Sheila Shiki y Michaels, New York, NY, 29 March 2009

Ehud & Eglon: A SinisterFarce

Society for Biblical Literature AnnualMeeting,

New Orleans, 2009Session on LGBT/Q Identities and Biblical

Sexualities

Judges is largely a chronicle of flawed

leaders, but Ehud’s story (3:12-4:1) is

singular. As Alan Segal, my late advisor asked,

“What is this doing in our Bible?”

Not to put too fine a point upon it, it

appears to be a folk story about murder during a

liaison, & it is told with gory relish. It

suggests the Israelite community’s complicity in

pandering, when it sends offerings by a warrior

& retinue that the king will find attractive,

giving signals he will find suggestive. It has

homoerotic seduction offered, that ends in

murder, and it uses scatological motifs to mock

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the quarry. One supposes this is a polemic

that casts neighboring Moabites as political &

sexual despots. It ridicules Moabites in the

manner of early industrial age Turks, Greeks &

Bulgars, whose names became synonymous with

sodomy, through mutual accusations.

There is a thought that this story may have

been included in the canon as a vehicle for

undermining the reputation of the Davidic

dynasty. David was of Moabite stock, like

Eglon. David was even a descendent of Eglon, in

Talmudic lore.1

The story as it is presented to us: the

Israelites have erred, & YHVH delivers them to

Eglon of Moab. Eglon forms an alliance with the

Ammonites & Amalekites. They capture the City

of Tamarim (“Palms”, meaning Jericho) & Eglon

1 Thanks to Jack Sasson, for the citation I had only seen asa general reference:“R. Jose b. Huna said: Ruth was the daughter of Eglon, the grandson of Balak, king of Moab” (TSotah 47a; TSanhedrin 105b); “R. Jose son of R. Hanina said: Ruth was the daughterof the son of Eglon who was the son of the son of Balak the King of Moab” (THorayot 10b).

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rules Israel for eighteen years. The Israelites

cry out, & YHVH raises up Ehud to deliver them

(more about this, later).

Ehud is chosen to bear the Israelite tribute (by his hand) to Eglon. Though he is a leader (Judges 3:28), Ehud’s right hand is

maimed - . Ehud is left-handed

& he bears the Israelite tribute (from his hand) in his left hand. This would be

seen as offensive: a left-handed man would be

something of a pariah, because only a man’s left

hand is used to clean excreta & to handle his

member to urinate & in coitus. Tribute for a

king would be presented with the right hand or

both hands.

We are being set-up for a salacious yarn.

The Western reader, who eats with cutlery, might

overlook the point, but a left-handed hero would

disturb Ancient auditors, who ate (& there are

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billions in the world who still eat) only with

their right hands.2

Ehud has forged a short sword & bound it to

his inner thigh. It is not so easy to hide or

walk with a sword bound to the inner thigh. And

visually, it might easily be mistaken for a

natural appendage.

Ehud leaves the court, but turns back at the

pesilim near the city. He is readmitted to

Eglon’s court, and says, “(I have) a hidden

something for the King”3. Eglon says, “Hush”

and his guards leave (are dismissed). Ehud is

brought to Eglon in the evening on the cool

2 Communal eating without utensils--using the right hand only--was & is the norm in much of the world. Europeans didnot finally have forks until the 16th century (it wended itsway, slowly, from tenth century Byzantium). From the MiddleEast through South Asia, more than a billion people still use their hands to eat. Chopsticks have been in use for almost a millennium, though not by all classes, and they arean extension of fingers. The right hand has been, universally, the hand for eating. The left hand is for cleaning oneself & for sex. Left-handedness is socially isolating & this emphasis on left-handedness lays out the story.3 -

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rooftop. Ehud tells Eglon he has “A thing of

gods, me to you”4. Eglon is unarmored & rises

from his throne. Ehud is so close that Eglon is

not prepared to retreat or defend himself. Ehud

reaches down to his thigh with his left hand &

draws the sword bound there. He drives his

sword through Eglon. It’s very messy: ordure

flows. Ehud escapes, after barring the roof

entrance from the inside. Eglon’s servants

assume he is “covering his foot”. (“Foot” is

singular, 3000 years before Freud explained that

to us). They delay interrupting, until they

writhe with embarrassment. Ehud passes the

pesilim again, escapes to Ephraim, sounds the

shofar, assembles the Israelite troops & they

kill all the Moabite men of valor, giving the

Israelites 80 years of peace.

4

-

5

Ehud5 is a son of Gera6,7 a son of Benjamin.

Benjamin means “Son of the Right Hand”, & this

is emphasized in this text by spelling it

-.8 Ehud has an impediment hobbling

his right hand, which makes him left-handed.

According to the Talmud, the left hand was

used to wipe oneself9, not to eat. Classical

writers also spoke of the exclusive use of the

left-hand in masturbation and irrumatio, in both5 BDB has Ehud meaning “united”, but suggests it might mean “joining together”.6 BDB, a grain, the smallest Hebrew weight, 1/20th of a shekel. 5Gera may mean “stranger”, “sojourner” or “alien”. Gera is one of the seven sons or a grandson of Benjamin: thus a major tribe, but the Bible speaks of only two of its cohort

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8 Normally Benjamin would be written . But here, the tribal name is divided as Son-The-Right Hand:

-. This form appears only three other times in the Bible (2 S 16:11, 19:17, I K 2:8) all involving another, much later, son of Gera, Shimei, who stoned David when he was fleeing Absalom. When David returns to power, crossing the Jordan on his way to Gilgal (2 Sam 19:15), David pardons Shimei ben-Gera. But on his deathbed David purposefully tells Solomon that Shimei is to be put to death. And it is done.9 Talmud Berachot 62a, Rabbi Akiba learned this from Rabbi Joshua & Rabbi Ben ‘Azzai from Rabbi Akiba.

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Greece & Rome10.11 The distaste for the sinister

(left-handedness) was prevalent in the time of

Judges, as it is now.

East of Europe, one does not consume food

from the left hand. In Europe one does not shake

hands with the left hand. Europeans do not kiss

the left hand. Passover Seder participants

recline to the left, compelling eating with the

right hand.12

One does not present tribute to a ruler with

the left hand. The Israelites send Ehud with a

tribute “by his hand”: “by his hand” is

emphasized.

10 Krenkel, W.A. "Fellatio and Irrumatio," in W. Bernard andC. Reitz, eds., Naturalia non turpia (Hildesheim, Zurich, and New York, 2006) 205-32 [orig: 1980]11

Christer Henriksén, A Commentary on Martial, Epigrams, Book 9, Oxford University Press, Aug 9, 2012. P. 177

12 The Haggadah first appeared in the second or third century C.E., but the custom was longstanding, (if opaque topolite modern commentators).

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Hand is betimes a euphemism for penis13 in

Hebrew, Ugaritic, Qumran & Rabbinic Literature.

When the Beloved says in “Song of Songs” that

her lover sent his hand through the hole & her

feelings were stirred for him, the meaning is

explicit14 & a hand may or may not be meant.

A left-handed hero in a story would

immediately be suspect. The Benjaminites

(“right-handed” tribe) often figure in stories

of very dubious behavior. Rachel originally

named her son “Ben Oni”, Son of my Sorrow, & the

shadow lingers. If Benjaminites were originally

to have been the caste of kings, perhaps the

scribes of the usurping Davidic dynasty

anathematized them.

I don’t think I’m reading too much into it,

but sending a fine warrior who offers tribute

with his left hand might suggest to the King

13 Smith, S. H., "Heel" and "Thigh": The Concept of Sexuality inthe Jacob-Esau Narratives, Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 40, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 464-47314 Pope, Marvin H., Song of Songs, Anchor Bible , Doubleday, Garden City, 1977, p. 517.

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that the bearer himself could, if desired, be

part of the tribute. Tami Schneider has pointed

out that the word for the tribute bearers”

, is also “beguilers”

. The differencein meaning is a matter of pointing, which was

not in use for another 1500 years: auditors &

readers were intended to catch the ambiguity of

.15

Eglon cannot but notice that Ehud is offering

the tribute with his left hand. Ehud was sent

as an emissary by those who believed he would

please Eglon, & it seems that was Eglon’s

understanding. Ehud was sent as a seductive

bearer (or beguiler) of tribute & that was his

understanding. It appears that Ehud had a knife

forged knowing that Eglon would agree to see him

15 Tammi J. Schneider, Berit Olam: Studies In Hebrew Narrative And

Poetry, Judges, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1999. P.50. She notes that the pointing of Sin/Shin appears in the Shiboleth/Siboleth incident (Judges 12:5-6), which also involves Ephraimites & fording the Jordan.

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alone. Ehud’s messages were spoken as double-

entendre, he was offering Eglon “a hidden thing”

& “a thing of the gods (is) mine for you”: which

led Eglon to his death.

Ehud had made a two-mouthed (seemingly, two-

edged) sword a gomed long and bound it to his

thigh. This “sword of two mouths” ( “mouth”,for edge) has the sense of teeth, biting16, and

it is bound to Ehud’s thigh during his

audiences. Gomed is an hapax legomenon & it

may simply indicate that Ehud made a sword

shorter than normal, like a stiletto.17 BDB

glosses it as “staff or rod”. So Ehud has a

staff or rod-length short sword bound to his

thigh. “Gomed”--the length of Ehud’s sword--is

thought to have the sense of “contracted”. It

may not be that the sword contracts, but it does

rest upon his thigh, as his member would. A

16 This seems to be the sole instance of as “edge”17 Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible by Adam Clarke (1833)

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gomed is said to measure about the length of a

forearm, elbow to wrist, thought to be around

12”, or the length of an arm with a “bound”

“impeded” deformed hand18: like Ehud’s.19

King Eglon, whose name means “Calf”20, was

either very strongly built (bari) or very fat:

bari has both meanings. “Fat” has been the

traditional English translation, making Eglon

comparable to a stall-fattened calf, eunuch-

like. The image probably comes from the

Christian Parable of the Prodigal Son, written

1500 years later. But “fit” is favored in our

time & seems to be more likely, for a calf or a

king. An American yearling calf weighs more

than a ton, & a weaning calf is almost 700

18 Since this is an hapax legomeon, the measure fits to Ehud’sarm.19 Or Eglon may have assumed Ehud was happy to see him.20

Eglon is a city near Lachish, in Philistine territory, later Judah. Wright, G. Ernest, “A Problem of Ancient Topography: Lachish & Eglon”, The Biblical Archeologist, September 1971, Vol 34, No. 3, pp.76-86. Our Eglon is a Moabite, from east of the Jordan.

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pounds. Ancient calves would weigh less, but

would still be formidable. “Fit” also seems

more likely for a warrior-king, in a time before

our own, when substance was admired.

“Morbidly obese” does not seem to be the

sense of “very fat” that was in the mind of the

teller of this tale. When a very old-fashioned

Chinese person, today, says, “you are very fat”,

it’s usually a term of admiration, not

criticism. It means you look well nourished &

have the sheen of success. It means the person

sees your weight gain as intended to show off &

intimidate. Adam Clarke’s 1833 Commentary on the

Bible, prefers “corpulent or lusty”.

While calves were certainly a high value

sacrifice in most Ancient Near Eastern cults, it

would be inappropriate, for both age & station,

to portray a warrior who has kept Israel in

servitude for eighteen years as a newborn calf

waiting to be slaughtered by a younger warrior.

Love was common among warriors, but even if the

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intent is to feminize the oppressor, the teller

probably wanted neither to minimize the

oppression of the Israelites nor to make Ehud’s

role as deliverer to be seen as a victory over

an easy mark.

“Bari” is only taken by interpreters to mean

“obese” in this story, & it appears to be off

the mark: a translator’s best guess which became

the norm. “Bari” has the predominant meaning of

“fit, robust, well-nourished”. The fat ears of

grain & the cattle that emerge from the Nile, in

Pharaoh’s dreams of the good years, are “bari”.

It is variously parsed elsewhere as “firm,

plenteous. The teller might have made Eglon

“very fat”, because the fat of his innards closed

around the blade. Jack Sasson notes that Eglon

is imposing enough to be left unguarded with a

young warrior.21 Think of Eglon, rather, as

built like a professional football player.

21 Sasson, Jack, “Ethically cultured interpretations: the case of Eglon’s murder (judges 3), SBL, 2008, p. 8.

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Nor would the ancient auditor think Eglon’s

name indicated he is a newborn, set for

sacrifice. Numerous gods are referred to as

“calf”. The Phoenicians referred to Ba’al as a

calf. Aaron allowed the Israelites to make a

golden calf to be worshipped & a calf was set up

as central to Israel’s state cult at Bethel in

the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Hittite War

Goddess Wurusemu, “Mistress of the Hatti lands,

Queen of Heaven & Earth” is the mother of the

storm-god, Sharruma of Nerik, who is called a

“calf”. Hittite areas tended to retain their

individual pantheons & Sharruma is attested in

other places as the son of Hebat, the Infernal

Great Goddess, & the Indo-European storm god,

Teshub. Sharruma is called the “calf of

Teshub”, that is, the son of the storm god & the

Sun Goddess, who rules in the underworld.22

22 Beckman, Gary, “Reflections of a Late Bronze Age Empire:The Hittites”, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 52, No. 2/3 (Jun. - Sep., 1989), pp. 98-108, The American Schools of Oriental Research, p 99-100

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The Neo-Hittite Empire was widely dispersed

at the time in which we place “Judges”.

“Judges” has Israelites living with Hittites

(Judges 3:5). Joshua 24:11, written later,

lists Hittites among the fighters Joshua

defeated at Jericho. Gods who are called Calves

are known in the Moabite & Israelite area. So

we may assume that Eglon’s name, “Calf” does not

mean that he is despised, but, if it means

anything, then perhaps it indicates that his

family was one of the above & the family god—or

one of them--was a calf. “Calf” may indicate

that he is a powerful, headstrong man to be

reckoned with.

After the presentation of the Israelite

tribute, Ehud sends away his retinue of bearers

or beguilers of the tribute offering. So it appears he has left Eglon’s court, and no

longer needs an entourage.

Ehud goes northeast from Jericho, to Gilgal:

about two kilometers. He turns back from the

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pesilim at Gilgal, returns to Eglon’s court at

Jericho, and murders the King. It would seem

that the Gilgal in question is Joshua’s Gilgal

(4:19), on the eastern border of Jericho.

I do not believe that Joshua 5:13-15 has been

considered to illuminate Ehud’s experience at

Gilgal. In 5:13, Joshua, walking alone, meets

the Captain of YHVH’s host who has a sword

drawn. He tells Joshua to remove his shoes

because he is on holy ground, this echoes the

theophany of Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:2,

3:5). In Joshua 6:2, YHVH tells Joshua “See, I

have given into your hand Jericho, the king, and

the fighting men.”

I believe Judges 3:19 & Joshua 5:13-15 were

drawn from a source of common knowledge used in

a number of stories: that YHWH’s angels or YHVH

gave oracles at Gilgal. Joshua’s encounter with

YHVH at Gilgal reflects upon Ehud’s story, but

the necessary explanation of the encounter was

dropped at some point, leaving Ehud going to the

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pesilim at Gilgal, & turning back to Jericho to

murder the king, without a motivation. Judges

3:15 says that YHVH raised up a deliverer, so no

theophany is required, but one is missing,

nonetheless. Ehud’s motivation for stopping at

the pesilim and turning back to murder Eglon

might have been clear to auditors 2500+ years

ago, but it is opaque today. Judges 3:19 makes

little sense; but if Ehud, at the pesilim at

Gilgal, received YHVH’s promise of victory

against Jericho—as Joshua did in a later

borrowing of the theme—then his decision for

regicide, rallying the army & capturing Jericho

(& his ease of accomplishment) becomes clear.

Linguistically, Ehud’s story is extremely

obscure & considerably older than “Joshua”.

“Joshua” is a late work—partially, or totally

post-Exilic—with many borrowed narratives. I

believe 5:13-15—Joshua’s promised victory over

Jericho—is one of the borrowed narratives, and

it may have been the raison d’etre for Judges

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3:19--Ehud’s encounter at Gilgal--which somehow

disappeared from our text.

“Gilgal” is a circle of upright stones. At

Joshua’s Gilgal outside Jericho, representatives

of the amphictyony of twelve tribes set up

twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan,

when the priests who were carrying the ark had

the waters parted before them, by YHVH Elohim

(Joshua 3:7-4:24).

Gilgal’s existence was Biblically attributed

to a command, from YHVH Elohim, to take stones

from the Jordan & erect them at Gilgal. The new

purpose was to remind future generations to know

and fear

, who dried up the Jordan, as well as the Sea of Reeds (Joshua 4:1-24).

This appears to be the etiology myth

explaining what was doubtless a pre-Israelite

long-sacred site near the walls of Jericho.

Jericho has been settled since around 9,000

B.C.E., & it’s possible that the stone circles

of Gilgal were a place of pilgrimage ingathering

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that led, over time, to the settlement of

Jericho, itself, which had many light layers of

occupation before the permanent city was

established.

The circle of stones was, perhaps, too

important or potent to be torn down, & continued

as an Israelite oracular sacred resort &/or

astrological/astronomical observatory, after

Israelite settlement. An astrological

observatory seems a logical site for seeking

oracles from superhuman beings. Many people

still try to find their fortunes though the

observed movements of the skies.

Immediately following the ‘establishment’ of

Gilgal, the Israelites sacralize it for

themselves by circumcising with flint knives the

generations born in the wilderness. They rested

until they healed, and then, at the full moon,

celebrated the first Passover in the Promised

Land at Gilgal.23 23 Jericho was shut up with fear of the Israelites accordingto text, but archeologically Kathleen Kenyon found scant

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Joshua soon encounters the captain of the

army of YHVH (Joshua 5:13-15) with a drawn

sword. YHVH tells Joshua “I have given into

your hand Jericho, the king and the mighty men of valor”

(Joshua 6:2).

Gilgal appears often as a site of revelations

from YHVH24 in “Joshua”, “Samuel” & “Kings”, but

Iron Age occupation of the town.24 Before Joshua’s death, an angel of YHVH comes from Gilgal (Judges 2:1 to 2:6) to Bochim(Weeping). Soggin follows the LXX locating this at Bethel. (Judges, 1979, p. 25) So Bochim would be the Alon Bacuth, the Sacred Oak of Weeping, where Deborah the Nurse is buried (Gen. 35:8). TheAngel of YHVH from Gilgal tells the Israelites that they must now live with others in the land. In Joshua 9:6 Israelmakes a covenant with duplicitous Hivites at Gilgal, which they cannot break because they have sworn to it, there. In Joshua 10:6 YHVH tells Joshua at Gilgal that he will deliverthe Amorites to him. Joshua 12:23 refers to Israelites vanquishing the king of “the nations of Gilgal”, which mightsuggest it was an oracular ingathering place, separately administered in pre-Israelite times. Gilgal is one of the three sacred sites (Bethel, Mizpah, Gilgal) where the Prophet Samuel regularly judges Israel (1 Sa. 7:16). After Saul’s selection for kingship has been confirmed by signs atthree sacred sites (Rachel’s Tomb, The Bamah of Gibah Elohim, & Bethel) he is selected at Mizpah & made king before YHVH at Gilgal. Saul makes a sacrifice without Samuel at Gilgal (1 Sa. 13:12) leading to his & Jonathan’s downfall (1 Sa. 13:12 to 15:31) after king ‘Agag is sacrificed there before YHVH (1 Sa. 15:33). When David is reinstated, he crosses the Jordan & comes first to Gilgal (2

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that is only inferred obliquely in “Judges”.

Ehud’s maimed hand and his sword () on his inner thigh have been emphasized in the first

part of the story, and this resonates with the

prophecy given Joshua by YHVH--after he

encounters the sword-bearing angelic captain of

hosts (Joshua 5:15)--that Jericho, king & army

will be delivered to his (Ehud’s left) hand.

Ehud then turns back, and Jericho, the king

(Eglon) and the Moabite army are delivered to

Ehud and the Israelites.

There were quite a number of megalithic

circles in the Promised Land,25 some were also

called Gilgal. Ehud turns back at the pesilim,

(hewn or incised stones). We do not know if the

Sa. 19:15, 19:40). In 2Kings 2, Elijah is taken to heaven in a whirlwind & chariot of fire at Gilgal after which Elisha, holding Elijah’s mantle, parts the Jordan (2 K 2:14). A guild of prophets lives there (2 K 2:15), Elisha cures the waters for them & (2 K. 4:38-44) cures poisoning &feeds multitudes on 20 loaves of barley & barley in the husk. Later Prophets Hosea, Amos & Micah condemn worship atGilgal25 Uzi Avner, “Sacred Stones in the Desert”, Biblical Archeology Review 27:03, May/Jun 2001

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megaliths were incised originally, as some are

at Gobekli Tepe26. It’s probably reasonable to

think the pesilim (hewn stone slabs) were

inscribed with the names, or more likely, with

the symbols of the Israelite tribes: possibly

reinterpreted as such from far older depictions.

I had thought, because of the common term

“petzle”, sounding so much like pesel, that the

stones were in the shape of a penis, like the

mortar-&-pestle shaped lingam-yoni, which was

worshipped on the Indian subcontinent from

before the second century C.E.. However

“petzle” is Yiddish, a dimunitive of the German

“putz”, and seems unrelated to “pesil”.27 So

Ehud’s Gilgal seems to be a circle of tall, flat

stones, like masseboth.

26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobekli_Tepe27 in Yiddish, seems to be from the Old German for penis.

appears to be the origin of the word petzel, using the German diminutive vowel +/l, (like Hansel & Gretel) and seems to be unrelated to pesilim in Hebrew. So the shape of the megaliths and the pesilim is not known. They are probably slabs.

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It is thought that Joshua, Ehud, Samuel,

Elijah & Elisha’s Gilgal is Khirbet al-Nitla

(“Ruins of Nitla”). The stones of Gilgal—the

pesilim--were still in place in 330 C.E.,

according to Eusebius.28 By 570 C.E., the

stones had been removed to a church, according

to

Antoninus of Piacenza. The Archimandrite Daniel

of Kiev saw the stones in the 12th century, in

the monastery of St. Michael, built on the site

of the earlier churches.29 The site was

“despoiled for building material by the builders

of modern Jericho.” An Umayyad palace was built

on or near the site—Hisham’s Palace, now called

Khirbet el-Mafjar--& it, too, was looted for

building materials. So, no trace remains of the

Gilgal of Joshua & Ehud. But the still sacred

stones of Gilgal were attested into Europe’s

28 Onimasticon29 Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A-K (excluding Acre and Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. 221-222

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late Middle Ages & to the end of Islam’s Golden

Age.

The assumption by most commentators is that

oracles were regularly sought at the pesilim of

Gilgal, 30 even though, the Bible refers to

these appearances of YHVH, as if they were not

remarkable. If Ehud has an encounter there with

the captain of the host of YHVH—similar to

Joshua’s—and it has been dropped from the story,

the reason for the presence of the pesilim in

Judges 3 is pretty clear. Ehud’s message from

YHVH would be: that he will kill Eglon, conquer

Jericho and drive out Eglon’s army.

Most scholars assume that Ehud has received

some divine direction there, causing him to turn

30 Jack Sasson (“ETHICALLY CULTURED INTERPRETATIONS THE CASE OF EGLON’S MURDER [JUDGES 3]” Bustenay Oded Festschrift, 2009) holds that it is Eglon who has recently returned from Gilgal. He returns without an oracle from Gilgal. This is very neat & Sasson is completely admirable. It certainly saves Ehud from a seemingly senseless trip, interrupting thenarrative flow. However, it sends Eglon, instead, on a fruitless trip for an oracle for some purpose we can never know.

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back to Eglon’s welcoming court, but it is not

in the story.

.Ehud returns to Eglon saying: “A hidden thing

(or word) for you, O King”. Eglon says, “Hush!”

And all the men standing by him leave them. And

Ehud came to Eglon, who was sitting by himself,

upstairs in a cooling chamber. It is a time of

relaxation & rest, & the town is not on the

alert.31 There is a sunset wind, which one would

enjoy on the roof. The literal translation of

what Ehud says to Eglon when they are alone

might—more seductively--read, “A thing (deber)

(of) the gods (elohim)(is) mine, for you” and

Eglon rises from his throne.

Deber means both “thing” & “word”. Hence,

the usual translation of deber that we are given

is: I have a word from God for you.

It is entirely possible that--as the Rabbis

parse this phrase--Ehud is claiming to be 31 This is now evening: no one would seek to cool off in an upper room or roof before evening in the Middle East. In the day’s heat, people go into basements, if they have them,in order to cool themselves

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bringing an oracle from YHVH, given at the

pesilim at Gilgal, & out of respect, Eglon rises

to hear it. But an oracle might be rather an

unexpected bonus for Eglon, if he knew Ehud only

as a warrior with something on his thigh & as a

bearer of tribute, not as a seer. The receipt

of Ehud’s gift of himself might have been more

the expected thing, & something to anticipate on

a nice evening, as the day cools with a light

breeze. Ehud’s declaration that a “thing of the

gods is mine, for you” probably would not have

been taken by Eglon as the announcement of an

oracle.

Ehud’s secret thing is death. The hidden

thing upon his thigh is a sword. Eglon rises

for an embrace & dies there.

Ehud put his left hand on the sword on his

right thigh & drove (takah) it into Eglon’s

beten, just as Yael drove (takah) the tent peg

into Sisera’s head. Takah carries a sense of

glee or schadenfreude. Beten is a womb. It is

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the word for the belly of an individual human

man only in this one instance..32 Beten

otherwise, always refers to a womb. It is a

seat of hunger & passion. A curve or oval like

a pistachio nut is implied. In order to hit

Eglon’s beten at such close range, Ehud may well

have been on his knees.

The haft of the sword followed the blade

into Eglon’s beten, the fat closed around it:

Ehud did not withdraw the blade & excrement33

32 In some instances in Job, Proverbs, a few Psalms, & once each in Ezekiel & Habakkuk, it is poetically the digestive part of the belly of an abstract everyman. Once it refers topart of the capitals of the pillars Boaz & Jachin, which stand before Solomon’s temple (I K 7:20). 33 Michael L. Barré, “The Meaning of prsdn in Judges III 22”, VetusTestamentum, Vol. 41, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 1-11“The verbs naparsuduand (w)asu can refer to waste matter andthe like "escaping" or "passing out" of the body, as the following passage from a medical treatise illustrates:[... ]lipparsidunliusunizsu 17 samsitu sa libbisu lisdmma(CAD Z, p. 150)Let [his ...]s escape, let his feces come out, let the "turmoil"of his belly come out.” P. 5

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spread out34 from the intestinal wound.35

Ehud went out: he closed the upper chamber’s

door’s leaves. The closing of the door’s leaves

uses the same imagery as Eglon’s innards closing

over the haft of the sword. The strength of

Eglon’s stomach holding the knife compares with

the strength of the chamber doors. Ehud closed

Eglon inside & bolted the door.

The portion of the story in which Ehud takes

the dagger from upon his thigh & thrusts it into

Eglon’s beten invites the auditor to imagine

both the goring of the oppressor, but also,

sodomising him. The word beten, “womb”, the

pistachio shape suggested, the fat closing

around the wound & the mention of excrement all

invite the auditor to hold both pictures

simultaneously.

34 Halpern, Baruch, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (1988). Harper & Row, San Francisco., p. 40. "…crowded into thespace of a few verses in the highest concentration of rare and unique vocabulary in the literature of ancient Israel." 35 Barre, Michael L (1991). Op. cite.

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Lawson Stone’s 2010 paper36 discussed how

rare it was for a wound to be made into the

beten. The dagger, he said, would have gone in

up to the hilt & been left there in order to

strike the aorta so that Eglon would bleed into

his abdominal cavity without the spillage of

blood that would mark the fleeing Ehud. Jack

Sasson suggests that the beten was the easiest

target if the larger Eglon was standing above

Ehud on the throne dais,37 & there were no bones

to stop the blade’s upward thrust. As I

mentioned before, Eglon need not have been on a

dais, if Ehud was on his knees before Eglon when

he drew his sword of two mouths from his thigh &

drove it into Eglon’s beten. Eglon’s beten is

also an easy mark if Eglon is exposed for an

embrace & lightly dressed for an amorous

encounter in his “upper chamber” which is a

resort from the heat.

36 Stone, Lawson, EGLON'S BELLY AND EHUD'S BLADE: A RE-CONSIDERATION (Forthcoming, Journal of Biblical Literature, 2010)37 Sasson, op. cite., p. 17.

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Because excrement has perhaps been mentioned

(pršdn) & the servants have speculated that

Eglon has been covering his foot, there has been

a great deal written about Ehud slipping out by

a shaft under a latrine implausibly located

(before water closets & waste removal) next to

Eglon’s penthouse bedchamber. (The stench would

hardly befit the king’s bower.) This may be how

Abelard escaped the monks of St. Gildas, but it

would have been difficult for a reeking Ehud to

travel from Jericho to Ephraim in that

condition.

When Ehud had left, Eglon’s servants or

courtiers came & beheld that the doors of the

upper chamber were bolted. They said, surely he

is caused to cover his foot in the (“bed” or “inner”) chamber.

They writhed in shame, the text says. It is

usually translated that they waited until they

were ashamed, but (khul) means to writhe as

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if in labor, or to dance around. The only other

time it has been translated as “wait” is in

Genesis 8:10, when Noah is sending out birds,

waiting for the waters to subside, and surely

there it carries the implication that Noah was

not waiting patiently, but was agitated, as

Eglon’s servants were as they writhed in shame.

If the courtiers acted in this manner when they

suspected that Eglon was hearing an oracle or

relieving himself, their reactions would be a

bit bizarre.

Eglon’s courtiers understand that a tryst

has been set up & they scatter as soon as Eglon

replies, “Hush!” They bring Ehud to Eglon’s

upper chamber & leave them unescorted. When

Eglon is too long alone with Ehud, they writhe

about in shame outside the bedroom. They make

the excuse that perhaps Eglon is covering his

foot. This is usually taken to be a euphemism

for squatting to evacuate, but foot is also a

common euphemism for penis in almost every

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language on earth38, and the double meaning of

“covering his foot” would probably have been

understood by the auditors.

When they saw Eglon was not opening the

doors to the upper room, the servants took an

opener, & opened it. And behold their lord was

fallen to the earth, dead. And Ehud escaped

while they were (outside the door) delaying

themselves, denying hitmamahhem (that the circumstances were unusual).

And Ehud passed by the Peselim & he escaped

to Seirath39, in Southeast Ephraim. And when he

had come, he blew the shofar. The verb is takah

is used again, just as when Ehud thrust the

sword, so he struck the blast of the shofar. And

he led the tribes of Israel from the hills of

Ephraim. And he said: chase them after me, for

38 My late former husband—who was Japanese--once waited

almost two hours for a podiatrist because he couldn’t tell the clinic’s large Russian receptionist that he needed the urologist: “Why are you seeing the doctor?” “My foot.” 39 hairy/female goat

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YHVH has given your enemies, the Moabites, into

your hand. And they went down after him &

seized the fords of the Jordan, & allowed none

of the Moabites to pass over. Then they struck

Moab, & slew about ten thousand fat/robust men,

& no man escaped as Ehud had escaped. So Moab

was brought to its knees/made to submit that

day, under the hand of Israel. And the land had

rest for eighty years.

If one were to use the Bible as a moral

guide choosing at random--rather than recalling

only selected Sunday School exemplars, as we

do--then “Judges” might be in every desk on Wall

Street. “Judges”, more than many books of the

Bible is a collection of stories of folk heroes

who were not always exemplary, but were dear to

people who lived uncertain lives. The first

time I was assigned Ehud & Eglon, I knew this

was a murder by what we then called “rough

trade”. No re-reading or reading of Rabbis or

critics has given me any other answer. I knew

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some people who had died this way, most notably

Greg Battcock, the art critic who was my co-

Godparent of Hidemaro Paul Siriasi. Ehud’s

story is held to be opaque in action as well as

language. I am assuming an innocence on the

part of the majority and hitmamahhem (denying that the circumstances were unusual) on

the part of a few. This is how Ehud’s story

makes sense.

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