way, right, Well, which one, Yeah, Well, Shamgar's killing six hundred people with a you know, Philistine soldiers with an ox code, and so the message there is and I preached this message that he did what he could, he used what he had where he was right. So he was out in the field, he had an ox code, and he did what he could. Because the Philistines were raiders, so they would come in and just plunder villages and take everything. So the Israelites would grow all the food, and then the Philistines had just waded around to harvest it. Harves In fact, the Philistines would wait around until they'd taken the wheat and threshed it and turned it into you know, flour, and then they'd come through and just steal everything and they'd kill everybody, burn the villages, and they come back do it again next year, come back to it again next year. So it was perpetual plundering of all of the work that Israel would do, and so it left the people of Israel starving and hungry and always, you know, in poverty. And so I just love it. Just described the plot of a bugs life. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, very sophisticated. H I love how you think Chris and his game. Yeah. Yeah, So Shamgar is just out in the field. Philistine's come and he's like, nope, this is done. I'm going to do what I can. Yeah, and so he gat where he was, picked up his ox goaden. Yeah, Flick the ant built a bird. He didn't he didn't take an ox. Good. Okay, So hey, we got to get into the e Hud story. Yeah, because this is one of the craziest. Yeah, because wow. Yeah right, So I don't think that there's a story that is uh is there a more gross story? It's pretty gross, right, I mean. Think about it. I mean, uh, you know, I'm thinking about where it says David knuck into the cave and Saul was relieving himself. But all that happened in there was he just cut off a hem of his garment. It's just the fact that you know that that Saul was going to the bathroom. That's really the only reference there. This is stabbing into a guy that's so fat. Yeah. That literally the handle of the blade. Of a one foot knife. It was a foot long. It was a foot long. It's twelve inches. Yeah, he stabs the guy in and it's it's. Well the twelve inches of the blade, wasn't it right, the blade, which means the handles and other five inches right, So you're talking like a foot and a half all that. And then it says he emptied his bowels, right. Do you think that means it comes out of the like his guts came out. Do you think like he emptied his bows? He emptied his bowse I don't know, yeah, because it could be it could be either way. We both Yeah, in the King James King James Bible says, and the dirt came out. And the dirt came out. Yeah, so it's even worse. Yeah, so it's yeah, yeah, I think it's emptied his bowels. Yeah the other way yeah. Yeah. So so this is an upstairs room. Yeah, and it wasn't uncommon. My wife and I were just in Europe and we went and visited a bunch of castles, And it was funny how many of these little toilet rooms were just off the side, right, and it was just a hole that just dropped down to the side of the wall of the of the castle. Right. That's kind of a medieval solution, so very similar to this. It's probably an upstairs room for sure, we know that part. And there was a latrine, there was a toilet there, so very likely it was just a little room, a seat that stuck out, you know, from the wall, and he do his business. And so this guy he gets stabbed, you know, Egglon, he's a bad man, and e Hud comes in. But the thing I love about it is e Hud is the Bible takes great care to remind us or to let us know. He's a left handed fighter from the tribe of Benjamin. Right, so left handedness historically, especially in ancient times, was considered for some was considered a curse, but was always considered an extreme disadvantage, almost like a disability. But the fighters in Benjamin there's also you remember it also talks about there were some left handed slingers, people who would use slings, and they were left handed from Benjamin as well. These very various skilled fighters. So, for whatever reason, on a genetic level or whatever, the tribe of Benjamin, which is a small tribe, there were a lot of left handed fighters, and this was an advantage because nobody expected that he'd be carrying a weapon right right. And so he comes in with his weapon underneath his inside of his thigh, underneath his skirt or his robe, and he comes, hey, I got a message from you from God? What crazy phrase? It's a crazy phrase. Here's a message because he didn't say anything, why he did it? Yeah? Yeah, And it's a full on assassination, yes, And the only thing he says is I have a message for you from God and then loses his knife inside the guy's gut. Well, you know what's interesting about this is that. The Bible doesn't give us any insight as to whether or not this message was given to e Hud, Like, did God say to e Hud, this is what you shall do. You shall take a knife, you shall put it on your inner thigh. Right right like God? Like? Could this have been an orchestrated plan from God? Because I'm under the belief that, you know, just because it's not recorded doesn't mean it didn't happen. Yeah, it says when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help. So this is their repentance moment. Right. It says the Lord again raised up a rescuer to save them, right, But it doesn't say that he directly communicated with him. I think it's likely, well, God put it on his heart to say, hey, you're the one that's gonna deliver the people of Israel. But it doesn't say what God told him to do. Yeah, well raised up? Or did it just work this out? Think about the phrase he God raised them up? That that's that's that's about as genericas saying Apollo Creed then trained Rocky to defeat Clever Lang. Yeah. Right. So it's like, oh, well, how. Long did that process take? On the movie? About a year almost, right or whatever it was. I don't know how long it was, to be honest with you, But. The point is is that you know, God raised him up? What does that even mean? You know? God called him? Did God designate him, did he did he did he pray? Was he selected? Was he appointed? Was he announced? Right? So all of those things so so really it just sort of skims over it, which again, you know, there's only one verse on Shamgar, right, so you know, you know, once upon a time, you know. It seems to me like there should be more verses for Shamgar. He killed six hundred pillows states I'd like to just hear a little more about that. Did you ever did you ever hear Brian readan talk about lazy writing. He said, one of the most lazy phrases are one thing led to another. He says, he goes, he goes, there was a boy, there was a boy born, his name was Hitler, he was six years old. And then one thing led to another, and we dropped a bomb on Hiroshima. It's terrible. It's terrible. But the point is is that is that like there's a lot left out, there's a lot left out. So anyway, my point is is that we don't know whether this was Iud's idea or whether it was God announced yeah right, So he could have been like, hey, yeah, you're the answer, and then he had says, Okay, I think I know what I'm going to do. It's the same thing with Shamgar. Doesn't say that God said, hey, Shamgar, enough's enough, right, right, He just decided to do what he could do where he was with what he had and trusted the God, which I believe that that's probably that's very likely with Shamgar, with all these guys off Neil's the same. Well, I was going to say that, I think it's likely with IHD too, because if God says, hey, your job is to be the deliver, then he has probably thinking, well, I know what to do because I'm a warrior. Yeah, and all my life people have underestimated because I'm left handed, and I think I can get away. With this, and I think this should do. So by the time you get to e Hudd's time in Benjamin, it was actually seen as an extreme advantage because everybody else was right handed fight left hand. Remember remember in Princess Bride he's going to fight left handed. Oh yeah, remember I have a cigaret video. I'm not really left handed, right neither mine. So so there's this Larry Bird did that? Did you ever hear Larry Bird? He came in one time and told some rookie who was going to guard him, hey, uh, I'm gonna make it easy on you, and that I'm just going to shoot left handed. He scored like fifty four points left handed never took a right handed shot. Yeah, it's amazing. I can't remember what the total points were, but it was an insane number of points. He scores left handed, but he's a right handed guy. Right. So most people, if the guy you're going to defend today tells you, I'm going to shoot with my left hand, you'd think it was a disadvantage. Right. So, the people in Benjamin saw their left handedness and their skill with their left hand as an advantage because everybody else only prepared to fight right handed people. Right. So, there's this really great note in Life Application Study Bible. It says, this unusual story demonstrates how God can use us just the way He made us. Being left handed in e HUD's day among the Benjamites was considered an exceptional ability. Many Benjaminites were left handed. You can see that Judges chapter twenty. It talks about too, making them highly specialized troops, able to use a slinger of both, with tactics designed to repel right handed warriors. Egglon's bodyguard never checked Israel's messenger for left handed weapons, but God used e HUD's overlooked the ability to give Israel victory. Let God use you the way you are to accomplish his work there it is, isn't that great? So Egglon's people, they didn't think of of left handedness as an advantage. It's what are the chances that a guy is going to come in left handed and try to attack the king? It's so silly. Now. To the Benjaminites it was an advantage, obviously, but to the Moabites it was something to totally overlook, right, and God used the overlooked thing. The only thing that seems to be outstanding about him is the fact that he was left handed, right right. And a lot of times we think God can't use us right because there's nothing outstanding about me. But God used the one thing that gave him the advantage. And God could see and he hud what he had, probably didn't even see himself right, or didn't realize. So then he kills this guy and he escapes down the latrine. That parts gross. But then what I love is he escapes and then he goes out and he rallies the troops and he goes, hey, everybody, God's going to give us the victory. Let's go back and win this battle. And you know, they wipe out ten thousand mobites of the strongest and most able bodied warriors. Right. Have you ever seen slum Dog Millionaire? No? Really, Yes, there's a kid who escapes through the latrine and it's the grossest scene ever, ever, ever, ever. Yeah it wasn't there. There was a military story. Two of us. They escaped through the latrines from a Nazi camp. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, it happens. But anyways, this is just one of my favorite stories as a kid. And and your frame escaped through five hundred yards of a latrene pipe when he screamed when when he escaped Shoshank Redemption. I didn't see Shashank Redemption either. What is happening? What is happening? Sometimes a millionaire? I thought was bad enough. Redemption is one of the most renowned movies. In the world. I never saw it. You know what has the highest ID IMDb rating? Does it? Yes? I've never seen it. Oh goodness gracious. So anyways, the whole message here for this, before I get judged too much by by Zarba and by all of our. Listeners, is what is the book of Judges? Is that God made you just the way you are, and he plans to use you for great things, right if you just trust him. But can you imagine the cre he comes in, he delivers, which is really smart. He delivers their taxes, He scopes out the situation, looks round, they leave, and then he doesn't put everybody else at risk. This is why I don't think God spoke out loud to him and said, hey, I'm going to give you this victory. I think God impressed on him, Hey you should try this. Because he leaves there, he doesn't put any of the other people he traveled with at risk. He comes back. Now one guy, no big deal. They pat him down. He doesn't have a knife, and so he goes in. You know, they don't find it because he's left handed. And then he has the courage to go in and actually execute this guy. And that there's a lot of you just imagine the fear and the uncertainty of it. But then once he has his victory, he escapes out the latrine and then he rallies the troop and says, hey, let's go back. And God delivers the people. And then according to this it says that he provided safety and security and peace for the nation for eighty years. He was the most successful of all the judges. But that's the. Only thing the Bible tells us about it. Yeah, it was peace for eighty years. It's noteworthy, but yeah, yeah, it was just this one thing. And sometimes you know what, God, just God is going to invite you to do one super great thing in your life and he's going to use something that's super normal to do it, and it's going to make a difference for a whole generation. Well, eighty years was two generations. Right, right, that's amazing. Well, hey, it looks like we are past our time, so thank you for listening. We are the Bible guys, and hopefully we'll see you next time.