"Ehud then approached him...and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it."
- Judges 3:20-22
There are a lot of deaths and murders in the Bible (which are all horribly sad when they happen) but the peculiar details revealed for this one is fascinating. Ehud is a judge of Israel and he is left-handed (we read about that in Judges 3:15). It was because of this, is what caused Eglon to be caught off-guard.
Since Ehud was left-handed, it would be natural for him to strap his dagger on his right thigh. Since most people are right-handed, Eglon’s guards would be less careful about checking what to them would be an awkward placement for a weapon. So it wasn't expected to be coming from where it did.
Then to have the blade sink so far into the belly-fat it didn't come out and then as his bowels discharged due to the stabbing is quite descriptive. The story continues with more interesting description of how after the stabbing and Ehud escaped, that Eglon's guards were waiting outside and didn't come in because they thought Eglon was going to the bathroom likely because of the odors released from the bowels discharging from the stabbing.
It reads in Judges 3:24 that the guards said:
“He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace.” They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead."
This story stands out to me as I had a test in seminary where the question was "Who was the left-handed judge?" as there is only one place in the BIble which mentions someone was left-handed and this is the story. Ehud, the left-handed judge who stabbed Eglon and his belly-fat closed over the blade and his bodyguards thought he was going to the bathroom. The Bible is filled with odd little things like this.
*For those wanting to know the origin of why I began these Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verses started read here
