Most blessed of women be Jael

[zeborah]

Mary was "most highly favoured" for giving birth to Jesus; Jael (Judges 4:17 - 5:27) had quite a different reason for being praised.

Jael was the wife of Heber the Kenite. Heber apparently was friends with the king of the people Israel was fighting against, so when Israel routed that army, its commander Sisera thought he'd be safe taking refuge with Jael. Unfortunately for him, the Kenites were also descendants of Moses' in-laws. (Confused yet? I had to read the thing a few times to get everything straight.)

So Sisera comes up to Jael's tent and out she comes to welcome him and assure him of his safety. He goes in and she brings him a blanket. He asks for water and she brings him milk: "in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk", Deborah and Barak sing later. I'm guessing this means fermented milk, something like the airag I had two sips of when I was in Mongolia, because shortly thereafter (taking only the effort to ask her to stand at the entrance of the tent and tell anyone who asks that he's not there) Sisera's sleeping like a baby.

Jael then picks up a tent peg and a hammer and drives the peg through his temple into the ground. (Deborah and Barak's song lingers quite emphatically and gleefully on the shattering of his skull and his ensuing death.) When Barak comes by pursuing Sisera, Jael shows him where to find his enemy.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Dore did a really freaky etching (http://catholic-resources.org/Dore/Images/OT-054-med.jpg) of that. For some reason we had a Dore Bible when I was growing up. I think I ought to still have it somewhere but my life is in disarray and I don't know for sure.