Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 3:22

"and the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, for he drew not the sword out of his body; and it came out behind." — Judges 3:22 (ASV)

The haft also went in after the blade. —The tremendous violence of the blow marks the resoluteness of character that Ehud shows throughout. The Hebrew for “blade” is “flame,” as the Septuagint here renders it. It is as though the vivid narrator would make us see the flash of the dagger before it is buried, hilt and all, in the huge body. So in Nahum 3:3 we have, The horseman lifteth up the flame of the sword and the lightning of the spear. The only other passage where the word occurs is to describe the polished head of the spear of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:7).

So that he could not draw the dagger out. —Thus he had disarmed himself by the force of his own blow; but the original only says, for he did not draw the dagger out.

And the dirt came out. —The meaning of this clause is extremely doubtful, because the Hebrew word rendered “dirt” (parsedonah) occurs here and only here.

Several interpretations have been proposed:

1. Our English Version follows the Chaldee and the Vulgate for its main rendering (namely, “the dirt came out”).
2. An alternative rendering, found in the English Version’s marginal note and supported by Gesenius, is “it came out at the fundament.”
3. Some Jewish commentators, such as those mentioned in Rabbi Tanchum’s commentary, reflecting their own uncertainty about the meaning, understood it as “he (Ehud) ran out into the gallery.”
4. A fourth interpretation, from the Syriac version, is “he went out hastily.”

The Septuagint omits the clause altogether, either because its translators thought they were consulting propriety—a tendency they constantly show—or because they could not rightly explain it.

The resemblance of the word parsedonah to the word misderônah (“porch”), found in the next clause of the biblical text, certainly favors an interpretation relating to some part of the house. Ewald renders it, “he rushed out into the gallery,” which runs round the roof, referring to Ezekiel 42:5.

To understand the term more exactly, we would need to know the structure of the house. Following the analogy of other Eastern houses, as described by Shaw, it seems that Eglon’s alijah was a separate building (domation, Josephus), or part of a building. This structure had one door opening onto a balcony and another onto a private staircase and closet (Judges 3:24). It was an inner room, and its outer door communicated with the main house.