Wednesday • 7/31/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 12

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Judges 3:12-30; Acts 1:1-14; Matthew 27:45-54
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

The book of Judges chronicles an entire phase of Israel’s history that is marked by a certain kind of accommodation that the Lord makes to the persistence of Israel’s sin. In yesterday’s reading we saw the framework of this era. Israel has refused to carry out God’s ban against idols in the land—and so Yahweh says, “I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died” (Judges 2:21).

Israel remains, for now, a federation of tribes that is often subject to political domination and spiritual pollution. What we will see in the book of Judges is a “testing”: Israel’s pattern of idolatry and rebellion, leading to pillaging and subjugation by enemies, after which Israel would cry for deliverance. This would lead Yahweh to raise up a judge to “deliver them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge” (Judges 2:18). Israel’s history becomes a cycle of rebellion, domination, repentance, relief. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Today we read about Ehud the Left-Handed. Under (the morbidly obese) King Eglon, Moab had invaded Israel from the southeast of Israel and established domination in the area surrounding Jericho (“the city of palms” — Judges 3:13). For eighteen years, Moab has required from the Israelites the payment of a tribute, the price of being under subjection. (Interestingly, this term comes from the word “tribe”; and we also get the word “contribute” from this.)

After an outcry for relief from the Israelites, Yahweh raises up a man to free them from Moabite domination. An unlikely hero, the Israelite Ehud, from the tribe of Benjamin, is responsible for delivering the tribute to the king. Ironically, and key to this story, he is left-handed: the name Benjamin means “son of the right hand.” And in Hebrew culture, a left-handed man gets no respect: the Hebrew phrase describing left-handedness is a scornful “man restricted in his right hand.” Planning to assassinate the Moabite king, Ehud fashions for himself a two-edged dagger, ideal for stabbing and easily concealed. His left-handedness provides the advantage he needs. It allows him to hide his dagger on the side of his body where a weapon would not be expected or detected.

After he delivers the tribute, Ehud shares that Yahweh has a private message for King Eglon. Courtiers are excused from the king’s chamber, the doors are locked, and Ehud stabs him with his homemade dagger. King Eglon is so obese that when Ehud stabs him, the fat closes completely over the weapon, hilt and all, and the king’s “bowels discharged.” Ehud has time to escape because the king’s attendants are reluctant to enter the chamber, thinking the king might be having intestinal issues. There follows the account of Israel’s military victory under Ehud, and the eighty years of peace he is able to establish.

God’s “left-handedness.” With today’s account of Christ’s death in Matthew, I can’t help but reflect on the contrast between the way Christ’s being pierced on the cross ushered a new and different kind of deliverance—not a mere eighty years, but an eternity, of rest. Nor can I help but reflect on the comparison between Ehud’s left-handedness and the scorned “left-handedness” of God’s plan to conquer sin and death through a most unlikely hero: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him … a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:2-3). A hero who conquers through the most unlikely of means: the nakedness, the humiliation, the scandal of a Roman cross: “’Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani’? that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Psalm 22:1 and Matthew 27:46). And this question gets answered in the most unlikely of ways: First, Christ’s own “you have done it,” and second, the anticipation of Christ’s own resurrection, confirmed in the rising of “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep” (Matthew 27:52).

“You will receive power…” There is an end to the cycle of rebellion, domination, repentance, and relief. At last, a new “wash, rinse, repeat” emerges in the book of Acts (the reading of which we begin today). “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). There will be power from on high, proclamation, repentance & faith, baptism, discipleship. And there will be a new type of relationship, deep and intimate, between God and each one of his children—those of us who know and love our Savior, Jesus Christ. Stay tuned.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+