Sisera & Jael - Judges 4:11-24

Deborah and Barak are gathering their army to go defeat Sisera and the narrative makes a switch to talking about a Kenite family who was a relative of Moses’ father-in-law Jethro. This family in introduced and the main leader is the one who showed Sisera where the Israelites “was gone up to mount Tabor.” This shows a couple of things, first that Sisera and his army had left the secure compound that they were staying and were instead pursuing an enemy army up a mountain. Looking back at God’s command for Barak to take the army to Mt Tabor, it doesn’t make logical sense. If God gave a command, “go fight your enemy and you will win,” you would probably take your army to where that enemy was at to fight them, it wouldn’t be logical to go to a completely different place where your enemy wasn’t in order to fight them. So the command to go to a completely unrelated place and get ready to fight is illogical, but that’s where God works so much of the time, in the illogical. Barak obeyed God’s orders and sure enough, here comes the enemy. I guess it’s kind of like when Lamoni wants Ammon to go meet his father, but God tells Ammon to go to another town instead to free this companions and on the way to that city they run into Lamoni’s father anyway. God shows up right where He’s supposed to be, and hopefully if we listen, we’ll be there too.

Let’s get a lay of the land here beforehand. Barak, Deborah and the army are up on the mountain, Sisera and his army are at the bottom of the mountain, and like TB said yesterday, that is a very disadvantageous position strategically, Sisera probably wouldn’t have taken that position against any other opponent, except for Israel, and we have to assume that God intervened and convinced him that it was a good idea. Maybe it’s because Sisera still has his 900 iron chariots with him that he’s so confident, who knows the reason, but it’s interesting to consider. Deborah tells Barak, “Up; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the Lord gone out before thee?” Barak listens to the prophetess and goes, “down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.” Even though they had the high ground, it probably was still pretty intimidating descending onto those hundreds of iron chariots. I liken these iron chariots to tanks as a modern-day equivalent.

What’s important to note here, I think, is that it wasn’t until AFTER Barak begins his descent that God works his miracle because all it says is “the Lord discomforted Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.” I have to wonder what exactly happened to Sisera to make his start retreating before the first blow even fell because it says “with the edge of the sword before Barak.” I looked up what this phrase means and it says “Edge of the sword” is “a common biblical expression for a fierce military slaughter or total destruction in warfare.” The phrase “Before Barak” means “this highlights that the ultimate victory came from God rather than Barak’s own military strength. The phrasing means God threw the enemy into a panic and destroyed them in the presence of, or at the advance of, Barak.” I was thinking how this might have been accomplished and one of the thoughts that I had was something I heard about Elijah that I’m sure we’ll cover later, which is where there’s a enemy army surrounding them and the servant is afraid so Elijah asks God to open his eyes to see and he sees tons of angels ready to do battle for them. I’m sure that’s not exactly what happened but I wondered if something like that might have been in play here. Whatever happened, the scriptures are clear that it was God who was the put excess panic into Sisera’s heart and that of the rest of his army.

It seems, however, that chapter 5 goes over more detail about what exactly happens and an explanation from Biblefreference.com says, “The following chapter suggests a storm or flood swelled the Kishon River, sweeping some of the enemy away. That may have soaked the field into a muddy mess. This would have turned iron chariots from a battle advantage into immobile ornaments. In such a situation, Barak’s army could have quickly moved through the Canaanites and struck them down.” God using nature to accomplish his objectives, brilliant. This makes sense too because why would Sisera climb down off a chariot and run away on foot if it was still fully functional? Sisera’s whole army is freaked out, most likely stuck in the mud, and running away when the could and Barak’s army descends on them and kills EVERYONE. It seems like the only person who made it out alive was Sisera himself, which seems interesting. Again, let’s think out this scene, Sisera is at the head of his army I assume facing the mountain with all this troops behind him. Then when Barak’s army starts to descend, he starts running and somehow manages to outrun all the rest of his troops because it says that none were left alive, but Sisera runs away. It’s just an interesting dynamic to think about, like a renowned war general abandoning his troops to save his own skin, it seems so out of character and very opposite from what I encountered when I was in the army, or at least what was taught when I was in.

Sisera makes it all the way back to the camp of the Kenite that we met a few verses ago, the one related to Jethro, the one who gave him directions to find Barak in the first place. I would imagine that these people were Bedouins, and maybe were even close enough to see the battle from a distance. If they knew that one army was up on a mountain and another army was asking about where they were and left to go fight them, I bet the Kenites were at least curious about what was going on, they were most certainly fully aware that there was a major battle going on. So a survivor showing up at their camp probably was something that they expected or at least weren’t surprised by.

Jael was the wife of the clan leader and saw Sisera coming and went out to meet him. She told him to come into her tent and to not be afraid. This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, I assumed that because this clan was related to Jethro, that they would have been allied with Israel, but verse 17 tells us that that is not the case and in fact “there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.” So Sisera would have expected that these people would harbor him as he fled. Second, TB points out that anciently, especially in Bedouin culture, hospitality was the most important thing in the world. A traveler (Sisera) shows up and the leader’s wife gives him her own tent and covers him with a blanket. He asks for water, she gives him milk, he asks her to stand guard at the door and tell anyone looking for him that no one else is in there. TB points out that anciently, if Israelite soldiers showed up to Jael’s tent and she said that there was no one in there, the expectation would be that they would take her at her word and move on because for male soldiers to disbelieve a clan leader’s wife and then go in to her personal dwelling would have been seen as a great disrespect. Everyone knew that if Jael had said “no one else is in here,” they would have said cool and moved on.

Sisera falls asleep while Jael is guarding the door and while he’s asleep, she takes a hammer and a tent peg “and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” TB points out that this wouldn’t have been difficult for Jael because as Bedouins, when the clan moved it was the females responsibility to disassemble and reassemble the tents, so she would have been very skilled at driving tent pegs with a hammer. We don’t know much about Jael at this point, or what her motivations would have been to kill Sisera. There are several factors about why this action seems weird for her to do, her clan was allied with Sisera’s people, she recognized him and hid him somewhere that he thought was safe, and he was a guest in her camp, having a guest die while with you would have been a big deal and to be the cause of that death would have been even worse. I don’t know why she did it, maybe we’ll find out later. I always assumed that this clan was loyal to Israel and that Sisera was imposing by what he was asking but none of that seems to be the case here. I wonder if this is a case of God working in someone’s mind and convincing them to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise do. I mean, it would have to be, but I guess my question is, how long was God preparing Jael for this task? Was this even God’s will at all?

Let’s go back to when Deborah told Barak that he needs to go defeat Sisera, and Barak says “I’ll only go if you go with me,” and Deborah says “fine I’ll go with you, but because of that this victory will come from the hands of a woman.” I, and probably everyone else, assumed that that woman would be Deborah, but it appears that the woman was Jael, and that was the consequence of Barak being unwilling to go to battle with God alone. So from that standpoint, yes, this was God’s will, as a punishment for Barak. So then it goes back to, how long did God prepare Jael to go against so much her natural inclinations and kill Sisera? Was is just something He put into her head at the moment? And if so she must have been ready to receive that instruction. Was she slowly over previous years softened by the Spirit into believing in the God of Israel and therefore willing to betray what was socially expected of her in order to help Him in battle, like Rahab? It’s interesting to think about because it begs the question in our own lives, like what are we being prepared to do, and how much of the trials that we experience in this life prepare us for that. Like this incident with Jael happens in a matter of hours 2,500 years ago and is discussed for like 2 chapters, the impact on my life and the church in general from this event is minimal. But what if Jael had been prepared by God for decades before hand just for this one singular event? Like Abish, who’s family was secretly converted to the Lord for decades before hand for the singular event of being there and recognizing the Spirit when the missionaries showed up and the queen falls down. Decades of preparation for that one event. And it was probably more than that, she was probably a very effective leader in helping the people accept the gospel and transition into life living under Nephite protection, she was probably instrumental in that so her contribution to the cause was almost certainly not just a two verse thing. All of this is interesting to consider the amount of preparation that God puts in to people to accomplish His purposes, like it seems disproportionate, but then again, what do I know. Clearly the amount of preparation that goes in to preparing someone to carry out a specific task for God is immense, as illustrated by these discussed examples.

Sisera escapes to Jael’s tent faster than Barak but it appears that it’s not by much because as Barak pursued Sisera, “Jael came out to meet him,” and told him that she would take him to Sisera, and when they got to the tent, Sisera was dead. TB noted that not being able to kill Sisera himself would have been a great disservice to Barak, but he gave up that right when he requested Deborah go with him to battle, which looking back maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. After that whole army was defeated, almost as an after thought, it says that “So God subdued on that day Jabin the king od Canaan before the children of Israel. And the hand of the children of Israel prospered, and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Kabin the king of Canaan.” It seems that Barak did not stop at the defeat of Jabin’s army, but must have continued on to the city and defeated the king there. There isn’t a description of that battle or how they won or even how the king was killed, which usually there’s a lot of detail in that, but not here, and I’m not sure why.