In the beginning, God created... The introduction to the creation of all things is one of the most universally recalled stories from the book of Genesis. As the creation narrative (some call it a creation myth) goes along, with God calling into being light, water, and animals, God finishes, in Gen 1:26, by saying, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness." Humanity is thus created in the image of God, but there's a small question left in the plural pronouns God uses to refer to Godself. Let us in our according to our...
Bandstra writes that the "us" refers to the Divine Council, which was "thought to be the governing assembly of angelic beings that managed the world with God" (Bandstra, 43). Others have suggested that the plural reference is about God's trinitarian nature. Regardless, God references Godself in the plural often in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. Here are some of those situations:
Gen 1:26 - Let us make humankind in our image
Gen 3:22 - See the man has become like one of us
Gen 11:7 - Come let us go down and confuse their language
But there is also a fair bit of description about this Divine Council scattered throughout the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures...
1 Kings 22:19-22: A "host of heaven" is seen standing to the right and left of God, various persons debating about who will do a specific task, before one of them volunteers; the Divine Council thus has some freedom of agency and opinion with respect to approaching God, acting on God's behalf, and departing from God's presence.
Deut 32:8-9: There as many nations of people as there are numbers of gods.
Psalm 82: The Divine Council is a place where God holds judgment - perhaps as 'chairperson' of this gathering; these gods are described as "children of the Most High" who are nevertheless mortals and shall die like humans.
Isaiah 6:8: God uses both singular and plural pronouns to refer to Godself - "Whom shall I send and who shall go for us?" Thus perhaps these angels or other gods are extensions of God's own identity/personhood/self.
Job 1:6 & 2:1: Here this body are referred to as "heavenly beings" and Satan, or the Accuser, comes among them; perhaps Satan is one of these angels/beings/Divine Council members. Additionally, the members come in front of God at various times - but it's not clear whether their comings and goings are ordered by God.
Psalm 29:1-2: "Heavenly beings" are directed in the psalm to join in the worship of God; this may be one of their important roles.
Job 38:7: This is another example of the heavenly beings or divine councilors worshiping God and singing praises in God's honor.
Psalm 89:6-7: Here the council or heavenly beings are noted to be "all around" God, not so much in the physical/proximate sense, but in the sense of status as "heavenly." They are said to be "in the skies" or perhaps thus on another plane/dimension or simply invisible to the human eye. Finally, they comprise a group of "holy ones" who, perhaps, sit en banc as a council. It is simply unclear what this council administers or decides.
With this description of the Divine Council in mind, it is pretty interesting to go back and understand the creation beginnings in light of God seeking this council's assistance/approval/feedback when it came time to create humanity. Bandstra suggests that "the act of creating humanity was deemed so momentous that God sought the approval and cooperation of the Divine Council" (Bandstra, p.43). With the enormity of the task ahead of "them," one can almost imagine God convening the Council of heavenly beings and other angelic figures. As they gathered from their realms and domains, I envision them standing in God's presence as God unveils God's plan for this new entity that would be created in their heavenly/angelic image, but who, as mortals, would exist on an entirely different plane of being - a different domain, and thus be subject to the frailties of life as we know it now. Nobody could have known then what God may have known would soon be in store for this new human race.
By 3:22, Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thus become even more resemblant of God and God's divine council: they know had a very specific knowledge, which presumably gave them even more agency to make decisions about how they would act and behave from then on. Such a development must not have been what was intended, because by 11:7, the council was creating plans to scurry their advancement and prevent this human race from becoming angelic or heavenly in their own ways. Of course, this fear would require that humans would be able to reach the next dimension or plane of existence for these heavenly beings; while such a step could be considered physically possible back when this narrative was created (i.e. the tower of Babel and reaching heaven), we use other language to describe the disconnect between our human and divine worlds/states of being.
Either way, it's quite interested to reflect on this group and their role as advisors/helpers to God in the creation of our human race today. Whether real or fiction, the story gives us added context to the ways that early nations made sense of their existence and even the primacy they assigned to their own identities vis-a-vis the rest of creation.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Week Ten: The Rape of Tamar
This week's post involves a very difficult story from 2 Samuel 13:1-33 (CEB): the rape of David's daughter Tamar by his son Amnon. The non-bolded text is my addition to the story (beginning in the fictive verse 19b), as I attempt to create context around the effect that this attack would likely have had on Tamar. Because of space limitations, but even moreso because I am a man, my narrative addition is a simplistic attempt to name some of the elements that would have come into play around this action. I offer some more reflection at the very bottom.
Some time later, David’s son Amnon fell in love with Tamar the beautiful sister of Absalom, who was also David’s son. 2 Amnon was so upset over his half sister that he made himself sick. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible in Amnon’s view to do anything to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, Shimeah’s son, David’s brother, who was a very clever man.
4 “Prince,” Jonadab said to him, “why are you so down, morning after morning? Tell me about it.”
So Amnon told him, “I’m in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom.”
5 “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick,” Jonadab said to him. “When your father comes to see you, tell him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me some food to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I can watch and eat from her own hand.’”
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. The king came to see him, and Amnon told the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of heart-shaped cakes in front of me so I can eat from her hand.”
7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Please go to your brother Amnon’s house and prepare some food for him.”
8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made heart-shaped cakes in front of him, and then cooked them. 9 She took the pan and served Amnon, but he refused to eat.
“Everyone leave me,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the bedroom so I can eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the heart-shaped cakes she had made and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom. 11 When she served him the food, he grabbed her and said, “Come have sex with me, my sister.”
12 But she said to him, “No, my brother! Don’t rape me. Such a thing shouldn’t be done in Israel. Don’t do this horrible thing. 13 Think about me—where could I hide my shame? And you—you would become like some fool in Israel! Please, just talk to the king! He won’t keep me from marrying you.”
14 But Amnon refused to listen to her. He was stronger than she was, and so he raped her.
15 But then Amnon felt intense hatred for her. In fact, his hatred for her was greater than the love he had felt for her. So Amnon told her, “Get out of here!”
16 “No, my brother!”[a] she said. “Sending me away would be worse than the wrong you’ve already done.”
But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her. 17 He summoned his young servant and said, “Get this woman out of my presence and lock the door after her.” (18 She was wearing a long-sleeved robe because that was what the virgin princesses wore as garments.)[b] So Amnon’s servant put her out and locked the door after her.
19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long-sleeved robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and walked away, crying as she went.
19b. As she walked, people in neighboring homes heard her distress and came to their windows to see what thing could cause such wailing from a person. “Is she drunk with wine in the afternoon?” asked the village women as Tamar stumbled along the dusty path back toward Absalom’s house. As Tamar slowly passed them by, a dark spot was visible on the back of her robe, her shame became clear. That’s when the gossip began.
Approaching Absalom’s home, Tamar stopped crying and began to compose herself. “If I enter my brother’s home now, my shame will be revealed to his family, and he will be consumed by rage. It is better for me that I should just die than to bring this shame upon my family’s name.” After uttering these words to herself, Tamar turned around and began walking toward the edge of town, her heart heavy with a self-imposed responsibility to protect her and her family’s reputation.
Later, as the sun began to set that night, Absalom asked his other sisters if Tamar had returned home. Nobody having heard from her, Absalom sent a servant to Amnon’s home to collect her and bring her back. As the servant approached Amnon’s home, he noticed that the door was shut, and trying to open it, found it locked. So he began to call out for a servant to come and open it.
Amnon’s servants approached their master’s room, gently calling to him, “Prince, come, your brother has sent a servant to collect his sister Tamar. What shall we tell them?” After hearing no answer they rushed into Amnon’s room and found him disconsolately weeping. As Amnon sat up on his bed, his servants saw that his neck was bruised. “Send the servant away, telling him that Tamar returned home earlier this afternoon.” As the servants turned to exit the room, they saw a broken rope tied to a hook in the ceiling.
Returning to Absalom’s house, the servant gave a full report based on what he had seen and what Amnon’s servants had told him. Absalom, feeling his heart sink, immediately suspected the worst. The rumors that he had heard from Jonadab about Amnon’s infatuation with an unspoken woman suddenly clicked. Donning his tunic, Absalom darted out of the house and ran toward the town’s edge.
The next morning, as the village women gathered at the well, they began to share stories of what they had seen. “I saw the Princess drunkenly stumbling along the road. What loose morals!” said one. Another challenged her saying “Why would the princess be tearing at her virginal vestments? I think someone attacked her. I what a blood stain looks like when I see it,” said a third woman. “But she was coming from her own brother’s home,” retorted a fourth. “Would such an act of evil…” Suddenly, interrupted by the appearance of Tamar, still dirty and garments torn, being supported by Absalom as the two approached the well on the way back into town, the woman slowly finished her thought: “be capable of one of King David’s own sons?”
20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has your brother Amnon been with you? Keep quiet about it for now, sister; he’s your brother. Don’t let it bother you.” So Tamar, a broken woman, lived in her brother Absalom’s house.
21 When King David heard about all this he got very angry, but he refused to punish his son Amnon because he loved him as his oldest child.[c] 22 Absalom never spoke to Amnon, good word or bad, because he hated him for raping his sister Tamar.
Absalom kills Amnon
23 Two years later, Absalom was shearing sheep at Baal-hazor near Ephraim, and he invited all the king’s sons. 24 Absalom approached the king and said, “Your servant is shearing sheep. Would the king and his advisors please join me?”
25 But the king said to Absalom, “No, my son. We shouldn’t all go, or we would be a burden on you.” Although Absalom urged him, the king wasn’t willing to go, although he gave Absalom a blessing.
26 Then Absalom said, “If you won’t come, then let my brother Amnon go with us.”
“Why should he go with you?” they asked him. 27 But Absalom urged him until he sent Amnon and all the other princes. Then Absalom made a banquet fit for a king.[d]
28 Absalom commanded his servants, “Be on the lookout! When Amnon is happy with wine and I tell you to strike Amnon down, then kill him! Don’t be afraid, because I myself am giving you the order. Be brave and strong men.” 29 So Absalom’s servants did to Amnon just what he had commanded. Then all the princes got up, jumped onto their mules, and fled.
30 While they were on the way, the report came to David: “Absalom has killed all of the princes! Not one remains.” 31 The king got up, tore his garments, and lay on the ground. All his servants stood near him, their garments torn as well. 32 But Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My master shouldn’t think that all the young princes have been killed—only Amnon is dead. This has been Absalom’s plan ever since the day Amnon raped his sister Tamar. 33 So don’t let this bother you, my master; don’t think that all the princes are dead, because only Amnon is dead,
Clearly, Amnon's rape of his sister was a sinful and evil thing to do - not only before God, but in their own context and within their family. Even a woman of some status like Tamar was probably unable to ever shake off the stain that his action placed on her - even after his death and even despite the fact that she was the victim of a heinous crime. What's even more powerfully upsetting, and something I couldn't even begin to unpack, was her plea that Amnon not cast her off because then she would truly have no hope for a future.
Hilary Lipka addresses some of these difficult themes in her article on David and Bathsheba. She writes that, in the accounting of her affair with King David, there is no indication of what "Bathsheba is thinking or feeling" (Lipka). Many have concluded that she must have known that David was watching, and thus she was complicit in their adultery. This is a convenient conclusion, and one that Deborah Rooke might blame on the inequity with how the Hebrew scriptures treat adultery: "Men did not have to be faithful to one woman. They could have more than one wife (Deut 21:15), and even for married men, sleeping with unmarried or unbetrothed women did not count as adultery (Exod 22:16-17, Deut 22:28-29" (Rooke). Citing several examples of all this, she concludes with an example from the New Testament, when this motif of blaming women for the sexual violence enacted against them was the only adultery example in Jesus' narratives. She writes "Clearly, in the male-focused world of the Bible, all adultery was a crime, but adulterous women were seen as much more dangerous and subversive than adulterous men" (Rooke).
Taken with Rooke and Lipka's assessments of the disparities and inequity with how these stories are told, I felt like it was an important responsibility to demonstrate that sexual violence is the fault of perpetrators. Period. These are very difficult verses, and I can only hope that Amnon recognized the weight of his sin and the life-shattering impact it had on an important woman in his family's life. While I suggest that his own guilt may have driven him to suicidal thoughts, I don't insert that to try to alleviate his actions or explain them away. His sin speaks for itself; my only hope for his humanity is that he, at some point, was able to acknowledge the evil he did.
Some time later, David’s son Amnon fell in love with Tamar the beautiful sister of Absalom, who was also David’s son. 2 Amnon was so upset over his half sister that he made himself sick. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible in Amnon’s view to do anything to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, Shimeah’s son, David’s brother, who was a very clever man.
4 “Prince,” Jonadab said to him, “why are you so down, morning after morning? Tell me about it.”
So Amnon told him, “I’m in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom.”
5 “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick,” Jonadab said to him. “When your father comes to see you, tell him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me some food to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I can watch and eat from her own hand.’”
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. The king came to see him, and Amnon told the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of heart-shaped cakes in front of me so I can eat from her hand.”
7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Please go to your brother Amnon’s house and prepare some food for him.”
8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made heart-shaped cakes in front of him, and then cooked them. 9 She took the pan and served Amnon, but he refused to eat.
“Everyone leave me,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the bedroom so I can eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the heart-shaped cakes she had made and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom. 11 When she served him the food, he grabbed her and said, “Come have sex with me, my sister.”
12 But she said to him, “No, my brother! Don’t rape me. Such a thing shouldn’t be done in Israel. Don’t do this horrible thing. 13 Think about me—where could I hide my shame? And you—you would become like some fool in Israel! Please, just talk to the king! He won’t keep me from marrying you.”
14 But Amnon refused to listen to her. He was stronger than she was, and so he raped her.
15 But then Amnon felt intense hatred for her. In fact, his hatred for her was greater than the love he had felt for her. So Amnon told her, “Get out of here!”
16 “No, my brother!”[a] she said. “Sending me away would be worse than the wrong you’ve already done.”
But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her. 17 He summoned his young servant and said, “Get this woman out of my presence and lock the door after her.” (18 She was wearing a long-sleeved robe because that was what the virgin princesses wore as garments.)[b] So Amnon’s servant put her out and locked the door after her.
19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long-sleeved robe she was wearing. She put her hand on her head and walked away, crying as she went.
19b. As she walked, people in neighboring homes heard her distress and came to their windows to see what thing could cause such wailing from a person. “Is she drunk with wine in the afternoon?” asked the village women as Tamar stumbled along the dusty path back toward Absalom’s house. As Tamar slowly passed them by, a dark spot was visible on the back of her robe, her shame became clear. That’s when the gossip began.
Approaching Absalom’s home, Tamar stopped crying and began to compose herself. “If I enter my brother’s home now, my shame will be revealed to his family, and he will be consumed by rage. It is better for me that I should just die than to bring this shame upon my family’s name.” After uttering these words to herself, Tamar turned around and began walking toward the edge of town, her heart heavy with a self-imposed responsibility to protect her and her family’s reputation.
Later, as the sun began to set that night, Absalom asked his other sisters if Tamar had returned home. Nobody having heard from her, Absalom sent a servant to Amnon’s home to collect her and bring her back. As the servant approached Amnon’s home, he noticed that the door was shut, and trying to open it, found it locked. So he began to call out for a servant to come and open it.
Amnon’s servants approached their master’s room, gently calling to him, “Prince, come, your brother has sent a servant to collect his sister Tamar. What shall we tell them?” After hearing no answer they rushed into Amnon’s room and found him disconsolately weeping. As Amnon sat up on his bed, his servants saw that his neck was bruised. “Send the servant away, telling him that Tamar returned home earlier this afternoon.” As the servants turned to exit the room, they saw a broken rope tied to a hook in the ceiling.
Returning to Absalom’s house, the servant gave a full report based on what he had seen and what Amnon’s servants had told him. Absalom, feeling his heart sink, immediately suspected the worst. The rumors that he had heard from Jonadab about Amnon’s infatuation with an unspoken woman suddenly clicked. Donning his tunic, Absalom darted out of the house and ran toward the town’s edge.
The next morning, as the village women gathered at the well, they began to share stories of what they had seen. “I saw the Princess drunkenly stumbling along the road. What loose morals!” said one. Another challenged her saying “Why would the princess be tearing at her virginal vestments? I think someone attacked her. I what a blood stain looks like when I see it,” said a third woman. “But she was coming from her own brother’s home,” retorted a fourth. “Would such an act of evil…” Suddenly, interrupted by the appearance of Tamar, still dirty and garments torn, being supported by Absalom as the two approached the well on the way back into town, the woman slowly finished her thought: “be capable of one of King David’s own sons?”
20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has your brother Amnon been with you? Keep quiet about it for now, sister; he’s your brother. Don’t let it bother you.” So Tamar, a broken woman, lived in her brother Absalom’s house.
21 When King David heard about all this he got very angry, but he refused to punish his son Amnon because he loved him as his oldest child.[c] 22 Absalom never spoke to Amnon, good word or bad, because he hated him for raping his sister Tamar.
Absalom kills Amnon
23 Two years later, Absalom was shearing sheep at Baal-hazor near Ephraim, and he invited all the king’s sons. 24 Absalom approached the king and said, “Your servant is shearing sheep. Would the king and his advisors please join me?”
25 But the king said to Absalom, “No, my son. We shouldn’t all go, or we would be a burden on you.” Although Absalom urged him, the king wasn’t willing to go, although he gave Absalom a blessing.
26 Then Absalom said, “If you won’t come, then let my brother Amnon go with us.”
“Why should he go with you?” they asked him. 27 But Absalom urged him until he sent Amnon and all the other princes. Then Absalom made a banquet fit for a king.[d]
28 Absalom commanded his servants, “Be on the lookout! When Amnon is happy with wine and I tell you to strike Amnon down, then kill him! Don’t be afraid, because I myself am giving you the order. Be brave and strong men.” 29 So Absalom’s servants did to Amnon just what he had commanded. Then all the princes got up, jumped onto their mules, and fled.
30 While they were on the way, the report came to David: “Absalom has killed all of the princes! Not one remains.” 31 The king got up, tore his garments, and lay on the ground. All his servants stood near him, their garments torn as well. 32 But Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My master shouldn’t think that all the young princes have been killed—only Amnon is dead. This has been Absalom’s plan ever since the day Amnon raped his sister Tamar. 33 So don’t let this bother you, my master; don’t think that all the princes are dead, because only Amnon is dead,
Clearly, Amnon's rape of his sister was a sinful and evil thing to do - not only before God, but in their own context and within their family. Even a woman of some status like Tamar was probably unable to ever shake off the stain that his action placed on her - even after his death and even despite the fact that she was the victim of a heinous crime. What's even more powerfully upsetting, and something I couldn't even begin to unpack, was her plea that Amnon not cast her off because then she would truly have no hope for a future.
Hilary Lipka addresses some of these difficult themes in her article on David and Bathsheba. She writes that, in the accounting of her affair with King David, there is no indication of what "Bathsheba is thinking or feeling" (Lipka). Many have concluded that she must have known that David was watching, and thus she was complicit in their adultery. This is a convenient conclusion, and one that Deborah Rooke might blame on the inequity with how the Hebrew scriptures treat adultery: "Men did not have to be faithful to one woman. They could have more than one wife (Deut 21:15), and even for married men, sleeping with unmarried or unbetrothed women did not count as adultery (Exod 22:16-17, Deut 22:28-29" (Rooke). Citing several examples of all this, she concludes with an example from the New Testament, when this motif of blaming women for the sexual violence enacted against them was the only adultery example in Jesus' narratives. She writes "Clearly, in the male-focused world of the Bible, all adultery was a crime, but adulterous women were seen as much more dangerous and subversive than adulterous men" (Rooke).
Taken with Rooke and Lipka's assessments of the disparities and inequity with how these stories are told, I felt like it was an important responsibility to demonstrate that sexual violence is the fault of perpetrators. Period. These are very difficult verses, and I can only hope that Amnon recognized the weight of his sin and the life-shattering impact it had on an important woman in his family's life. While I suggest that his own guilt may have driven him to suicidal thoughts, I don't insert that to try to alleviate his actions or explain them away. His sin speaks for itself; my only hope for his humanity is that he, at some point, was able to acknowledge the evil he did.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Week 9: Vengeance, Women, & the Emergence of Israel
A poetic scene of battle extolling the leadership of the early Israelite leader Deborah is told in Judges 5:2-31. Reading the poem in its own light and analyzing it as a primary source, we can learn a lot about how and why it was written, even if the historicity of the events told in the poem is questionable.
1) Who is the author and when did they write?
Frankly, we do not know who the author of the text is. The structure of the poem makes it look like it is written by a witness to the victories that Israel was able to achieve in the Transjordan region after their decades of wandering. Of course, we have to bear in mind that, despite the suspected age of this account (it is considered to be among the oldest of recovered Old Testament literature, according to Dennis T. Olson, New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2, p.787), according to Carol Meyers, “the biblical narratives about ancient Israel reached their final form many centuries after the events they describe. The narrators were not eyewitnesses to events they recount.” (Meyers, “Does the Bible Relate to History”)
The author describes the land shaking when the Lord “set out from Seir” and “marched out from Edom’s fields” (Judges 5:4a). The time period when this would have happened would likely refer to history after Esau’s residence in Edom as described in Genesis, the capital of which was Mt Seir (c.f. Transjordan Territory of Edom). The author clearly could not have known what happened at that time, because the author could not have been there. But the point that s/he is making could be related to the fact that, in that example from Genesis, Esau goes to live there with the Canaanite woman he married; in leaving that place many, many years later, the response of nature was to reject the events that took place there – perhaps chiefly among them the intermarriage of an Israelite with a Canaanite.
2) How has the author brought her/his own bias to the event they are recounting?
Meyers suggests that, “Like other ancient storytellers, the shapers of biblical narratives were not concerned with getting it factually right; rather, their aim was to make an important point.” (Meyers, “Does the Bible Relate to History”). Paula McNutt argues for the same point: “The "history" recorded in the biblical narratives, whether they contain accurate information or not, should be understood first and foremost as representing notions and beliefs constructed to serve some purpose in the social and historical contexts in which they were written, edited, and arranged in their present form.” (McNutt, “Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel”).
With this in mind, it is helpful to use a critical eye when reading verses 12-18, when the author celebrates the tribes who fought against the Canaanites and pillories those tribes who did not. It may be that the author was a member of one of the brave tribes, like from Zebulun – “a people that readily risked death” presumably for the sake of Israel’s future (Judges 5:18). Another piece to consider is that the author may have been a woman – or at least someone with an interest in showcasing the successes of women and Israel’s dependence on their leadership and action (e.g. Deborah and Jael).
3) Who is the intended audience for whom the author writes?
While the story, as written, could be interpreted as a panegyric to God, extolling God for protecting the people and leading them in victory against the “enemies” they confronted in Canaan (Judges 5:31a), it seems likely to also be a victory hymn celebrating key Israelite leaders for their military prowess and success defeating their enemies. As such, it is likely written with an audience of Israelite hearers in mind, who will listen to the awe-inspiring accounts of their early leaders and be reminded both of the greatness of their nation and the greatness of their God who led them this far.
4) What symbolism or metaphor is at work in the writing?
There is tremendously powerful metaphor evidenced throughout the piece, but none so as extreme as the story of Jael assassinating the Canannite general Sisera while he slept in her tent. In verses 26 and 27, after Sisera has entered Jael’s tent, which may be a metaphor for rape or sex, he falls asleep. Jael takes the opportunity to grab a stake and mallet and drives it through Sisera’s temple. In verse 27, the poetry is repetitive: “at her feet he sank, fell and lay flat; at her feet he sank, h fell; where he sank, there he fell – dead.” The phrase ‘at her feet’ is a play on words with strong connotations of sexual activity, but here it is Sisera that has been on the receiving (and losing) end of the sexual activity (i.e. rape) at the hands of a woman, Jael. What’s more, in the following verses, as Sisera’s mother waits at the window waiting for her son, she wonders aloud whether the delay in his return is because of the conquests of war: “a girl or two for each warrior” (Judges 5:30a). While only one example of symbolism, the point is a strong one: Israel has turned the tables on these erstwhile stronger opponents and, in contravention of the conventional logic that they would be overcome again, has defeated the Canaanites and made them the victims in this most salacious way.
5) In context of your study of history, what does this text teach you?
On the whole, the text is a pretty powerful series of contrasts about Israel vis-à-vis its wars and encounters with its neighbors. First, throughout this poem, Israel’s benefactors almost wholly come from outside Israel: first God and then Jael (the wife of a Kenite, not an Israelite). For whatever reason, this victory hymn celebrates outsiders as much as it celebrates only some of the tribes who actually fought. Second, the poem is a pretty significant celebration of violence, which is problematic for a reader in today’s context – especially a reader such as myself, whose Christian beliefs are predicated on peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Themes of rape (vs 27), making war (v19), and marching with might (v21) stand at the polar opposite of my own understanding. And yet, these were clearly necessary evils that Israel had to experience and to bear in order to establish itself as a nation and create an environment where belief in Yahweh and practice of their ethnic customs could take hold. For me, this is not an easy concept to grasp and accept, and yet it is a tension that exists and must be confronted.
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