The rule of Othniel could not have lasted long. If he belonged to the generation which had witnessed the Exodus out of Egypt, he would have been already an old man at the time of the war with Chushan-rishathaim. Hardly was he dead before Israel was again under the yoke of an oppressor. Moab had recovered from its reverses at the hands of the Amorites and Israelites, the Reubenites had degenerated into mere Bedâwin squatters in the wadis of the Arnon,[297] and Eglon, the Moabite king, now prepared to possess himself of southern Canaan. Jericho was seized, or rather ‘the city of palm-trees’ which had succeeded to the Canaanitish Jericho, and the ford over the Jordan was therefore secure. Eglon was followed by bands of Amalekite Bedâwin, eager for spoil, like the Sutê who in the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence were hired by the rival princes of Canaan in their quarrels with one another. He was also allied with the Ammonites, from which we may infer that the Israelites north of the Arnon, between Moab and Ammon, had been either expelled or brought into subjection. The capture of Jericho opened the road to Mount Ephraim to Eglon as it had done a few years previously to Joshua. But the Israelites were treated more mercifully than Joshua had treated the Canaanites. Perhaps they lived in unwalled villages rather than in fortified towns, and their culture was not high enough to tempt an enemy with the prospect of a rich booty. At all events we hear of no massacres or burnt cities; the Israelites are laid under tribute, that is all. For eighteen years they served Eglon. Then Ehud, the Benjamite, who like so many of his tribe was left-handed,[298] was chosen to carry the yearly tribute to the conqueror. Eglon was encamped at Gilgal, in the very spot where the Israelitish camp had so long stood, and received the envoys in the upper story of his house, immediately under the roof. When the tribute-bearers had been dismissed, Ehud, who had gone as far as the sacred ‘circle’ of hallowed stones,[299] turned back with the excuse that he had a secret message for the king, which demanded the utmost privacy. Taking advantage of his solitude, Ehud seized his sword with his left hand and plunged it into the body of Eglon, then, locking the door of the room behind him, he escaped through the columned verandah. Before the murder was discovered he had made his way to Seirath, and gathered around him the Israelites of Mount Ephraim. The fords across the Jordan were occupied, and the flying Moabites slain at them to a man. It would seem that the Moabite ‘oppression’ did not extend beyond Mount Ephraim. Ephraim and Benjamin were the tribes who had suffered from it, and it was over them accordingly that Ehud was judge. His authority does not appear to have been recognised further to the north or to the south.