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1And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD after Ehud died. 2And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.
4Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, "Has not the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded you, 'Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. 7And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand'?" 8Barak said to her, "If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go." 9And she said, "I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh. 10And Barak called out Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. And 10,000 men went up at his heels, and Deborah went up with him.
11Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.
12When Sisera was told that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon. 14And Deborah said to Barak, "Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the LORD go out before you?" So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. 15And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. 16And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.
17But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. 18And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, "Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me; do not be afraid." So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. 19And he said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty." So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. 20And he said to her, "Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, 'Is anyone here?' say, 'No.'" 21But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. 22And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking." So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple.
23So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel. 24And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.
Jael is the woman of which Deborah's prophetic word to Barak had spoken. 4:9 predicted that Jabin's five-star general would be sold into the hands of a woman. His assassination by Jael forms the climactic scene in this story.
For its treachery, brutality, and the element of surprise, 4:17-22 is unrivaled in the book of Judges. The episode begins innocently enough. In his flight Sisera heads for the tent of Jael, wife of Heber, who had entered into an alliance with the Canaanites. So, by all political and ethical standards of the Ancient Near East Sisera should have found shelter here. But not so.
Upon entering the tent, Sisera was covered with a blanket. He asked for a little water, and she gave him sleep-inducing milk. Jael here acts like a mother, and the mighty warrior is turned into a little baby, tucked into bed for the night and hiding from the monsters that threaten him. If there came any inquirers, asking whether Jael had seen a man, the answer was to be—ironically—"No!," implying that Sisera's manhood is reduced to infancy. The great warrior tucked in like a helpless little baby! You don't say!
Several interesting details connect this story with the assassination of Eglon, not the least that both turn on deceit and betrayal and are carried out through the act of "thrusting" (sword and peg disappear). But the most overt one is that both enemies of Israel die a humiliating, ignominious death. Eglon wallows in his own poop, and Sisera dies without a fight at the hand of a woman—in the Ancient Near East, this was considered the ultimate disgrace for a warrior. But again, the reader is to see Yahweh as the real victor, whose sovereign power accomplishes his purpose through whatever means he deems right. God uses small people to demolish the great.
Barak's honor in the story is elusive because he does not honor God by trusting in him. Instead, Sisera is sold into the hand of a foreign woman whose husband is an ally of the enemy. What did Barak see when Jael led him into the tent to look upon the mighty Sisera killed with a peg in his temple? I could imagine that he said to himself: "Is this the leader of the army that I was so afraid to face in battle? Look what God has done to him!"
So, again, we see the wonderful, surprising ways of God. He is resourceful, and we cannot predict him. God delivered Israel through Ehud's left hand. Here it is the hand of a foreign woman. And if Barak is not willing to obey God's call on God's terms, he raises up another vessel, another instrument, even less likely than Barak thought of himself, when he looked at his own inadequacy in light of what only seemed to be a daunting task. For with God nothing shall be impossible. This is what Barak finally came to see.
The author of these devotionals, the Rev. Martin Emmrich, is an ordained OPC minister (Westminster OPC, Corvallis, Oregon) as well as the author of Pneumatological Concepts in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book on the teaching of Hebrews on the Holy Spirit. We are happy to make these devotionals on Ecclesiastes and other passages of Scripture available to you.
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