Sisera

From BibleWiki

(Egypt. Ses-Ra, "servant of Ra").

(1.) The captain of Jabin's army (Jdg 4:2), which was routed and destroyed by the army of Barak on the plain of Esdraelon. After all was lost he fled to the settlement of Heber the Kenite in the plain of Zaanaim. Jael, Heber's wife, received him into her tent with apparent hospitality, and "gave him butter" (i.e., lebben, or curdled milk) "in a lordly dish." Having drunk the refreshing beverage, he lay down, and soon sank into the sleep of the weary. While he lay asleep Jael crept stealthily up to him, and taking in her hand one of the tent pegs, with a mallet she drove it with such force through his temples that it entered into the ground where he lay, and "at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead." The part of Deborah's song (Jdg 5:24ff) referring to the death of Sisera (which is a "mere patriotic outburst," and "is no proof that purer eyes would have failed to see gross sin mingling with Jael's service to Israel") is thus rendered by Professor Roberts (Old Testament Revision):

"Extolled above women be Jael,
The wife of Heber the Kenite,
Extolled above women in the tent.
He asked for water, she gave him milk;
She brought him cream in a lordly dish.
She stretched forth her hand to the nail,
Her right hand to the workman's hammer,
And she smote Sisera; she crushed his head,
She crashed through and transfixed his temples.
At her feet he curled himself, he fell, he lay still;
At her feet he curled himself, he fell;
And where he curled himself, there he fell dead."

what mentions this? (please help by turning references to this page into wiki links)

---

General of the army of King Jabin of Hazor. According to Judges iv. 9 et seq., he invaded the northern part of Judea in the time of Deborah, the prophetess and judge. Upon Deborah's order Barak took 10,000 men and went out to meet Sisera, going as far as the river of Kishon. Sisera suffered defeat, and while Barak pursued the enemy as far as "Harosheth of the Gentiles," Sisera fled alone and on foot. Arrived at the settlement of the Kenites, who, according to legend, were the descendants of Jethro, he was invited by a Kenite woman named Jael, wife of Heber, into her tent. Sisera accepted the invitation and asked for water, but instead she gave him milk. When Sisera had fallen asleep, Jael took a hammer and drove a "nail," or tent-pin, into his temple.

The position of Sisera's army is not specifically mentioned in Judges v. 19, where the battle is said to have taken place at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. The identity of Sisera has not yet been established (see M. Müller, "Asien und Europa," p. 332; Budde, "Die Bücher Richter und Samuel").

According to the Midrash (Yalḳuṭ Shim'oni on Judges iv. 3), Sisera hitherto had conquered every country against which he had fought. His voice was so strong that when he called loudly the most solid wall would shake and the wildest animal would fall dead. Deborah was the only one who could withstand his voice and whom it did not cause to stir from her place. Sisera caught fishenough in his beard when bathing in the Kishon to provision his whole army. According to the same source (lii., end), thirty-one kings followed Sisera merely for the opportunity of drinking, or otherwise using, the waters of Israel. The descendants of Sisera, according to Giṭ. 57b, were teachers of the young in Jerusalem. See Deborah; Jael.

---

(2.) The ancestor of some of the Nethinim who returned with Zerubbabel (Ez 2:53; Neh 7:55).