This is my own commentary on the Book of Judges, Chapter Three. As a left-handed carrot-top and an aspie who can't stand injustice, the author of this blog comments on this story to encourage herself.
(This Book of Judges, like most of the Old Testament, is regarded as ancient Israeli history, the Judges being contemporary of the Trojan War).
In those days, the LORD sent the Moabites to conquer the Holy Land and smite the Israelites as punishment for their decadence. For eighteen years the Holy Land was subject to Eglon, king of the Moabites, a morbidly obese warlord despot (think Robert Baratheon, George IV, or Charles X of Sweden) who oppressed the populace with taxes more painful than... than... than having a candiru up your urethra. And His Grace's hefty girth definitely gave a clue of the reason for such taxes.
This reign of terror could not last for more than eighteen years... for the LORD would give the oppressed a champion, a judge, someone who would set things right (before a clusterf*ck of rage known as "revolution" could break out with disastrous consequences). Ehud (son of Gera, of the Benjamin ["son of the right hand"] tribe... how ironic). was shrewd. He was conniving. He was red-haired. And he was left-handed (either from birth or because his right hand was disfigured), making him an outsider in those days' Israeli (and Occidental as well) communities. Perchance for being a red-haired lefthander, an outcast, and also because they assumed he would be a sucker with a sword and thus not dangerous at all (such twits!), Ehud was the one chosen to bring the Israelites' tribute to the royal court. Which meant he could not be more motherfricking close to Eglon the Hefty ever. Besides, our carrot-top soon became a likable upstart courtier thanks to his eloquence and savoir faire, though he was merely feigning love and loyalty to the new regime as easily and skilfully as Iago. And no one at court knew the fact that Ehud was left-handed, which gave him a huge advantage. To check that he was unarmed, the guards always checked only his left side, assuming that our ginger was a righty like most of the world's population across the ages.
Which played a key role in Ehud's master plan, a cunning, conniving, sinister plan that abso-fricking-lutely could not fail.
(Cue Blackadder theme tune!!)
Now Ehud the Lefty must have learned the trade of metalworking, for he somehow fashioned a cubit-long two-edged sword, in those days when all swords had hitherto been one-edged. So our Lefty made the first two-edged sword EVER, which would be a relevant improvement in the noble and inglorious art of warfare. Now how much is a cubit? Twenty Imperial inches... that would be 50 cm, half a meter, in decimal measures. And Ehud strapped this half-meter two-edged sword, with edges as sharp as his silver tongue (a sword tailor-made for stabbing! That would be like a bayonet without the rifle...), to his right thigh before putting on his ankle-long tunic and bringing his liege lord the taxes du jour. So Lefty wore his one-of-a-kind sword (made for a one-of-a-kind swordsman) under the tunic, as well concealed as could be, when he stepped into the royal palace and sauntered into the throne room. So yes, he was also wearing his sword on the right (lefty, eh?) and hiding it from everyone. No one at court knew the fact that Ehud was left-handed, which gave him a huge advantage. To check that he was unarmed, the guards always checked only his left side, assuming that our ginger was a righty like most of the world's population across the ages. And there he is, presenting the tribute to the morbidly obese ruler of the Moabites, who has obviously taken a shine to this local upstart stripling Ehud (Had the redhead been seducing His Grace? I have nothing against the theory). It's payback time... not yet?
Now at first Lefty got cold feet and turned his steps homeward across the Holy Land, but suddenly on the road he saw the stone statues of Gilgal, which were of Moabite freaking gods. Epiphany!! And thus, filled with patriotism and encouragement, Ehud the Red-Haired Lefthander returned to the royal court with a mission to fulfil.
So boldly he walks into the throne room, past astonished servants, guards, and nobles, and there's Eglon, lounging like Robert Baratheon or Jabba the Hutt, in a cool room upstairs which also houses the Crown Privy. "I've got a message from our God, a secret thing for you," our carrot-topped hero says, as eloquently and courteously as he can. The ruler's eyes widen as he listens. Dismissed by their liege lord, every courtier and servant, even the guards, leave the room, leaving Ehud and Eglon tête-à-tête.
No sooner had the latter wearily stood up on the privy that our Lefty drew steel, that half-meter sword made for stabbing, from his right thigh, and thrust it with all his strength into His Grace's midsection. With the pointy end, of course. The surprised despot winced and reeled, not having been given even a blinking of eyes to react, the whole weapon (that's 50 cm of cold steel) sinking and getting completely lodged in his massive abdomen, except for the blade tip, that popped up from His Grace's lower back. The stab must also have punctured important blood vessels, and not only the gut, for the truth was that Eglon died on the privy, relieving himself (emptying his rectum) as he passed away, and in the end, like Tywin Lannister, he did not shit gold.
Their conversation would have unfurled like this...
EHUD (savvy): I know something you don't know, Your Grace.
EGLON (rising up from the throne): And what is that?
EHUD (drawing steel): I... (thrusting his sword into Eglon's vitals) ...am not right-handed.
(Just had to put that Princess Bride reference there.)
Eglon never saw the blade that plunged deep into his belly and pinned him to the throne.
(The LORD sends his regards.)
Then, Ehud locked the door and took the plunge down the latrine, fleeing the palace and those lands that were occupied by Moabites for the hills where the rebels were garrisoned, beyond the statues of Gilgal. (Dramatic music during the flight!) By the time the servants entered the privy, wondering why their liege was taking so long to relieve himself, and found his hefty lifeless form sprawled on the floor, lying in his own blood and feces, our redhead had already reached the hills of Ephraim and was sounding a shofar, a ram horn, to lead the Israelites into battle (The Ride of the Valkyries did not exist in those days, but, if it had existed, Lefty would have sounded it on that shofar), with the passion and the resolve of a fire-haired Enjolras. After capturing the fords across the Jordan, they managed to put the wicked enemy to rout (by a landslide, like Gustavus at Breitenfeld or Napoleon at Austerlitz): about ten thousand Moabites were slain and no prisoners taken. That was the beginning of an eighty-year-long peace until heathen foemen returned to the Holy Land.
This demonstrates the value of being left-handed.
And the cons of not partaking in physical activity.
As well as those of misplaced trust.
Another lefty in the Old Testament who takes advantage of his own left-handedness (and opponent's ignorance of said left-handedness) to treacherously kill an opponent is Joab (or Yoav), King David's general, when stabbing rebel leader Amasa in the ribs (while also giving the victim a kiss of death):
When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa went before them. And Joab's garment that he had put on was girded unto him, and upon it a girdle with a sword fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as he went forth it fell out.
And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him. But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's left hand: so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he died.
(2 Samuel, Chapter 20)Indeed, history repeats itself.
(13th of July [the eve of the National Day] 1793: In cold blood, Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in the collarbone, as the mouthpiece of the French Revolution was lying in the bathtub: another parallel, like those of Joab/Amasa and Tyrion/Tywin, worth mentioning).
There are keywords in the text of the whole Book of Judges, a leitmotif, like the refrain of a song, that is repeated constantly in between the Judges' stories and as the last words of the book: "In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as he or she pleased." Indeed, the royals of Judges, Eglon being only one of them, are all despotic warlords, invading usurpers. The Israelites want to be a free people in a free country, but foreign invasions are always threatening their dream. Judges ends with its refrain: "In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as he or she pleased." The next book will bring monarchy to the Holy Land, and its rulers will be no better off than their foreign Judges counterparts. Perchance it's for being the story of a free land and a free nation fighting for freedom that Judges gives so much relevance to unlikely outsider heroes and sheroes.
For, in general, the Judges are outsiders. A pair of women (one of whom uses a tent peg to hammer in the point, a soothsayer, and one who drops a millstone on the invading usurper du jour), a foreigner (who decimated an enemy host armed with a cattle prod), a presumably gay, red-haired lefty (savvy and well-spoken, with a two-edged sword as sharp as his tongue), a youngest son farm boy (who scared off a numerous enemy host with 300 men armed with shofars and shattered pots in the middle of the night) a bastard outlaw leader (the one who came up with the clever "shibboleth" trick, and who sacrificed his only daughter 'cuz of an oath, making him a bastard both literally and figuratively), a Nazirite (whose long dark dreadlocks give him enough super strength to kill 10.000 men with a donkey's jawbone) who can't hold the order's temperance vows (make that a tragic flaw)... They're a pretty rag-tag and diverse motley crew of freedom fighters, but all of them have a stigma that sets them apart from the mainstream, aside from an unusual weapon of choice. And all of them are badasses. Somehow, the LORD (at least in this book) appears to have a thing for lefties, and women, and bastards, and other assorted broken things. They did all belong to outgroups, but they did become heroes. And outsiders like the author of this blog, and perchance like you, dear reader, as well, have got within them a potential that needs to be unlocked and developed. That is the underlying message in these stories and in the Book of Judges as a whole.
