Judges 3:19

But he himself turned again from the quarries that [were] by Gilgal,...., For so far he accompanied the men that came with him.

But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king: who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him. Quarries.

He turned again, as if he had forgot and neglected some important business. From the quarries; either, first, Whence they hewed stones. Or, secondly, The twelve stones which Joshua set up there; by the sight whereof he was animated to his work. Or, thirdly, The idols, as the word also signifies, which that heathen king might place there, either in spite and contempt to the Israelites, who had that place in great veneration; or that he might ascribe his conquest of the land to his idols, as the Israelites did to the true God, by setting up this monument in the entrance or beginning of it. Keep silence till my servants be gone; whom he would not have acquainted with a business which he supposed to be of great and close importance.

Judges 3:19 But he himself turned again from the quarries that [were] by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king: who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him.Ver. 19. From the quarries that were by Gilgal.] Or, Graven images; stone statues set up there to be worshipped, and haply to vex the Israelites, or to entice them to idolatry: at the sight whereof, saith Fetus, Ehud’ s zeal so wrought with him, that he returned and killed the king. Or haply, saith another expositor, he made a show as if he had been at Gilgal to worship before the king’ s idols set up there, and something touching the king revealed unto him that he might the better get an opportunity of being alone with him. Keep silence,] viz., Till I have cleared the room of company. Kings are seldom without suitors and parasites; yet they have their retiring rooms, as here Eglon had a summer parlour for himself alone.

(19) But he himself turned again.—The plan of Ehud was deeply laid. He wished (1) to secure his end, which would be more difficult amid the soldiers and attendants who would guard the king during the presentation of the tribute; (2) to avoid endangering his comrades; (3) to provide, if possible, for his own escape. By going away with the deputation of serfs which he had introduced, he would still more lull suspicion asleep. From the quarries.—The Hebrew word is pesilξm. The LXX., followed by our margin, render it “graven images;” and the Vulgate, “from Gilgal, where were idols.” (Luther, Gφtzen.) Such is the meaning of pesξlξm in Deuteronomy 7:5; 2 Kings 17:41; Psalms 97:7, &c. The rendering, “stone quarries,” is derived from the Chaldee and Rabbi Jarchi; but it probably means idols of some kind—probably those of Moab. Some explain it of the twelve stones which were taken out of Jordan, and pitched at Gilgal (Joshua 4:2). The LXX. (in some MSS.) make it mean that Eglon returned, but this is clearly a mistake. Gilgal was near Jericho, and when Ehud had accompanied his comrades to some well-known landmark at Gilgal, he returned to Jericho. Josephus says he had “two attendants” with him; but the word “people” in Judges 3:18 implies that many more had accompanied him. By Gilgal.—Ewald thinks that Gilgal belonged to Ephraim, and that “he went to see if all was safe at this frontier-post.” If the pesξlξm were sacred stones to mark a boundary (cp. Judges 5:26), they would, like the Greek Hermζ, have been condemned by the Jews as idolatrous. I have a secret errand unto thee, O king.—Something in Ehud’s position and antecedents enabled him to reckon on the king’s credulity. Eglon, aware of discontent among the Israelites, may have supposed that Ehud had some secret to betray. Similarly Darius obtained an interview with the Pseudo-Smerdis, for the purpose of assassinating him, by pretending to have a secret message to him; and, in explaining it to his comrade, says, “When lying is necessary, lie” (Herod, iii. 72). In Josephus’s version of the story, Ehud pretends that he has a dream to narrate. Who said, Keep silence.—Rather, “And he said, Hush!” (Heb., Hβs.) The narrative is very graphic, but it does not appear whether the “Hush!” was addressed to Ehud, to prevent him from saying any more in the presence of the attendants, or as an intimation to the attendants to retire. They at once understood that the king wished to be left alone. All that stood by him.—Courtiers always stand in the presence of Eastern kings.

Verse 19. He-turned - from the quarries] פסילים pesilim. Some of the versions understand this word as meaning idols or graven images, or some spot where the Moabites had a place of idolatrous worship. As pasal signifies to cut, hew, or engrave, it may be applied to the images thus cut, or to the place, or quarry whence they were digged: but it is most likely that idols are meant. Some think that trenches are meant, and that pesilim here may mean the boundaries of the two countries: and when Ehud had got thus far, he sent away the people that were with him, under pretense of having a secret message to Eglon, and so got rid of his attendants, in presence of whom he could not have executed his scheme, nor have secured his escape afterwards. But I do not see the evidence of this mode of interpretation.

19. the quarries] Everywhere else (e.g. Isaiah 21:9; Micah 5:13 etc.), and in the margin of A. and RV. here, the word (pesîlîm) is rendered graven images (cf. pesel ‘graven image’), and such is the meaning in this place; idols, or perhaps in a more general sense, sculptured stones (Moore). They were connected with the sanctuary of Gilgal (see on Judges 2:1), which was marked by a circle of sacred stones, traditionally those which Joshua set up to commemorate the crossing of the Jordan (Joshua 4:20). The rendering quarries goes back to the Targum, and is due to the wish to avoid an objectionable reference. The idols by Gilgal may be mentioned merely as a familiar land-mark on the W. of the Jordan, cf. Judges 3:26; or rather, perhaps, to account for what follows in Judges 3:20. Ehud waited at the sanctuary to find a pretext for returning unexpectedly to speak with the king; he had received an oracle there, ‘a message from God,’ which he must communicate to the king personally (so Lagrange). The position of Gilgal, between Jericho and the Jordan, shews that Eglon’s residence must have been not at Jericho, but on the other side of the river, in Moab. Keep silence] Cf. Amos 6:10. The command is addressed to the courtiers, who are dismissed in order that the king may speak to Ehud in private. Ehud had entered the presence publicly. 20 And Ehud came unto him] i.e. from the public hall to a private room: the king was sitting in his cool roof-chamber, such as is often built on the flat roof of an Eastern house. Ehud’s words in Judges 3:19, spoken publicly in the king’s presence, contain a request for a private audience; the king thereupon dismisses his attendants, retires to his chamber on the roof, where he receives Ehud in the manner desired. The transition from Judges 3:19-20 is not clearly expressed: we should gather from Judges 3:19 that, after the attendants had left, the interview took place in the public room; but in Judges 3:20 Ehud finds the king alone in his cool chamber. There is no need, however, to regard the two verses as doublets; the narrative is compressed, and the omission of details leaves something to be supplied by the imagination. a message from God unto thee] i.e. a divine communication. Josephus explains that it had been conveyed by a dream, Ant. Judges 3:4; Judges 3:2. The LXX adds O king, which may be right. Out of respect for the oracle the king rises from his chair; cf. Numbers 23:18.

Gilgal was in the immediate neighborhood of Jericho Judges 2:1, where doubtless Eglon held his court at this time Judges 3:13.

19. He himself turned again — At the ceremony of offering the present to Eglon “Ehud had no opportunity to attempt anything, for he neither came near the king nor saw him alone; nor yet was he