Crappy Bible Stories, Part 2: 'The Dirt Came Out'

Not all the pages in the Bible are gold-edged. People who only expect the Bible to be heart-warming stories of good and holy people are in for a shock when they read beyond the 'Greatest Hits' stories. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the Book of Judges. Many of the characters in that book are deeply flawed people. Some of them do some pretty reprehensible things. All in all, it's a rather bleak book. There's more I could say to redeem it, but Judges brings us our next 'Crappy Bible Story'—the one that inspired the title of this series.

As a whole, the story in Judges is a repetitive one. Moses has already led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and through their wilderness wanderings. Joshua has led them into the Promised Land. But the Book of Judges is about what happens next: how the people couldn't remain faithful to the Lord their God, or at least, not for long. Judges 2.11–23 gives us the general pattern that the rest of the stories will follow:

1. Israel abandons the Lord and starts to worship idols and the gods of the Canaanites around them.

2. God is provoked to anger against Israel, and intends to punish them.

3. The armies of the neighbouring tribes conquer Israel in battle, and the Israelites can no longer trust the Lord to give them victory in battle.

4. After a while, God raises up a judge to lead Israel, and for a brief while, there is peace and security for the people.

5. As soon as the judge dies, the people relapse and return to their idol worship, and the story is set up to begin again.

In Chapter 3, a man named Ehud comes into the spotlight. The Israelites had once again fallen into idolatry and disobedience, so God allowed them to be oppressed by the Moabites for eighteen years. The Moabite king, Eglon, was a powerful and ruthless ruler who had allied himself with the Ammonites and Amalekites to take control of the Israelite territories.

All through their subjugation, the Israelites cried out to God for help, and God eventually answered their prayers by raising up Ehud, a left-handed man from the tribe of Benjamin. Ehud crafted a small double-edged sword, only a cubit (that is, about 18 inches) long and concealed it on his right thigh. His left-handedness is significant to the story because since most people are right-handed, it seems the Moabites weren't clever enough to check for weapons on a person's right side.

Left-handedness is an interesting bit of trivia in the Bible. Some have suggested that Simon Peter was left-handed, since in John 18.10, we're told that 'Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear. Presumably if Peter struck with his right hand, he'd be more likely to hit the slave's left ear. Even more tantalizing is the fact that anyone in the Hebrew Bible who is specifically described as left-handed (or ambidextrous) comes from the Tribe of Benjamin, like Ehud. This might be a subtle kind of Hebrew 'Dad Joke', since the name Benjamin literally means 'Son of My Right Hand'! But I digress...

With his hidden sword strapped to his thigh, Ehud volunteers to bring Israel's tribute to King Eglon. He comes to the king's palace, and as expected, when the Moabite guards frisk him, they don't bother to check for any concealed weapons on the right side.

Once he has finished presenting the tribute, Ehud announces that he has a secret message for the king. Eglon, intrigued, dismisses his attendants and guards, and Ehud is left alone with him. In the king's private cool chamber on the roof, he finally has a chance to assassinate the Moabite oppressor.

Ehud came to him, while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber, and said, “I have a message from God for you.” So he rose from his seat. Then Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly; the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly, and "the dirt came out."

A couple of things.

First is that Ehud is a cold-blooded killer. This rivals Roose Bolton's line that 'The Lannisters send their regards' at the Red Wedding. Second is that this is a disgusting story, every bit as gory as something in 'Game of Thrones'. A bit earlier, we were told that Eglon was 'a very fat man'. Ehud's sword goes so deep into Eglon's gut that it gets lost in the fat, and he has to leave it there, wiping blood and fat from his left hand. Ugh.

Finally, while Hebrew scholars aren't sure what the phrase translated as 'the dirt came out' actually means the general assumption is that his guts and half-digested food spilled out onto the floor.

After killing Eglon, Ehud locks the palace doors and makes his escape. Meanwhile, the king's attendants assume Eglon is relieving himself and delayed disturbing him. Again with the poop! As if a bloodthirsty, gory story isn't bad enough, now the Bible gives us a bathroom joke!

This is meant to be a comic scene. As Ehud flees, Eglon's servants imagine their master sitting on the toilet and give him his privacy. 'So they waited until they were embarrassed.' Do they think he's got diarrhea? Is he constipated and straining? Has he fallen asleep on the toilet? Someone is delegated to knock tentatively on the door. There's no response. They get the janitor to come with his keys, and there's Eglon dead on the floor, while his killer has long since escaped.

Inspired by the fact that Ehud's scheme has worked, the Israelites rally behind him, seizing control of the fords of the Jordan River and preventing the Moabites from pursuing them. They launch a bigger attack against the Moabites, killing about ten thousand of their soldiers. As a result, the land enjoys peace for eighty years. But as we saw in chapter two, this peace will be short-lived. After Ehud, the people will rebel against God, and the whole cycle will start again.

What on earth can we make of this story?! I certainly didn't hear it in Sunday School, and I suspect you didn't either. Notice how God barely features in the story at all, only to 'strengthen King Eglon against Israel' and to raise up Ehud as a deliverer. Like the rest of the Book of Judges, this is a story about how bleak and dreadful life is without God in the story. All we see is human intrigue, bloodshed, and violence.

The fat shaming, the disgusting mess of entrails on the floor and the comic drama outside the bathroom make this the farthest thing from an inspiring story. Another lesson is that being 'raised up by God' doesn't necessarily make Ehud a good person. He defeats the bad guy, but in order to do so, he has to embrace the darker side of human nature. And for what? Eighty years of peace before the story of rebellious Israelites and foreign oppressors starts again.

But there's a glimmer of hope. The story that keeps repeating is a very human story. Humanity turns against God, struggles with the consequences of their rebellion, God sends someone to help and bring us back to our senses, knowing full well that we'll fall again. God never gives up on us, despite the fact that we keep messing up. They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results. How many times will we try to fix the messes we get into by trusting in human leaders and violence to bring about peace?

The peace that God intends for us will only come later in the Bible, in the story of Jesus. But that's another story, for another time.