Sunday, November 16, 2008

How Embarrassing

Judges 3:18-25 (English Standard Version);

And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back(A) at the idols near Gilgal and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he commanded, "Silence." And all his attendants went out from his presence. And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out. Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them.

When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, "Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber." And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord dead on the floor.

3 comments:

Doc Bok said...

Is that where the expression, "speak softly but carry a big stick" came from? "One that is sharp and can be stuck into the belly of a dung-smuggler"?

If Ehud had just waited a few more minutes, he could have checked for dung with his dung-finding sword and found none. But no. Now everyone is embarrassed.

Thanks a lot, Ehud. Are you going back to Dung-Jesus with your report now? See any lima-beans or errant pieces of corn in the dung? I remember when dung collectors were more victims of vocational happenstance than aggressive, dung-sword wielding corporate ladder-climbers. Day after day of high dung-yields is sure to get anybody a promotion, if the right people are paying attention, but I can't help but feel that his methods are a form of cheating. It really betrays the iconic image of the village dung-collector, who is physically deformed, dirty, smelly, sporting the wrong number of chromosomes, drooling and singularly focused on his work.

This Ehud character, on the other hand, has an agenda. And it appears he has teamed up with Dung-Jesus as a means to an end. Boy, in this industry, I guess it's a brave new world. Dung-Jesus help us all.

litzi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
OneEar said...

I assume by "thumpers" you are referring to big bouncing breasts, in which case I agree. That is all that is missing.