Judges 4 and 5 · Person · Featured Study
Deborah and Jael
Judges 4 and 5 tell how the LORD freed Israel from Jabin of Hazor through the prophetess Deborah, the general Barak and Jael, and routed the Canaanite chariots at the river Kishon.
The honor of the battle went to a woman who killed a guest in her own tent, and the Song of Deborah calls her most blessed among women.
- The name means
- bee
- Family
- husband: Lappidoth
- Places
- Ramah, Bethel, Kedesh, Mount Tabor, Kishon
- First named
- Judges 4:4 “Now Deborah, a prophetess,…”
- Last named
- Judges 5:15 “…princes of Issachar were with Deborah, and Issachar…”
Gustave Doré, Jael Kills Sisera, 1866. Public domain.
Summary
Two women stand at the center: Deborah, who judged Israel, and Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.
- Deborah is the one judge in the book of Judges who is also called a prophet.
- Barak would not march unless Deborah went with him, and Hebrews still counts him among the faithful.
- Jael's act has been read as murder, as faith at God's prompting, and as a figure of the church.
The Prose and the Song, Side by Side
Judges 4 tells the events and Judges 5 sings them
So the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways.where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand men followed him, and Deborah also went with him.Zebulun was a people who risked their lives; Naphtali, too, on the heights of the battlefield.And in front of him the LORD routed with the sword Sisera, all his charioteers, and all his army. Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot.From the heavens the stars fought; from their courses they fought against Sisera. The River Kishon swept them away, the ancient river, the River Kishon. March on, O my soul, in strength!Jael went out to greet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, my lord. Come in with me. Do not be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.He asked for water, and she gave him milk. In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds.When Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera, Jael went out to greet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man you are seeking.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera dead, with a tent peg through his temple.At her feet he collapsed, he fell, there he lay still; at her feet he collapsed, he fell; where he collapsed, there he fell dead.The Song also carries what the prose leaves out. It names the tribes that stayed home, and it looks through the window where Sisera's mother asks why his chariot is so slow to come.
Judges 4:10, Judges 5:18, Judges 4:15, Judges 5:20 to 21, Judges 4:18, Judges 5:25, Judges 4:22, Judges 5:27
The Events in Order
Twelve turns across the two chapters
The verse beside each turn records it.
- Israel sold to Jabin of HazorJudges 4:2
- Twenty years of oppressionJudges 4:3
- Deborah judges IsraelJudges 4:5
- Barak summoned from KedeshJudges 4:6
- Barak's condition, and Deborah goesJudges 4:9
- Ten thousand go up TaborJudges 4:12
- Sisera's chariots gather at the KishonJudges 4:13
- Barak pursues to Harosheth-hagoyimJudges 4:16
- Sisera flees to Jael's tentJudges 4:17
- Jabin subdued, then destroyedJudges 4:23 to 24
- Deborah and Barak singJudges 5:1
- The land rests forty yearsJudges 5:31
Sisera's chariots gather at the Kishon, Barak pursues to Harosheth-hagoyim, Sisera flees to Jael's tent, Jabin subdued, then destroyed, Deborah and Barak sing, The land rests forty years
A Prophetess Under a Palm Tree, and a General Who Would Not Go Alone
Judges 4:1 to 9, told plainly
Israel cried out to the LORD, and the LORD answered through a prophetess.
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.She sends for Barak with a command from God and a promise of victory. Barak's answer sets the story in motion.
Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” “I will certainly go with you,” Deborah replied, “but the road you are taking will bring you no honor, because the LORD will be selling Sisera into the hand of a woman.” So Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh,And what more shall I say? Time will not allow me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,Ambrose, Wesley and Barnes on Barak's conditionJudges 4:8 to 9
“And lastly, her son Barak shows the chief part of the victory was in the hands of a woman when he said, ‘If you will not go with me I will not go, because I do not know on what day the Lord will send his angel with me.’ How great, then, was the might of that woman to whom the leader of the army says, ‘If you will not go I will not go.’”
Ambrose of Milan · Concerning Widows 8.43-46 · on Judges 4:8 to 9Patristic
“His offer to go with her, shews the truth of his faith, for which he is praised, Hebrew xi, 32, but his refusal to go without her, shews the weakness of his faith, that he could not trust God's bare word, as he ought to have done, without the pledge of the presence of his prophetess.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on Judges 4:8Evangelical
“Mark the unhesitating faith and courage of Deborah, and the rebuke to Barak's timidity, ‘the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman’ (Jael, Jdg 4:22). For a similar use of a weak instrument, that the excellency of the power might be of God, compare the history of Gideon and his 300, David and his sling, Shamgar and his ox-goad, Samson and the jawbone of the ass.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869), on Judges 4:9Evangelical
Two Places Worth Reading Carefully
Judges 4:4 and Judges 4:6
Deborah's office, stated plainlyJudges 4:4
Judges 4:4 records nothing of how she came to hold the office.
“This is, I believe, the first instance of gynaecocrasy, or female government, on record. Deborah seems to have been supreme both in civil and religious affairs; and Lapidoth, her husband, appears to have had no hand in the government.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Judges 4:4Evangelical
Was Lappidoth another name for Barak?Judges 4:4 and 4:6
The Commentary on the Song of Deborah attributed to Jerome reads Lappidoth as lightning and takes it as another name for Barak, whose own name means lightning.
The text keeps the two men apart.
She summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “Surely the LORD, the God of Israel, is commanding you: ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, taking with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun.The Battle at Kishon, and the Tent of a Kenite Woman
Judges 4:10 to 22, the true context of iron chariots and guest-right
Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots ruled the open plain of Esdraelon, where foot soldiers could not stand against them. The Song credits a storm and the swollen Kishon with miring the chariots.
Then Deborah said to Barak, “Arise, for this is the day that the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the LORD gone before you?” So Barak came down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.Heber's house was at peace with Jabin, so his wife's tent looked safe to the beaten general.
“According to the usages of nomadic people, the duty of receiving the stranger in the sheik's absence devolves on his wife, and the moment the stranger is admitted into his tent, his claim to be defended or concealed from his pursuers is established.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Judges 4:17Evangelical
The tent peg and the hammer were the tools of her own trade.
But as he lay sleeping from exhaustion, Heber’s wife Jael took a tent peg, grabbed a hammer, and went silently to Sisera. She drove the peg through his temple and into the ground, and he died.The Households the Text Names
Three households in Judges 4 and 5, each with its verse
DEBORAH, WIFE OF LAPPIDOTH
Lappidoth is named once in Scripture, and nothing more is told of him.
BARAK, SON OF ABINOAM
The Song calls on him by his father's name as it summons him to take his captives.
JAEL, WIFE OF HEBER
Heber's clan, the Kenites, descended from Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses.
The Places of Judges 4 and 5
Six places the two chapters name, each with the verse that sets it
BETWEEN RAMAH AND BETHEL
Deborah sat under the Palm of Deborah here, in the hill country of Ephraim.
KEDESH IN NAPHTALI
Barak came from Kedesh and mustered Zebulun and Naphtali there. Heber the Kenite had pitched his tent near it.
MOUNT TABOR
The mountain rises alone from the plain of Esdraelon, where the chariots were gathered.
THE RIVER KISHON
The LORD said He would draw Sisera and his chariots to this river.
HAROSHETH-HAGOYIM
Sisera's chariots set out from here.
MEROZ
The town appears once in Scripture, in the Song's curse.
Mount Tabor, The River Kishon, Harosheth-hagoyim, Meroz
The Song of Deborah
Judges 5:1 to 31
The Song’s Hebrew is archaic even within the Old Testament.
The Song gives Deborah a title of her own for her part in the nation’s deliverance.
Life in the villages ceased; it ended in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel.Most blessed among women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women.Clarke on “most blessed among women”Judges 5:24
“She shall be highly celebrated as a most heroic woman; all the Israelitish women shall glory in her. I do not understand these words as expressive of the Divine approbation towards Jael... The word bless, both in Hebrew and Greek, often signifies to praise, to speak well of, to celebrate. This is most probably its sense here.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Judges 5:24Evangelical
Who sang the SongJudges 5:1
On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:“Deborah, as ‘a prophetess,’ both composed and sang this noble ode, which, for poetic spirit and lyric fire, is not surpassed by any of the sacred songs in the Bible. And, as Miriam took up the first verse of the song of Moses Exo 15:21, and sang it as an antiphony, so Barak, with the chorus of men, answered the song of Deborah.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869), on Judges 5:1Evangelical
Why the Song curses MerozJudges 5:9 to 23
My heart is with the princes of Israel, with the volunteers among the people. Bless the LORD!The Song sets the volunteers of Judges 5:9 against the town it curses in Judges 5:23.
“The inhabitants of Meroz (a village 12 miles from Samaria) hung back, and gave no help in the day of battle, although it was Yahweh who called them. Hence, the curse pronounced by the Angel of the Lord.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869), on Judges 5:23Evangelical
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Four questions the two chapters leave open or answer only in part
What became of Jael afterward?Judges 4 and 5
Jael appears in these two chapters and nowhere else in Scripture. Nothing is recorded of her life before or after this act, or of how Heber received her.
Did Deborah have children?Judges 5:7
The title “a mother in Israel” need not be literal. Whether she had children of her own is never mentioned.
Why did Barak insist on Deborah's presence?Judges 4:8
Barak states the condition twice in Judges 4:8 and gives no reason either time.
Did Deborah go into the battle?Judges 4:9 to 14
The text records the fighting as done by Barak and his ten thousand.
Where It Points
Judges 5:31 and the office Deborah held
So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.” And the land had rest for forty years.Barnes on the Song's last lineJudges 5:31
“A most striking conclusion, in which the spiritual truth, which the whole narrative is intended to convey, comes out. The enemies of the Lord will perish like the host of Sisera... but all that love our Lord Jesus Christ shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Compare Mat 13:43; Dan 12:3.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869), on Judges 5:31Evangelical
How the Voices Read Deborah and Jael
Matthew Henry on the Song's praise of Jael, and R. C. Sproul on Deborah's leadership
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
“Jael in the tent wins as rich a blessing as Barak in the field. Nothing is more confounding, grievous, and shameful, than disappointment, and Deborah here does most elegantly describe two great disappointments, the shame of which was typical of sinners' everlasting shame. Sisera found a fatal enemy where he expected a firm and faithful friend.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Judges 5:24Puritan
1939 to 2017 · R. C. Sproul
“Under the impetus of the Spirit of God, Deborah led the people to freedom.”
R. C. Sproul · Who Was Deborah? · on Judges 4:4 to 9Reformed
How Jael's Act Has Been Read
Three readings of Jael's act, each with its holders and the strongest objection
A wrong act the people praisedProtestant commentary of the nineteenth century
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and Adam Clarke hold this reading.
“Then Jael took a nail of the tent--most probably one of the pins 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 murder.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Judges 4:21Evangelical
The strongest objection is that Judges 5:24 blesses Jael by name, and the Song stands in inspired Scripture.
An act of faith under God's promptingPuritan and Protestant commentary
Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes hold this reading.
“And, as to this act of Jael (like that of Ehud in the chapter before), we have reason to think she was conscious of such a divine impulse upon her spirit to do it as did abundantly satisfy herself (and it ought therefore to satisfy us) that it was well done. God's judgments are a great deep.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Judges 4:21Puritan
“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.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869), on Judges 4:21Evangelical
The strongest objection is that the text records no word from God to Jael, and she had just promised Sisera the safety of her tent (Judges 4:18).
A figure of the church's victoryPatristic figurative reading
In his Homilies on Judges, Origen reads Jael as the church gathered from the nations, and he takes her name to mean ascent. He reads Sisera, whose name he takes to mean vision of a horse, as the vices of the flesh, and the tent peg as the wood of the cross.
The strongest objection is that this reading rests on the meanings of names and leaves aside the moral question the prose raises.
Ambrose of Milan reads the victory as Origen does.
“So, then, Deborah foretold the event of the battle. Barak, as he was bidden, led forth the army; Jael carried off the triumph, for the prophecy of Deborah fought for her, who in a mystery revealed to us the rising of the church from among the Gentiles, for whom should be found a triumph over Sisera, that is, over the powers opposed to her. For us, then, the oracles of the prophets fought, for us those judgments and arms of the prophets won the victory.”
Ambrose of Milan · Concerning Widows 8.47-50 · on Judges 4:21 to 22Patristic
Books to Read Next
Three nineteenth-century commentaries that teach Judges 4 and 5
Commentary on the Bible
Adam Clarke · 1832
Works through both chapters verse by verse, with notes on the Hebrew words.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical on the Old and New Testaments
Albert Barnes · 1832-1869
Gives the site of each town and of the battlefield, and follows the Song line by line.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · 1871
Gives short notes on every verse, from the Kenites' tents to the Song's last line.
The LORD's Victory Through Two Women
The Song gives the victory to the LORD, who marched out from Seir (Judges 5:4). The same God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27) and defeated sin and death through the cross of Christ.
The text asks the reader to answer the LORD's call willingly, as Zebulun and Naphtali did.
The office and the act, in the same two chaptersJudges 4 and 5
Deborah's office and Jael's deed are read rightly together, because the deed fulfils the word Deborah spoke to Barak.
Salomon de Bray, Jael, Deborah and Barak (1635). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
De Bray sets Jael in front with the hammer and the peg, Deborah at prayer and Barak in his helmet behind her.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Jael and Sisera (1620). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gentileschi paints Jael kneeling with the hammer raised over the sleeping Sisera.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, 1832-1869.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
- Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Judges 5.5.
- Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Widows 8.43-50.
- R. C. Sproul, Who Was Deborah?
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