(Editorial note: all references to poo in this article have been stolen from Mike Reeves. All credit to him for his extensive research on the matter.)
Today's post is just some (slightly rushed) story-telling. I shall try to make it worth your while. I suppose it's a story remix.
Two stories
One rarely hears of 'Left-handed Leo Da vinci', 'Julius Caesar the left-handed' or 'Barack Obama the left-wing leftie'. This is because it's a fairly incidental point to make about someone - a lot of people are left-handed.
But, in Judges 3, that's pretty much the only thing we're told about our hero:
Ehud, a left-handed man, was a judge in Israel.
The people had been subject to the rule of Eglon, the fat Moabite king for eighteen years, and he had filled their land with idols.
For those eighteen years, the Israelites wept while Eglon grew fat off their land, yet still they persisted in disobedience and idolatry.
When the Israelites finally turned to God for help, He sent them Ehud who went to the king, claiming to have a word from God. The king's servants left him, and Ehud, with his left hand, reached into his robe and pulled out a 'two-edged sword' and stabbed the king.
The Bible tells us that the sword went deep into the king's belly, the fat closed over the hilt and "the excrement came out."
Apologies.
But it does say that.
Then he ran back past the idols, gathered the Israelite army and marched them to victory.
So, why mention that Ehud was left-handed? Surely this is an inconsequential fact? (If anything it was an advantage - these guys wrote right to left - no smudging!!)
Today's post is just some (slightly rushed) story-telling. I shall try to make it worth your while. I suppose it's a story remix.
Two stories
One rarely hears of 'Left-handed Leo Da vinci', 'Julius Caesar the left-handed' or 'Barack Obama the left-wing leftie'. This is because it's a fairly incidental point to make about someone - a lot of people are left-handed.
But, in Judges 3, that's pretty much the only thing we're told about our hero:
Ehud, a left-handed man, was a judge in Israel.
The people had been subject to the rule of Eglon, the fat Moabite king for eighteen years, and he had filled their land with idols.
For those eighteen years, the Israelites wept while Eglon grew fat off their land, yet still they persisted in disobedience and idolatry.
When the Israelites finally turned to God for help, He sent them Ehud who went to the king, claiming to have a word from God. The king's servants left him, and Ehud, with his left hand, reached into his robe and pulled out a 'two-edged sword' and stabbed the king.
The Bible tells us that the sword went deep into the king's belly, the fat closed over the hilt and "the excrement came out."
Apologies.
But it does say that.
Then he ran back past the idols, gathered the Israelite army and marched them to victory.
So, why mention that Ehud was left-handed? Surely this is an inconsequential fact? (If anything it was an advantage - these guys wrote right to left - no smudging!!)
Well, the only thing more frustrating than a man who answers his own questions is a man who answers questions with a story...:
According to Livy's legend, in 508bc Gaius Mucius was a young Roman soldier during the Etruscan siege of Rome. The senate, desiring to end the siege quickly, sent him out in the dead of night to assassinate Porsena, the king of the Etruscan city of Clusium.
Alas, despite successfully finding the king's tent unhindered, he killed the king's secretary who was close by and in similar clothes.
Immediately he was captured and the king demanded he be burned alive at the altar unless he betray Rome's battle plans.
At this, Mucius said: "[This is so] that you may see how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed upon great glory."
With that he thrust his right hand into the flame and watched the flesh burn off.
The king was so impressed by this act of defiant loyalty that he freed him.
He was known from then on as Gaius Mucius Scaevola. Scaevola means 'left-handed'.
Name-calling
The reason Ehud is described as left-handed is that he was crippled. As with Gaius Mucius, calling someone left-handed, historically is not a comment about how they play tennis or why they might appear to be slightly more artistic, or why the nuns at their school didn't like them... it just means that they do not have a functioning right-hand.
So this was why Ehud was called 'left-handed'. An innuendo, I suppose, for 'definitely not right-handed'.
Maybe a bit harsh, but the Israelites really had a thing for name calling. At the beginning of this chapter, they refer to king 'Cushan-rishathaim' which means 'Cushan...of double wickedness'.
They wanted history to remember him as he was, so they wrote it into his name.
They do the same with idols and foreign gods:
In 1 Kings, Chemosh and Molek are both described as the 'dung' of the Moabites.
(our bibles have politely been translated as 'detestable' instead of 'dung')
In 2 Kings, Jehu destroys the temple of Baal and turns the site into a loo
("...and made it a latrine to this day.")
Baal's name (which simply means 'Lord' is extended to Baal Zebub (Beelzebub), which means 'Lord of the flies' - no prizes for guessing what that meant.
Words will never hurt me
King Eglon had filled the land of Israel with these 'detestable' idols, and it certainly seemed as though the Israelites were worshiping them.
And detestable is the word - Molek, for instance, was a god who demanded child-sacrifices.
And detestable is the word - Molek, for instance, was a god who demanded child-sacrifices.
Ehud went forth into this, armed with the double-edged sword which he described to Eglon as 'a message (literally translated: a 'word') of God'.
He stabbed the king and all the dung came out. The double edged sword cut away the idols from the land of Israel.
And, while we consider how deliberately strange descriptions are used - this is how the writer of Hebrews describes the Scriptures:
Sticks and Stones
It is no surprise then, that this powerful Word has been sought to be stopped many times in history.
William Tyndale, (a pupil at my alma mater), translated the Bible into English when it was illegal to do so, as it weakened the hold the Catholic church had over the people.
Many who supported the publication of the English Bible were killed.
Anyone found with a copy of Tyndale's Bible was burned along with the book.
There are many martyrs dotted throughout history, crucified, stoned, and burned at the stake.
Today is the anniversary of the martyrdom of Cranmer, a left-handed man, who was burned at the stake on the 21st March 1556, twenty years after Tyndale's death.
He should have been burned months earlier with Latimer and Ridley, but had recanted his faith and submitted to the pope, declaring that only through the Catholic Church could one be saved, signing numerous documents to this effect. He was right-handed, so signed with his right hand.
Despite this, Queen Mary decided to make an example of him and rescheduled his execution. He was allowed, being penitent of his Protestantism, to preach one last time.
But the sermon he preached begged forgiveness from God for being so weak as to deny him. He said that his right hand would burn first, that which had signed away his faith in the Word.
He was dragged from the pulpit to the pyre and burned.
He shouted out: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."
Then, true to his word, he thrust his hand into the flames and watched it wither away.Thus, all idolatry and cowardice cut away by the Word, he died a left-handed man.
That's the end of my story remix. I told you so that you may know how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed on God's glory.
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