Over Judges 3:24–25, three times the word behold
is used: The servants came, and they saw, and behold, the doors of the chamber were locked…. And they waited till they were embarrassed. But behold, when he still did not open the doors…and behold there lay their lord dead on the floor.
This repeated usage reveals the enjoyment of the narrator in telling the story. It also marks the servants’ “transition from confused paralysis to action, and from ignorance to knowledge: It was clear that no one was going to open the door, and when they had done so themselves and gone in, there was their lord – fallen, dead.”1
25 And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord dead on the floor.