Deborah, Yael, and Sisera’s Mother: A 3-Act Story

Deborah "on one foot":

Deborah was a judge of the Israelites in the time after Joshua and before Samuel. During her time, King Yavin of the Canaanites was oppressing the Israelites with the help of his general, Sisera. This story is the Haftarah for Parashat Beshalach because both have a song after the story. It’s the longest Haftarah of the year with 51 verses — Haftarat HaAzinu also has 51 verses, but the verses are shorter.

Context: This is a painting that is related to the story. How exactly will be revealed later. For now:

1. What do you see?

2. What do you think?

​​​​​​​3. What do you wonder?

Act 1

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Judges, which takes place after Joshua dies. The previous leader of the Israelites, Ehud, was now dead. The Canaanites had iron weapons, including chariots, while the Israelites still had bronze weapons. Deborah, or “Devorah” in Hebrew, is the modern Hebrew word for “bee”.

1. At what points could this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. How might Deborah have become a leader of the people?

3. Lappidot was Deborah’s husband. How might he have felt about her “job”?

4. What might Deborah's emotional reaction have been to Barak's refusal to lead without her?

Act 2

Context: This is the next part of the story.

1. At what points could this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. Why might Yael have chosen to kill Sisera?

3. What might Yael have been feeling before and after she killed Sisera?

4. Heber, Yael's husband, seems to have been away at the time. How might he have reacted to Yael telling him what she did? Does it depend on what her reasoning was?

Act 3

Context: This is a retelling of the same story in Acts 1 and 2, except now in poetic form. It is considered one of the oldest pieces of the Hebrew Bible, dating back to the eleventh century BCE, shortly after the events mentioned in them. This version of the story adds that there was a rainstorm, attributed to G-d, which neutralizes the advantage of the iron chariots. The text “Biblical Antiquities” by “Pseudo-Philo” from the first century CE gives the name “Themach” to Sisera’s mother (https://www.thetorah.com/article/deborah-yael-and-siseras-mother-themech) (see here for the actual text in translation: https://archive.org/details/biblicalantiquit00pseurich/page/169/mode/1up)

1. At what points could this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. Why is Sisera's mother concerned about his delay?

3. How long might it be before she realizes that her son is not coming home to her again?

4. Why might Sisera's mother's wails be the model for the sound of the shofar? What can we learn from this connection? (Rosh Hashanah 33b:10) (see here for more on this topic: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/454621?lang=bi)

This is "Mother of Sisera", by Albert Joseph Moore, done in 1866. Fanny Eaton is the model. (To learn more about the painting, see here: https://victorianweb.org/painting/moore/paintings/19.html) (To learn more about Fanny Eaton as well as the mother of Sisera, see here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/257793?lang=bi)

Musical Versions

Context: This is Debbie Friedman’s “Devorah’s Song”. It takes a phrase from the beginning of Judges 5, the song version of the story. The song may have been written for the Bat-Mitzvah of a girl named Deborah. It was released on her 2005 album “Songs of the Spirit” (https://www.discogs.com/release/13394743-Debbie-Friedman-Songs-Of-The-Spirit-The-Debbie-Friedman-Anthology).

Context: This is the “Immortal Lord of Earth and Skies” chorus from George Handel’s oratorio “Deborah”, premiered in 1733.

Context: This is a retelling, slightly midrashic, of the story, from BimBam in 2014. And no, there were no dreidel horses, throwing Jewish stars, or bayonet menorahs.

Context: This is Idina Menzel singing her Haftarah (start at 1:57).

Historical Veracity of This Story

From History of the Bible, by Ian Wilson, p. 80-85

- The fact that Deborah was the leader of the Israelites yet kept “court” under a palm tree helps to explain why there isn’t much in the way of Israelite buildings that have survived from this time.

- There was a 12th century BCE Canaanite ivory knife-handle found at Megiddo (northern Israel) that depicted the Canaanite warrior armored and driving a chariot, while holding a massive spear and carrying quivers of arrows. He is accompanied by similarly-armed foot soldiers. Lashed to the chariot are two naked but turbaned “Shoshu” who are circumcised. This appears to support the idea of King Yavin and General Sisera of the Canaanites oppressing and enslaving the Israelites.

- The “Wadi Kishon” still exists today as the River Kishon in the Jezreel Valley. One source of the River Kishon begins on the lower slopes of Mount Tabor, a few miles south-west of the Sea of Galilee.

- The “Song of Deborah” is one of the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible, with the archaic language dating it to at least as far back as the 12th century BCE. Even otherwise conservative textual scholars agree with this dating.

- The Egyptian Temple of Karnak at Luxor has a listing of Canaanite place names that were on the Egyptian campaign routes into Canaan. This listing corroborates some of the place-names in the story of Deborah.

- At the Temple of Karnak, the 13th-century BCE pharaoh Ramesses II had an itinerary that described the meeting spot of the Jezreel Valley and Mount Tabor as “Qerumin-Qishon of Ibn-Shimshon-Hadasht”.

- Because in the Bible “d” and “r” are often interchanged (the Hebrew letters are very similar), the American scholar Charles R. Krahmalkov has noticed that “Qerumim” could be the same as “Qedumim”.

- In Judges 5:21, “Qedumim” is given as an alternate name for “Qishon”, just as the Egyptians tie them together.

- “The River Qishon” probably got its name from the ancient town of Qishon, now Tel Qaysun, a mile south of Mount Tabor.

- “Hadasht” is probably the same as “Charoshet-Goyim”, Sisera’s base-camp (Judges 4:13 and 16). Today, this is Ayn al-Hadath, 5 miles north-east of Tel Qaysun.

- Krahmalkov identifies “ibn” with “Yavin”, a common name for kings of this region. Joshua defeated a much earlier “Yavin, king of Hazor” (Joshua 11:1), and Israeli archeologist Amnon Ben-Tor found at Hazor an even earlier cuneiform tablet from the 18th century BCE inscribed “to Ibni”, i.e. “to Yavin”.

- Judges 4:17 and 4:23 make it clear that King Yavin was based in Hazor, and that Deborah and Barak destroyed King Yavin. Given that Joshua had captured Hazor, it must have been recaptured by the Canaanites in between. Hazor was found by the British archeologist John Garstang in the 1920s, and excavated by the Israeli archeologist Yigal Yadin in the 1950s. Work continued in the 1990s under Amnon Ben-Tor.

- In the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, Hazor was a major Canaanite city with temples and a magnificent palace. It underwent a series of destructions culminating in a major one around 1275 BCE where the cult statues were deliberately smashed. Egyptians never did this (because they thought this would curse them), and rival Canaanites would never do this. It seems that this was more in line with the timing for Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:23) rather than Joshua.

- In the ancient “Song of Deborah” (Judges 5), only certain tribes are credited with answering Deborah’s call to arms, while other tribes were criticized as not. Self-critical accounts are unlikely to be included unless they are reflecting true events. Two tribes that did not join the fight were Reuben and Gilead/Gad. We know from Numbers 32:1 that these tribes were shepherds, so according to the American scholar Lawrence Stager they probably had a symbiotic relationship with Canaanite town-dwellers. Dan and Asher are described as living by the Mediterranean Sea, so they were probably involved in the active Canaanite trading activities. These four tribes would have good reason to not attack other Canaanites.

- The tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir/Manasseh, Zebulun, Issachar, and Naftali were more in the central hill country from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. They were more involved in fighting against the Canaanites.

- Yael’s pouring of milk for Sisera from a goatskin in her tent are good examples of why there may not be much hard archeological evidence of the Israelites of that time period (besides absence of pig bones after a certain point).

- In Biblical and extra-Biblical sources, high-born Canaanite women are described as looking out windows; the motif is similarly common in Canaanite art.

With appreciation to Reading the Women of the Bible by Tikva Frymer-Kensky and Listen to Her Voice by Miki Raver.

Appendix A: The Full Story (and Haftarat B’shalach)

Appendix B: Deborah, Yael, and Sisera in the News

Ancient mosaics of biblical heroines found in lower Galilee

These are the earliest known depictions of Jael and Deborah, in the Book of Judges, to have been discovered.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: JULY 12, 2022 17:33

Ancient mosaics dating back nearly 1,600 years have been unearthed in the Lower Galilee, with some of the latest findings being the first-known depictions of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael, as announced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The findings were made in a 14th-century Mameluke synagogue in the ancient village of Huqoq as part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Huqoq Excavation Project and led by Prof. Jodi Magness.

The project itself is an ongoing initiative in the area, currently in its 10th season after having a brief hiatus due to COVID-19. The ninth season was back in 2019.

“This is the first depiction of this episode and the first time we’ve seen a depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael in ancient Jewish art.”

Prof. Jodi Magness

Deborah and Jael: Biblical heroines

The characters of Deborah and Jael both feature in the Book of Judges chapter 4.

As the story recounts, this was a time period when a Canaanite King Jabin had sent his general Sisera to conquer the Land of Israel.

However, at the time there was a woman, Deborah, who acted as a judge — essentially a leadership figure. She was a prophetess, famously associated with being underneath palm trees as she worked, and who helped military leader Barak raise an army, composed of the Israelite tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon, to defeat Sisera in battle.

However, Sisera would flee the battlefield rather than be captured by the Israelite forces. He instead went to the tent of Hever the Kenite for refuge. Hever was not there but his wife Jael was.

There, Jael supposedly fed him until he fell asleep, after which she took a hammer and drove a tent peg into his skull, killing him.

It is these two scenes, Deborah under a palm tree with a battle-ready Barak and Jael driving the tent peg into Sisera's head that is preserved in these mosaics.

The mosaics found on the floor of an ancient synagogue are divided into three registers (three horizontal stripes). One depicts Deborah and Barak. The middle, which isn't fully preserved, seems to show Sisera sitting. The last shows Sisera dead, blood coming out of his head after Jael killed him.

“This is the first depiction of this episode and the first time we’ve seen a depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael in ancient Jewish art,” Magness said in a statement.

“Looking at the book of Joshua chapter 19, we can see how the story might have had special resonance for the Jewish community at Huqoq, as it is described as taking place in the same geographical region – the territory of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon.”

Previous finds

These are not the first biblical scenes found in Huqoq. In addition to this, they also found scenes of Samson, the spies sent by Moses to explore Canaan, Noah's Ark, the splitting of the Red Sea, the Tower of Bable and many more.

But research is still ongoing, with more excavations set to begin in the summer of 2023.

Marcy Oster/JTA contributed to this report.

https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-711887

Long time archaeological riddle solved

Canaanite general was based in Wadi Ara.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

Published: JULY 2, 2010 03:19

The riddle of the identity of a 3,200-year-old round bronze tablet with a carved face of a woman has apparently been solved, 13 years after it was discovered at the El-ahwat excavation site between Katzir-Harish and Nahal Iron (Wadi Ara) by scientist Oren Cohen of the University of Haifa.The small, broken-off piece of metal is probably part of a linchpin that held the wheel to a war chariot sent to battle by the Canaanite general Sisera against the Israelites, says Prof. Adam Zertal, who for 33 years has led weekly walks with university colleagues and volunteers over “every square meter” of Samaria and the Jordan Rift to search for archeological evidence from biblical times.The round, bronze tablet, about 2 centimeters in diameter and 5 millimeters thick, features a carved face of a woman wearing a cap and earrings shaped as chariot wheels. It was found in a structure identified as the “Governor’s House.”

Cohen was unable to find its parallel in any other archeological discoveries. When carrying out a study on the walls of the Temple of Rameses III in Egypt of ancient reliefs depicting chariot battles, Cohen identified a unique decoration – the bronze linchpins fastening the chariot wheels were decorated with the faces of captives, foreigners and enemies of Egypt. He also noticed that these decorations characterized those chariots that were used by royalty and other dignitaries. Cohen found that the linchpin with the woman’s face found near Katzir was almost identical to that found in the Egyptian temple.The identification as a linchpin, Zertal said, reinforces the claim that a high-ranking Egyptian or local ruler was based at this location and is likely to support the theory that the site is Haroshet Hagoyim – the Canaanite base of Sisera, as mentioned in the fourth and fifth chapter of the Book of Judges, the 70-year archeologist told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.The Egyptians and Canaanites both created linchpins for chariots with the carved faces of their enemies; the place on the wheels were considered “very undignified,” said Zertal, like the Jews putting Haman’s name on the soles of their shoes for beating against the floor while the Book of Esther is read aloud.The woman whose face is depicted on the linchpin found at the site was apparently a Hittite goddess; the Hittites were bitter enemies of the Egyptians. “So suddenly we realized that there was evidence of chariots from the head of the broken linchpin, which was found 10 centimeters underground in the large ‘Governor’s House’ that overlooked the northern quarter, where a large number of chariots had apparently been parked,” Zertal said.

The city’s uniqueness – its fortifications, passageways in the walls and rounded huts uncovered in the Zertal digs – made it foreign amid the Canaanite landscape. Zertal has proposed that based on these unusual features, the site may have been home to the Shardana tribe of the Sea Peoples, who, according to some researchers, lived in Harosheth Haggoyim, Sisera’s capital city.The full excavation and its conclusions have been summarized in Zertal’s 2010 Hebrew-language science-based novel, Sisera’s Secret, A Journey following the Sea-Peoples and the Song of Deborah.Sisera was the captain of the army of Yavin, king of Canaan. According to Judges 4:3, Sisera led an army of 900 iron chariots and oppressed the Israelites for two decades. Deborah the Prophetess, then leader of the Israelite tribes, persuaded Barak to face Sisera in battle. He led a force of 10,000 and destroyed the army of Sisera, whose origin was completely unknown. The battle, the Bible says, led to a 40-year peace.After his defeat, Sisera fled to the tent of Hever the Kenite in the plain of Za’anaim, where Hever’s wife, Yael, invited him inside and gave him milk to drink. This put him into a slumber; Yael – becoming the second heroine in the story after Deborah – quietly came close to him and pounded one of the tent pegs into his temple with a mallet, killing her enemy.

The Haifa archeologist was raised at a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz andseverely wounded in the Yom Kippur War. “I spent a year at HadassahHospital in Jerusalem, and I became interested in archeology. AlthoughI had argued that the Bible was full of myths, I decided after myrecovery to travel the land by foot to look for archeological evidence.”Zertal, who took the walks often using crutches from his decades-oldinjury, added: “I am a man of science and have to investigate whetherwhat is described in the Bible suits the geography. Nobody thoughtthere was an altar on Mount Ebal, but the evidence was found. It is nota legend. When you do archeological research as you should, you see alot [of the biblical stories] is reality.”

Zertal identified Sisera with the town of Sassari, arguing that he came from the people of Shardana – or Sardinia. “Sisera’s name did not appear on any archeological findings in the Middle East. But we did research and found that in Sardinia, there is a city called Sassari. About a third of people’s names in the world are based on the place their family come from. We believe that Sisera or his family came from Sassari. Sea peoples came to the Land of Israel from the sea. The Philistines were the most famous, but the Shardana people also arrived,” Zertal said.Eighteen years ago, said Zertal of the university’s Zinman Institute of Archeology, “we discovered an unknown city near Katzir with a huge, six-meter-wide wall. We found corridors, which were unusual, and in 1995 reached the conclusion that the residents were foreigners and not natives. They established features from their native home, just as the Chinese in New York created Chinatown. Everything fit together,” said Zertal, who noted that the area in Wadi Ara was very strategic, as it connected between Galilee and Samaria. “So the battle of Sisera and the Israelites was very important. But we had no visible signs where the Haroshet Hagoyim mentioned in the Bible as the place where the chariots left for battle actually was located.”The Haifa team wondered where the residents could have come from and realized that the Egyptian writing on the Temple of Rameses III in the 12th century BCE described his being a warrior who fought against Philistine and Shardana soldiers who wanted to capture Egypt. He was described as having constructed citadels, but archeologists were unable to find any.Zertal noted that it was fortunate the site was not built on afterward,from after the battle until the modern age. “But Katzir had plans toexpand into the area. That has been canceled, and we have built afence. We want people to visit the site,” he said.

https://www.jpost.com/Christian-In-Israel/Features/Long-time-archaeological-riddle-solved

Archaeological site could cast light on life of Biblical villain Sisera

The Bronze Age site of el Ahwat may have been the fortress of the Canaanite commander Sisera, whose death at the hands of Jael is recorded in the Book of Judges.

By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS

Published: NOVEMBER 27, 2019 18:55

An unusual archaeological site in northern Israel may shed some light on the lives of Biblical figures, if digging is allowed to resume there next year.While a number of sites in Israel are known for their association to Biblical heroes, el Ahwat, discovered by the late Prof. Adam Zertal of the University of Haifa, is unusual for being linked to a villain.Thanks to its unusual features, more commonly associated with the Shardana tribe of Sardinia, Zertal believed it to be the biblical site known as Harosheth Hagoyim, or Smithy of the Nations, a fortress described in the Book of Judges as the fortress or cavalry base of Sisera.

Commander of the Canaanite army of King Jabin of Hazor, Sisera was defeated by the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, under the command of Barak and Deborah, before being killed by Jael, who drove a tent peg through his temple.The Governor's House is one of the main attractions of the site. Artifacts discovered there previously include a chariot lynch-pin, which suggests the site may have been used as a military base."What we found in the foundation is a rare corpus of glyptic finds," Dr. Shai Bar, an archaeologist at Haifa University, told i24 News. "We found here more than ten scarabs and seals that date to the 13th and 12th century BCE, including some very unique finds. We have here an ibex ivory head, very rare, that is usually found only in places that are in direct contact with the Pharaonic sites in Egypt."The site gained international interest when similarities were noted between its layout and late Bronze Age structures known to have been created by the Shardana tribe on Sardinia, one of the groups of Sea Peoples. The first definite mention of the tribe is found in the records of Ramses II, who defeated them in his second year when they attempted to raid the Egyptian coast lands. Shardana captives were used by the pharaoh in his bodyguard.

"All city wall lines in Levantine architecture are usually straight," Bar said. "Here we have something that is bending – that is like a circular line of a city wall."Inside the walls, Bar noted, the site features "these very strange corridor phenomenons," also not commonly found in the Levant. Rather, they are reminiscent of sites in Sardinia and Corsica."When you look at plans of sites of the Shardana in Sardinia, in the second millennium BCE, throughout this entire period, you can see wavy walls, you can see corridors... you can see high heaps of stones, which were developed into the classical nuraghic culture of Sardinia. The only good architectural parallels are found in Sardinia and the Shardana culture."The site is also noted as the location of one of the earliest, if not the earliest iron smelting location in the region. The nearby mountain range is known to contain meteorite rock, which provided inhabitants with a source of iron."By smelting it, hitting it, and then working with an anvil and a hammer, they could extract the iron and make weapons, daily tools etc.," Bar said.Despite its significance, locals are now concerned that the site, which is not a national park, could be under threat by plans to develop the local village of Ar'ara.Tour guide Udi Vulchman said: "The fact that we live next to a very ancient site is very significant for us, even though we are not sure whether the people who lived here were Israelites. The fact that there is a theory that they were mentioned in the Bible and in Egyptian inscriptions in the area is very important, to know that this area was very vivid and had the culture."Sharon Halpern, head of the Katzir local union concurred. "We think that Ar'ara will be established and developed, but we don't want any interference to this place, which is a very important place to the Arab community."

If the bulldozers do move in, Bar hopes he can revisit the site with a new dig beforehand, hopefully in 2022."As we can still see here, 15 years after the excavation, we still have iron age pottery; iron age finds scattered on the floor. So although the site [and] the structure was partly excavated, there is still a lot to do here."

https://www.jpost.com/Israeli-Life-In-Docs/Archaeological-site-could-cast-light-on-life-of-Biblical-Villain-609189