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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 4:17 - 4:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Sisera took refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, to escape the sword of the Israelites, as king Jabin lived at peace with the house of Heber, i.e., with this branch of the Kenites.
Jdg 4:18
Jael received the fugitive into her tent in the usual form of oriental hospitality (סוּר, as in Gen 19:2-3, to turn aside from the road and approach a person), and covered him with a covering (שְׂמִיכָה, ἁπ. λεγ., covering, or rug), that he might be able to sleep, as he was thoroughly exhausted with his flight.
Jdg 4:19
On his asking for water to drink, as he was thirsty (צָמֵתּי, defective form for צָמֵאתִּי), she handed him milk from her bottle, and covered him up again. She gave him milk instead of water, as Deborah emphatically mentions in her song in Jdg 5:25, no doubt merely for the purpose of giving to her guest a friendly and hospitable reception. When Josephus affirms, in his account of this event (Ant. v. 5, 4), that she gave him milk that was already spoiled (διεφθορὸς ἤδη), i.e., had turned sour, and R. Tanchum supposes that such milk intoxicated the weary man, these are merely later decorations of the simple fact, that have no historical worth whatever.
Jdg 4:20-21
In order to be quite sure, Sisera entreated his hostess to stand before the door and turn any one away who might come to her to seek for one of the fugitives. עֲמֹד is the imperative for עִמְדִי rof , as the syntax proves that the word cannot be an infinitive. The anomaly apparent in the use of the gender may be accounted for on the ground that the masculine was the more general form, and might therefore be used for the more definite feminine. There are not sufficient grounds for altering it into עָמֹוד, the inf. abs. Whether Jael complied with this wish is not stated; but in the place of anything further, the chief fact alone is given in Jdg 4:21, namely, that Jael took a tent-plug, and went with a hammer in her hand to Sisera, who had fallen through exhaustion into a deep sleep, and drove the plug into his temples, so that it penetrated into the earth, or the floor. The words וַיָּעַף וְהוּא־נִרֶדַּם are introduced as explanatory of the course of the events: “but he was fallen into a deep sleep, and exhausted,” i.e., had fallen fast asleep through exhaustion. “And so he died.” וַיָּמֹת is attached as a consequence to וגו הַתִּצְנַח ... וַתִּתְקַע, whereas וַיָּעַף belongs to the parenthetical clause נִרְדַּם וְהוּא. This is the explanation adopted by Rosenmüller, and also in the remark of Kimchi: “the words וַיָּעַף נִרְדַּם indicate the reason why Sisera neither heard Jael approach him, nor was conscious of the blow inflicted upon him.” For the combination of וַיָּעַף with וַיָּמֹת, “then he became exhausted and died,” which Stud. and Bertheau support, does not give any intelligible thought at all. A man who has a tent-peg driven with a hammer into his temples, so that the peg passes through his head into the ground, does not become exhausted before he dies, but dies instantaneously. And וַיָּעַף, from עוּף, equivalent to עָיֵף (Jer 4:31), or יָעַף, and written with Patach in the last syllable, to distinguish it from עוּף, volare, has no other meaning than to be exhausted, in any of the passages in which it occurs (see 1Sa 14:28, 1Sa 14:31; 2Sa 21:15). The rendering adopted by the lxx, ἐσκοτώθη, cannot be grammatically sustained.
Jdg 4:22
When Barak, who was in pursuit of Sisera, arrived at Jael's tent, she went to meet him, to show him the deed which he had performed. Thus was Deborah's prediction to Barak (Jdg 4:9) fulfilled. The Lord had sold Sisera into the hand of a woman, and deprived Barak of the glory of the victory. Nevertheless the act itself was not morally justified, either by this prophetic announcement, or by the fact that it is commemorated in the song of Deborah in Jdg 5:24. Even though there can be no doubt that Jael acted under the influence of religious enthusiasm for the cause of Israel and its God, and that she was prompted by religious motives to regard the connection of her tribe with Israel, the people of the Lord, as higher and more sacred, not only than the bond of peace, in which her tribe was living with Jabin the Canaanitish king, but even than the duties of hospitality, which are so universally sacred to an oriental mind, her heroic deed cannot be acquitted of the sins of lying, treachery, and assassination, which were associated with it, by assuming as Calovius, Buddeus, and others have done, that when Jael invited Sisera into her tent, and promised him safety, and quenched this thirst with milk, she was acting with perfect sincerity, and without any thought of killing him, and that it was not till after he was fast asleep that she was instigated and impelled instinctu Dei arcano to perform the deed. For Jehovah, the God of Israel, not only abhors lying lips (Pro 12:22), but hates wickedness and deception of every kind. It is true, He punishes the ungodly at the hand of sinners; but the sinners whom He employs as the instruments of His penal justice in carrying out the plans of His kingdom, are not instigated to the performance of wicked deeds by an inward and secret impulse from Him. God had no doubt so ordered it, that Sisera should meet with his death in Jael's tent, where he had taken refuge; but this divine purpose did not justify Jael in giving to the enemy of Israel a hospitable reception into her tent, making him feel secure both by word and deed, and then murdering him secretly while he was asleep. Such conduct as that was not the operation of the Spirit of God, but the fruit of a heroism inspired by flesh and blood; and even in Deborah's song (Jdg 5:24.) it is not lauded as a divine act.