JAEL THE HEROINE? (JUDGES 4-5)

 I have spent a lot of time studying Judges 4-5 (see my posts “Judges 4: Biblical Prose” and “Judges 4-5”). But I must admit that I was a bit taken back when I saw these chapters included in the book Hard Sayings of the Bible. There Walter Kaiser states, “The conduct of judge Ehud (Judg. 3:15-26) and Jael (Judg. 4:17-20)...would appear to indicate real character deficiencies, if not outright Old Testament endorsement of assassinations...” And the judge Deborah is implicated in these misdeeds as well since she not only condoned them, but commended Jael as being “most blessed of women.” Deborah even characterizes the times she lived in as “the days of Jael” (Judges 5:6).

It turns out that it is indeed quite common to find commentators who are quite upset by these women's actions:

    “He [Sisera] specifically enlisted her aid in evading his pursuers, and lay down to sleep. What happpened then was as much an outrage against the ethics of her own time as against ours today. The terrible deed done, Jael stood guilty of violating the laws of hospitality, of falsehood, treachery, and murder...Even regarded solely as a triumph in a righteous war, it seems strange that such an unnatural act should prove the subject of holy rejoicing.” (Douglas)

    “It is interesting that Jael, rather than being condemned for unfeminine behavior is presented as a hero.” (M.J. Evans)

    “This is a stunning and unexpected conclusion. As with Ehud's assassination of Eglon, Jael's is an act of deception, even of treachery (there is peace between Jabin and her husband). Expectations have again been reversed.” (Gros Louis)

Getting more specifically to Jael's six “sins,” let us take them one at a time with Kaiser's attempts to defend her on at least some of the charges:

Disobedience to her husband, since he had friendly relations with the Canaanites

“There is no clear evidence that Jael disobeyed her husband.”

Breaking a treaty (see Judges 4:17)

“Nor is there clear evidence that there actually was a treaty in force. But even if there were, it is doubtful that it could be legitimately enforced during wartime, which very act was a violation of the peace.”

Deception in the way she warmly greeted Sisera and treated him kindly

“To say, as one commentator did, that 'deception and lying are authorized in Scripture any time God's kingdom is under attack' is unsupported by the Bible.”

Actually lying to Sisera by telling him that he had nothing to fear

“Jael should not have lied, no matter how grave her circumstances.”

Violating the accepted customs of hospitality

“Jael did violate the conventions of hospitality, but this is at the level of custom and social mores and not at the level of ethics. After all, this was a war zone, and a war was going on.”

Murder

After refusing to condone Jael's deceptions, it is interesting that Kaiser has no problem defending her from the charge of murder. He notes that some of wording in Judges 5 to describe Sisera's actions (“feet,” “lay,” “sleep,” and “bow”) can also be taken as double entendres to describe attempted rape. Kaiser notes, “If this understanding of the delicately put poetry is correct, then Jael is more than justified in her actions of self-defense of her person...For years Canaanite men had been raping Hebrew women in just this fashion.”

Kaiser also offers a more plausible, and more often cited, defense of Jael on the charge of cold-blooded murder: “When involuntarily thrust into the vicinity of the war by virtue of the location of her tent, she did not hesitate to act by killing the man who stood against the people of God with whom she had come to identify herself. It is for this that she is so lavishly praised.”

This description of her actions could just as well apply to a somewhat earlier heroine of the faith, Rahab. She was a prostitute and lied to protect the Israelite spies, and yet she is praised for her support of the Jews and their God and is even listed as one of the ancestors of Jesus. The issue of lying for a higher cause is a difficult one which I do not want to tackle here, and it often comes up in a more modern context with the hypothetical question as to what you would say if you lived in Nazi Germany while you were sheltering a Jewish family and the Gestapo came to your door and asked if there were any Jews inside. Some of us would wrestle with this ethical dilemma and others would not hesitate to lie in order to save lives (and perhaps ask God's forgiveness afterwards).

Additional Perspectives

Rather than further addressing each of the charges above, it is best at this point to step back a bit and consider the wider context of Judges 4-5 to look at a few other ways to approach the problem.

Hawk says, “The social consequences of 'doing what is right in one's eyes' [a phrase which recurs throughout the Book of Judges] (as opposed to the Lord's) are portrayed in stark and often symbolic terms. The perversion of fundamental values figure prominently in many accounts, with shocking effect. Deborah and Jael express their 'motherly' attributes in bloodthirsty ways.” He brings up a good point here, namely, that we should not treat all the people in the Bible as either heroes or villains, much less in a book such as Judges which demonstrates that even the most noble person is shown to have glaring deficiencies of character.

In the midst of the Israelites' failure to do what God commanded them to do, Jael stands out as a non-Jew who was more faithful than they were. So she is to be praised for her relatively noble actions compared to them. Thus:

    “Rahab is the most prominent example of the 'faithful foreigner' image, represented in the text as exemplifying Israelite ideals better than the Israelites themselves. Jael in Judges 4-5 (of the Kenite clan, noted in Judg 1:16 to be of Midianite descent) provides another.” (Knauth)

    “Jael's loyalty to Jehovah and to his people was her justification. It was part of the old command to exterminate the Canaanite (Deut. 20:16). The city of Meroz in Israel was cursed because it did not come to the assistance of Jehovah (Judg. 5:23), but Jael is blessed because she did.” (Kaiser)

There is also our great difficulty in putting ourselves in the shoes of those who lived during these violent times. We cannot judge them from our relatively cozy position today. As Stone says, “Such gusto, such remorseless exaltation of the violent, whether by Achilles or in the Song of Deborah, scandalizes the domestic sensibility of later readers. Jael's dispatch of Sisera...confronts the reader sharply with a vision of life in which honor, valor and a noble death count for more than mere comfort or longevity.”

One last aspect of this situation needs to be pointed out, the overall literary shape of the Book of Judges. It is described well by Vannoy: “The narrative clearly demonstrates that things moved in a downward spiral. This becomes apparent in a variety of ways, including the progressive decline in religious and moral conduct of the judges themselves...”

With this in mind, one must admit that Deborah (and Jael by association) belongs to the early part of the book and therefore is likely to have been intended as among the better examples of behavior in Judges, certainly far superior to the amoral Samson. And another way in which the downward movement in the book plays out is in how it portrays women. The first three or four women we encounter in Judges are clearly portrayed as being more noble than the men around them. But by the end of the book, all we see are visions of women treated as pawns of men to be manipulated, raped, killed, or married off by force.

Lastly, we should point out, as does Kaiser, that it is not only another woman such as Deborah who praises Jael's actions. The mere fact that Deborah has been given a prophecy from God that a woman (namely Jael) will steal the glory from the Israelite commander Barak (see Judges 4:9) indicates that He, at least to a large extent, has set His seal of approval on her actions in advance.