Commentaria in Judices
For thy sake the North Wind from the mountain with icy storms overwhelmed the opposing ranks, and turned back the hurled darts upon their authors, and with a whirlwind drove back the spears. O too much beloved of God, for whom Aeolus pours forth armed tempests from his caves, for whom the sky fights, and the conspiring winds come at the trumpet-call!
The same is recited and celebrated by St. Augustine, book V of the City of God, chap. 26.
16. AND ALL THE MULTITUDE OF THE ENEMIES WAS UTTERLY DESTROYED.—In Hebrew, so that not even one was left. This victory was therefore rare and prodigious by a new miracle. Philo the Biblical asserts that 997 thousand were slain from the camp of Sisara, which scarcely seems credible.
17. BUT SISARA FLEEING CAME TO THE TENT OF JAHEL THE WIFE OF HABER THE CINITE: FOR THERE WAS PEACE BETWEEN JABIN THE KING OF ASOR AND THE HOUSE OF HABER THE CINITE.—“For there was peace,” either forced, namely by fear of the most powerful tyrant Jabin, a neighbour, as Abulensis will have it, Question 24, whence, notwithstanding this peace, Jahel justly slew Sisara, as an enemy of the Commonwealth. Or certainly it was a peace not entered into by a fixed pact, nor confirmed by oath, but because King Jabin, while vexing the Hebrews, suffered the Cinites to live untouched in peace, since they abstained from wars and political affairs, and, giving themselves to themselves and to God, were free for prayer and contemplation: wherefore they were in veneration, love and honour with King Jabin. God did this that the Hebrews might learn how much piety avails, when they saw the pious Cinites enjoying peace, and so prevailing in authority with the tyrant, while they themselves on account of idolatry were continually vexed and afflicted by him.
You will say: If there was peace between Haber and Jabin, then Jahel, slaying Sisara the leader of Jabin, violated the peace, and was a covenant-breaker. Arias answers that peace is ratified between men, wherefore women are not comprehended in it. Others answer more solidly that this peace was either forced, or free, so that it was free to either party to violate it for its own advantage. Add that even if it had been pacted and sworn, it could nevertheless be violated by Jahel, both because God through Debbora, verse 6, had commanded this to be done, and war against Sisara to be undertaken by Barac and the Hebrews. For the Cinites, such as Jahel was, even if not Hebrews by blood, were so by affinity, because Jethro had given his daughter to wife to Moses. Wherefore Jahel with the other Cinites had passed over into the colony, inheritance and Commonwealth of the Hebrews, and, as is likely, into their faith and religion, as I said on Num. 10:29. She could therefore, indeed ought, as a member of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews, to betray or destroy Sisara, as their common and public enemy, indeed already an actual invader of her people. For everyone is bound to defend his country and Commonwealth, and to ward off and remove its public invader, one proclaimed and proscribed such either by God or by the Commonwealth, either by open war if he can, or by hidden art, guile and stratagem, as Jahel did, feigning friendship with Sisara, and offering him a cloak and milk. Finally there is no doubt that the woman Jahel was moved and impelled by a hidden instinct of God to dare so great a deed, that she might free her people oppressed by the tyranny of Sisara. So Abulensis, Arias and others, and Josephus too.
18. FEAR NOT,—as if to say: There are no armed men here, no enemies whose swords you need dread. She does not lie, for this was true.
BEING COVERED BY HER WITH A CLOAK,—with a longer garment, or covering, to hide him, lest if any Hebrew should enter the house, he should find and slay him. Jahel did this craftily to remove from Sisara the suspicion of the treachery which she herself was contriving, and that she might more easily slay him lying under the covering.
TO DRINK.—Jahel gave milk to Sisara when he asked for water, both from courtesy and that Sisara might more easily fall asleep, and so be slain by her secretly and safely; for milk, if drunk largely by one thirsty, excites vapours and fumes, which, ascending to the head, induce heaviness and sleep, as may be seen in infants, who, sucking or eating milk, sleep frequently, and for that reason milk is wont to be denied by physicians to the bilious and those suffering from fever, as Hippocrates teaches, and from him Arias and Abulensis, and Origen too, Hom. 8. Whence Josephus says: “When Sisara had drunk the milk too greedily, he was dissolved into sleep.” Hence also chap. 5, verse 25, Jahel is blessed, “because she gave milk to him that asked water.” Perhaps she even mixed with the milk opium, mandrake, or some other herb or soporific juice, as was done of old, and we know was done in this age too, by those who intended to destroy an enemy buried in sleep and wine or milk.
21. SO JAHEL THE WIFE OF HABER TOOK A NAIL OF THE TENT,—one, namely, of the iron pegs by which the tent stretched with cords is fixed to the ground, and with a hammer drove it through the temples and brain of Sisara, and so slew him sleeping: for in the temples and brain is the vitality of sense and motion: wherefore if these are wounded and pierced, the man at once fails and dies. Truly St. Ambrose, book On Widows: “Debbora,” he says, “prophesied the outcome of the battle, Barac, the just, led forth the army, Jahel won the triumph.”
You will say: Why did Jahel slay Sisara with her own hand, and not wait for Barac, to deliver him to him? I answer, because there was danger in delay, lest Sisara, if he lived, waking, should flee and escape, and again renew the war. Prudently, therefore, she seized the occasion of slaughter, lest, having slipped away, she should seek it in vain. “Often in war great chances intervene by small moments,” says Caesar, book I of the Civil War. “Be armed, therefore, and intent,” says Livy, book XXII, “so as neither to fail a safe occasion nor to give your own to the enemy.”
AND SO PASSING FROM DEEP SLEEP TO DEATH, HE FAINTED AWAY AND DIED.—The Septuagint: And he himself, stupefied (the Basel Codex has, palpitated), darkened and died. Philo, or rather Pseudo-Philo, whom some think to be John Annius of Viterbo, in his Biblical Antiquities, adds: “And as he was dying, Sisara said to Jahel: Behold, pain has taken me, Jahel, and I die like a woman. And Jahel said to him: Go, boast among thy father in hell, and say that thou hast fallen into the hands of a woman.” But these things seem said and feigned for verisimilitude rather than received from ancient historians, indeed they are repugnant to the Hebrew and to the Vulgate version, which says: Passing from sleep to death; Sisara therefore, sleeping, died in his sleep.
Allegorically Debbora and Jahel represent the Church of God, and tropologically the holy soul, strong and zealous for God; Barac the Synagogue, Sisara the devil, milk prayer, by which the devil is as it were lulled to sleep and unnerved. Hear St. Ambrose, book On Widows, after the middle: “And therefore the thirst of Sisara is quenched by a cup of milk, because he is overcome by prayer.”
Hear also Origen, hom. 5: “Jahel is interpreted ascent (from the root alah, that is, he ascended; otherwise Jahel in Hebrew is the same as hind or stag, says Pagninus): because in truth there is no other ascent by which one ascends to heaven, but through the Church of the manifold wisdom of God. She it is, then, who, while she ascends from bodily to spiritual things, and from earthly to heavenly, slew Sisara, who holds the figure of carnal vices, and of the animal or stolid man; for Sisara is interpreted sight of a horse, of which Psalm 31:9 says: Do not become like the horse and the mule, who have no understanding. With a stake (peg or iron nail), then, she slew him, that is, with the point and power of the wood of the cross she lays him low, and that in the jaw, because that mouth which spoke of carnal things is pierced and bored by the wood of the cross.” For the cross teaches the mortification of the flesh as of the tongue.
Finally Jahel was a type of the Blessed Virgin; for of her it is said, Canticles 8:5: “Who is she that goeth up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?” She is the gracious hind, indeed full of all grace, she it is who crushed the head of the serpent, that is, of the devil, Gen. 3. Hear St. Bernard, serm. 9 on Missus est: “For whom was this victory reserved, if not for Mary? She without doubt crushed the venomous head, who brought to nothing every suggestion of the malign one, as much from the allurement of the flesh as from the pride of the mind.” And after a few words: “Her Solomon sought, when, vehemently wondering, he said: Who shall find a valiant woman? and so it seemed fitting that he who had conquered through a woman should be conquered through her.”