Verses 12-14
In vv. 12-30 the subjugation of the Israelites by Eglon, the king of the Moabites, and their deliverance from this bondage, are circumstantially described. First of all, in Jdg 3:12-14, the subjugation. When the Israelites forsook the Lord again (in the place of וגו את־הרע ... ויּעשׂוּ, Jdg 3:7, we have here the appropriate expression ... הרע הרע לעשׂות, they added to do, i.e., did again, evil, etc., as in Jdg 4:1; Jdg 10:6; Jdg 13:1), the Lord made Eglon the king of the Moabites strong over Israel. על חזּק, to give a person strength to overcome or oppress another. כּי על, as in Deu 31:17, instead of the more usual אשׁר על (cf. Jer 4:28; Mal 2:14; Psa 139:14). Eglon allied himself with the Ammonites and Amalekites, those arch-foes of Israel, invaded the land, took the palm-city, i.e., Jericho (see at Jdg 1:16), and made the Israelites tributary for eighteen years. Sixty years had passed since Jericho had been burnt by Joshua. During that time the Israelites had rebuilt the ruined city, but they had not fortified it, on account of the curse pronounced by Joshua upon any one who should restore it as a fortress; so that the Moabites could easily conquer it, and using it as a base, reduce the Israelites to servitude.
Verse 15
But when the Israelites cried to the Lord for help, He set them free through the Benjaminite Ehud, whom He raised up as their deliverer. Ehud was “the son of Gera.” This probably means that he was a descendant of Gera, since Gera himself, according to 1Ch 8:3, was a son of Bela the son of Benjamin, and therefore was a grandson of Benjamin; and Shimei the contemporary of David, a man belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, is also called a son of Gera in 2Sa 16:5; 2Sa 19:17. At the same time, it is possible that the name Gera does not refer to the same person in these different passages, but that the name was repeated again and again in the same family. “A man shut with regard to his right hand,” i.e., hindered in the use of his right hand, not necessarily crippled, but in all probability disabled through want of use from his youth upwards. That the expression does not mean crippled, is confirmed by the fact that it is used again in connection with the 700 brave slingers in the army of the Benjaminites in Jdg 20:16, and it certainly cannot be supposed that they were all actual cripples. So much is certain, however, that it does not mean ἀμφοτεροδέξιος, qui utraque manu pro dextera utebatur (lxx,
