The Assassination of Eglon

033

Ancient Israel’s authors wrote for Israelites, in Israelite language, with Israelite assumptions. That audiences on distant continents, millennia later, would be trying to piece together what they meant was a thought that never occurred to them. Changed language and changed assumptions obstruct our view of what the ancient authors meant to tell their audiences.

The first hurdle to reading biblical history is recovering Israelite assumptions. The problems are especially profound when the text is meant to be humorous: Whenever we take the Bible as fact, we lose the capacity to appreciate—or even hear—its jokes.

True, humor in biblical history is not frequent—God is serious business, after all—but it is occasionally there. An example may be found in Judges 3:12–30. The story of Ehud is a rollicking adventure tale—a picaresque—from which Israelite storytellers and Israelite audiences derived great delight; that is why we still have the text today.

Additional factors make it difficult for a 034modern reader to enjoy this text in the same way an ancient Israelite audience did. First, the final author or editor embedded his story in a sermon:^a Israel sinned and was conquered, and only its penitence evoked a divinely appointed savior (Judges 3:12–15a). The framework makes us expect a morality tale, not a humorous adventure tale. Second, the architectural setting has never been properly understood. The Hebrew text uses several terms unique to this story, a circumstance that has confounded translators. And the narrator presumes familiarity with the architectural setting. So both language and setting have conspired to conceal the fact that Judges 3 contains the oldest locked-room murder in extant literature.

Ehud’s story

The story of Ehud runs as follows:

It is the time of the judges, say, about 1100 B.C.E.,^b about a century before the establishment of the Israelite monarchy. Israel has come under the thumb of Moab, a nation on the other side of the Jordan. Eglon, Moab’s corpulent king, has “occupied” Jericho (the “City of Palms” in the text), on the Israelite side of the Jordan, just north of the Dead Sea. The Israelites send Ehud ben-Gera to present Eglon with Israel’s tribute. A man whose right hand was ’it eÅr (usually translated “left-handed”), Ehud conceals a short, two-edged dagger on his right thigh. He delivers the tribute to Eglon, starts the Israelite porters home, but himself doubles back to the court. On the pretext of having a secret message for the king, Ehud secures a private audience in Eglon’s “upper chamber [‘^aliyyaÆ] which was his alone.” There Ehud thrusts his dagger so deeply that the king’s fat belly closes over the blade, and the king’s anal sphincter explodes.

Locking the doors, Ehud exits by way of the misdaÅroÆn. From the locked doors and the odor, Eglon’s servants deduce that the king is defecating, so they wait. When the king does not appear, they fetch the key and unlock the doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ. They find the king—dead. Meanwhile Ehud rallies his troops, who seize the fords of the Jordan. When the now leaderless Moabites flee homeward, they are cut down to a man. Victory and liberation are achieved.

The text contains a number of cruxes. The most tantalizing relate to the Hebrew words referred to in this summary, which will be dealt with further on.

Translation problems

But first, we should explicate several expressions concerning excretion. When Eglon’s retainers return after Ehud’s private audience with the king, they assume the king is, reading the text literally, “covering his feet” (meÅsiÆk ’et raglaµyw). It is clear what this euphemism means. It appears elsewhere in the Bible where its meaning cannot be doubted. In 1 Samuel 24, King Saul is pursuing young David, whom he perceives as a threat to the throne. At one point, the text tells us, Saul leaves his army and seeks privacy in a cave “to cover his feet” (1 Samuel 24:3). The process involves his squatting down; he rises afterward (1 Samuel 24:7); David, who has been hiding in this very cave unobserved, cuts off a piece of Saul’s robe (1 Samuel 24:4), which must therefore have been lying loose on the ground. Plainly “to cover one’s feet” means to defecate.^c

The phrase, in the sidebar to this article, that I have translated “and out ‘it’ came at the anus” (way-yeÅseÅ’ hap-parsû^edoÆnaÆ) (Judges 3:22) is more obscure. But to what else could it refer except this consequence of violent death—especially in light of the reference to excretion in verse 24? This is the traditional understanding, adopted in translations and commentaries. It seems plainly correct, although it is without parallel in other biblical narratives.

The phrase I have translated “whose right hand was ’it eÅr” (Judges 3:15) also takes some explanation. It is usually translated “left-handed”; Ehud’s left-handedness, it is explained, accounts for the fact that Ehud strapped his dagger to his right thigh. But ’it eÅr is not the normal term for “left-handed.” The normal term for that idea is masmiÆl (see 1 Chronicles 12:2). Ehud is not “left- handed”; rather, literally, his right hand was ’it eÅr. 035This adjective comes from a root meaning “to bind.” It suggests that the use of Ehud’s right arm was somehow hindered. The form of the adjective, ’it eÅr, suggests a handicap or deformity. But Judges 20:16, which also uses this word, speaks of 700 picked troops, their right hands ’it eµr, each of whom “could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.” This seems to exclude physical deformity, for this was a characteristic of an entire elite brigade.

The two other biblical texts that mention left-handers (Judges 20:16; 1 Chronicles 12:2) also mention that they specialize in the sling. All the left-handers are Benjaminites. The coincidence invites an inference: Benjamin had a reputation for producing left-handed slingers. This would be simple enough, achieved by techniques similar to that employed by the Spartans to train their warriors to be ambidextrous. Probably, they bound the right arms of young children—hence the term “bound (’it eÅr) as to his right hand”—and thereby taught them dexterity with their left. On this supposition, Ehud was not, as the translations have it, “a man left-handed.” He was one of a breed of men schooled in the use of the left hand for war.

Left-handed Warriors

Why left-handers? Because their opponents were trained to fight right-handed men. The southpaw is practiced in the clash of blade opposite blade and shield opposite shield. The right-hander, however, learns to fight blade against shield and shield against blade. Against the southpaw, the right-hander’s whole tactical repertoire, and most of his martial experience, is irrelevant. Portsider pugilists confound even the finest boxers. Left-handers enjoy a similar advantage in line combat.

Left-handed assault troops were particularly useful in attacking a walled city. City fortifications typically compelled assailants to expose their right side to the walls when charging the gate. If the shield were on the left arm (as it is on right- handed men), it could not be used to fend off stones, darts and other missiles hurled from the walls. But southpaw assailants partly nullified this advantage of the defenders. The shields of left-handed men rested on their right arms, protecting them from fire coming from the wall.

These considerations apply foremost to the premonarchic era in Israel’s history (c. 1200–1030 B.C.E.). Early Israel’s farmer-infantry experienced enormous difficulty in reducing fortresses by frontal assault. Premonarchic Israel had a need for specialists in all aspects of assault on fortified targets. It is striking that all three texts about left-handed warriors refer to premonarchic times when such warriors must have enjoyed tremendous prestige among the armies of the tribes.

In sum, to say that Ehud’s right arm was ’it eÅr is saying quite a bit. Ehud convoyed Israel’s tribute to Eglon, guarding it en route against the depredations of local kings and of bandits. He was charged with this mission because he was the closest thing to a professional soldier that Israel produced in his period. He was a seasoned samurai, or, to use a modern caricature, a sort of James Bond. Ehud was just the man to execute the operation that Judges 3 describes.

Ehud’s “left-handedness” identifies him as a killer, who can smuggle a dagger under his garments into the presence of the Moabite king. His escort duties among the Israelite tribute bearers afford him the opportunity to reconnoiter and to gauge Eglon’s girth. The diameter of Eglon’s belly and the size of the dagger are related. The end result is a knife hidden in the corpse, and the corpse hidden in a locked ’^aliyyaÆ. And the climax: Israel’s surreptitious deployment at the Jordan river: surprise and concealment, concealment and surprise: the narrator drums out a cloak-and-dagger tale.

Ehud’s covert operation is closely conceived to achieve a grip on the Jordan fords. Nothing is left to chance. Not a detail in the story is superfluous. Yet in standard translations, detailed though the narrative is, Ehud’s escape is confused and unclear. Consequence does not seem to follow cause as cogently as in the rest of the tale. Let us see if we can elucidate some of these problems.

The delay following the murder of the king is critical. Ehud must escape and then rally his troops unbeknownst to the Moabites.

How could Ehud know that delay would follow his own departure? How could he be so confident that Eglon’s courtiers would not immediately discover the murdered king and then pursue Ehud?

The usual answer is weak. Ehud’s exit, scholars claim, was through a rear door—the misdaÅroÆn. How did the courtiers know he had left? According to the usual interpretations, they saw him absconding out the back, but thought him above suspicion. This is absurd! Such behavior on Ehud’s part would fan the embers of distrust in the breast of even a bovine Moabite. Yet the courtiers wait patiently before knocking at the king’s doors. And if there was a rear exit, why do the servants fetch a key (Judges 3:25) to unlock doors the king had locked. Why not check the unlocked entrance Ehud had used?

Another hypothesis is that Ehud left by the way he entered, that he removed a key from the king’s 036corpse and used this key to lock the doors behind him. If this was the case, our otherwise careful narrator has fallen down on the job. He forgot to tell us that Ehud took the key from the corpse, leaving the reader to guess how Ehud locked the doors. Note that when the king’s courtiers unlock the ‘^aliyyaÆ, the narrator tells us that they used a key.

Moreover, the wording of verse 23 militates against the view that Ehud locked the ‘^aliyyaÆ from outside. Ehud closes the doors “upon him[self]” (‘ba‘adoÆ; that is, “with himself inside”).^d

This brings us to an impasse. Ehud did not lock the ‘^aliyyaÆ from the outside, with a key. But if he locked the ‘^aliyyaÆ from the inside, other problems arise: How did the courtiers know when to return? Why didn’t they use the unlocked entrance? How did they know Ehud was gone? If they glimpsed Ehud’s heels against the hills, why did they wait stoically before knocking at the ‘^aliyyaÆ?

Architectural Terminology

To break this impasse, we must solve the architectural terminology of the account.

When Ehud doubled-back from Gilgal to deliver the secret message to the Moabite king, Eglon was sitting in the ‘^aliyyaÆ (Judges 3:20). The full description of Eglon’s room, however, is ‘^aliyyat ham-m^eqeµraÆ. The word ‘^aliyyaÆ means “upper chamber.” This word is used a number of times in the Bible and always relates to an architectural feature—the upper chamber of a wall, a gate or a corner. The phrase in the Ehud story is ‘^aliyyat^e ham-m^eqeµraÆ, the only place ham-m^eqeµraÆ appears in the Bible with ‘^aliyyaÆ. (Thereafter in the Ehud story, this room is referred to simply as ‘^aliyyaÆ—in verses 23, 24, and 25.) The standard translation of ‘^aliyyat ham-m^eqeµraÆ is “the upper chamber of cooling” or the “cool upper chamber.” This translation, however, is immediately suspect for two reasons. First, “cool” or “cooling” is not an architectural term. Second, near the Dead Sea, one does not escape the heat by building upward; rather, one burrows down away from it as far as possible.

038

I believe there is a more plausible translation. It is an alternative suggested by Psalm 104. The psalmist is praising God; in verses 2 and 3, God is described as the one “who has stretched out the heavens like a tent, who has laid the beams of his upper chambers on the waters.” The word for “his upper chambers” is ‘^aliyyoÆtaÅyw, the same word used in the Ehud story. The word for “beams” used in the psalm is m^eqaÅre^h. This suggests that ham-m^eqeÅraÆ in the Ehud story should also be translated “the beams.” In light of this parallel, ‘^aliyyat ham-m^eqeÅraÆ in the Ehud story can mean “the room over the beams.”

Translating ham-m^eqeÅraÆ as “the beams” also gives it an architectural meaning, as it plausibly should have. This reading is also supported by Judges 3:24, where Eglon’s retainers are wondering what’s keeping the king; they assume he is relieving himself in his “heder ham-m^eqeÅraÆ,” which should be understood as the “room on the beams,” i.e., the inner toilet room.

The ‘^aliyyat ham-m^eqeÅraÆ is thus the upper chamber on the beams, the king’s private audience hall. In verse 20, we are told that it is “his [the king’s] alone.” When Ehud tells the king he has a secret message for him, there is no need for the pair to move to another room; our painstaking narrator mentions no such transfer. The narrator says simply that Ehud “entered unto him (baÅ’ ’eÅlaÅyw),” crossing some sort of threshold. It is here the narrator interjects, “Eglon was sitting in the chamber over the beams (‘^aliyyat ham-m^eqeÅraÆ), that was his alone.” Presumably, it is the ‘^aliyyaÆ that Ehud has just entered.

Note, however, that even before Ehud enters the throne-platform, the king dismissed his retinue from the public audience hall. Already in verse 19, after Ehud tells the king he has a secret message from him, “all who attended him [i.e., the king] went out from his presence.” Then, in verse 20, Ehud “entered unto him.” This will become an important point in understanding Ehud’s escape.

Models for Eglon’s Palace

The typical palace in Israel’s immediate environment should help clarify the layout. This architectural plan is well known to archaeologists and is called a biÅt hËilaÅni. The central suite of the biÅt hËilaÅni consisted of a one-story-high broad-room^f portico; adjacent to this portico was a broad-room throne-room or public audience hall, with a ceiling two stories high (see drawings, below); inside the throne room was probably the “upper chamber of the beams,” which was very likely a throne platform, on wood beams, capable of being closed off unto itself. This upper chamber sat at the level of the windows, above the level of the one-story rooms surrounding it.

This reconstruction divides the royal reception suite into three parts: the portico, the public audience hall and the king’s private upper chamber or throne-platform, the ‘^aliyyaÆ.

The throne-platform as such has not left unmistakable archaeological traces, though a good deal of burnt wood has been found in its vicinity in at least two sites—Tell Halaf and Hama.¹ One possible explanation is that the throne-platform was peculiar to Israel and Phoenicia, where the remains are so scant that no traces could be found. If the ‘^aliyyaÆ rested on wooden joists (per Judges 3:20), rather than on stone walls, the cedar beams spanning the width of the ‘^aliyyaÆ would have left no signs of the throne-platform in the ruins excavated to date.

Although we cannot demonstrate beyond cavil that a biÅt hËilaÅni with an ‘^aliyyaÆ overlooking the public audience hall was the setting of the Ehud story, it is worth noting that a tenth-century B.C. biÅt hËilaÅni has actually been unearthed in Jericho,² the likely venue of the Ehud story.

Eglon’s Murder

In verse 19, when Ehud doubles back to Eglon’s court, the king is still holding forth publicly. Ehud addresses the king directly: “I have a secret word for you, O king!” Here, the assassin has already gained entry to the public audience hall. The attendants leave Eglon and Ehud alone. But the attendants do not go wandering aimlessly about town. As protocol demands, they remain on call. They are on duty, now, in the portico.

Verse 20 begins, “Ehud entered unto him (baµ’ ‘eÅlaÅyw). At this juncture comes the remark that Eglon “was sitting in the chamber atop the beams, which was his alone.” Had this notice come earlier or later, it might imply that the whole conversation between Ehud and Eglon took place inside the ‘^aliyyaÆ. The notice comes exactly at this point to differentiate between the area in which Ehud and the courtiers had stood, and the chamber that Ehud has now entered. Ehud has crossed from the public audience hall to the ‘^aliyyaÆ, the upper chamber over the beams, the throne-platform.

Verse 23 carries the spatial argument further. After dispatching the king with his hidden dagger, Ehud somehow escapes from the locked ‘^aliyyaÆ. We are told that he went out through the misdaÅroÆn (verse 23) after closing the doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ upon himself and locking the doors.

In verse 24, we are told “he went out and his [i.e., the king’s] servants entered.” Remember that 039the king’s servants left the public audience hall (verse 19) before Ehud entered the king’s ‘^aliyyaÆ. They undoubtedly waited in the portico outside the public audience hall. Accordingly, Ehud could escape from the ‘^aliyyaÆ through the misdaÅroÆn, and enter the public audience hall still without being detected by the king’s servants. He could then walk out of the audience hall into the portico, where they would see him, as if nothing had happened.

This is precisely what happened.

The Locked-Room Mystery

Verse 24 confirms that the king’s courtiers have been waiting outside the public audience hall: on their return (“they entered,” the text says), they find the door to the ‘^aliyyaÆ locked. During Ehud’s audience, they must have waited at a remove of two doors from the king: those of the ‘^aliyyaÆ, locked by Ehud, and those of the room “they entered” to find the ‘^aliyyaÆ locked. They have come from the portico, their station during private audiences, to the public audience hall. Back in the audience hall, the courtiers suspect nothing. The locked doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ, plus the odor, suggest that the king is defecating (verse 24). This is an act that Israelites performed in private. Herodotus (Histories, Book 2, chapter 36) marvels that the Egyptians relieved themselves in private and ate in public. Egyptians, of course, do all things topsy-turvy, because the Nile flows north. The Israelites had no such excuse. But in Israel, too, it was normal for a king to lock himself in the privy chamber.

As noted above, Ehud locked the doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ from within, closing himself inside. The courtiers had left Ehud in the public audience hall and Eglon in the ‘^aliyyaÆ. On the servants’ return, there was every indication that Eglon was alone in the ‘^aliyyaÆ, and that he had locked it by drawing the bolt from the inside only after Ehud left. There were no grounds for suspicion, at least until Eglon took suspiciously long about his private business.

Ehud’s Surprising Exit

But the mystery remains: how did Ehud wriggle out of the ‘^aliyyaÆ? Verse 23 is quite definite: he came out by way of the misdaÅroÆn. This cannot have been an exit (either a window or door) in the rear or otherwise directly to the outside. If the king’s courtiers had seen Ehud exiting by such means, this would immediately have aroused their suspicions. If they did not see him exit, how did they know when to come back? Why would they assume Ehud had left? Verse 24 tells us that “he [Ehud] went out and they [the king’s servants] entered”. The retinue must have seen Ehud leave under non-suspicious circumstances. Ehud must have walked out of the public audience hall to 040the portico where the king’s servants were waiting. The misdaÅroÆn must have enabled Ehud to get to the public audience hall.

MisdaÅroÆn is what scholars call a hapax legomenon, or hapax for short—an expression that in all of biblical literature occurs only once. MisdaÅroÆn probably denotes an unusual architectural feature. The architectural character of the ‘^aliyyaÆ probably provides the best clue as to the meaning of misdaÅroÆn. The ‘^aliyyaÆ was a room atop wooden joists—10 cubits higher than the palace floor in the bigger-than-life example of Solomon’s temple.^g The ‘^aliyyaÆ also provided a place for Eglon to evacuate himself. It stands to reason that beneath this room was an area under the beams. Was this the misdaÅroÆn?

Indoor plumbing characterizes palaces from the mid-second millennium onward (when second-story drainage is first attested). It is particularly well attested in the biÅt hËilaÅni. Since the courtiers infer Eglon is using indoor plumbing in his ‘^aliyyaÆ, it is clear a commode is present. The king’s deposits from above could only have fallen through the floor down below. And to this nether region, under the beams, royal janitors no doubt had access. Presumably, janitors entered the misdaÅroÆn from a side-room opening onto the audience hall.^h

Following the suggestion of David Golomb, the term misdaÅroÆn may be related to the verb, sadira, which means “to be blinded, puzzled.” This precisely expresses the attitude toward excretion of a culture whose euphemism for evacuation is “to cover one’s feet”—the motif of concealment is the same. MisdaÅroÆn then means something like “the hidden place,” an appropriate designation for the area under the beams.ⁱ

This explains why the text uses an obscure term: the misdaÅroÆn is a region that otherwise plays no part in Hebrew narrative. Further, Ehud’s resort to this space explains why the narrator lays such stress on the escape: the movement through the “hidden place” completes concealment of the king’s murder, allowing Israel to preempt the Jordan fords. Ehud’s exit, and his complicity in a crime that is not seen to be a crime, is camouflaged. Eglon’s killing is a “perfect murder,” the equivalent of the modern locked-room murder mystery.

Retracing Ehud’s Steps

In short, Ehud was a left-handed combat ace, a hardened professional warrior. He commanded the detachment that escorted Israel’s tribute to Eglon, the corpulent Moabite king. Ehud strapped a diminutive dagger, double-edged for cleaner cutting, onto his right thigh. There, it eluded observation at the court in Jericho, for the courtiers expected Israelites to strap their swords on the left. Ehud did his obeisance and marched his detachment back to its point of dispersal at Gilgal. Only afterward did he double back to the court, seeming thereby to keep his second assignation with Eglon a secret from his countrymen.

Back at the court, Ehud secured a private audience by promising a sensitive disclosure (“secret word”)—presumably a denunciation of fellow vassal. The retinue withdrew from the public audience hall to the portico outside. They left Ehud in the audience hall, and Eglon in his ‘^aliyyaÆ. Once the audience chamber had cleared, its doors shut, Ehud sprang urgently up the stairs of the royal podium, as though lending an added air of secrecy to his revelation. Perhaps he even bolted the doors, as a further precaution against eavesdroppers.

Inside the ‘^aliyyaÆ, Ehud confronted the stout monarch: “It is a word of God I have for you,” he cried (verse 20). In a single dextrous motion, Ehud’s left hand crossed his body and plucked from his right thigh a sinister shaft. The king struggled to stand in bewildered horror, but the Israelite’s right hand restrained him half-bent. All his practiced strength focused in the blow, Ehud stabbed the dagger skyward from his knees, and punched it into Eglon’s ample belly, driving it home deep with the heel of his palm. The blade’s uncrossed hilt buried itself in a mountain of fat.

Death was instantaneous; there was no blood. The sole sign of violence was the unsavory explosion of Eglon’s anal sphincter. Meanwhile, 041Ehud, having fastened the doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ from inside, swung down through the floor—no doubt exerting considerable caution—to the level below. He emerged, from an adjoining room, into the public audience chamber and crossed deliberately to the door to the portico. His audience finished, he exited onto the portico and strode through the palace courtyard homeward.

Filing back into the public audience hall, the Moabite courtiers looked, “and behold! The doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ were locked!” (verse 24). The smell of Eglon’s final deposit wafted to the retainers through the air. They gave no thought to disturbing the king: They had satisfied themselves that he must be relieving himself.

The courtiers waited. We may imagine them whiling away their time with quips—“How many Israelites does it take to fill an oil lamp?”—and comments on quotidian reality—cuisine at the court, graft in the kitchen, the king’s constipation. Long moments elapsed—an hour at least—“and behold! he did not open the doors of the ‘^aliyyaÆ!” (verse 25). They called, then knocked, first demurely, then louder. Finally, scenting something amiss, they fetched the key and entered. “Behold! There was their lord, fallen dead on the floor” (verse 25), with his load dropped beside him. No blood; dagger enveloped; no sign of fiddling with the lock. Ehud’s “secret word” remained a secret.

While the Moabites dallied, Ehud rallied Israel’s troops from the hills. They seized the Jordan fords and engaged the Moabites. The latter, cut off from home and leaderless, retired in disorder to be cut down at the river.

Tailored for the audience

The Ehud story was apparently intended for a courtly audience, for it presumes a familiarity with palace architecture: “misdaµroÆn” was not a part of the average peasant’s vocabulary. The story revolves around stratagem and daring. Israelite literature about early periods contains several remote parallels: Jacob steals his brother’s blessing (Genesis 27); in Judges 6–7, Gideon surprises the Midianites; in Judges 12:1–6, Jephthah kills the Ephraimites who flunk the “shibboleth” test; and in Judges 15:4–5, Samson’s red-hot foxes burn down Philistine grain. The heroic tale belonged to the heroic age, of premonarchic and early monarchic Israel. It had no natural life in the dusty records of the later royal chancellery or in the reverential idiom of the lives of the prophets. Thus there are no examples after David, no instances in Kings. The genre was an oral one.

One sees signs of the preliterary stage in a mix of old elements in the Ehud account—Ehud’s 044“left-handedness,” his reliance on local troops, the idea that the Moabite court was so undeveloped that cutting off its head precipitated it into helplessness. Even the transformation of the story from an episode affecting only the territory of Benjamin into an event shaping the fate of the nation comes from a preliterary stage: The tale was told to generations of Israelites, who as Israelites identified with its protagonist. Ehud’s exploits, therefore, were appropriated by the whole nation over the course of oral transmission; his victory became the victory of those who celebrated it.

In the hands of professional story-tellers, Ehud’s exploits filled more than 15 terse verses of prose—they were the stuff of an evening’s entertainment, a full-fledged drama. This is the source on which the author of Judges 3 drew: his work, thus, is not fictional, in the sense that the Iliad is. It distills the bare, boiled-down facts from fictionalizations, from imaginative elaborations.

The monumental narrative economy of the story thus reflects an antiquarian concern. Until one comes to the playful notice in verse 29 that all the Moabites were obese, every detail serves to actualize, none to elaborate, the author’s reconstruction of the events.

Judges 3 resembles Thucydides’ epitome of the Trojan War: It uses the received tradition referentially, to get at the events it claims to relate. Artistic concerns—and the historian was a masterful narrator—are subordinated to historical reconstruction.

The Ehud account is self-contained, devoid of implications for the narrative context. There is no dialogue or characterization, for example, of Eglon as cruel. Yahweh plays at best an implicit role. There is no elaboration of the theme of divine intervention to shape the course of events. These we might expect from a narrative if the model was the Pentateuch. Here, the point of the story is the story itself.

One critic has called the tale of Ehud “fictionalized history.” That is a distortion—and not only because all historical narrative, without prejudice to its accuracy, is fictional. This tale is less “fictionalized history” than it is history de-fictionalized.

Language, based on shared culture, is a shorthand, The Ehud story is a cipher in Israelite shorthand—an attempt to communicate antiquarian data in an event amusing, titillating form.^j To decipher it, we must recapture the assumptions shared between narrator and audience. In translation, the nuances of the language elude us. We lose the background of the staging when we situate the story in an architectural vacuum, or in some generic royal palace. Reading it from a modern perspective, we miss the significance of the characterization. Sensitivity to the nature of Israelite life is not only, in short, a prerequisite for sound historical work; without it, we lose sight of the craft of the text. One of the many functions of historical study is to allow us to reintegrate ourselves into the ancient world, to participate in a bygone reality. Only thus can we discover the qualities of the text that led the ancients to preserve it for their posterity.

(This article has been adapted from chapter 3 of The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History [Harper & Row, 1988] where full annotation is supplied. The research was undertaken with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, an arm of the American Schools of Oriental Research.)

Ancient Israel’s authors wrote for Israelites, in Israelite language, with Israelite assumptions. That audiences on distant continents, millennia later, would be trying to piece together what they meant was a thought that never occurred to them. Changed language and changed assumptions obstruct our view of what the ancient authors meant to tell their audiences. The first hurdle to reading biblical history is recovering Israelite assumptions. The problems are especially profound when the text is meant to be humorous: Whenever we take the Bible as fact, we lose the capacity to appreciate—or even hear—its jokes. True, humor in biblical history […]