The Women of the Bible Speak--Judges 5:24-26
Day 8
I’ve looked at the story of Jael before (as part of a series of reflections on the word “traveler” when Karen and I visited Portugal) and I was shocked then at the graphic violence.
I’m still a little amazed.
Sisera, King Jabin’s losing general in the battle against Deborah and Barak’s 10,000 strong army, gets his head tent pegged to the ground, his skull crushed by Jael.
A fitting exclamation point to the battle!
Not only is Sisera’s death foretold by Deborah in Judges 4:9 (“...the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.”), and described in verse 21 (“ But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand, and went secretly to him and drove the peg into his temple…”), but, the event was so important to Jewish freedom that Deborah memorializes the murder in song:
Judges 5:24-26 “Most blessed of women is Jael, The wife of Heber the Kenite; Most blessed is she of women in the tent. 25 He asked for water, she gave him milk; In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds. 26 She reached out her hand for the tent peg, And her right hand for the workmen’s hammer. Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head; And she shattered and pierced his temple.
Shannon Bream describes this memorialization (while throwing shade at Barak for being indecisive) in The Women of the Bible Speak: The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today:
“In the Song of Deborah, Jael is given a hero’s treatment. She was the one who took decisive action when God put her in a place to act. She was proactive, in contrast to Barak’s initial reluctance.”
This whole chapter about Deborah and Jael just radiates with scorn for feckless and weak men–men, who by societal custom at the time–could pretty much do what they wanted with women.
History records Sisera’s death as a shameful one.
Klaas Spronk writes in Good Death and Bad Death:
“After defeat by the Israelites [Sisera] flees and is offered shelter in the tent by a woman named Jael. Like a mother she covers him with a blanket and gives him milk to drink. But when he is lying fast asleep from weariness Jael takes a tent peg and a hammer in her hand, goes softly to him and drives the peg into his temple, ‘until it went down into the ground’. A shameful death, by the hand of a woman who treated him as a child but murdered him as if he was an animal.”
Bested by a woman, a seemingly nurturing, mothering woman.
Shameful.
When I read and re-read these verses about Jael, I looked for the REASON Jael drove a spike into Sisera’s head when really she wasn’t part of the battle at all–in fact, her tribe, the Kenites, were allied with King Jabin and Sisera.
There may be a very good reason–hidden in the subtext of the verses.
Some scholars believe Sisera raped Jael. Several times, in fact.
Where would such an accusation come from?
There is nothing that I could find in Chapter 4 or in the Song of Deborah and Barak in Chapter 5.
It’s all in the bowl of yogurt from verse 25.
…In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds.
Thalia Gur-Klein explains in Sexual Hospitality in the Hebrew Bible:
“Jael offered Sisera milk to drink, but butter in a basin reserved for hosting honourable guests for other purposes than feeding. Butter would denote erotic rubbing of man’s legs and perhaps genitals as a cultic preliminary of sexual hospitality, as the cultural template infers.”
That’s a lot of meaning packed into a bowl of yogurt–that’s not explicit in Scripture.
So, I don’t know what to think about WHY Jael tent-pegged Sisera, except that when she did, she fulfilled Deborah’s prophecy and served up a decisive victory to Israel.
I think women just get tired of men raping them.
And they strike back–with bloodlust.
In Blood On Their Hands, Robin Branch writes about Deborah and Jael:
“They focused their actions on the perpetrators of oppression and war, limited their actions to these aggressors and their allies, set their actions within a specific time limit, and (arguably because of these reasons) tempered their actions with mercy. In other words, these women and Israel in general did not seek war for war’s sake.”
Every single one of us has a little bit of that bloodlust in us, I think.
Bream agrees:
“In the battles He has set before us, God expects us to fight as Jael did, with the weapons we have. And He gives us plenty of them, weapons much stronger than the nine hundred chariots of iron that didn’t save Sisera, and his men.”
Fighting unconventionally is the message, I think–particularly in today’s society where to be an acknowledged Christian is akin to admitting you are pitiful and wrong for your beliefs.
Bream continues:
Sisera isn’t going to show up at our homes, but the enemy is–count on that. No, we won’t be picking up a tent peg, but we absolutely must arm ourselves with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and more. Most of us will never live anywhere near an earthly battlefield like Deborah or Jael, but we’re living on a spiritual one every day.”
So not necessarily a tent peg–but with our actions grounded in the Lord’s truths, His righteousness, His peace.
Our faith in Jesus Christ as a weapon to hold back the scourges of our modern society.
Bream concludes:
“In a very real sense, we are called to be modern-day warriors in the mold of Deborah and Jael. They didn’t model timidity and hesitation for us. Instead, they gave us an example of obedience and action.”
Whatever we do in a day to witness for Jesus Christ probably won’t be memorialized in song like Jael’s actions (and I seriously doubt we’ll have to tent peg an enemy today), but our actions reverberate into our world like the proverbial pebble thrown into a pond.
Somebody will see you. Somebody will hear you. Somebody will think about what you did or said.
Somebody will be comforted by your faith in the Lord.
And they will know that you will take up a tent peg, for them, if you must.
Lord, we pray for the strength and wisdom of Jael in our lives. May we be brave when faced with adversity, knowing that You will guide us in moments of decision.
Lord, grant us the courage to stand firm, the wisdom to discern Your will, and the strength to carry out what is just and right.
Amen.