Ehud

Three men named Ehud appear in Scripture, all of them Benjamites. Two are known only as names in tribal genealogies; the third is the left-handed judge whose covert assassination of Eglon king of Moab broke an eighteen-year subjugation and bought Israel eighty years of rest.

The Benjamite Genealogies

Grouped under one head is a Benjamite ancestor whose name surfaces across several lists with shifting spellings. The most direct attestation stands in the Chronicler's record of Benjamin's house: "And these are the sons of Ehud: these are the heads of fathers' [houses] of the inhabitants of Geba, and they carried them captive to Manahath" (1Ch 8:6). The same passage opens with Benjamin's begettings — "And Benjamin begot Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, and Aharah the third" (1Ch 8:1) — and continues through Bela's sons, naming "Abishua, and Naaman, and Ahoah" (1Ch 8:4), then "Naaman, and Ahijah, and Gera, he carried them captive: and he begot Uzza and Ahihud" (1Ch 8:7).

Older genealogies preserve the same family under variant names. In Genesis the listing reads, "And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, and Becher, and Ashbel; and the sons of Bela were: Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, and Muppim; and Gera begot Ard" (Ge 46:21), where "Ehi" appears in the slot the Chronicler later assigns to the line of Ehud. The Mosaic census likewise records "of Ahiram, the family of the Ahiramites" (Nu 26:38), a form treated as a probable variant of the same name. A separate son of Ir, "Shuppim also, and Huppim, the sons of Ir; Hushim, the son of another" (1Ch 7:12), is grouped with this same cluster of Benjamite names. The lists do not all agree in form, and the proposed harmonizations (EHI, AHIRAM, AHARAH, AHOAH, AHIAH, AHER) are reconstructive rather than self-evident in the text.

Son of Bilhan

A second Ehud appears one chapter earlier, listed among the sons of Jediael through Bilhan: "And the sons of Jediael: Bilhan. And the sons of Bilhan: Jeush, and Benjamin, and Ehud, and Chenaanah, and Zethan, and Tarshish, and Ahishahar" (1Ch 7:10). The verse offers no narrative — only the name in a roll of "mighty men of valor" who could "go forth in the host for war" (1Ch 7:11).

The Judge Who Killed Eglon

The Ehud who carries the weight of the entry is the deliverer of Judges 3. After Israel's relapse into evil, "Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel" (Judg 3:12), and eighteen years of servitude followed. Then "when the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised them up a savior, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. And the sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab" (Judg 3:15).

The narrative dwells on his preparation. "And Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length; and he girded it under his raiment on his right thigh" (Judg 3:16) — a placement that exploited his left-handedness and almost certainly evaded a guard's pat-down of the customary left side. After delivering the tribute and dismissing his bearers, he returned alone with a stated pretext: "I have a secret message to you, O king" (Judg 3:19). "And Ehud came to him; and he was sitting by himself alone in the cool upper room. And Ehud said, I have a message from God to you. And he arose out of his seat" (Judg 3:20).

The killing is told with grim concreteness: "And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his body" (Judg 3:21). "Then Ehud went forth into the porch, and shut the doors of the upper room on him, and locked them" (Judg 3:23). The delay caused by the locked door — Eglon's slaves assumed their king was "relieving himself in the upper chamber" (Judg 3:24) — gave Ehud the head start he needed: "And Ehud escaped while they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries, and escaped to Seirah" (Judg 3:26).

The Rally and Eighty Years of Rest

From Seirah, Ehud sounded the muster. "He blew a trumpet in the hill-country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, and he [was] before them" (Judg 3:27). His charge framed the campaign as Yahweh's own war: "Follow after me; for Yahweh has delivered your⁺ enemies the Moabites into your⁺ hand" (Judg 3:28). Israel seized the fords of the Jordan, cut off Moab's retreat, and "struck of Moab at that time about ten thousand men" (Judg 3:29). The result is recorded in a single line: "So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest 80 years" (Judg 3:30).

The judges' cycle, however, is unsparing. The peace Ehud secured did not outlive him: "And the sons of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, when Ehud was dead" (Judg 4:1). His name marks both the longest stretch of rest in the book and the boundary at which Israel's relapse begins again.