I mentioned in my sermon last week that the best way to understand the story of Ehud in Judges 3 is as a comedy. This is not to say that the story is fictional or that elements of it have been invented or added by the author. There is no indication that the account is anything but truthful. However, the same factual story can be told in multiple different ways.
A few years ago, there was a trend on YouTube in which editors created new trailers for old comedies like Dumb and Dumber or Happy Gilmore. The twist was that the trailers were edited so that the movies appeared to be thrillers or horror films. No new dialogue or material was added (other than eerie music layered over the trailer), but certain scenes and shots were decontextualized so that they seemed ominous instead of comedic. Here is an example, Elf as a thriller:
As you can see, you can tell the same story, but depending on the tone and the inclusion or exclusion of certain elements, the audience can receive it very differently.
My point is that the story of Ehud has been told as a comedy, and this is a deliberate decision by the author. In his 1974 article, “Humor and Cuneiform Literature,” Benjamin Foster identifies several features common to comedy in the Ancient Near East. Although his primary focus is on Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian texts—which are somewhat older than the book of Judges—much of what he says about comedy would have applied to the literature of the whole region, even several hundred years later. What are some of these features?
First, there is the figure of the pompous or arrogant man who is humiliated—generally by someone of lower status. In a rigidly stratified society, you can see why this would appeal. The pompous man is “hoisted by his own petard”—his arrogance leads him into decisions, often encouraged by the protagonist, that result in his downfall.
Another feature is the trickster. Sometimes this figure is divine or semi-divine, but it can also be human. The trickster is usually the protagonist (or co-protagonist) and introduces an element of chaos into the story. He is willing to break social conventions and taboos and becomes the means by which the pompous man is humiliated.
Another common feature is bawdy, sexual, or scatological humor (or all three). Some elements of comedy are universal—the jokes are not much more complicated than the crude humor of modern comedies. Drunkenness, humiliation through sexual desire (as when the pompous man is made a fool by a beautiful suitor), bodily functions or sounds—all these are common in ancient comedy.
As we saw on Sunday, Ehud’s story shares these elements. Ehud is left-handed, marking him as an unconventional and subversive figure from the beginning. His plan to deliver Israel from oppression is devious, involving a concealed sword, misleading messages, and strategic misunderstandings. It stands in marked contrast to the previous judge, Othniel, who simply united the people and led them into battle. Although Ehud will do that later, his story begins with a secret plan.
Eglon, on the other hand, is clearly the pompous man ripe for humiliation. The success of his alliance and his long reign have made him both powerful and self-satisfied. The Hebrew text emphasizes his great size, highlighting the grotesque and excessive aspects of his character—his appetites and indulgences ultimately contributing to his downfall. His death is filled with absurdities and humiliations: the knife disappearing entirely into his body, his bowels loosening at death, and the hesitancy of his servants to open the doors because they assume he is relieving himself. It is certainly rough and bawdy humor, but it is unmistakably comedy.
This raises the question: why present Ehud’s story as a comedy?
First—and perhaps most obviously—because, to some extent, it simply is one. This may be the most natural way to present the story as it happened. The author is giving us history, and telling it differently would have required smoothing over or minimizing the most vivid details. It would be possible to narrate Ehud’s story in the same brief, straightforward way as Othniel’s. Othniel’s account contains almost no detail beyond his uniting the people and defeating the oppressors. Ehud’s story could have been told that way. But if you include its most memorable elements, it very quickly becomes comedic.
Second, telling it as a comedy serves the literary structure of the book. There are several features that connect Ehud to Jephthah and help establish the chiasm—most notably that both military leaders employ the identical strategy of seizing the fords of the Jordan. The contrast between comedy and tragedy is striking and elegant, linking Ehud’s story with Jephthah’s in a deliberate way.
Third, although Ehud is clearly portrayed positively—his military victory is decisive and the period of peace that follows is long—the degradation of the nation seems to begin here. Othniel’s story serves as the model. Ehud begins to depart from that pattern, even if only in tone. The movement toward comedy may seem harmless, but it signals a subtle shift. It anticipates the downward trajectory of the book as a whole, reflecting the increasingly degraded condition of the nation in the absence of a king.