It should be noted that I’m a wimp.  I blame my parents.
(But in a good way.)  As a young child I was limited to an hour of
TV a day and it had to be PBS.  I’ve never quite normalized to our
culture in that I have a super low tolerance for media violence or
horror.  To be honest, I don’t like this story, I think it is too
violence, and if I was trying to hold the Bible to a standard of
“Church Appropriate” then this passage would not meet it.
However, I think dealing with this story is important and necessary,
so we’re going to do it despite my distaste.  That being said, there
are many reasons why you might not want to hear/read the rest of this
sermon:

****  Trigger Warning ****

This story contains excessive violence, in detail, and
sexual violence.  

****

I will not take it personally if you choose to take a
very long bathroom break at this point.

Now, despite its graphic nature, this text isn’t
particularly easy to follow.  I had to read it half a dozen times and
read several commentaries before I could even follow what is
happening.  Because this text is from the book of Judges, we can
start by knowing a few things.  The ancient Hebrew people have
“entered the promised land” (they did that in the prior book,
Joshua) and are currently functioning as a loose alliance of tribes
without a central government.  They have settled into  hilly, desert
land.  Later in their history the land would be in high demand
because of its functionality as a crossroads, but in this early
history  this land  is a bit outside of society.  It was hard to
scratch out a living there, which means outsiders usually didn’t
bother with it.  

However, sometimes neighboring countries (and we should
understand “countries” pretty loosely, maybe as akin to a small
city-state) would try to expand into some part of the “Promised
Land” and then there would be a need for a leader/general to guide
the people in fighting back.  That leader/general would then be
called a “judge” and would lead the people until their death.
Then things would be OK for a while until a different country tried
the same deal on a different boarder.

This is the second set of stories of such a judge in the
book of Judges, and there are a few adaptations to the standard story
line.  The first is that the “neighboring country” is actually an
internal one.  The Israelites had invaded the land of the Canaanites,
because the Canaanites were the ones living on their “promised
land.”  However, the Canaanites were neither entirely destroyed nor
entirely willing to adapt to Israelite customs.  So, the two both
occupied the land, with ever shifting borders between them.  

According to the story, at this point in history the
Canaanites were a FAR more technologically advanced society than the
ancient Hebrew people.  They’d entered the “iron age”, as
evidenced by the 900 iron chariots they brought to war.  (It is
reasonable to assume exaggeration.)  The ancient Hebrews not only had
no iron (they’re in the late bronze age), they’re said to have no
shields nor spears.  The armies are incredibly mismatched.

The second adaptation is that the role of Judge is a bit
fuzzy.  The story says that Deborah had been judge – but in that
case they mean that people brought their disputes to her and trusted
her to judge between them fairly.  Since she appears to have come by
that reputation on her own, that’s pretty cool.  Deborah is, in case
you were wondering, the only woman to be called a Judge of Israel.
However, she isn’t the military general, so that’s unusual for these
stories.  And neither she, nor the general, actually complete the act
of defeating their opponent.  That  role belongs to another woman,
and a foreigner at that.

Now, I have a lot of issues with this story in
particular and with the book of Judges in general. Judges assumes
that everything that happens is God’s will.  So, they think that when
outsiders attack them or oppress them it is because God is punishing
them.  They try to protect God’s reputation, so they claim that when
there is no judge in Israel, the people do what is evil in the sight
of the Lord, which they assume to justify God’s anger and punishment.
  It doesn’t work for me.  It is easy to see that the Israelites
were experiencing fairly normal conflict with neighbors – internal
and external to their country.  It is easy to see that the stories
are trying to be faithful when they attribute all of it to God.  But
they seem to miss that they make God into an egotistical abusive
parent when they do so.

And, in case this isn’t clear to you, I don’t think God
is egotistical, nor abusive (although it is fine with me if the
parental metaphors work for you).

Those are my GENERAL issues.  Specifically, I pretty
much hate that this is a story of war, death, and murder that is
claimed as a victory.  Similar to the point I just made, I understand
that those who told it and those who wrote it down thought that they
were telling a story of a God who freed them from oppression, and I
see why that’s good.  The problem is that I believe in a God who is
the God of the Israelites AND the Canaanites.  And, generally
speaking, I don’t think there are winners in war, even when there are
victors.

So, you ask, why am I preaching on it?  Well, two
reasons.  First of all because when I’ve spent most of a year
preaching about the subversive women of the Bible, I didn’t think I
could reasonably skip out on the first FEMALE to lead the country
(and only one said to do so rightfully).  Secondly, because war,
violence, and murder are real parts of life.  To refuse a text that
includes them because of them means pretending life is cleaner,
easier, and more acceptable than it really is.  This story reflects
the lives of many people who live today, both in literal and in
metaphorical terms.

Now you might ask, WHAT HAPPENS?!?!?  Well, that’s
complicated.  There are actually two versions of this story.  The
version in chapter 5 is much older.  Along with the (much, much
shorter) song of Miriam, it is thought to be the oldest text in the
Bible.  It may date to the 12^th century BCE.¹
(For reference, the next youngest parts were 400 years later and the
majority of the Torah was written down around 800 years later.)  The
two oldest parts are both women’s songs, and they reflect very
similar stories: natural events defeat an army and the Israelites
associate that with God’s work and give thanks to God for saving
them.  It has been guessed that women passed down their songs from
generation to generation, perhaps while the men passed down their
stories.  We read from Judges 4 because it is easier to make sense
of, but I want to focus on Judges 5, the poetry version passed down
as song.

In Judges 5, the people have been oppressed by the
Canaanites.  But when God raised up Deborah, the peasants rejoiced
because she took care of them.  She is called a mother in Israel.  
The song celebrates the courage of those who went to fight the
Canaanites without even having any weapons, and it acknowledges
Barack as the military leader.  The song emphatically claims that
God, as the Divine Warrior, marched with the people.  The third time
it mentions this, it puts it this way:

The
stars fought from heaven,
from
their courses they fought against Sisera. 
The
torrent Kishon swept them away,
the
onrushing torrent, the torrent Kishon.
March
on, my soul, with might!  (Judges 5: 20-21, NRSV)

That
is to say, with God on their side, even the stars were fighting for
the Israelites against the Canaanite general, Sisera.  The battle
happened in the Kishon riverbed valley.  But because it is a desert
climate, the river bed usually ran dry.  The river flowed with
strength enough to stop the army.

Then
the song changes, and celebrates Jael.  Jael is said to be the wife
of Heber the Kenite.  Moses’s father in law was a Kenite, so she
would have been seen as a distant but distinct relative.  Jael
welcomes the general into her tent with enthusiasm.  It says he asked
for water and she gave him milk curds.  Then she kills him.

Then
the song turns even more vicious.  It imagines Sisera’s mother
waiting for him at home, fantasizing about the “spoil” he’ll
bring home.  In this imagining, she assumes he isn’t home yet because
they are busy raping the women of Israel.  The Hebrew text says, “a
womb or two for every man” and then goes on to imagine the
embroidery she is hoping he’ll bring her.   Right after this
imagining, the song ends with the words, ‘So perish all your
enemies, O Lord!
But may your friends be like the sun as it
rises in its might.’” (Judges 5:31a, NRSV)  Likely there is
direct irony between the imagined two wombs and those of Jael and
Deborah.

The
prose text has a more linear plot that flows like a story, with
explanations and details.  It explains why Jael and her husband were
there, implying that Heber the Kenite was a smith who decided to
travel with the Canaanite army to fix their chariots!²
 However, it is almost certain that the prose version was created to
help people understand the song, so I don’t think we need to spend
more time with it.

We
do need to spend some more time in that tent with Sisera and Jael
though.  There is a rather large hole in both versions of this story:
why does she kill him?  Other stories in the Bible have taught us how
sacrosanct hospitality was there.  A person welcomed into one’s tent
was often treated with more dignity and respect than even family
members who lived in that tent.  And Jael is said to be enthusiastic
in her welcome.

What
happened?  Did she make a calculation that if Sisera, the general,
were running away without his army that he must have lost and it
would be better to have the gratitude of the Israelites?  Perhaps.
That would make sense.  But since this is a woman’s song, I think it
would be reasonable to read into the hidden narrative.  Women were
generally in subservient roles throughout the time this song was
passed on, so it seems particularly likely that the song would make
its points in subtext rather than in text that could be used against
them.

And
there is a lot of subtext.  I mentioned a moment ago that the song
explicitly mentions Sisera’s mother imagining him raping women.
Futhermore, the details used to describe Sisera’s death are
surprising.   Commentators have noted that Jael “penetrates” his
skull with the tent peg, and that this reads like a rape scene.  The
Hebrew actually reads, “he sank, he fell, he lay still … he sank,
he fell… he fell dead.”  When he dies he is said in Hebrew to
fall “between her feet” or “between her legs” which is “a
sexual euphemism found elsewhere in the Bible.”³
The ancient rabbis noticed all of the sexual overtones, it has long
been debated.

But
what do they mean?  I’m not sure, but I can think of three things.
The most obvious one, and I think the one we’re meant to be
distracted by, is that Sisera was “shamed” by being killed by a
woman and further “shamed” in the undertones by having it sound
like a woman raping him.  (Please note that I don’t believe that
these things are shameful, rather that the text thinks they are.)
However, two other options seem hidden under this.  One is the
possibility of women having their own fantasy of being able to get
retribution for being the “spoils of war.”  That even being able
to sing a song where a woman is NOT raped by the enemy but instead
has power over him kept them going through the hard times.  The final
option is less empowering.  I wonder if Sisera actually raped Jael,
and she choose to kill him afterward.  If so, the narrative of the
rape and the narrative of the murder got folded into one.

This
story has made it through 3200 years to get to us today.  It has some
themes we can affirm (God liberates!  God can work through shared
leadership!) and a whole bunch of others we can’t.  This story
captures an ancient way of thinking about God.  This conception, of
God as Warrior, of God as egotistical-abuser, is in our shared
general psyche.  It comes from our ancients, and as such it lives
with us today.  It feels important to be able to read it as an
ancient text and acknowledge that we
no longer live 3200 years ago in the very beginning of the iron age.

We
are allowed to have developed from this point of view, and to
understand things differently now.  We can affirm that God liberates
the oppressed, but we don’t have to take the rest of the story with
it.  We can let go of a warrior God, and make space for a God who
loves ALL people (on any sides of any divide).  We can let go of the
egotistical-abuser, and make space for a God of compassion, vision,
and guidance.  We can be grateful for the chance to hear the stories
of 3200 years ago, and still acknowledge the value of the wisdom we
have today.  We aren’t stuck in the past, nor in the values of the
past, and we don’t have to leave God there either.  Our God is not a
God of violence.  We can leave that idea to the past and remove it
from our collective psyche.  Thanks be!!  Amen

1 Dennis
T. Olsen “Judges” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 2
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1998) p.
787.

2 Danna
Nolan Fewell, “Judges” in Women’s Bible Commenatry
edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, Kentucky:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, 1998) p. 77

3 Olsen,
788.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady