“Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked water and she gave him milk,
she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.
She put her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera a blow,
she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple.
He sank, he fell,
he lay still at her feet;
at her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell dead.
“Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’
Jael waited
for opportunity
for the chance
to avenge her people
Lying in wait
to charm the man
who thought he was home and dry
who thought he’d escaped the fate
of all who fought alongside him
felled in battle
And, as he slunk home
where his mother waited in welcome
Sisera was waylaid
by a resourceful woman
A woman who did not bring him
the water he demanded
but gave him more
than he could have imagined
fine milk
a place to rest
and a deadly blow with a tent peg
He surely didn’t see that coming!
Meanwhile Sisera’s mother
knowing the cowardice of her son
in abandoning his comrades
waited anxiously for his return
endorsing his treachery
with a mother’s love.
Sisera’s mistake was not wrought
in the midst of battle
but in his underestimating
the passion
and strength
of a woman
whose loved ones he wronged.
Always a grave mistake.
