Judges 4:8-21

8 Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”

9 “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh.

10 There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.

11 Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law,^[a] and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.

12 When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,

13 Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron.

14 Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?” So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him.

15 At Barak’s advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.

16 Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera’s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left.

17 Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.

18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

19 “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

20 “Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’ ”

21 But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

Judges 4:8-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 4

This chapter shows how that Israel sinning was delivered into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, by whom they were oppressed twenty years, Jud 4:1-3; and that Deborah and Barak consulted together about their deliverance, Jud 4:4-9; and that Barak, encouraged by Deborah, gathered some forces and fought Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, whom he met, and obtained a victory over, Jud 4:10-15; who fleeing on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, was received into it, and slain by her while asleep in it, Jud 4:16-22; which issued in a complete deliverance of the children of Israel, Jud 4:23,24.

Cross References

• 1. S Joshua 12:22; ver 21; Judges 2:14
• 2. 2 Chronicles 36:23; Ezra 1:2; Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 45:3; Isaiah 46:11; Isaiah 48:15; ver 14; Judges 5:15,18
• 3. S Genesis 15:19; Judges 1:16
• 4. Numbers 10:29
• 5. Joshua 24:26; Judges 9:6
• 6. Joshua 19:33
• 7. S Joshua 19:22
• 8. S Joshua 17:16; ver 3
• 9. S ver 7; Judges 5:19
• 10. S Judges 1:2
• 11. Deuteronomy 9:3; 1 Samuel 8:20; 2 Samuel 5:24; Psalms 68:7
• 12. S Joshua 10:10; Psalms 83:9-10
• 13. S Exodus 14:28; Psalms 83:9
• 14. ver 18,21,22; Judges 5:6,24
• 15. S Genesis 15:19
• 16. S Joshua 11:1
• 17. S ver 17
• 18. S Genesis 18:8; Judges 5:25
• 19. S ver 17
• 20. Genesis 2:21; Genesis 15:12; 1 Samuel 26:12; Isaiah 29:10; John 1:5
• 21. Judges 5:26

Footnotes

• [a] Or "father-in-law"