Why does the Bible stop to tell us that Ehud was left-handed? Readers ask that about this chapter more than almost anything else in it, and the answer sits in the text itself. This Judges 3 summary and study guide gives it, along with the pattern the rest of the book will follow.
Table of Contents
Setting the Stage
God promised Israel the land of Canaan and told them to clear the nations out of it. He also warned them not to marry into those nations, because the sons and daughters of Canaan would pull Israel away to other gods (Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Under Joshua, Israel took much of the land and then stopped short of finishing.
Joshua died, and so did the whole generation that had watched God work. God answered that unfinished obedience with a decision of His own: He would stop driving the remaining nations out, and He would leave them there to test Israel and see whether they kept His way (Judges 2:20-23). Judges 3 opens by naming the nations He left and saying what He meant to do with them.
Comprehensive Judges 3 Summary
Judges 3 begins with the nations God chose to leave in Canaan and two reasons for leaving them: to test whether Israel would obey the commands He gave through Moses, and to teach a generation with no battle experience how to fight. Israel neither obeys nor learns to fight. They settle among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, marry into those families, and take up their gods. They forget the God who brought them into the land, and He sells them to Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, who rules them for eight years.
When Israel cries out, God raises up Othniel, Caleb’s kinsman, already known for capturing a Canaanite city years earlier (Judges 1:12-13). The Spirit of the LORD comes on him, he judges Israel, and he goes out to war and defeats Chushan-rishathaim. The land has rest for forty years, until Othniel dies and Israel goes back to the same sin.
This time God strengthens Eglon, king of Moab. Eglon brings in Ammon and Amalek, takes the city of palm trees, which is Jericho, and holds Israel for eighteen years, ten longer than the first oppression. Israel cries out again, and God raises up Ehud, a left-handed man of the tribe of Benjamin.
Ehud makes a short two-edged dagger and straps it on his right side, the wrong side for a swordsman to carry a blade. He delivers Israel’s tribute, sends the carriers home, and comes back alone with a private message for the king.
He kills Eglon in his upper room, locks the doors, and is long gone before the servants dare open them. He rallies Israel from the hills of Ephraim and takes the river crossings first, so the Moabite troops inside Israel can neither run home nor be reinforced, and ten thousand of them fall. The land has rest for eighty years, twice the peace Othniel’s victory bought. Then one verse: Shamgar kills six hundred Philistines with an ox goad and delivers Israel too.
One Word Summary
- Cycle: the whole pattern of Judges runs twice inside one chapter
- Relapse: each rescue is followed by the same sin again
- Deliverance: three men raised up to rescue a nation
- Weakness: a left hand and a farm tool carry two of the victories
In One Sentence
Israel forgets God and is sold first to Chushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia and then to Eglon of Moab, and God answers their cries by raising up Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar to rescue them.
Theme of Judges 3
Judges 3 is about God’s mercy toward a people who keep going back on Him. Three things stand alongside that mercy in the chapter. There is discipline, because God Himself hands Israel over to the kings who oppress them.
There is testing, because He left the surrounding nations in place on purpose. And there is rescue, given through men He chooses and equips rather than through anything Israel does to earn it.
Judges 3 Outline
- Judges 3:1-4: God names the nations He left in Canaan and gives two reasons for leaving them.
- Judges 3:5-6: Israel settles among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, marries into them, and serves their gods.
- Judges 3:7-8: Israel forgets the LORD and serves the false gods of Canaan, so God sells them to Chushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia for eight years.
- Judges 3:9-11: Israel cries out, the Spirit of the LORD comes on Othniel, he defeats Chushan-rishathaim, and the land has rest forty years until he dies.
- Judges 3:12-14: Israel does evil again, so God strengthens Eglon of Moab, who joins with Ammon and Amalek, takes the city of palm trees, and rules Israel eighteen years.
- Judges 3:15-18: God raises up Ehud, who makes a two-edged dagger, straps it on his right thigh, carries Israel’s tribute to Eglon, and sends the carriers home.
- Judges 3:19-23: Ehud turns back at the quarries by Gilgal, gets Eglon alone, kills him with the hidden dagger, and locks the doors behind him.
- Judges 3:24-26: Eglon’s servants wait outside the locked doors until they are ashamed, and Ehud escapes to Seirath.
- Judges 3:27-30: Ehud rallies Israel from mount Ephraim, seizes the fords of Jordan, and ten thousand Moabites fall.
- Judges 3:31: Shamgar the son of Anath kills six hundred Philistines with an ox goad and delivers Israel.
Observations from Judges 3
God Gives Two Reasons for Leaving the Nations, and They Are Different Reasons (3:1-4)
Verses 1 and 4 give a moral reason: God left the nations to prove Israel, “to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses” (Judges 3:4). He wanted to find out whether Israel would obey what He had told them through Moses. Verse 2 gives a practical one, that a generation with no experience of war would learn to fight. Both purposes assume an enemy close at hand, and Israel chose to settle down beside them rather than fight them.
Israel Falls in Three Steps (3:5-6)
Israel dwelt among the nations, then took their daughters as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons, then served their gods. Living beside them made marriage possible, and marriage brought the gods of Canaan into Israelite homes. God had named that exact sequence as His reason for the ban (Deuteronomy 7:3-4), so Israel arrived where He said they would.
Israel Cries Out, and the Chapter Never Reports a Change of Heart (3:9, 15)
Both rescues in this chapter begin the same way: “when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD” (Judges 3:9), and again in verse 15. Israel called out to God under the weight of what they were suffering. What the chapter does not record is a confession, a turning back, or any promise to change. Later in Scripture, Israel’s cry is sometimes joined to an admission of sin (1 Samuel 12:10), but Judges 3 reports only the cry, and God sends help anyway.
The Spirit Comes on Othniel, and He Judges Israel Before He Fights (3:10)
Othniel is the only man in this chapter said to be equipped by God directly: “the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war” (Judges 3:10). God’s Spirit came on Othniel, who then led Israel as their judge and afterwards went into battle. Judging Israel came first, which meant dealing with what was wrong inside the nation before he faced the army outside it. The same words return for Gideon and Jephthah (Judges 6:34; 11:29), and close variations of them for Samson (Judges 13:25; 14:6).
Eglon’s Fatness Comes Back in the Description of His Army (3:17, 29)
Verse 17 says plainly that “Eglon was a very fat man” (Judges 3:17), which is why the dagger disappears into him five verses later. At the end of the battle, the ten thousand Moabites who fall are called “all lusty, and all men of valour” (Judges 3:29), meaning well fed and battle ready. Hebrew scholars including Ellicott and Barnes point out that the word rendered “lusty” there is the same word used of Eglon’s fatness. If they are right, the chapter closes its account of Moab on the same note it opened it.
Difficult Verses Explained
Why Does the Bible Mention That Ehud Was Left-Handed?
Because it explains how he got a weapon past a king’s guards. A right-handed man carried his blade on his left hip, so that is where a guard checked, and Ehud strapped his on the right thigh (Judges 3:16).
There is also a play on words in the Hebrew: Ehud is a Benjamite, and Benjamin means son of the right hand, while the phrase translated “lefthanded” reads literally as bound or shut of his right hand. Commentators differ over whether that means a disabled right hand, a trained ability with both hands, or simple left-handedness, and the Hebrew does not settle it.
What Does Judges 3:22 Mean?
It describes what happened to the blade and to Eglon’s body. Ehud struck so hard that the handle went in behind the blade, Eglon’s fat closed over it, and Ehud could not pull the dagger back out (Judges 3:22).
The last phrase, “and the dirt came out,” uses a Hebrew word that appears nowhere else in the Old Testament, so its meaning is genuinely uncertain. Translators have read it as the contents of the bowels, as the blade coming out the other side, and as Ehud leaving through a passage, and no one can be sure which is right.
Was Eglon Using the Toilet When Ehud Killed Him?
No. Verse 20 says Eglon “arose out of his seat” when Ehud said he had a message from God, so he was standing when the blow landed. The idea of the toilet comes from verse 24, where the servants find the doors locked and assume “Surely he covereth his feet in his summer chamber,” an old way of saying he was relieving himself. That is the servants guessing wrongly about a king who was already dead, and several popular summaries turn their guess into the scene itself.
Did God Approve of Ehud Killing Eglon?
Scripture reports what Ehud did without commending it. God raised him up as a deliverer (Judges 3:15), and Ehud afterwards told Israel that the LORD had handed Moab over to them, so the deliverance is plainly God’s work.
But the chapter never calls the killing right, the Spirit of the LORD is never said to come on Ehud as it did on Othniel, and when Hebrews lists the men of faith from this era it names “Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel” (Hebrews 11:32) and leaves Ehud out. Reading this chapter as permission to kill a ruler goes well past anything it says.
Judges 3:31 Says Shamgar Came After Ehud, So Why Does Judges 4:1 Say Israel Sinned Again When Ehud Died?
Because Shamgar’s fight most likely overlapped the years Ehud was still alive. Verse 31 places Shamgar after Ehud in the telling without saying he came after him in time, and Judges 4:1 picks the main story back up at Ehud’s death. Deborah’s song puts Shamgar in the same days as Jael (Judges 5:6), which supports an overlap, and his one recorded action is against the Philistines in the west while Ehud’s was against Moab in the east.
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Common Misunderstandings
- That “the groves” in verse 7 means woodland. The Hebrew word is Asheroth, the wooden images made for the goddess Asherah. Israel was serving carved objects, not trees.
- That Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines single-handed in one afternoon. The verse says only that he killed six hundred with an ox goad and delivered Israel (Judges 3:31). It gives no timespan, and Scripture often credits a leader with what happened under his command.
- That Eglon captured the walled Jericho of Joshua’s day. Joshua had already destroyed that city, and it was not rebuilt with walls and gates until the reign of Ahab (1 Kings 16:34). “The city of palm trees” is the site of Jericho, held as a post commanding the Jordan crossings.
- That the eighteen and eighty years are exact stopwatch figures. Many commentators read forty and fourscore as round numbers marking a generation and a double generation, and the chronology of the whole period of the judges is disputed.
- That Moab held the whole nation. The action stays around Jericho and the hills of Ephraim, and Shamgar is fighting Philistines in the west at roughly the same time, which suggests the pressure on Israel came region by region rather than everywhere at once.
Christ Connection
Judges 3 points to Christ through what God does rather than through any of its three men. Israel cries out under Chushan-rishathaim, and again under Eglon, and both times God answers by raising up a man to save them. Nehemiah later reads this whole era exactly that way: “in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies” (Nehemiah 9:27).
God heard Israel in their trouble and kept giving them rescuers, and He did it out of His own mercy rather than because they had earned it. Paul says the same about the cross: “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ came for people who were still in their sin, which is precisely the condition Israel is in when God sends Othniel and Ehud.
The second line runs through the Spirit. “The Spirit of the LORD came upon him” (Judges 3:10) describes God equipping Othniel for one task at one moment, as He would later equip other judges when Israel needed rescuing. Jesus takes that language up and applies it to Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). God’s Spirit rested on Jesus and sent Him to bring good news to people with nothing.
What Jesus then promises His followers is a Spirit who does not come and go: “he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). The Spirit stays with believers permanently rather than arriving for a task and departing. Every judge in this chapter died, and Israel slid back each time. Jesus does not die and leave His people to slide back, and that is the difference between a judge and the Saviour.
When, Where, and Why
- When: After the death of Joshua and long before Israel had a king, in the era the book itself sums up as a time when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The exact dates are disputed, and the numbers given in Judges have been arranged into many different chronologies.
- Where: The action spreads across three fronts. Othniel fights a king from Mesopotamia, the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris far to the northeast. Ehud faces Moab, east of the Dead Sea, and the fighting turns on the fords of Jordan near Jericho, the crossings that controlled all traffic between the two sides. Shamgar meets the Philistines in the west, near the coast.
- Why: The writer is showing his readers how Israel’s compromise worked itself out once the conquest generation was gone. This chapter starts the cycle that will run again and again from here, and it makes clear at the outset that both the oppression and the rescue come from God.
Key Verses
“Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia”
Judges 3:8
God was angry with Israel and handed them over to a foreign king. The word “sold” makes the oppression God’s own sentence rather than a lapse in His care, which is how the book will explain every servitude that follows.
“And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them”
Judges 3:9
Israel called out to God, and God set apart a man to rescue them. This sentence returns almost word for word at verse 15 and becomes the shape of the whole book, which is why it is the single most useful line to carry away from the chapter.
“Follow after me: for the LORD hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand”
Judges 3:28
Ehud told Israel to come after him because God had already handed Moab over to them. He put himself at the front of the army and gave God the credit for the victory in one sentence, and it is the only thing the chapter records him saying to his own people.
Key Lessons from Judges 3
- What Israel refused to drive out ended up ruling them instead (Judges 3:5-8).
- Israel’s collapse began with forgetting God rather than with open defiance against Him (Judges 3:7).
- God can strengthen a hostile king against His own people when they will not listen to Him (Judges 3:12).
- Rest is something God gives, and twice in this chapter Israel proved unable to hold on to it (Judges 3:11, 30).
- God is not limited by what is in a person’s hand, as Shamgar’s farm tool shows (Judges 3:31).
For the whole book at a glance, see our Book of Judges Summary by Chapter. To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Judges 3.
Bible Study Questions
- What two reasons does God give in Judges 3:1-4 for leaving the nations in Canaan, and how are they different from each other?
- Trace the three steps in Judges 3:5-6. Where would you say the compromise actually began?
- Judges 3:8 says God “sold” Israel into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim. What does that word tell you about who was in control of the eight years that followed?
- The chapter says Israel cried out (Judges 3:9, 15) but never says they repented. What difference does that make to how you read God’s response?
- Why do you think Othniel judged Israel before he went out to war (Judges 3:10)?
- In Judges 3:28 Ehud says “Follow after me” and then credits the LORD with the victory. How do those two halves of the sentence fit together?
- Israel had rest for forty years and then for eighty, and each time went back to the same sin. Why do you think a long stretch of ease can be harder on faith than pressure is?
To test what you remember from the chapter, try our Judges 3 quiz.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does the Name Cushan-Rishathaim Mean?
It reads in Hebrew as Cushan of double wickedness. Many commentators think it was not the king’s own name at all but a title of scorn Israel used for him. Nothing is known about this ruler from any source outside the Bible.
What Is an Ox Goad?
It is a farm tool for driving cattle, not a weapon. Travellers who measured them in Palestine described a wooden pole about eight feet long, with an iron spike at one end for prodding the oxen and a flat iron blade at the other for scraping mud off the plough. Israel under a foreign power had almost no arms of its own, and Deborah’s song later asks whether there was “a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel” (Judges 5:8), meaning the nation had been stripped of its weapons. That is also why Ehud had to make his own dagger rather than draw one.
What Is the City of Palm Trees in Judges 3:13?
It is Jericho, which Scripture calls by that name in Deuteronomy 34:3. Eglon took it and used it as his base inside Israelite territory, which put him in control of the Jordan crossings. That is why Ehud’s route home ran past Gilgal nearby, and why taking those crossings later cut the Moabites off completely.
What Were the Quarries by Gilgal?
The Hebrew word usually means carved images or idols, and the King James margin reads “graven images” here. Some translators read it as stone quarries instead. Gilgal was where Joshua had set up twelve stones taken out of the Jordan as a memorial (Joshua 4:19-20), so the marker Ehud turned back at stood at a place with real history for Israel.
Why Was Israel Sending a Present to Eglon?
It was tribute, the payment a conquered people owed the king who ruled over them. The King James calls it a “present” (Judges 3:15), but the word covers forced payment as much as a gift, and it was carried by a party of men rather than by Ehud alone. Matthew Henry points out that the Hebrew word used here is the same one used for the offering Israel was meant to bring God, and he reads it as a nation carrying to Moab what it had stopped bringing to God.
Who Was Shamgar the Son of Anath?
He was a deliverer God used against the Philistines, and almost nothing else about him is recorded. Neither his name nor his father’s is a usual Israelite name, and Anath was the name of a Canaanite war goddess, which has led some to suggest that Shamgar was a foreigner or that the phrase means something like warrior. His only other mention in Scripture is in Deborah’s song (Judges 5:6).
Judges 3, The Full Text (KJV)
Read the full chapter below for reference.
1 Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan;
2 Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof;
3 Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.
4 And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.
5 And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites:
6 And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
7 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
8 Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chushan-rishathaim eight years.
9 And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.
10 And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and the LORD delivered Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Chushan-rishathaim.
11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
12 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD.
13 And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees.
14 So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
15 But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.
16 But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
17 And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man.
18 And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present.
19 But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king: who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him.
20 And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.
21 And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:
22 And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.
23 Then Ehud went forth through the porch, and shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and locked them.
24 When he was gone out, his servants came; and when they saw that, behold, the doors of the parlour were locked, they said, Surely he covereth his feet in his summer chamber.
25 And they tarried till they were ashamed: and, behold, he opened not the doors of the parlour; therefore they took a key, and opened them: and, behold, their lord was fallen down dead on the earth.
26 And Ehud escaped while they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries, and escaped unto Seirath.
27 And it came to pass, when he was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and he before them.
28 And he said unto them, Follow after me: for the LORD hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand. And they went down after him, and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over.
29 And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man.
30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.
31 And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel.
