JAEL: HOSTESS ASSASSIN

When we first meet Jael she is greeting an unexpected visitor outside her tent. She barely recognizes him, but invites him in anyway.

His name is Sisera, and he’s a Canaanite General who has been oppressing nearby Hebrews for the past twenty years. But not today. Today, they are fighting back, and Sisera’s troops are losing the battle.

What battle, you ask? The one we learned about yesterday; the one being fought by Deborah and Barak near the Wadi Kishon (now the Kishon River).

Sidenote: A wadi is a dry riverbed or valley that only fills with water during periods of heavy rainfall or flash flooding. Wadis are commonly found in arid or semi-arid regions, particularly in the Middle East. When it rains, water rushes down the wadi, creating a temporary stream or river that can be quite powerful.

Taking 900 iron chariots into a wadi makes sense in the dry season, but not if rain is in the forecast. Unfortunately for Sisera and his army, the battle takes place on a rainy day.

"The torrent Kishon swept them away,

the onrushing torrent, the torrent Kishon."

Judges 5:21 (NRSV)

Sisera finds his way to Jael's neighborhood. He is bloody, exhausted, afraid, and completely out of breath due to his fleeing a battle on foot. (Yes, the general fled the battle and left his troops to die.)

Recognizing his situation and sensing his desperation, Jael invites him to find safety inside her tent. Sisera trusts her because his boss, the king of Canaan, has peaceful relations with her husband’s clan.

She assures him there is nothing to fear so he follows her lead, and she covers him with a rug. Once he’s safely hidden, the worn out warrior requests a drink of water; the gracious host provides milk 🥛 instead. Sisera then orders her to respond a certain way should anyone come looking for him, and he falls asleep.

The Jewish Women’s Archive makes an interesting observation that Jael is "mothering" Sisera. Since his own mother is at home waiting for his triumphant return from battle (Judges 5:28-30), Jael steps into the role “promising no harm will come to him, giving him milk, and tucking him in.” And, like a good little boy, he falls fast asleep.

The general assumes the covers are intended to hide him from his pursuers and he falls fast asleep. But he is wrong. The rug actually provides the perfect cover for Jael who is executing her own plan—and him.

Once the general is asleep, Jael reaches not for a mortar and pestle but for a tent peg and hammer. 🔨

“But Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, until it went down into the ground —he was lying fast asleep from weariness—and he died.”

Judges 4:21

Once again, in this story, we see traditional gender roles flipped on their head.

Usually, when an embattled general enters a woman’s tent, we fear for the woman. But here, the man acts like a little boy dependent on a mother’s protection; and the woman acts like a warrior by driving a tent peg through his temple, penetrating his skull, and pinning him to the ground.

When Barak arrives at Jael’s tent in pursuit of Sisera, he is surprised to learn that he is already dead. Jael reveals the general’s location to him, he witnesses the fulfillment of Deborah’s prophecy: Sisera would be delivered into the hands of a woman (Judges 4:9).

Jael is memorialized in "The Song of Deborah" (Judges 5:24-27):

"Most blessed of women be Jael,

the wife of Heber the Kenite,

of tent-dwelling women most blessed.

He asked for water and she gave him milk;

she brought him curds in a noble's bowl.

She sent her hand to the tent peg and

her right hand to the workmen's mallet;

she struck Sisera;

she crushed his head;

she shattered and pierced his temple.

Between her feet

he sank, he fell, he lay still;

between her feet he sank, he fell;

where he sank,

there he fell—dead."

You can read Jael's story in Judges 4:17-23 (prose) and Judges 5:24-30 (poetry). 

Additional Resources:

• "Yael: Bible" in the The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (Online). Jewish Women’s Archive.

• All the Women of the Bible by Edith Deen

Photo Credits:

Photo by Art House Studio on Pexels.

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