Mocking and Warning

Deborah closes her song by extolling Jael’s assistance to the people of God, by mocking the Canaanites’ confidence and vanity, and by calling on God to triumph over all His enemies.

Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, capped Israel’s victory when she lured the fleeing General Sisera into her tent, lulled him to sleep, and killed him with a tent peg through his temple. Unlike the inhabitants of Meroz, who deserve to be cursed (v. 23), Jael is “ ‘most blessed,’ ” Deborah says. Why? The people of Meroz “ ‘did not come to the help of the LORD,’ ” but Jael willingly helped the cause of the people of God. “How honorably does she speak of Jael (v. 24), who preferred her peace with the God of Israel before her peace with the king of Canaan,” Matthew Henry writes. In a blow-by-blow account that helps those hearing her song to savor the victory, Deborah tells how Jael provided the fugitive general a hiding place and the best provisions of her tent. Then, when he had placed his confidence in her and fallen asleep, she proved to be not his friend but his mortal enemy.

Deborah then sings of another woman, Sisera’s mother. She imagines this queen mother gazing from her window in expectation of her son’s glorious return, but pondering his strange delay. Her ladies in waiting suggest that Sisera and his soldiers must have achieved such a great victory over the downtrodden Israelites that they need extra time to divide all the spoil. Yes, she agrees; they have surely slain all the Israelite men and are now assaulting the defenseless women. They are surely stripping the bodies of the slain, taking all the expensive dyed and embroidered garments (and perhaps Sisera will bring some back, she hopes). Such, Deborah declares, was the misplaced confidence of the Canaanites who went into battle against the people of God—and how her people must laugh to hear it said.

But Deborah closes her song with a deadly serious prayer—“ ‘Thus let all Your enemies perish, O LORD!’ ” Let them die unexpectedly like Sisera, even in the midst of their false confidence, she says. But let those who love God be like the sun, glorious, strong, untouchable, she asks. Of course, God already has promised to do these things, so Deborah’s prayer is as much a warning as a supplication. She is telling the Israelites to take care to love the Lord their God.