Judges 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

After Ehud dies, Israel again does evil, and the LORD hands them over to Jabin, a king of Canaan, whose army commander Sisera oppresses them for twenty years with nine hundred iron chariots. Deborah, a prophetess judging Israel, calls Barak to lead ten thousand men against Sisera at Mount Tabor, and tells him the journey will bring him no honor, because the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman. The LORD routs Sisera's army, Sisera flees on foot to the tent of Jael, and she kills him with a tent peg while he sleeps. Israel's power then grows against Jabin until they destroy him.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The Israelites again did evil in the sight of the LORD.
   • Ehud was dead.
2. 4:2
   • The LORD sold the Israelites into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan.
   • Jabin reigned in Hazor.
   • The commander of Jabin's army was Sisera.
   • Sisera lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
3. 4:3
   • The Israelites cried out to the LORD.
   • Sisera had nine hundred chariots of iron.
   • He oppressed the Israelites harshly for twenty years.
4. 4:4
   • Deborah was a prophetess.
   • Deborah was the wife of Lappidoth.
   • Deborah was judging Israel at that time.
5. 4:5
   • Deborah sat under the palm tree of Deborah.
   • That palm was between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.
   • The Israelites came up to her for judgment.
6. 4:6
   • Deborah sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali.
   • Deborah asked Barak whether the LORD, the God of Israel, had not commanded him.
   • The command was to go and march to Mount Tabor.
   • The command was to take with him ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and the sons of Zebulun.
7. 4:7
   • The LORD said he would draw Sisera to Barak at the river Kishon.
   • Sisera was the commander of Jabin's army.
   • The LORD said he would draw Sisera's chariots and his multitude there as well.
   • The LORD said he would deliver Sisera into Barak's hand.
8. 4:8
   • Barak said to Deborah that if she would go with him, he would go.
   • Barak said that if she would not go with him, he would not go.
9. 4:9
   • Deborah said she would surely go with Barak.
   • Deborah said the journey Barak was taking would not be for his honor.
   • Deborah said the LORD would sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.
   • Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.
10. 4:10
    • Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh.
    • Ten thousand men went up at his feet.
    • Deborah went up with Barak.
11. 4:11
    • Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites.
    • Heber was of the descendants of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses.
    • Heber pitched his tent as far as the great tree of Zaanaim.
    • The great tree of Zaanaim is near Kedesh.
12. 4:12
    • They told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor.
13. 4:13
    • Sisera summoned all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron.
    • Sisera summoned all the people who were with him.
    • He brought them from Harosheth of the Gentiles to the river Kishon.
14. 4:14
    • Deborah told Barak to arise.
    • Deborah said this was the day the LORD had delivered Sisera into Barak's hand.
    • Deborah asked whether the LORD had not gone out before him.
    • Barak went down from Mount Tabor.
    • Ten thousand men went after Barak.
15. 4:15
    • The LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak.
    • Sisera got down from his chariot.
    • Sisera fled on foot.
16. 4:16
    • Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles.
    • All of Sisera's army fell by the edge of the sword.
    • Not one man was left.
17. 4:17
    • Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.
    • There was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
18. 4:18
    • Jael went out to meet Sisera.
    • Jael told him to turn aside to her.
    • Jael told him not to fear.
    • Sisera turned aside to her into the tent.
    • Jael covered him with a rug.
19. 4:19
    • Sisera asked Jael to give him a little water to drink.
    • Sisera said he was thirsty.
    • Jael opened a skin of milk.
    • Jael gave him a drink.
    • Jael covered him.
20. 4:20
    • Sisera told Jael to stand at the entrance of the tent.
    • Sisera said that if a man came and asked her whether there was a man there, she should say no.
21. 4:21
    • Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent peg.
    • Jael took a hammer in her hand.
    • Jael went to Sisera quietly.
    • Jael drove the peg into his temple.
    • The peg went down into the ground.
    • Sisera was fast asleep and weary.
    • Sisera died.
22. 4:22
    • Barak was pursuing Sisera.
    • Jael went out to meet Barak.
    • Jael told Barak to come and she would show him the man he was seeking.
    • Barak came in to her.
    • Sisera lay fallen dead.
    • The peg was in Sisera's temple.
23. 4:23
    • On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites.
24. 4:24
    • The hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan.
    • They continued until they destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

Ehud is the leader from the previous chapter, who killed the Moabite king Eglon and freed Israel. "Did evil in the sight of the LORD" is a set phrase that opens each cycle in the book of Judges: Israel turns away, a foreign power oppresses them, they cry out, a deliverer rises, and after his death the cycle begins again.

4:2

"Handed them over" translates a Hebrew verb that literally means "sold", the picture is of a master transferring people into someone else's power. Canaan was not a single kingdom but the land west of the Jordan, divided among many walled city-states, each with its own king; Jabin is one of these local kings, not a ruler of the whole region. Hazor was the largest fortified city in the north, above the Sea of Galilee. "Harosheth of the Gentiles" means Harosheth "of the nations," probably a place with a mixed non-Israelite population; its exact site is unknown.

4:3

Chariots fitted or plated with iron were the heavy weapon of the age: fast and hard to stop on flat ground, though useless on steep hills and helpless in mud. Israel at this period fought on foot and had nothing comparable. Nine hundred is a very large chariot force.

4:4

A prophetess is a woman who speaks messages received from God. "Judge" in this book does not mean only a courtroom official: the judges were leaders raised up in a crisis, who settled disputes and also rallied the tribes for war. "Wife of Lapidoth" is the usual reading, but the Hebrew phrase can also be read "woman of torches" or "fiery woman," and no one named Lapidoth appears anywhere else.

4:5

Israel at this time had no capital and no central court. A well-known tree was a natural landmark where people gathered and where a recognized leader could hear cases. Ramah and Bethel lie in the central highlands, far to the south of the northern territory Sisera controlled.

4:6

Kedesh in Naphtali lies in the far north, in Sisera's part of the country. Mount Tabor is a steep, isolated, dome-shaped hill rising about 1,300 feet above the plain of Jezreel, where the territories of Naphtali, Zebulun and Issachar meet; chariots cannot climb it. In Hebrew Deborah's words are phrased as a question, "Has not the LORD commanded you?", which takes for granted that Barak already knows the order.

4:7

The Kishon runs through the plain of Jezreel; for much of the year it is a small stream or dry bed, but heavy rain turns it into a torrent and the flat ground beside it into mud. The verb translated "draw" means to drag or pull along, luring an enemy out of a strong position into open ground.

4:8

Barak wanted Deborah to come because she told him God's words. Having her along meant he would know what God said next.

4:9

The honor in question is the credit for killing the enemy commander, which normally went to the general who won the battle. "Hand Sisera over" uses the same "sell" verb as verse 2, now turned against Israel's oppressor.

4:10

The King James "ten thousand men at his feet" reflects a Hebrew idiom meaning troops marching in someone's train, under his command. The Hebrew word for "thousand" can also mean a military unit or clan contingent, so the total may be a count of units rather than of individual men.

4:11

The Kenites were a wandering herding and metalworking clan associated with Midian, tied to Israel through Moses' marriage but belonging to no Israelite tribe; they camped among various peoples and kept their own agreements. Hobab is called Moses' father-in-law here, while elsewhere that is Jethro (also called Reuel) and Hobab is Jethro's son, the Hebrew term covers in-laws broadly, and the accounts are not easily reconciled. The point of the verse is that Heber had pitched his tents far from his own people and close to Sisera's ground.

4:14

"Gone out ahead of you" is battle language: a commander marching onto the field in front of his troops.

4:15

The King James "discomfited" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to throw an army into panic and disorder, so that it breaks apart and runs. That a chariot commander abandoned his vehicle and ran on foot signals that the chariots had become worthless where they stood.

4:17

"At peace with each other" means a formal treaty between Jabin's kingdom and Heber's clan, so Sisera was heading for allied ground. A married woman's tent was private space that a man from outside her family did not enter, which made it a place no pursuer would think to search, and makes Jael's invitation in the next verse a striking break with custom.

4:18

"My lord" here is ordinary polite address to a person of higher rank, not a religious title.

4:19

The King James "bottle" is a bag made of animal skin. Milk stored that way soured quickly into something like thick yogurt, a normal drink to set before a guest. Under the customs of the region, feeding a guest and taking him into your tent placed him under your protection.

4:21

In nomadic camps, pitching and striking the tents was women's work, so a tent peg and mallet were tools Jael handled every day and could carry without arousing suspicion. The "temple" is the flat side of the head above the ear.

4:23

The old words say God "subdued" Jabin. Subdued means beaten and made weak.

4:24

"The hand of the people of Israel", hand stands for power or force, the same image used through the chapter when Sisera is given "into the hand" of Barak and of a woman.