Judges 4:21

_THEN JAEL HEBER'S WIFE TOOK A NAIL OF THE TENT, AND TOOK AN HAMMER IN HER HAND, 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._ Then Jael ... took a nail of the tent - a wooden or iron pin-most probably one of the pins, about a foot long and sharp at one end, with which the tent ropes are fastened to the ground. Escape was almost impossible for Sisera. But the taking of his life by the hand of Jael was deliberate murder. It was a direct violation of all the notions of honour and friendship that are usually held sacred among pastoral people, and for which it is impossible to conceive a woman in Jael's circumstances to have had any motive, except that of gaining favour with the victors. Though predicted by Deborah, the act was the result of divine foreknowledge, not of divine appointment or san...

17-24 Sisera's chariots had been his pride and his confidence. Thus are those disappointed who rest on the creature; like a broken reed, it not only breaks under them, but pierces them with many sorrows. The idol may quickly become a burden, Isaiah 46:1; what we were sick for, God can make us sick of. It is probable that Jael really intended kindness to Sisera; but by a Divine impulse she was afterwards led to consider him as the determined enemy of the Lord and of his people, and to destroy him. All our connexions with God's enemies must be broken off, if we would have the Lord for our God, and his people for our people. He that had thought to have destroyed Israel with his many iron chariots, is himself destroyed with one iron nail. Thus the weak things of the world confound the mighty. The Israelites would have prevented much mischief, if they had sooner destroyed the Canaanites, as...

Verse Judges 4:21. _A NAIL OF THE TENT_] One of the spikes by which they fasten to the ground the cords which are attached to the cloth or covering. _HE WAS FAST ASLEEP AND WEARY._] As he lay on one side, and was overwhelmed with sleep through the heat and fatigues of the day, the piercing of his temples must have in a moment put him past resistance....

If we can overlook the treachery and violence which belonged to the morals of the age and country, and bear in mind Jael’s ardent sympathies with the oppressed people of God, her faith in the right of Israel to possess the land in which they were now slaves, her zeal for the glory of Yahweh as against the gods of Canaan, and the heroic courage and firmness with which she executed her deadly purpose, we shall be ready to yield to her the praise which is her due. See Judges 3:30 note....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 4:2 SOLD THEM. See Judges 2:14, note. JABIN KING OF HAZOR. The exact site of _Hazor_ has not been identified with certainty, but it is conjectured by Robinson, with great probability, to have stood on the Tell now called _Khuraibeh_, overlooking the waters of Merom (now called Lake Huleh), where are remains of a sepulchre, Cyclopean walls, and other buildings. In Joshua 11:1 we read of the total destruction by fire of Hazor, and of the slaughter of Jabin, the king thereof, with all the inhabitants of the city, and of the slaughter of all the confederate kings, and the capture of their cities; Hazor, however, "the head of all those k

THEN JAEL, HEBER'S WIFE, TOOK A NAIL OF THE TENT,.... When she perceived he was fast asleep, and it being now put into her heart to kill him, having an impulse upon her spirit, which she was persuaded, by the effect it had upon her, that it was of God; not filling her with malice and revenge, but a concern for the glory of God, the interest of religion, and the good of Israel, she took this method to effect the death of this enemy of God, and his people; having no arms in the house, for the Kenites used none, she took up an iron pin, with which her tent was fastened to the ground: AND TOOK A HAMMER IN HER HAND; which perhaps she knew full well how to handle, being used to drive the pins of the tents into the ground with it: AND WENT SOFTLY UNTO HIM; lest she should awake him AND SMOTE THE NAIL INTO HIS TEMPLES: as he lay on one side, these being the tenderest part of the head, from wh...

3. THIRD DECLENSION: UNDER JABIN, DEBORAH, AND BARAK CHAPTER 4 _ 1. Sold into the hand of Jabin (Judges 4:1)_ 2. The cry of the children of Israel (Judges 4:3) 3. Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:4) 4. The conflict and Jael's deed (Judges 4:12) Ehud the mighty instrument of Jehovah had died, and again the children of Israel lapsed into evil. Then the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, King of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor. His captain was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. A powerful oppressor he was, for this King had nine hundred chariots of iron and oppressed Israel twenty years. About one hundr

THE BATTLE OF THE KISHON AND THE DEATH OF SISERA. The Galilean highlanders rushed like a torrent down the slope of Mt. Tabor, and swept the enemy before them. When Sisera left his chariot and fled on foot (Judges 4:15), he made westward for Harosheth. The tent of Jael was pitched somewhere in the Great Plain, not (as Judges 4:11; Judges 4:17 would imply) away north in the neighbourhood of Kedesh or Hazor. The account of Sisera's death given in this chapter differs materially from the representation in the triumphal Ode. Jael covers him with a rug, or perhaps the word (which is found only here) means a tent curtain; she opens her milk-skin, and bids him drink; she apparently agrees to stand at the tent door and put his pursuers off the

NAIL OF THE TENT. a tent peg. Constantly tents are taken down and put up by the women to the present day. SO HE DIED. The first often recorded deaths at the hands of women: Sisera (Judges 4:21); Abimelech (Judges 9:53; 2 Samuel 11:21); Sheba (2 Samuel 20:22); the harlot's child (1 Kings 3:19); prophets (1 Kings 18:4); Naboth (1 Kings 21:9;...

_a tent-pin_ a wooden peg, used for fastening the ropes, and driven in with THE MALLET, both of them instruments which Bedouin women are accustomed to use. _and it pierced through_ AND IT DESCENDED; the verb only again in Judges 1:14; Joshua 15:18, where it means _alight, descend from_. _for he was in a deep sleep; so he swooned and died_ The word for _swooned_is uncertain. With a slight change, but following the Hebr. accents, AV. reads -for he was in a deep sleep _and weary; so he died_." This makes smoother grammar. In Judges 5:26-27 Jael murders Sisera while he is standing and drinking out of the bowl. Some have explained the different account given here as due to a misu