A LOCKED DOOR MYSTERY (JUDGES 3:18-26)

I am a great fan of mystery stories and TV series. And one popular sub-genre is that of the locked door mystery. In general, these are stories in which a murdered party is found alone in a room locked from the inside in which there are no other apparent means of entrance or egress. There are actually endless variations on this basic plot, as anyone knows who has watched a a few episodes of Death in Paradise, a British TV detective series. But the grand-daddy of all such plots comes from the third chapter of Judges.

To set the scene, a left-handed assassin named Ehud wishes to kill King Eglon of Moab, and so he first fashions a special short dagger that will fit under his clothing unobtrusively (the ancient counterpart of a sawed-off shotgun), especially since he puts in on his unexpected right side unlike right-handed men would. In that manner he is able to enter into the king's palace safely even after being frisked by the guards.

He tells the king that he has a message from God to tell him. Eglon hopes that it will include some secret that will allow him to defeat the Jews, and so he ushers him to a private room where they will not be overheard: the royal bathroom. The Hebrew word for the room has the meaning of a cool roof-chamber or a room above the beams. But we know its main purpose is to house a latrine since the guards outside later think that the king is relieving himself (literally, “burying his feet,” a euphemism also found in I Samuel 24:3). Indoor plumbing was indeed known in ancient Israel at that time, according to archeological findings.

In other cultures, kings would sometimes receive guests and conduct business while sitting on the 

toilet. Lyndon Johnson was noted for doing the same thing on occasion. But one striking parallel to this 

story occurred in 1589. Henri III of France was hated by the Catholics because he was planning to 

name a Protestant heir. Henri received a Dominican friar while sitting on the toilet because the friar 

pretended to have a secret message for Henri. Instead, the friar stuck a dagger into the king's stomach 

and killed him.

 

Getting back to Ehud: The secret message from God turned out to be that Eglon was going to die. He is 

promptly stabbed, and the fat closed over the knife so that no blood splattered on Ehud. The dagger 

probably had no crossbar. The text then says that “it” came out the back, referring probably to 

excrement or, less likely, to the sword.

 

In v. 23, we are told that Ehud locked himself in the room and escaped through the misdaron (an 

unknown Hebrew word, but probably something other than some sort of back door or the guards would 

have become suspicious). One archeologist has suggested that he escaped by removing the seat of the 

toilet (generally made from wood or a rock slab) and then dropped down below where there was a 

room with a chamber pot which could be emptied by a servant through an outside door. 

 

In that manner Ehud could casually walk out of the palace and be long gone before the guards got 

suspicious enough to use their key to open the door.