Jael – A Mistress of Hospitality
“Most blessed among women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed is she among women in tents. He asked for water, she gave him milk; she brought out cream in a lordly bowl.”
Here Jael is praised in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) and what strikes me is how she so easily disarmed Sisera and how he so easily underestimated her.
For we’re told “there was peace between Jabin King of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite” (Judges 4:17) and apparently Sisera couldn’t fathom that Jael would have thoughts and opinions of her own and who would recognize Jabin and his commander Sisera as enemies and not ones to make peace with, as had her husband.
And she played her part well as “the wife of Heber” and a “women in a tent” – unassuming, kind, non-threatening, hospitable. Who could possibly suspect her hidden motives? Certainly not Sisera. And intriguingly, it was her hospitality that disarmed him enough to let down his guard and trust her – the precursor to Sisera’s literal end as also recorded in the Song of Deborah:
She stretched her hand to the tent peg, her right hand to the workman’s hammer; she pounded Sisera, she pierced his head, she split and struck through his temple.
This was no light “maidenly” blow. Jael was well-versed with her chosen weapons, what she already and always had at hand, for this is how the Lord most often chooses to do a thing. And so Jael used the most unsuspecting of tool - her wit and her hospitality (as did Esther), before she picked up her most deadly tools to take down not just a man, but a man who commanded an army.
And Oh how God always uses the unsuspecting things, even what man would call the foolish things, to accomplish His purposes. And what disgrace Sisera would have born had he not lacked awareness. For if you recall, the evil man Abimelech requested his aid to thrust him through with a sword after a “certain woman” dropped a millstone on his head, saying, “lest men say of me, ‘a woman killed him.’”
And so it happened that a tent-dwelling woman struck the final blow for a defeat so sound that “the land had rest for forty years.”
And Judges 4 our offers further details and insight into Jael’s triumph over Sisera. For although Sisera was fleeing toward the tent of Jael, she didn’t wait for his approach and by implication his request or demand. She met him head on; she went out to meet him and gave the invitation- or was it an enticement? – “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside and do not fear.”
She begins her scheme by calling him Lord! How utterly brilliant! – the facade of respect for one’s enemy in order to scope out the enemy’s weak spot, to come in “under the radar” as it were. And then Jael continues her plot to make Jael feel safe:
And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. Then he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.”
And here’ Sisera’s weakness fully reveals itself; he’s tired from the battle, even exhausted. However, I’m intrigued by Sisera’s politeness, by his request rather than demand for water. But Jael one-ups him on politeness:
So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him.
And he said to her, “stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you and says, “Is any man here?” you shall say, ‘No.’”
Here we have hospitality at its finest – milk, not water as the ploy continues. And here Sisera makes his first command, but Jael is likely already forming her game plan; she needs no commands, and Sisera’s fatal mistake is expecting Jael will follow his game plan and keep watch for him. Jael however, allows Sisera to go to rest with his expectations and the trust she has easily gained from him. And this is the end of Sisera. He never knew what hit him. Literally. Because Jael wasn’t a solider, because also she was not a man, Sisera lays his guard down as he lays himself down. Never to rise again.
Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drive the tent peg into his , and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
“So he died” we are told matter-of-factly, almost anti-climactically. And Jael continues most matter-of-factly when Barak catches up in his pursuit of Sisera:
Come, I will show you the man whom you seek.”
No fanfare, no heroic speaking despite a feat most heroic. And thus what little we know of Jael concludes. We don’t even know if she was celebrated outside of the Song of Deborah, but we do know this: She is the only person recorded to have tent-pegged a man to his death. Additionally, we can’t even say she rose to the occasion when the situation presented itself -- Because she is the one who largely orchestrated the situation!
Long live the spirit of Jael! Women of strength – arise!
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heat greatly rejoices. Psalm 28:7