you had me at 'tent peg': jael

Most Blessed of Women? Jael » Shawna R. B. Atteberry

via my Twitter (PrincessDing is my 'public' Twitter; if you'd like my personal, less bitchy Twitter, just email me) i came across this post, an interesting reading of Jael.

Just as my current feminism was informed partly by my dislike of cooking vast amounts of food on Thanksgiving, it was also created in part by the stories I read of interesting women in the Bible who either reminded me of something in myself or made me want to be something more. Leah, who was plain; Esther, who was beautiful and canny; and Jael, who drove a tent peg through Sisera's temple (who i've written about before.)

I didn't like this story because I, too, wanted to drive a spike through a man's head (though, in college, it resounded in a rather militant virgin feminist way with me) but because I liked the contrasts within it. There's Deborah, riding into battle with Barak and there's Jael, the woman alone in her tent. There's the fierce action of the battle scenes against the quiet domestic sphere of a woman's darkened tent. There's the sweaty man in his battle gear, asking for sanctuary; and there's the woman, giving him aid and some milk.

These contrasts mostly balance one another, making easily recognized binaries: battle/peace; action/inaction; man/woman; politics/domesticity. But when Jael takes the tent peg and nails Sisera to the ground, that's a pretty big disruption of balance. (Not to mention the disruption of a female envoy of God, Deborah.)

I'd sit in church and hold my mother's white leather bible on my lap and flip through until I came to this story and I'd read it again and again, and look at the illustrated plate showing Jael in her robes standing over a sleeping Sisera in his armor, with a spike in her hand. Thrilling. That female figure was to me strength, action and duty.

And, I have to admit, it also made me giggle.
The idea of a dude being nailed to the ground while he slept struck me as hilarious and I'd show it to my sister and we'd laugh and laugh until our mother pinched us to be quiet.

my favorite bible stories: jael & sisera

when i was a girl, i remember reading this story in the old king james version of my mother's worn ivory bible. the pages were edged in faded 'gold' and the best stories had vivid color plates to accompany them. in the new testament, the pictures were mostly of jesus - surrounded by crowds, carrying little children on his lap, being crucified - but in the old you had the drowning of the egyptians, david killing goliath, the ark finding the olive branch and the tent-pegging of sisera. the color plate was vivid to me: there was a tall, attractive jael in her robes and there was the sleeping sisera at her feet. she held a big hammer in one hand and a big tent peg in the other and she looked down at sisera with the faintest smile. i was hooked.

the basic story:

there's a war going on and israel's enemy is routed; the enemy general, sisera, is on the run and flees to the camp of an ally. there, jael tells him he's safe and when sisera has fallen asleep (after some milk and a warm blanket) she takes a tent peg and totally nails his head to the ground and he dies.

awesome.

i vividly remember reading this story during church one afternoon while old pastor jake was preaching. at the time, i was too young to pay attention to jake's sermons and spent my time writing little stories on the back of the program or reading bible stories from my mother's bible. what my sister did to occupy her time while jake preached is a mystery to me; like all good baptist jeremiads, jake's sermons ran at least 60 minutes. sitting out there while the hot sunday afternoon burned around me, i read this story in my mother's bible and i remember giggling so hard she had to pinch my arm. i don't know if it was the simple cadence of the king james version that struck me:

'Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand,
and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it
into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.'

or if it was just the absurd image of a man being unexpectedly pegged to the ground while he was asleep and tired and full of warm milk. whatever the reason, it made me giggle so hard my mom actually took the bible away for a few minutes until i calmed down.

(and it also explains why the judith and holofernes story resounded with me, too. a beheading, this time!)