Scripture Daily

Context No. 2645 of 4322 · Judges

Context · Reflection

Judges 3:20-25: in context

20Ehud came to him; and he was sitting by himself alone in the cool upper room. Ehud said, “I have a message from God to you.” He arose out of his seat. 21Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his body. 22The handle also went in after the blade; and the fat closed on the blade, for he didn’t draw the sword out of his body; and it came out behind. 23Then Ehud went out onto the porch, and shut the doors of the upper room on him, and locked them. 24After he had gone, his servants came and saw that the doors of the upper room were locked. They said, “Surely he is covering his feet in the upper room.” 25They waited until they were ashamed; and behold, he didn’t open the doors of the upper room. Therefore they took the key and opened them, and behold, their lord had fallen down dead on the floor.

Israel, oppressed for years under Moab, had cried out to the LORD, and God raised up a deliverer: Ehud, a left-handed man from Benjamin. The account of how he frees them is stark, a hidden dagger, a private audience with the fat king Eglon, a swift and grisly assassination, and Ehud slipping away while the king's servants, assuming all is well, wait outside until they are embarrassed. Only then do they discover their lord lying dead.

Behind the violent particulars is a simple pattern. God's people were oppressed, they cried out, and God answered by raising up a deliverer, an unlikely one, left-handed in a world that did not expect it, working in a way no one anticipated. The deliverance came through the person and the method least likely to be guessed. It is a reminder not to limit how God might rescue. When we are stuck under something oppressive and cry out, we tend to imagine only the obvious forms help could take, and God so often works through the overlooked, the unexpected, the one no one would have picked. The deliverer God raises up rarely matches our prediction.

When I am stuck under something oppressive and cry out, do I limit how God might rescue me, or trust that he raises deliverance through unexpected means?

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