3
📚Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to test 📖 Israel by them, as many in Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan, 2 📚so that the generations of the children of Israel might learn; that is, to teach war 📖 to those who previously knew nothing about it: 3 📚five lords of the Philistines 📖, and all the Canaanites and Sidonians and Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal-Hermon to the entrance to Hamath. 4 📚And they were to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to the commandments of the LORD which he commanded their fathers through Moses.5 📚And the children of Israel lived 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.
Othniel
7 📚And the children of Israel did evil 📖 in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals 📖 and the Asherahs 📖. 8 📚Therefore the anger 📖 of the LORD burned against Israel and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia 📖; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim for eight years. 9 📚And when the children of Israel cried out 📖 to the LORD, the LORD raised up 📖 a deliverer for the children of Israel, who delivered them, Othniel 📖 the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. 10 📚And the Spirit of the LORD 📖 came on him, and he judged Israel and went out to war; and the LORD delivered Cushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hands, and he got the upper hand over Cushan Rishathaim. 11 📚And the land had rest for forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
Ehud
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 Eglon gathered to himself the children of Ammon and Amalek and went and attacked Israel, and took possession of the city of palm trees 📖.
3:13 Ammonites were to the east of Israel. The Amalekites were a nomadic people who generally roamed the deserts south and southeast of Israel.⚜
14 📚So the children of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, for eighteen years.
15 📚But when the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud 📖 the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a left-handed 📖 man. And the children of Israel sent a present 📖 through him to Eglon, the king of Moab. 16 📚But Ehud made a double-edged sword a cubit long, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. 17 📚And he brought the present to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. 18 And when Ehud had finished offering the present, he sent away the people who had carried the present. 19 📚But he himself turned back from the quarries that were at Gilgal, and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king”. The king said, “Keep quiet!” And all who stood around him went out from his presence.
20 📚And Ehud came to him. And he was sitting alone in a room of the summer palace. And Ehud said, “I have a message from God 📖 for you”. And he got up from his seat, 21 📚and Ehud put out his left hand and took the sword from his right thigh and drove it into his belly.
3:21 This was not personal vengeance on Ehud’s part, but the working out of God’s justice in the deliverance of His people.⚜
22 And the handle also went in after the blade; and the fat closed on the blade, so that he could not draw the sword out of his belly; and the body waste came out. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch and shut the doors of the room behind him and locked them.
24 📚When he had gone out, the king’s servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the room were locked, they said, “He must be relieving himself in his summer palace”. 25 And they waited until they were ashamed, but still he had not opened the doors of the upper room. So they took a key and opened them, and saw that their lord had fallen down on the floor, dead.
26 And Ehud escaped while they were waiting, and went beyond the quarries and escaped to Seirath. 27 📚And it came about when he arrived that he blew a trumpet 📖 in the hill country of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the hills, with him in front of them.
28 📚And he said to them, “Follow me! For the LORD has delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hands”. And they went down after him and captured the fords 📖 of the Jordan toward Moab, and did not let anyone cross over. 29 📚And at that time they killed about ten thousand men of Moab, all tough men and brave fighters, and not a man escaped.
Shamgar
30 📚So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years 📖.
31 📚And after Ehud Shamgar 📖 the son of Anath was judge. He killed six hundred 📖 men of the Philistines with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel.