Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the
tent
When she perceived he was fast asleep, and it being now put into
her heart to kill him, having an impulse upon her spirit, which
she was persuaded, by the effect it had upon her, that it was of
God; not filling her with malice and revenge, but a concern for
the glory of God, the interest of religion, and the good of
Israel, she took this method to effect the death of this enemy of
God, and his people; having no arms in the house, for the Kenites
used none, she took up an iron pin, with which her tent was
fastened to the ground:
and took a hammer in her hand;
which perhaps she knew full well how to handle, being used to
drive the pins of the tents into the ground with it:
and went softly unto him;
lest she should awake him
and smote the nail into his temples:
as he lay on one side, these being the tenderest part of the
head, from whence they have their name in the Hebrew language,
and into which therefore a nail, or iron pin, might be more
easily driven:
and fastened it into the ground;
she smote the nail with such force and violence, that she drove
it through both his temples into the ground on which he lay; and
then, as it seems, from ( Judges 5:26 ) ; cut off
his head, to make sure work of it:
for he was fast asleep and weary;
and so heard not; when she came to him:
so he died;
not in the field of battle, but in a tent; not by the sword, but
by a nail; not by the hand of a man, but of a woman, as Deborah
foretold, ( Judges 4:9 ) .