We are easing back into Judges, which contains, as I wrote a few days ago, a number of “cycles:”

• Sin
• Servitude (under a foreign power)
• Supplication (prayer for deliverance)
• Salvation (through a Judge – the savior)
• Serenity (e.g., “The land had peace for 40 years.”)

Repeating cycles, however, does NOT mean Judges is repetitive. Far from it. The particulars of each cycle are very different. For example, Othniel’s cycle gets five verses: Judges 3.7 – 11. Gideon gets three chapters. Deborah, whom we’ll look at the next two days, gets a chapter for the battle and a chapter for the song about the battle, both of which feature a lady driving a tent peg through someone’s head!

For Ehud, Judge #2, we don’t have any details of the battle, only that Ehud, described as left-handed, killed Eglon, Moab’s king, in a private meeting:

Ehud approached him—the king was now quite alone in his cool rooftop room—and said, “I have a word of God for you.” Eglon stood up from his throne. Ehud reached with his left hand and took his sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s big belly. Not only the blade but the hilt went in. The fat closed in over it so he couldn’t pull it out. Ehud slipped out by way of the porch and shut and locked the doors of the rooftop room behind him. (Judges 3.20 – 23, MSG)

The point is, that God rarely works the same way twice.

I knew a man who had a profound experience with God while playing the part of a soldier at the foot of the cross at the church’s passion play. Every year after that he played that same part, expecting the same experience, which never came again.

I observed this principle in Paul’s ministry a couple of years ago.

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? (Isaiah 43.18 – 19, MSG)