Ehud – The Right Lefty for the Job
Judges 3:12-17 – Victory Fellowship
April 19, 2026 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
• 20th James A. Garfield
• 31st Herbert Hoover
• 33rd Harry S. Truman
• 38th Gerald Ford
• 40th Ronald Reagan
• 41st George H.W. Bush
• 42nd Bill Clinton
• 44th Barack Obama
What do these presidents have in common with your pastor?
They were all left handed, though Reagan was a right handed writer. The second judge of Israel, EHUD, was left handed and God uses it in an unusual way to bring about deliverance.
All through the book of Judges it’s the same story. It’s like Israel never learned! 12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord gave King Eglon of Moab control over Israel because of their evil.
1. The people SIN,
2. God PUNISHES them by selling them into the hands of their enemies
3. The people REPENT and plead for God to forgive them
4. God raises up a JUDGE/DELIVERER to save them.
5. And Israel is at peace as long as that Judge lives.
Now Israel is serving King Eglon of Moab and they are forced to pay a yearly tribute of money, and food.
We know a few things about King Eglon. One he was smart. He wanted to beat up the Israelites, God’s people, so he hires help.
He gets the Ammonites, who hate the Israelites, and the Amalekites, who really hate the Israelites, and gets them all to gang up on Israel. So he’s a good military leader, and he manages to be over Israel for eighteen years. Smart man.
We also know he’s rich because he demands a tribute from the Israelites - but there’s one other way we know he’s rich and learn something about him. In vs 17 King Eglon is described as very fat.
Now, in the Bible there is only one other person called fat, and he was the next to last Judge in Israel, Eli. He is not mentioned in the book of Judges but in First Samuel:
1 Sam. 4:16-18 He told Eli, "I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day." Eli asked, "What happened, my son?" The man who brought the news replied, "Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured." When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backwards off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel for forty years.
So this guy EGLON is very fat. I mean Jabba the Hut fat. [SHOW PICTURE OF JABBA THE HUT]
Except he’s a king [SHOW PICTURE JABBA WITH CROWN]
We pick up our story with the Israelites serving their eighteenth year and getting ready to give their tribute to Eglon. Now it says the people of Israel cried out to God for help and the Lord heard them and chose a man named Ehud. He is the son of Gera, he’s from the tribe of Benjamin and he’s left-handed. The only other thing we can guess is that he’s quite young because after he died the Israelites have troubles again, but that’s eighty years later.
Ehud is given the job of taking Eglon his tribute, so he makes a small double-edged dagger and hides it under his clothes by strapping it to his right thigh. That’s important because what usually happened when another country came in and took over Israel they would take away their ability to make weapons. Ehud manages to make one in secret with improper tools.
Ehud and a handful of other people (Ehud couldn’t carry all the gold and grain himself). They deliver the treasure and leave, but on the way home Ehud leaves them and goes back to King Eglon’s palace by himself. He walks in and tells Elgon he has a secret message for him.
King Eglon likes this idea so he tells everyone to leave him and Ehud alone. Ehud walks up to the king and says, “I have a message from God for you!” As King Eglon stands up, Ehud takes the dagger strapped to his thigh and plunges it into King Eglon’s belly. But King Eglon is so fat the Bible says the king’s fat sucked in the dagger handle and all.
Now despite the name, your belly is not where your stomach is (that’s up higher), but it’s where your intestines are. When Eglon was stabbed in the intestines, his bowels emptied. Essentially, he went poo. Since there were two new, unfriendly holes in his intestines now, it’s not unlikely that some of the poo came out of those holes and all over Ehud!
Now Ehud has a problem, he’s trapped. He decides to lock the doors into the room with them and then he escapes. Now again, there’s a translation problem here because the Hebrew word for how Ehud escapes is not entirely known. So there are two theories.
One is there was a porch off of this room, so Ehud went to the porch and jumped off. Could it happen? Sure. But would he have just run and jumped off a second story porch? Probably not.
The other interpretation goes like this. A little history here is before the flushable toilet there were three ways to get rid of bathroom waste. One was to have an outhouse, you have to go outside and walk to another building to go the bathroom. Eglon, he’s a fat boy, I doubt he was doing that every time he needed the bathroom. Now if you were rich, you could have a chamber pot that would be emptied for you. But again, Eglon would probably need a big pot, plus he’s a king, he doesn’t want his poop in his royal room. So there’s one other option.
-what the uber-rich, the royal would do is have the bathroom on the second floor on an outside wall. Then one of the castle employees would every so often have to go outside and walk around the castle until he got to a door underneath this bathroom, open it up and scoop the poop into the moat and let the water take it away. (Margie & Larry in Ireland)
What I believe the Hebrew is referring to and what many people believe (it’s even in some translations) is Ehud escaped by dropping down into the latrine room, opening the door and running away. [SHOW SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION]
There’s some merit to this. The Hebrew bible actually portrays this as a humorous and klutzy event on the part of Eglon’s staff. Remember all the people, including the guards, were asked to leave Ehud and Eglon alone. And the way the story goes the servants waited and waited for the king to come out, it says they waited until the point of embarrassment.
Why? Because they thought he may be on the medieval toilet so they waited until the point of embarrassment until they got a key to unlock the doors and check on their king. At which point he was long dead and Ehud long gone.
While the Moabites are all realizing their king is dead, Ehud has run back, gotten the Israelites rallied up and ready’s them to attack - for the Lord has given the Moabites to them. They attack and win and the Israelites live in peace for the next eighty years.
What do we learn about EHUD? He was careful, courageous, and considerate. (Explain)
What can we take away from this scripture?
GOD HEARS YOU WHEN YOU CRY
GOD CAN USE ANYONE
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE MUCK
PRAYER
SONG: Heart of God
Judges 3:12-17 NLT
12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord gave King Eglon of Moab control over Israel because of their evil.13 Eglon enlisted the Ammonites and Amalekites as allies, and then he went out and defeated Israel, taking possession of Jericho, the city of palms. 14 And the Israelites served Eglon of Moab for eighteen years. 15 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. 16 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. 17 He brought the tribute money to Eglon, who was very fat.
Verses 18-30 18 After delivering the payment, Ehud started home with those who had helped carry the tribute. 19 But when Ehud reached the stone idols near Gilgal, he turned back. 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. 20 Ehud walked over to Eglon, who was sitting alone in a cool upstairs room. And Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you!” As King Eglon rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled out the dagger strapped to his right thigh, and plunged it into the king’s belly. 22 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. 23 Then Ehud closed and locked the doors of the room and escaped down the latrine. 24 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, 25 so they waited. But when the king didn’t come out after a long delay, they became concerned and got a key. And when they opened the doors, they found their master dead on the floor. 26 While the servants were waiting, Ehud escaped, passing the stone idols on his way to Seirah. 27 When he arrived in the hill country of Ephraim, Ehud sounded a call to arms. Then he led a band of Israelites down from the hills. 28 “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. 29 They attacked the Moabites and killed about 10,000 of their strongest and most able-bodied warriors. Not one of them escaped. 30 So Moab was conquered by Israel that day, and there was peace in the land for eighty years.
