Commentaria in Judices
But St. Jerome and the Septuagint, both here and chap. 20, verse 16, constantly render ambidextrous, who are certainly to be believed more. Ambidextrous, then, is said to mean shut, that is, hedged, enclosed and girt as to the right hand; because using both hands as the right, on every side, on both sides, he is girt and protected as it were by a right hand defending him. Hence St. Jerome renders that of Psalm 68:16: “Neither let the pit shut its mouth upon me,” as: Let not the pit crown its mouth over me; for the mouth of a round well, when it is covered with a circular lid, is as it were crowned by it, so that the Hebrew atar, with aleph, is akin and cognate to atar, with ain, that is, he crowned; but the Chaldee, and from it Marinus, render the contrary: Let not the pit open its mouth over me, that is, to swallow me up. So in this place, according to them, he is called open as to the right hand who has his right hand open and ready on both sides, such as that true ambidextrous doctor of the Gentiles testifies himself to have been, saying: “For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content therewith. I know both how to be brought low, and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me.”
16. WHO MADE HIMSELF A TWO-EDGED SWORD.—In Hebrew, having two mouths, that is two edges, which the Septuagint call distomon, that is, sharp on both sides, so that it could cut on both sides. What kind this was I shall now say.
HAVING A HAFT IN THE MIDDLE.—The Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint have nothing of this haft, yet St. Jerome neither feigned it nor added it rashly; but, as Abulensis shrewdly observes, he saw this included in the “two-edged,” or of two mouths, that is, edges. For this sword or dagger had two edges or points, that he could strike the king on either side however he sat; for he wished to strike him not openly and by a cut, but secretly and by a thrust, so that he could not avoid the act. Wherefore it was necessary that this sword should have a haft in the middle, by which on either side, if need were, with its edge and point he might pierce and run through the king.
Otherwise Serarius: This sword, he says, was broader, and in the middle of this breadth was the haft, namely at the end of the length, as it is wont to be otherwise: but if it was broader, it was therefore for cutting, whereas this was for thrusting: it was therefore narrower, and sharp like a spear-point and dagger. Hence our Vulgate, verse 21, calls it a dagger (sica), from which assassins (sicarii) are named. This was therefore a new species and form of sword, that is, of a little sword or dagger, and therefore perhaps Aod himself was a smith, and made it for himself. So the Roman general Marius was a smith; whence, when he was being slain in an ambush, the slayer said: “This is the sword which you yourself made,” as Trebellius Pollio relates in his book On the Thirty Tyrants, chap. 7.
OF THE LENGTH OF A PALM.—He refers this not to the haft, but to the sword, as is plain from the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. By palm understand the span (spithama), as the Septuagint render; otherwise the palm is properly a small measure of four fingers placed across, while the span is the space which lies between the thumb and the last finger when the hand is stretched out, and contains twelve fingers across. In Hebrew it is gomed, which Hebraists everywhere render cubit. Hence the Pygmies are called gammadim, that is, cubit-men, Ezech. 27:11. A cubit is a foot and a half, containing twenty-four fingers, or two spans: wherefore this must be understood of the smaller cubit, which equals a span, and contains twelve fingers. So Serarius: but as the fingers of old were larger than the moderns’, so also the spans: unless someone say that palm is here taken not as simple but as double; for this equals a cubit, and little swords or daggers are wont to be of a cubit, otherwise they are knives rather than swords.
AND WAS GIRDED WITH IT UNDER HIS GARMENT (this is the garment of soldiers) ON THE RIGHT THIGH,—both to hide the sword or little sword and the contrivance of slaughter: for we are wont to be girded with a sword at the left thigh, not the right, and also that he might more easily draw it with the left hand, with which he was to strike the unwary king.
17. NOW EGLON WAS EXCEEDING FAT,—like a calf; for Eglon in Hebrew signifies a calf. He says this to signify that he was oppressed and suffocated by his much fat, as is explained in verse 22. The Septuagint render asteios, that is, festive, because fat men are wont to be festive, merry and jovial. Perhaps for asteios the Septuagint rendered pacheia, that is, fat, corpulent, or bareia, that is, heavy, weighty. See here how the glutton is hurt by his gluttony; for gluttony slew the gluttonous and corpulent Eglon. For the corpulent man can neither withdraw himself from the blow nor ward it off, and is suffocated by the stroke through his own fat: but the lean man by his slenderness and agility can avoid or break the blow, and if hurt is easily cured. Moreover, as St. Jerome says, epist. 2 to Nepotian: “It is finely said among the Greeks, and I know not whether it sounds equally among us: A fat belly does not beget a fine mind.” To these the prophet Amos says, chap. 4, verse 1: “Hear this word, ye fat kine that are in the mountain of Samaria, you that oppress the poor, and crush the needy; who say to your masters: Bring, and we will drink.” Of these Moses, Deut. 32:15: “The beloved grew fat and kicked: he grew fat, and thick, and gross, he forsook God who made him, and departed from God his saviour.”
19. AND RETURNING FROM GALGAL, WHERE THE IDOLS WERE.—Aod, after offering the presents to King Eglon, to cover the deed, departed from him and the royal court with his companions, and accompanied them as far as Galgal, thence returned alone to the king; and this both that he might alone undergo the risk of life and deliver his companions from it; and that the slaughter might be more secret and less liable to suspicion; which it would not have been if he had attempted it immediately after offering the presents, says Abulensis. Hence the ambassadors of the Caesar and of Kings to the Turk, while they offer him presents, are led by the Pashas under the show of honour, and so held fast, that they cannot draw sword or iron and strike the Turk: so fearful is the tyrant, and fears even what is safe.
FROM GALGAL WHERE THE IDOLS WERE.—Masius, as I said in the book of Josue, thinks this Galgal to be different from the Galgal in which the children of Israel were circumcised, Josue 5, because there were no idols there. It may be said, however, that these were placed there by the Moabites, both to profane Galgal and the circumcision of the Jews, and that they themselves might there invoke their gods to subdue the promised land to them (for Galgal was at its entrance); and that they might compel the Jews to be initiated into their idolatrous rites in the very place where formerly their fathers had been initiated into the Jewish rites.
I HAVE A SECRET MESSAGE TO THEE, O KING.—He feigns that he has an oracle received from God or the gods in Galgal to be carried to the king, or at least some secret learned by himself on the way, which was to be made known to the king; he lies, therefore, but in olden times in such a case and necessity not only the common people but Philosophers and Theologians thought it lawful to lie, as I have often already warned. St. Augustine, however, excuses Aod from falsehood, because by “word” he understood “deed” by a Hebrew phrase, as if to say: I have what I shall say to thee, that is, I shall do, namely that I may slay thee; for this God suggests to me and commands. He speaks so that the king may think an oracle of his idols from Galgal is brought him by Aod, and so rise, and approach to show reverence to the word of God, that standing he might run through a man standing and near in the utmost silence.
Anastasius of Nicaea, Question 71 on Holy Scripture, teaches that it is lawful at times to use artful simulation, not however a lie, and he proves this by the examples of the Saints. “Let the first example,” he says, “be Moses; since by God’s command he pretended before the king that he would lead the people away a journey of three days to worship God,” Exod. 3:18, and Exod. 5:3. “Although his purpose was wholly to free the Israelite people and lead them out of Egypt into Judea. Such also is what he did who was sent by God to anoint David king, to pretend that he was about to sacrifice, lest Saul should know that he was setting up a king in his place, and lest danger should come to Samuel,” 1 Kings 16:1. And a little after, other examples having been recalled: “Now indeed, to take just vengeance on enemies, stratagems have often been approved; of which kind was Aod, who by God’s impulse slew Eglon, and by it rather killed the enemy; and Jahel, who slew Sisara; and Judith, who slew Holofernes. On account of these stratagems, therefore, the Saints are not to be called liars, but wise indeed to good, and innocent to evil.” And St. Thomas, IIa IIae, Question 111, art. 4, wills nothing else, saying that all dissimulation is sin; because he speaks of that simulation which, from the intention of the dissembler himself, signifies something false, not of that which is wrested to signify a falsehood only by the understanding of the hearers.