Judges 5:26

Jdg 5:26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

Ver. 26. She smote off his head.] Sept., She bored through, or pierced his head; as Ulysses perforated Polyphemus’s eye.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 5:26. She smote off his head — Or rather, smote through his head, for there is not the least hint given in the story that she cut off his head. The latter part of the verse, When she pierced, &c., may be rendered, She wounded and pierced through his temples.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 26. She smote off his head] The original does not warrant this translation; nor is it supported by fact. She smote his head, and transfixed him through the temples. It was his head that received the death wound, and the place where this wound was inflicted was the temples. The manner in which Jael despatched Sisera seems to have been this:

1. Observing him to be in a profound sleep she took a workman's hammer, probably a joiner's mallet, and with one blow on the head deprived him of all sense.

2. She then took a tent nail and drove it through his temples, and thus pinned him to the earth; which she could not have done had she not previously stunned him with the blow on the head. Thus she first smote his head, and secondly pierced his temples.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(26) Nail. . . . workmen’s hammer.—See on Jdg_4:21.

Smote.—Hammered.

Smote off his head.—Rather, shattered his head. The Hebrew is onomatopoetic, i.e., the sound echoes the sense, recalling the smashing and crashing blows of the hammer. The repetition of these terrible alliterative verbs, “hammered,” “shattered,” “battered,” “transfixed,” the signs that the imagination of the prophetess seems to revel in the description, have been ascribed to “the delight of a satisfied thirst for revenge.” This is hardly a right view of her character. It must be remembered that the feelings of modern times are far more refined and complex than those of previous ages. The sense of tenderness, the quickness of compassion, the value set on human life, are immeasurably increased, and with them the power of realising by universal sympathy the position and sufferings of others. In ancient days no close moral analysis was applied to acts of which the general tendency was approved as right and beneficial. Caesar was not inherently a cruel man, yet he records without a shudder the massacre and misery of multitudes of Gaulish men, women, and children at Alesia; and he suffered the brave Vercingetorix to be led away from his triumph, to be strangled in the Tullianum, without the slightest qualm of pity. Deborah, in the spirit of her day, seems to regard with pitiless exultation the wild throes of Sisera’s death, and the agonising frustration of his mother’s hopes. only because she views those events in the single aspect of the deliverance of Israel. The tenderness of the Mother of Israel was absorbed in the thought of her own long-afflicted, but now rescued, race. “She was a mother in Israel, and with the vehemency of a mother’s and a patriot’s love, she had shot the light of love from her eyes, and poured the blessings of love from her lips on the people that had jeopardised their lives unto the death against the oppressors, and the bitterness awakened and borne aloft by the same love she precipitates in curses on the selfish and cowardly recreants who came not to the help of the Lord against the unjust” (Coleridge); and we may add, on all connected with the cruel oppressor.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

26. While he was standing (Jdg_5:27) and about to drink, Jael dealt him a shattering blow with a wooden implement. We are tempted to suppose that, if he had drunk, he would have been protected by the laws of Eastern hospitality. So in The Talisman, Sir Walter Scott makes Saladin dash the cup from the hand of the Grand Master of the Templars before assassinating him; had he tasted it, he would have been safe. Talisman p. 535 (ed. 1879 A. and C. Black). In Jdg_4:19, however, Jael has no scruples about killing Sisera after he has partaken of her hospitality.

According to the parallelism of Hebr. poetry her hand and her right hand mean the same thing; and so should nail and workmen’s hammer. But can the latter term be thus rendered? workmen ought rather to be sufferers, worn out with toil and misery, Job_3:20; Job_20:22; the meaning labourer is only found in Pro_16:26 (late); moreover hammer (a doubtful form, and a different word from mallet in Jdg_4:21) can hardly be another name for nail or tent-peg. What is meant by this synonym we do not know; but it is clear that Jael used one weapon, not two. The account in Jdg_4:21 gives a different version of the tradition. Translate the last two lines:

And she hammered Sisera, shattered his head,

And crushed and clave his temples.

The word rendered clave might perhaps mean caused to pass away, made to vanish; properly it = pass on, or through, here apparently in the sense of piercing, cf. Job_20:24. The description is that of a heavy, crushing blow.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

She put her hand to the nail,.... Her left hand, as the Septuagint, Arabic, and Vulgate Latin versions express it, and as appears by what follows; she having taken up a pin from her tent, with which it was fastened to the ground, she clapped it to the temples of Sisera:

and her right hand to the workman's hammer; in her right hand she took a hammer, such as carpenters, and such like workmen, make use of, and workman like went about her business she had devised, and was determined upon, being under a divine impulse, and so had no fear or dread upon her:

and with the hammer she smote Sisera; not that with the hammer she struck him on the head, and stunned him, but smote the nail she had put to his temples and drove it into them:

she smote off his head; after she had driven the nail through his temples, she took his sword perhaps and cut off his head, as David cut off Goliath's, after he had slung a stone into his forehead; though as this seems needless, nor is there any hint of it in the history of this affair, the meaning may only be, that she struck the nail through his head, as the Septuagint, or broke his head, as the Targum:

when she had pierced and stricken through his temples; that being the softest and tenderest part of the head, she drove the nail quite through them to the ground, Jdg 4:21.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rather “she smote his head, and she struck and pierced through his temple.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Sisara. Hebrew says with the hammer; (Protestants,) "she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken (the nail) through his temples." But we may rather translate, (Haydock) "she pierced his head, she struck it, and pierced through this temples." (Calmet) --- For we cannot suppose that she severed his head from his body with the hammer; but she fastened it to the ground with the nail, chap. iv. 21.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Her hand, i.e. her left hand, as appears from the nature of the thing; and from the

right hand, which is opposed to it. Smote off, or, struck through, as the LXX. and Syriac render it; or brake, as the Chaldee hath it.

When she had pierced, Heb. and she pierced; or, and the nail pierced.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

With the hammer. These words are not in the Hebrew, and should be omitted. She smote (not smote off), yea, she wounded; (Psa_68:21) she pierced through his temples.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

"Her hand," i.e., the left hand, as is shown by the antithesis, "her right hand," which follows. On the form תּשׁלחנה, the third pers. fem. sing. with נה attached, to distinguish it the more clearly from the second pers., see the remarks on Exo 1:10. עמלים הלמוּת, hammer or mallet of the hard workers, is a large heavy hammer. For the purpose of depicting the boldness and greatness of the deed, the words are crowded together in the second hemistich: הלם, to hammer, or smite with the hammer; מחק, ἁπ. λεγ., to smite in pieces, smite through; מחץ, to smite or dash in pieces; חלף, to pierce or bore through. The heaping up of the words in Jdg 5:27 answers the same purpose. They do not "express the delight of a satisfied thirst for revenge," but simply bring out the thought that Sisera, who was for years the terror of Israel, was now struck dead with a single blow. כּרע בּאשׁר, at the place where he bowed, there he fell שׁדוּד, overpowered and destroyed. In conclusion, the singer refers once more in the last strophe (Jdg 5:28-30) to the mother of Sisera, as she waited impatiently for the return of her son, and foreboded his death, whilst the prudent princesses who surrounded her sought to cheer her with the prospect of a rich arrival of booty.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

She put her hand to the tent peg

"Jael grabbed the tent peg with her left hand"

tent peg

This is a pointed piece of wood or metal, like a large nail, that is hammered into the ground to hold down a corner of a tent. See how you translated this in Judges 4:21.

her right hand to the workman's hammer

This can be stated as a complete sentence. AT: "she grabbed a hammer with her right hand" (See: Ellipsis)

hammer

This is a heavy tool made of wood used to hit a tent peg into the ground. See how you translated this in Judges 4:21.

Sisera

See how you translated this man's name in Judges 4:2.

limp

without strength or movement

he was violently killed

This can be stated in active form. AT: "she killed him" or "he died" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

hand

tent

skull

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

To batter the exhausted Sisera, who was exhausted, totally fatigued.

Penetrated. From חִיקּוּי, "penetration".

Inflicted grievous injury. From מַחַץ, "injury".

Impaled. It emerged from the other side.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Her hand reached (tishlachenah) for the tent pin: It is like tishlach (the singular conjugation, and not the plural, which tishlachenah would otherwise be). And the [final letters] nun and hay are extra - as [in] (Judges 3:23), "misdaronah"; (Judges 3:22), "parshedonah" - even though this is not customary. And my master, my father, may his memory be blessed, explained,"tishlachenah," [as] her [left] hand and her right hand sent out (such that the verb is understandably conjugated in the plural) for the tent pin and the hammer. She required her left hand for the tent peg; and her right, for the hammer. And it attributed sending to the hands because they performed the act. And similar to this is (Ecclesiastes 2:10), "And everything that my eyes requested"; (Proverbs 7:11), "her feet did not reside at home"; (Psalms 78:72) "and he led them with the skill of his palms." But if you say that tishlachenah is singular, there is no need for all this. As the explanation is that her [left] hand and her right hand were extended for the sake of the tent peg and the hammer. And my teacher, my brother, Rabbi Moshe, may his memory be blessed, explained it [as] lacking (though having the meaning as if it had) the comparative [letter] kaf - as [in] (Proverbs 17:22), "A joyful heart is brightness," the understanding of which is, "is like brightness." And likewise did he explain, "her hand," [as,] "like her hand." And it is in the way of a question: Since it stated (Judges 5:24), "More blessed than women is Yael," it said that she is more fitting for blessing than other women, as she did this powerful act that other women do not do. For acts of power are not done by women, but rather by men. Hence it said by way of a question, "Do the other women send out [their hands] - like her hand - for the tent peg, and the right hand for the worker's hammer (halmut)?" And halmut is the name of the tool with which working craftsmen strike.

She machakah his head: She removed his head. It is from the usage, machak, in the words of our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed (Bava Batra 89a) - "We do not flatten (mochakim) [produce] in a place that they heap [it]." And a machak is a tool that we pass over a measure to remove everything above it.

And she smashed: It is from [the same usage as] (Isaiah 30:26), "and the crushing of its wound."

And she chalfah: She passed the tent peg through his temple. And so did Yonatan translate (in the Targum), "she passed it through his temple." Or, "and she chalfah," can be from [the same usage as] (Job 11:10), "yachalof and confine," which is an expression of cutting off.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.