Meantime, while his mother and her attendants were vainly awaiting the return of his triumphal chariot (Judg. v. 28), Sisera himself fled away on foot to the friendly tribe of Heber the Kenite beneath the oaks of Zaanaim, where he hoped for safety from his remorseless pursuers. After a while he drew near the tent of Jael, Heber’s wife, and chieftainess of the tribe. She herself had descried him approaching, and went forth to meet him. _Turn in, my lord_, said she, _turn in to me, fear not_. And he turned in, and she covered him with a rug or blanket (Judg. iv. 18). Spent and weary, before he lay down, he asked for a little water to drink; but she gave him something better than water. She opened the skin bottle of milk, such as always stands by Arab tents, she brought forth butter, or “thick curdled milk” in a _lordly dish_[194], or the bowl used for illustrious strangers, and covered him again with the rug.
Thus doubly assured of hospitality Sisera bade her deny his presence if any enquired after him, and then laid him down and slept. But as she stood at the tent-door, other thoughts than those of kindness towards the slumbering chief came over Jael. At length taking one of the wooden sharp-pointed tent-nails in one hand and a mallet in the other, she went softly unto him, and smote him with such force that the nail entered into his temples, and fastened his head to the ground, _for he was fast asleep and weary, and so he died_. Meanwhile the pursuing Barak drew near. Him too Jael went forth to meet, and taking him within, showed him his terrible foe, the captain of the nine hundred iron chariots, lying dead upon the ground, with the nail driven through his temples.
Thus on that day, as the Prophetess had said, God delivered Sisera into the hand of a woman. Together she and Barak returned from the battle-field, and chanted responsively a sublime Triumphal Hymn, celebrating the recent victory over the northern Canaanites, which now secured to the land rest for 40 years (Judg. v.).
_INVASION OF THE MIDIANITES. GIDEON._ JUDG. VI.–VIII. B.C. CIRC. 1256–1249.
AS so often before, the effects of this last great deliverance were but transitory. Again the Israelites relapsed into idolatry, and in consecrated groves practised all the abominations that disgraced the worship of Baal. The national punishment they thus drew down upon themselves was more severe than anything they had yet endured. Since the sacred war led by Phinehas against the Midianites[195] (Num. xxxi. 1–13), that people had recovered much of their ancient strength, and now in concert with the Amalekites, and _the children of the East_ (Judg. vi. 3), or the Arabian tribes beyond the Jordan, they determined to invade the territory of Israel. Led by two superior chiefs, having the title of king, ZEBAH and ZALMUNNA, and two inferior chiefs, OREB and ZEEB (_the Raven and the Wolf_), they poured into the country with their herds, their flocks, and their camels, like locusts for multitude, and gradually overran it from the plain of Jezreel down the valley of the Jordan, and southward as far as Gaza in the fertile Lowlands of the west. Here they established themselves, destroyed the crops[196], and for a period of seven years reduced the Israelites to the greatest straits, so that they left the plains, and fled for refuge to dens or catacombs, which they cut out of the rocky mountains, to inaccessible strongholds, and the limestone caves with which Palestine abounds[197] (Judg. vi. 2).