Two famous biblical women show up in these next two chapters - a prophetess and a seductive killer, armed with weapons and words, both work for the Israelite cause in Canaan, and win the war. What’s their story?
Deborah or ‘she she speaks’ or ‘the bee’ - same word in Hebrew, is one of seven female prophets named in the Hebrew Bible. She leads her people with successful military strategy and ecstatic poetry, all from the base of her palm tree.
Yael is a local ally to the people of Israel, famous for her seduction, sheltering, and skull smashing of Sisera, the Canaanite general on the run from his defeat in battle. Their stories, and names, still popular, are preserved over generations, glorified by many - for their gore, goals, and strong female leadership presence. Some question and challenge the ethics of these women’s’ actions, their complicity with violence and the colonial conquest. Some scholars probe the editor’s intentions and motives, many centuries later, and search these stories for more clues that reveal more of the mythic and political dimensions of these dramatic stories.
This is a great chapter to read in full but here’s the gist:
Once again the people of Israel step off the path of obedience to the law, and as a result are conquered and ruled by the Canaanites Kingdom of Hazor, led by king Yavin, and his general Sisera. Deborah, a local known prophet and tribe leader, becomes Israel’s fourth judge, and along with the warrior Barak, both of them most likely from the northern tribe of Ephraim, go out to war on Hazor. Deborah, both judge and prophet, predicts Barak’s victory over Sisera but that the victory will be by an armed - or by the hand of a — woman:
וַתֹּ֜אמֶר הָלֹ֧ךְ אֵלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֗ךְ אֶ֚פֶס כִּי֩ לֹ֨א תִֽהְיֶ֜ה תִּֽפְאַרְתְּךָ֗ עַל־הַדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אַתָּ֣ה הוֹלֵ֔ךְ כִּ֣י בְֽיַד־אִשָּׁ֔ה יִמְכֹּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶת־סִֽיסְרָ֑א וַתָּ֧קׇם דְּבוֹרָ֛ה וַתֵּ֥לֶךְ עִם־בָּרָ֖ק קֶֽדְשָׁה׃
“I will go with you,” Deborah answered. “However, there will be no glory for you in the course you are taking, for Adonai will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.”
And it turns out - it happens but the hand isn’t hers.
Despite heavy military artillery, the Canaanites are defeated and their General seeks refuge in the tent of a nearby tribe of the Kenites, allies to Israel.
Yael takes him into the tent with promises of shelter and a cup of milk but kills him with the tent stake when he falls asleep. The war is over.
The next chapter will be the triumphant song - sung by Deobrah, extolling Yael. These two women are the ‘warriors of weapon and word’, thus named by feminist scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky in the (recommended!) anthology she edited - Reading the Women of the Bible.
She described Deborah as “a prophet-woman, someone who speaks with divine authority, and she is Lapidot-woman, which could be translated "wife of Lapidot," but it also means "woman of torches” "or "fiery woman" - it fits the image of Deborah and would fit the story in the manner of biblical names. "Torch-Lady" provides a significant wordplay, for it is Deborah, not her husband, who is the torch that sets the general Barak (whose name means "lightning") on fire. “ Yael is “...the stealthy heroine… stands with the slain foe between her legs in a grim parody of birth.”
There are numerous attempts, some surprising, to relate to these stories. Sparks from Deborah’s torches may still sizzle in the “The New Colossus'' poem penned by Emma Lazarus in 1883, and later carved at the feet of Lady Liberty - “A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame / Is the imprisoned lightning.” Some credit the reference to Deborah in the poem to Lazarus’ rekindled interest in her Judaism and the national cause.
Other artists focused on the other woman of this narrative - and explored Yael’s role as the first official biblical Femme Fatale.
Artemisia Gentileschi, overlooked Italian Baroque painter in the 17th century, created one of the most striking paintings of that moment when Yael prepares to slay Sisera. Artemisia was the first woman to be admitted to the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. She flourishes as an artist, but was then raped by one of the artists. This would be one of the paintings in which she processes her history as she portrays pain, and rage - but with surprising and alarming calm, perhaps purposeful and just.
Deborah and Yael, just a few women in a long list of men who populate this book and the narratives of settlement, are likely heroines of folk traditions who were central to the lore that eventually became the bible. But some scholars suggest that their centrality here, devised by the book’s eventual editors reveals another purpose. Prof.Jacob L. Wright suggests that:
“The older story of Barak’s triumph over Sisera was transformed into one in which Deborah becomes the central power and Sisera is brought down not by the Israelite general but by a Kenite woman. By revising the story in this way, both Barak and Sisera are taken down a peg. Powerful men are not the prime movers in the story, instead YHWH is pulling the strings, working often through women.”
The startling contemporary religious implications of these two women’s stories became more apparent in the epic poem that is the next chapter. Deborah’s poem tells the story of one more woman, one more mother whose voice still haunts our memory today even as none will ever know her name.
Image: @ArtemisiaGentileschi, Giaele e Sisara, 1620, Museum of Fine Arts / wikimedia
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