Jael with a hammer and tent peg. But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand, and came up quietly to him and drove the peg through his temple, and it went through into the ground; for he was sound asleep and exhausted. So he died. Jdg 4:21
INTRODUCTION
This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.
The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.
It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.
There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.
Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances
INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.
RULE OF THE JUDGES, Judges 3:5-16:31
Following repeated apostasy and oppression, the Israelites were successively delivered:
3. From the King of Canaan by Deborah and Barak, Jdg_4:1-24; Jdg_5:1-31
8. What prompted Jael’s deed?
THE LORD RAISES UP JUDGES
DEBORAH AND BARAK
When someone told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,
Sisera called together all his chariots, nine hundred iron chariots, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon.
Deborah said to Barak, “Arise! For this is the day when the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. Has the LORD not gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.
And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and [confused] all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera dismounted from his chariot and fled away on foot.
But Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and the entire army of Sisera fell by the sword; not even one man was left.
But Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me! Have no fear.” So he turned aside to her [and went] into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink because I am thirsty.” And she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink; then she covered him.
And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is there anyone here?’ tell him, ‘No.'”
But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand, and came up quietly to him and drove the peg through his temple, and it went through into the ground; for he was sound asleep and exhausted. So he died.
And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” And he entered [her tent] with her, and behold Sisera lay dead with the tent peg in his temple.
So on that day God subdued and humbled Jabin king of Canaan before the sons of Israel.
And the hand of the sons of Israel pressed down heavier and heavier on Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed him.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
Judges 4:12-24
A WOMAN EXECUTIONER
“The Lord discomfited Sisera and all his host.” When General Gordon rode off alone on his camel to break up the camps of the Arab slave-drivers, he realized, as he went over the desert with Thomas à Kempis’ immortal book in his hand, that God was already discomfiting them; and as he rode into their midst, he discovered that God had made the way perfectly clear. Yes, it is as Deborah sang, in words afterward quoted by our Lord, “They that love Him are as the sun when he goeth forth in his might,” Jdg_5:31; Mat_13:43. The soul that is united to Christ is irresistible.
Jael’s deed is narrated at length again in Jdg_5:24. It was a most unusual breach of Arab hospitality. Was it that she was aggrieved by Sisera’s treatment of her sex, Jdg_5:30? Or was it the expression of her faith in Jehovah and of her identification with His people? If the latter, may we not believe that then, as always, the Almighty understood the impulse that lay beneath the crude expression? How often we give blundering expression to noble impulses, which Jesus interprets truly! Ah, how blessed it is to have a Savior who understands the motives of our hearts!
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