From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@WELLESLEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Jul 02 1998 - 14:43:09 EDT
May I add a footnote to the tale of Eglon's assassination by Ehud?
It is not at all clear in the story that it took place
"in the privy". Rather, it explicitly occurs in King Eglon's
"cool roof chamber" where his attendants are gathered round him--
--or, if I may cite my own 1950 _Book of the Judges of Israel_, Univ.
of Chicago Press: "his own cool upper room" which had an "antechamber",
which in turn had a key which could (and did) lock the door to the
king's "cool upper room". The matter of "privy" only arises because the
king's servants explain to themselves that the long delay in the king's
exit from the cool upper room must be due to his relieving himself there.
This may well only refer to a chamber-pot in the room.
Indoor plumbing was probably not readily available, in any case, to
ordinary citizens, even those listening to Jesus a millennium later.
Even most of my relatives did not have it when I was a boy (but WE did!).
(Please don't write to ask if I walked six miles through the snow every day
to attend school.)
Edward Hobbs
Wellesley
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