Jael, it must be acknowledged, is a somewhat awkward fit in a series on family life in the book of Judges.
Though clearly a striking personality, her robust approach to hospitality hardly provides an example for us to emulate, and so much of her origins and motivation are shrouded in obscurity. It would be easy – even tempting – to pass over her and move on to more clearcut case studies. However, the narrator of Judges presents Jael to us not just as an individual, but as a member of a family, and it would seem a little craven to avoid considering what we can learn from that family. This is especially so, given Deborah’s declaration that Jael would be “blessed above women” (Jdg 5:24).1 Clearly, there are lessons to be learned from this remarkable and redoubtable woman.
We should notice first that Jael was faithful to God in days of failure in headship. This is one of the key elements of the narrative of Judges 4 and 5. Headship is explicitly in view in the case of Deborah and Barak. In Jael’s case, the emphasis is more implicit, but the fact that she is repeatedly described as “Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite” indicates that the narrator’s interest in the topic extends beyond the first half of chapter 4.
In the case of Deborah, failure in headship was seen in Barak’s reluctance to lead. Barak’s refusal to go to battle without Deborah has been interpreted in a variety of ways, and a variety of motives have been ascribed to him. However, Deborah’s words in 4:9, “I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman,” make it clear that his reticence was evidence of failure. He had been selected by God and commanded to “go”; his response, “If thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go” (4:8), was disobedience as well as cowardice.
Heber’s failure was of a different character. As a Kenite, he was not part of the people of God. The Kenites are introduced to us in Judges 1:16: “And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.” If “the people” refers here to the Israelites, rather than to the native peoples of the land, the mention of their peaceful coexistence may serve to prevent us from regarding Israel’s mission of extirpation as merely an ethnically motivated quest of superiority. Unlike the peoples of the land, the Kenites were not under divine sentence and their presence could be tolerated. If this is the case, the Kenites serve as another example of God’s purpose that Gentiles would be blessed through Israel. Heber, however, “had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh” (4:11). His departure was more than merely geographical; he had entered into a peace treaty with Jabin the king of Hazor, Israel’s oppressor (4:17).
The narrative of which Jael forms a part is marked, then, by two examples of failure in headship. Barak’s is a passive failure – a lack of courage leading to disobedience. Heber’s is active – in location and allegiance he led his family away from the people of God. One failure takes place in the leadership of God’s people, the other in the leadership of a home. Both create situations that result in women moving beyond the normal scriptural roles for women.
That is certainly true of Jael’s actions. She is not the only woman in Scripture – or even in the book of Judges – to be responsible for the death of an oppressor. But the circumstances of her slaying of Sisera are more ambiguous than is the case with the other female assassin in the book (9:53). In the ancient eastern world, hospitality brought obligations that were all but sacred, and Jael’s actions flout them comprehensively. Her willingness to act independently of her husband, to the extent of breaking his pact with Jabin, would also have seemed reprehensible by the standards of the time. Our view of her actions must be shaped by Deborah’s enthusiastic endorsement of them in the following chapter, but those actions are clearly exceptional rather than exemplary. Indeed, the whole point of Jael’s role in these events is that it is extraordinary, as is emphasised by Deborah’s words to Barak: “The journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (4:9).
Deborah, too, is a woman out of place. In spite of numerous efforts to make her a model for the public ministry of women in the present dispensation, honesty requires us to acknowledge that, even by Old Testament standards, her role as a prophetess is exceptional. Even more exceptional, as the text makes plain, is her co-option, by Barak, as a military leader. Deborah’s forthrightness in speaking for God and the richness of her song make it clear that there is much about this godly woman that is worthy of imitation, but her public roles are, by the general standards of Scripture, an aberration.
To acknowledge this is not to criticise Deborah or Jael. But without censuring them or undervaluing their work for God, we must recognise that the fact that they had to undertake that work in the first place is symptomatic of a failure of headship, not on the part of these women, but on the part of the men who failed to discharge the responsibilities given them by God. This is an important lesson. We are dismayed, and rightly so, when we see sisters seeking a sphere that Scripture does not give them. But before jumping to condemn their actions, we would do well to examine whether the real root of the problem is a failure on the part of brothers to exercise headship. Such failures do not, of course, justify departure from the Word of God, but it is vital that we address the causes, and not just the symptoms, of departure.
None of this should lessen our admiration for Jael’s faithfulness, nor should it cause us to lose sight of a second important lesson that her story presents to us. This is the way in which God, providentially, ordered her circumstances. The narrative draws our attention to this in 4:11: “Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.” This information, which interrupts the description of Barak’s preparations for battle, is a non sequitur in the narrative, and its unexpectedness should draw our attention to it. It is only when we get to verse 17 that the point of the interruption becomes clear. Barak was preparing for battle, but God had already made His preparations for the ultimate defeat of Sisera. An ungodly man had become disenchanted with the company of his relatives and had struck out for new territory. We have no idea why he chose the plain of Zaanaim as the place to pitch his tent. But the narrative makes it clear that his actions were overruled by divine providence.
We might imagine that Jael was an unwilling party to the move, that she was reluctant to leave family and friends and head out into the desert. She could not have known that God was moving her into just the right position to accomplish His purpose and fulfil His promise. Darby said it well: “God’s ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes which He is behind.” Family life often involves the unexpected, and it is the rare home that has not experienced upheaval and upset. Often it is difficult to discern any purpose or meaning in the circumstances we encounter. May the example of Jael encourage us to believe that God is working out His purpose, and that difficult days and challenging circumstances may serve to position us for service for Him.
So, in God’s providence, Jael was in the right place at the right time. Her opportunity was fleeting: she had just a single chance to encounter and execute Sisera. She ran real risks, and her courage and resolution are in marked contrast to Barak’s dithering at the beginning of the narrative. Jael seized the moment – and the tent peg – and did with all her might what her hand found to do. Her choice of an improvised weapon aligns her with one of the major tropes of the Book of Judges. From Ehud’s specially fashioned dagger to Samson’s jawbone, from Gideon’s torches and pitchers to the woman’s millstone, the book abounds with unconventional weaponry. These weapons seem to crystallise two of the book’s major themes. On the one hand, they remind us of the weakness of God’s people in these days. On the other, they remind us that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. God still uses unconventional weapons, “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” (1Co 1:26), but the foolish and the weak, awkward and unhandy weapons, to achieve His purpose and to magnify His grace.
One more thing, perhaps, remains to be said. So far as we know, neither Deborah or Jael had children. Their families were, in a sense, incomplete. That is striking in a book that speaks a good deal about children and that will later describe a miraculous conception. It is also striking that the story ends with Sisera’s mother. (As imagined by Deborah, she is a rather dreadful woman, gloating about her son having captured “a damsel or two” [5:30], unaware of the irony that two women have been responsible for his downfall.) In this context, it is noteworthy that Deborah describes herself as “a mother in Israel” (5:7) and that Jael acts – at least initially – in a maternal way towards Sisera. Childlessness is a difficult and challenging subject, and a topic where easy platitudes are even less than usually welcome. But there is surely something worthy of note in these two childless women whose maternal instincts found valuable occupation in God’s service and for the blessing of His people. Certainly, we can admire and emulate two women who rose to the challenge of days of weakness, whose courage and determination shine all the brighter against the cowardice and disobedience of men who should have known better.
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
