“Ya‘el will be blessed more than all women.
The wife of Hever the Keini
will be blessed more than any woman in the tent.
He asked for water, and she gave him milk;
In an elegant bowl she brought him curds.
Then she took a tent peg in her left hand
and a workman’s hammer in her right;
with the hammer she struck Sisra, pierced his skull,
yes, she shattered and crushed his temple.
He sank down at her feet, he fell and lay there;
he sank at her feet, he fell —
where he sank down, there he fell dead.”
-Judges 5:24-27
We continue on with our discussion of Yael, the Kenite woman who made that fateful decision to side with Israel during a time of war.
The action gets fast and furious from verse 25.
Sisra, the enemy general, fled towards Kishon to get back to his headquarters near Hatzor.
Make no mistake about it.
It was a very deliberate decision on Sisera’s part to go to the dwelling place of the Kenites.
He knew exactly where they lived and was well aware that Hever the clan chief had entered into an alliance with the Canaanites.
He assumed this would be the best place to flee to for safety.
Unfortunately for him, it would be the worst (and last) decision he would ever make in his life.
As soon as he arrived at Ya’el’s doorstep, Yael recognized Sisera instantly.
She warmly welcomed him into her tent and offered him a highly valued milk drink in a royal sized bowl fit for a king.
Sisera, sweaty and tired, took the bowl, satisfied his appetite and thinking he was now on safe ground relaxed and fell into a deep sleep.
We all know what happened next.
Ya’el grabbed one of the long and hardened wooden tent pegs lying around and with a large hammer drove the peg straight through Sisera’s skull until it penetrated into the dirt floor of the tent.
GOODBYE one enemy of Israel.
And HELLO to a new heroine for God’s chosen people.
Honestly, whenever I read this, I always I wonder how she was gonna explain what she did to her husband who had sided with the Canaanites.
I’m guessing afterwards Ya’el pulled the peg out of Sisera’s head and I dunno hid the body somewhere?
Or if she didn’t hide the body, maybe cooked up some story about how Sisera was killed by another dude near her tent or something?
If anybody can shed some light on this, please share.
Anyways, as I’ve said before, there’s a lot of controversy concerning whether Ya’el’s actions were moral or not.
Christians tend to be very lopsided in interpreting this incident.
They focus on how it was so wrong that Ya’el deceived, lied and then murdered Sisera in cold blood.
I get where they’re coming from but I think we’ve also gotta understand this all took place during a time of war.
Here’s a brutal Scriptural truth you should come to terms with:
The Scripture does NOT prohibit deception, seduction, ambush or spying during a time of war.
Nor does it prohibit even killing the enemy during a time of war.
The Book of Proverbs says…
“For with clever strategy you wage your war,
and victory comes from having many advisers.”
-Proverbs 24:6
Think about it for a sec.
What’s another way to say “clever strategy”?
Is it not the word “deception”?
I think the problem is we’re so far removed from how war was waged in ancient times.
In our high tech world today, warfare seems to be more like a video game where we fire bullets at long range or drop bombs from afar that only leave the eyewitnesses dead.
Since we only get occasional glimpses of war on our television sets, we’ve become completely sanitized to the whole process.
I think it’s best we take a balanced approach to what Ya’el did.
We don’t see the Lord directly approving of her actions.
However, we don’t see Him disapproving either.
Yeah, me too. Thanks
בבקשה