Another Woman Who Refused to Cower in the Face of Danger

Last week my sermon’s title was: “Women Who Refuse to Cower in the Face of Danger.” I talked about the bravery of five Old Testament women, three of them named and two unnamed. 

I actually had prepared to talk about a sixth woman. But I had bitten off more than I could chew (as the old saying goes), and time simply got away from me. So I’ve decided to finish last week’s sermon by telling the sixth woman’s story in this blog post. Let’s start by describing the situation that called forth the bravery she demonstrated.

Because Jabin, the Canaanite king, “had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.” Granted that Jabin’s army, led by a man named Sisera, had “nine hundred chariots fitted with iron,” the Israelites felt helpless to stand up against him. It wasn’t the first time that surrounding nations had created major problems for the Israelites. Such treatment occurred with monotonous regularity.

As this story unfolds, Deborah, a female judge and prophet (who I’ll comment on in more detail at another time), was leading Israel. So she summoned a man named Barak, saying to him: “‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: “Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’’”

The biblical account continues: “So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword. . . .” The magnitude of the Israelite victory seems to have come as a surprise to both the victors and the vanquished, with the vanquished losing all semblance of organization and fleeing for their lives.

The Bible tells us that, Sisera, Jabin’s military commander, who had felt so invincible because of his 900 chariots, “got down from his chariot and fled on foot.” It was indeed a total rout of the Canaanite oppressors. And it’s at this point that we introduce the unlikely heroine of the story: Jael.

Jael was not an Israelite. She and her husband, Heber, were Kenites, descendants of Moses’s brother-in-law. The Kenites were a tent-dwelling, semi-nomadic tribe, and Jael and her husband happened to be living on the border between land occupied by the Israelites and that which was occupied by the Canaanites. In fact, Heber had made an alliance between his family and Jabin to ensure his family’s safety. But that was probably a pragmatic move more than an indication of where his loyalty, and Jael’s, actually lay. 

Since Sisera knew about the alliance between his king and this Kenite family, their tent seemed a natural place to go to when he found himself fleeing for his life. 

The book of Judges describes what happened next: “Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, ‘Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.’ So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

“‘I’m thirsty,’ he said. ‘Please give me some water.’ She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

“‘Stand in the doorway of the tent,’ he told her. ‘If someone comes by and asks you, “Is anyone in there?” say ‘No.’”

But Sisera wasn’t as welcome as Jael’s seeming hospitality had suggested. For we read: “But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.”

Allow me to interrupt the story for a moment of comparison and contrast with another famous Israelite story. 

In Jael and Sisera’s story, the Israelites were initially paralyzed with fear because of the Canaanites' 900 chariots of iron. 

In the story of David and Goliath, the Israelite army was quailing before a single giant protected by a massive suit of metal armor.

In the story of David and Goliath, David wisely chose not to engage in close-quarters combat. In fact, he had five stones that he could hurl at the giant, should his aim be off. And, at the very least, he knew he could outrun the lumbering behemoth, who was weighed down with a lot of both offensive and defensive gear. The giant had only one huge spear to throw, and the chance of it finding its mark at a substantial distance was relatively low.

Jael’s encounter with the enemy, on the other hand, was about as close-up and personal as an assault could be. If she didn’t get the nail driven deeply enough with the first hammer blow—or if her victim woke up and was able to resist—the chance of another hammer blow was highly unlikely. It was a do-or-die situation for her.

Both David and Jael had their period of gloating. David cut off Goliath’s head and he himself carried it as a trophy to be displayed back in Jerusalem. 

Jael was a little more subdued. “Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘I will show you the man you’re looking for.’ So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead.”

Both David and Jael had their killing of a national enemy immortalized by song. 

For David: “When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with timbrels and lyres. As they danced, they sang:

‘Saul has slain his thousands,

    and David his tens of thousands.’”

For Jael: The celebratory “Song of Deborah” commemorates the event by saying:

Most blessed of women be Jael,

    the wife of Heber the Kenite,

    most blessed of tent-dwelling women.

He asked for water, and she gave him milk;

    in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.

Her hand reached for the tent peg,

    her right hand for the workman’s hammer.

She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,

    she shattered and pierced his temple.

At her feet he sank,

    he fell; there he lay.

At her feet he sank, he fell;

    where he sank, there he fell—dead.

Certainly, it seems fair to describe Jael as a woman who refused to cower in the face of danger. But it strikes me that there’s one major difference between how today’s readers of the Bible react to these two stories. 

We celebrate David’s violence by telling the story to our children in church and perhaps even as a bedtime story. After all, we might argue, it was gore for a righteous cause. Many would say that David’s action rid the world of one of God’s enemies, and certainly one of the enemies of God’s people. 

But we seem to find it cringey that a woman would likewise engage in such violence—even if it too could be argued that it was for a righteous cause. We certainly don’t tell Jael’s story over and over in church. I doubt that many parents read it to their children as a bedtime story. And Jael certainly doesn’t have a place in most Christians’ pantheon of biblical heroes, whereas David typically heads the list. 

Why the difference in our response? Could it have something to do with Jael’s gender? Might there be a double standard? Even in today’s world? Or maybe especially in today’s world?

I’ll have to leave those questions and others for you to ponder—because I see I’ve gone beyond my allotted time, just as I did in my sermon last week. Sorry about that!

(You can read the detailed stories of Jael and David in Judges 4-5 and 1 Samuel 17-18, respectively.)