“He must be relieving himself”
Eglon's servants came in and found the doors of the upper room locked. 'He must be relieving himself in the cool room,' they said. (Judges 3:24 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A plain statement that the king was in the bathroom.
The cultural key
This grimly comic scene turns on a Hebrew euphemism and the awkwardness it creates. Ehud has just stabbed the obese king Eglon in his private upper chamber, locked the doors, and slipped away. When the servants find the doors locked, they assume, in the polite idiom of the day, that the king is 'covering his feet', the standard Hebrew euphemism for relieving oneself, so called because a squatting man's long robe covered his legs and feet. Out of deference and embarrassment, they will not intrude on the king at the toilet, so they wait, and wait, while Ehud makes his getaway. The narrator plays the delay for dark humor at the dead tyrant's expense: the mighty oppressor lies murdered while his servants stand outside politely assuming he is indisposed. A modern reader gets the plain sense but misses the wordplay and the comic timing; the first hearers heard the coy euphemism and savored the joke on Moab's king.
Recovered meaning
The servants assume the king is 'covering his feet,' the Hebrew euphemism for relieving oneself, and out of embarrassment wait outside while the assassin escapes. The euphemism sets up a scene of dark comedy at the dead tyrant's expense.