Judges 3:23

THE ESCAPE OF EHUD AND THE DISCOVERY OF EGLON'S BODY

"Then Ehud went forth into the porch and shut the doors of the upper room upon him and locked them. And when he was gone out his servants came; and they saw, and behold, the doors of the upper room were locked; and they said, Surely he is covering his feet in the upper chamber. And they tarried till they were ashamed; and, behold, he opened not the doors of the upper room: therefore they took the key, and opened them; and, behold, their lord was fallen down dead on the earth."

Exactly how Ehud could lock the doors of the upper room upon the dead king's body and leave the audience chamber through "the porch" is impossible of explanation without a diagram of the location where this happened. Perhaps the doors were of a type that could be locked as one left the room. That is, when set to do so, the doors might have locked automatically. It may be that Ehud carefully locked the doors and left through some secondary entrance which was not used by the servants. At any rate, the servants knew when Ehud left, and finding the doors locked, they supposed the king himself had locked them. Our guess is that there was some automatic device (similar to the common night-latch) by which Ehud locked the doors as he left, the porch being crossed after he passed through the locked doors.

"He is covering his feet in the upper chamber" (Judges 3:24). Another rendition of this is, "He is relieving himself in the upper chamber,"[23] which is a euphemism for using the bathroom. The other rendition suggests that the king might have been taking a nap.