Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 3:18
And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bore the present.
18. he sent away ] From the foll. verse it seems that Ehud accompanied the carriers (cf. the same vb. in Gen 18:16 ‘to bring them on the way’) until they were at a safe distance, and then returned to the king’s house alone. Judging from the analogy quoted in the footnote (p. 39) the carriers were Israelites.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 18. Made an end to offer the present] Presents, tribute, c., in the eastern countries were offered with very great ceremony and to make the more parade several persons, ordinarily slaves, sumptuously dressed, and in considerable number, were employed to carry what would not be a burden even to one. This appears to have been the case in the present instance.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He accompanied them part of the way, and then dismissed them, and returned to Eglon alone, that so he might have more easy access to him, and privacy with him; and that he might the better make his escape.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And when he had made an end to offer the present,…. Had delivered the several things contained in it, and very probably made a speech to the king in the name of the people of Israel from whom he brought it:
he sent away the people that bare the present; not the servants of Eglon that introduced him, as if they assisted in bringing in the present to the king; for over them he could not have so much power as to dismiss them at pleasure; but the children of Israel that came along with him, and carried the present for him: these he dismissed, not in the presence of the king of Moab, but after he had taken his leave of him, and when he had gone on some way in his return home; and this he did for the greater secrecy of his design, and that he might when he had finished it the more easily escape alone, and be without any concern for or care of the safety of others.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After presenting the gift, Ehud dismissed the people who had carried the present to their own homes; namely, as we learn from Jdg 3:19, after they had gone some distance from Jericho. But he himself returned from the stone-quarries at Gilgal, sc., to Jericho to king Eglon. refers to some place by Gilgal. In Deu 7:25; Isa 21:9; Jer 8:19, pesilim signifies idols. And if we would retain this meaning here, as the lxx, Vulg., and others have done, we must assume that in the neighbourhood of Gilgal there were stone idols set up in the open air-a thing which is very improbable. The rendering “stone quarries,” from , to hew out stones (Exo 34:1, etc.), which is the one adopted in the Chaldee, and by Rashi and others, is more likely to be the correct one. Gilgal cannot be the Gilgal between Jericho and the Jordan, which was the first encampment of the Israelites in Canaan, as is commonly supposed, since Ehud passed the Pesilim on his flight from the king’s dwelling-place to the mountains of Ephraim (Jdg 3:26, Jdg 3:27); and we can neither assume, as Bertheau does, that Eglon did not reside in the conquered palm-city (Jericho), but in some uncultivated place in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, nor suppose that after the murder of Eglon Ehud could possibly have gone from Jericho to the Gilgal which was half an hour’s journey towards the east, for the purpose of escaping by a circuitous route of this kind to Seirah in the mountains of Ephraim, which was on the north-west of Jericho. Gilgal is more likely to be Geliloth, which was on the west of Jericho opposite to the ascent of Adummim ( Kaalat ed Dom), on the border of Judah and Benjamin (Jos 18:17), and which was also called Gilgal (Jos 15:7). Having returned to the king’s palace, Ehud sent in a message to him: “ I have a secret word to thee, O king.” The context requires that we should understand “ he said ” in the sense of “he had him told” (or bade say to him), since Ehud himself did not go in to the king, who was sitting in his room, till afterwards (Jdg 3:20). In consequence of this message the king said: , lit. be silent (the imperative of fo ); here it is a proclamation, Let there be quiet. Thereupon all who were standing round (viz., his attendants) left the room, and Ehud went in (Jdg 3:20). The king was sitting “in his upper room of cooling alone.” The “room of cooling” ( Luther, Sommerlaube , summer-arbour) was a room placed upon the flat roof of a house, which was open to the currents of air, and so afforded a cool retreat, such as are still met with in the East (vid., Shaw, pp. 188-9). Then Ehud said, “ A word of God I have to thee; ” whereupon the king rose from his seat, from reverence towards the word of God which Ehud pretended that he had to deliver to him, not to defend himself, as Bertheau supposes, of which there is not the slightest intimation in the text.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Deliverance from Moab, vs. 18-30
It seems that king Eglon had no suspicion of Ehud, and Ehud seems to have taken measures to insure this by sending away those who had helped to convey the tribute. He then turned back with a purported secret message for the king. That-Eglon had no distrust of Ehud is apparent in that he brought him to his own ultra-private quarters, known as the summer parlor. It was the room arranged for its privacy in a cool, quiet place, where the king was not ordinarily molested. It was the ideal place for Ehud’s plan.
When Ehud announced that he had a message from God for Eglon, the king arose. There is a suggestion in this that he may have begun to suspect Ehud’s motives, but he never had opportunity to escape. Ehud grasped the dagger in his left hand, from his right thigh, the very opposite place from which the weapon would ordinarily be concealed. He plunged the full eighteen inch blade into the fat body of the king. So mighty was Ehud’s thrust that he lost his dagger. It went deep into Eglon’s vitals, and the fat closed over the dagger’s haft so that he could not withdraw it. The haft was the protective shield affixed so that the hand of the one wielding the dagger would not slip down onto the sharp blade in thrusting it. The king’s bowels were spilled out, and he fell down dead in his summer parlor.
Was God pleased with such ruthless, bloody, deceitful means as those of Ehud in the assassination of Eglon? It is evident that He was. Eglon was the enemy of God and God’s people, deceiving them into worship of his false gods. He had treated Israel with disrespect as to their God and the land He had given them. His awful death is but a premonition of the judgment which shall come on all those who defy God and set themselves against Him and His people. He therefore serves the good purpose of warning to others like him.
The servants became alarmed about their king’s failure to call them. At first they hesitated to enter because they supposed he was relieving himself. Finally, when they had secured a key, entered the chamber, and found their king dead, they had tarried long enough for Ehud to make good his escape.
Ehud went into the mountains of Ephraim, probably their southern extension into Benjamin, Ehud’s own tribe. There he blew the trumpet tq draw the people together’to go to battle against the Moabites. The trumpet order for calling the people to war is stated in Num 10:1-10. Verse nine particularly applying to this occasion. The trumpet blown from the top of a high mountain would sound far out over the countryside, where it would again possibly be taken up and spread farther.
Ehud challenged those who gathered to follow him to the attack of the Moabites. They took the fords of Jordan, where the Moabites would try to cross in flight back to their own country. Here they caught and slew ten thousand of the Moabite soldiers, with none escaping. That the Lord was with them is evident, for the Moabites were all strong, brave, trained warriors. They simply could not stand against the Lord. As a result of this feat of Ehud the Lord gave the land eighty years of peace under his judgeship.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(18) The people.The tribute-bearers, headed by Ehud, would carry their offerings in long and pompous array, according to the fashion of the East, which always aims at making a present seem as large as possible (see Gen. 32:16). Fifty persons often bear what one man could easily carry (Chardin, iii. 217).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. The people that bare the present Eastern style required quite a pompous retinue to bring a gift to a distinguished person. See 2Ki 5:15.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And when he had made an end of offering the present, he sent away the people who bore the present.’
Having offered the tribute, and having made the usual flowery speech, he went out of the king’s presence with his servants, and left with them to see them on their way. But when they reached the ‘graven images’ (probably ancient sculptured standing stones) at Gilgal, he sent them on their way, for he had a duty to perform and he did not want them involved. Some suggest that the graven images had been erected by the king of Moab as a kind of guard protecting the way to his land. This would add poignancy to their mention.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 3:18. When he had made an end to offer the present There is often in the Eastern countries, says the author of the Observations, a great deal of pomp and parade in presenting their gifts; and that not only when they are presented to princes or governors of provinces, but where they are of a more private nature. Thus Dr. Russell tells us, that the money which the bridegrooms of Aleppo pay for their brides is laid out in furniture for a chamber, in clothes, jewels, or ornaments of gold for the bride, whose father makes some addition, according to his circumstances; which things are sent with great pomp to the bridegroom’s house three days before the wedding. The like arrangement obtains in Egypt, where these gifts are carried with great pomp to the bridegroom’s house on the marriage-day itself, and immediately before the bride: carpets, cushions, mattrasses, coverlets, pignates, dishes, jewels, trinkets, plate, every thing down to the wooden sandals wrought with mother of pearl, which they call cobeal; and, through orientation, they never fail to load upon four or five horses what might easily be carried by one. In like manner, as to the jewels and other things of value, they place in fifteen dishes what a single plate would very well hold. See Maillet, let. 10: p. 86. Something of this pomp seems to be referred to in this place, where we read of making an end of offering a present, and of a number of people who bare it; all which apparently points out the introducing, with great distinction as well as ceremony, every part of the present sent to Eglon, and the making use of as many hands in it as might be, conformably to the modern ritual of the Eastern courts. See 2Ki 8:9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jdg 3:18 And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present.
Ver. 18. He sent away the people that bare the present. ] It was therefore no small present, the more to ingratiate. But he sent away the men that bare it, that he might the better accomplish his design, and have the less to care for.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
offer = bring near. Heb karab. App-43.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jdg 3:18-19. He sent away the people He accompanied them part of the way, and then dismissed them, and returned to Eglon alone, that so he might have more easy access to him. He himself turned again from the quarries, as if he had forgotten some important business. Houbigant takes the word , pesilim, here rendered quarries, for the name of a place. But the Septuagint and Vulgate take it for graven images, as indeed it commonly signifies in the Scriptures, and as it is rendered in the margin of our Bibles. Some suppose that these images had been placed there by the Moabites, in contempt of the God of Israel, who had so long honoured Gilgal with his presence; and that they might ascribe the subjection of the land to their idols, as the Israelites gave the glory of their conquest to the true God. And they further suppose that when Ehud beheld these idolatrous images, he was inflamed with zeal and indignation, so that instead of proceeding any further in his return home, he went back with a full resolution to revenge the indignity offered to the Divine Majesty, as well as the oppression of his people. Who said, Keep silence That is, forbear to speak till my servants are withdrawn. For he would not have them to be made acquainted with a business which he supposed to be of great importance.