Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 3:21

And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:

21-26. Ehud put forth his lefthandThe whole circumstance of this daring actthe death ofEglon without a shriek, or noisethe locking of the doorsthecarrying off the keythe calm, unhurried deportment of Ehudshowthe strength of his confidence that he was doing God service.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh,…. Being, as before observed, a lefthanded man; Jud 3:15, and this he could the better do, without being taken notice of by the king, who, if he saw him move his left hand, would have no suspicion of his going to draw a dagger with it, and which also was hidden under his raiment, Jud 3:16;

and thrust it into his belly; Josephus d says into his heart; it is certain the wound was mortal, and must have been in a part on which, life depended.

d Antiqu. l. 5. c. 4. sect. 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

But when the king stood up, Ehud drew his sword from under his garment, and plunged it so deeply into his abdomen that even the hilt followed the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade (so that there was nothing to be seen of it in front, because he did not draw the sword again out of his body), and the blade came out between the legs. The last words have been rendered in various ways. Luther follows the Chaldee and Vulgate, and renders it “so that the dirt passed from him,” taking the . . as a composite noun from , stercus, and , jecit. But this is hardly correct, as the form of the word , and its connection with , rather points to a noun, , with local. The explanation given by Gesenius in his Thes. and Heb. lex. has much more in its favour, viz., interstitium pedum , the place between the legs, from an Arabic word signifying pedes dissitos habuit , used as a euphemism for anus, podex. The subject to the verb is the blade.

(Note: At any rate the rendering suggested by Ewald, “Ehud went into the open air, or into the enclosure, the space in front of the Alija,” is untenable, for the simple reason that it is perfectly irreconcilable with the next clause, “Ehud went forth,” etc. (consequently Fr. Bttcher proposes to erase this clause from the text, without any critical authority whatever). For if Ehud were the subject to the verb, the subject would necessarily have been mentioned, as it really is in the next clause, Jdg 3:23.)

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

(21) Thrust it into his belly.This would involve certain, though not necessarily instant death. Josephus says, inaccurately, that he stabbed him to the heart (Antt. v. 4, 2). The assassination is exactly similar to that of Henry III. of France, by the Dominican monk, Jacques Clement, who had provided himself with a commission from a friend of the king: On Tuesday, Aug. 1, at 8 a.m., says LEstoile, he was told that a monk desired to speak with him. The king ordered him to be admitted. The monk entered, having in his sleeve a knife, unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to the king, who had just got up, and had nothing but a dressing-gown on, and presented him despatches from the Comte de Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the king privately something of importance. Then the king ordered those who were present to retire, and began reading the letter. The monk, seeing his attention engaged, drew his knife from his sleeve, and drove it right into the kings small gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole.Guizot, Hist. of France, iii. 479.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

‘ And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.’

The king was clearly totally unsuspicious up to this point. Ehud appeared to have no weapon and his movement was not with the sword arm. He probably thought Ehud was being super-cautious and wanting to whisper what he had to say. But he soon learned otherwise, for suddenly a sword appeared and it was thrust into ‘his belly’, probably with an upward movement so that it avoided the ribs and pierced the heart. A quick and quiet death was essential.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jdg 3:21 And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:

Ver. 21. And thrust it into his belly. ] This he did by an extraordinary call from God; Jdg 3:15 and therefore this example was traitorously misapplied to Ravillas, that desperate assassin, who murdered the French king by the instigation of the Jesuits, and defended it when he had done. Our own chronicles a tell us of one Birchet in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, who by the example of Ehud, thought he might lawfully have killed a great personage in this kingdom, whom he took to be God’s enemy. Upon the same account he wounded Hawkins, and slew his keeper. The Janizaries have learned of the Jesuits the art of king killing: but to preserve him from harm by strangers, they allow none to come into the presence of the grand signior, but first they search him that he have no weapon; and so clasping him by the arms under colour of doing him honour, dissemblingly bereave him of the use of his hands, lest he should offer him any violence. b

And thrust it into his belly. ] Eglon stabbed into the guts, finds his bane the same way with his sin. It was good counsel that one gave Henry IV of France, after that he had been first stabbed in the mouth and lost a tooth only, to take heed he denied not God with his heart, as he had already done with his mouth where now he was wounded, lest the next stab were to the heart, as indeed it proved.

a Camden’s Elisab, 174.

b Turk. Hist.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)