Judges 3:22

And the haft went in, after the blade,.... The handle of the dagger, as well as the blade; so strong and violent was the thrust, he determining to do his business effectually; and the fat closed upon

And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: No JFB commentary on these verses.

i.e. His excrements came forth, not at the wound, which closed up, but at the fundament, as is usual when persons die either a natural or violent death.

Judges 3:22 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.Ver. 22. And the dirt came out.] Which was a sign of death. And here Ehud was a type of Christ, in that he alone slew Eglon, as Christ alone doth all our enemies.

(22) The haft also went in after the blade.—The tremendous violence of the blow marks that resoluteness of character which Ehud shows throughout. The Hebrew for “blade” is “flame,” as the LXX. here render it. It is as though the vivid narrator would make us see the flash of the dagger ere it is buried, hilt and all, in the huge body. So in Nahum 3:3 we have, “The horseman lifteth up the flame of the sword and the lightning of the spear.” The only other passage where the word occurs is to describe the polished head of the spear of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:7). So that he could not draw the dagger out.—Thus he had disarmed himself by the force of his own blow; but the original only says, “for he did not draw the dagger out.” And the dirt came out.—The meaning of this clause is excessively doubtful, because the Hebrew word rendered “dirt” (parsedonah) occurs here and here only. (1) Our E.V. follows the Chaldee and the Vulgate with the alternative rendering (2) “it came out at the fundament” (marg.), which is the view of Gesenius. The Jews were themselves uncertain of the meaning and even in Rabbi Tanchum’s commentary we find that some understood it to mean (3) “he (Ehud) ran out into the gallery.” (4) A fourth guess—that of the Syriac version—is, “he went out hastily.” The LXX. omit it altogether, either because they thought that they were consulting propriety—a tendency which they constantly show—or because they could not rightly explain it. The resemblance of the word parsedonah to the word misderônah (“porch”), in the next clause, is certainly in favour of its meaning some part of the house. Ewald renders it, “he rushed out into the gallery,” which runs round the roof. He refers to Ezekiel 42:5. To understand it more exactly, we should require to know the structure of the house. Following the analogy of other Eastern houses, as described by Shaw, it seems that Eglon’s alijah was a separate building (domation, Jos.), or part of a building, with one door opening on a balcony, and another on a private staircase and closet (Judges 3:24). It was an inner room, and its outer door communicated with the house.

Verse 22. The haft also went in after the blade] As the instrument was very short, and Eglon very corpulent, this might readily take place. And the dirt came out] This is variously understood: either the contents of the bowels issued through the wound, or he had an evacuation in the natural way through the fright and anguish. The original, פרשדונה parshedonah, occurs only here, and is supposed to be compounded of פרש peresh, dung, and שדה shadah, to shed, and may be very well applied to the latter circumstance; so the Vulgate understood it: Statinque per secreta naturae alvi stercora proruperunt.

22. and it came out behind] i.e. the sword; but this is hardly grammatical, for sword is fem. and came out is mas. The marg. he went out into the ante-chamber is merely based upon a guess of the LXX (τὴνπροστάδα). The AV. renders and the dirt came out, so Vulgate statimque per secreta naturae alvi stercora proruperunt, Targ., Jews, and many moderns, correcting the unknown and corrupt Hebr. word parshμdon to peresh = dung. “This somewhat drastic touch is altogether in the vein of the narrator” (Moore); cf. Judges 3:16-17; Judges 3:24 b. On the other hand the clause is so much like the words at the beginning of the next verse in Hebr., that it may be a dittograph, a miswritten form of what follows.

The King James Version and margin give different explanations of the last words of this verse. Others explain it of a vestibule or chamber, through which Ehud passed into the porch where the entrance doors were.

22. The dirt came out — The meaning of the word translated dirt is quite uncertain.