And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No.’ ” Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. And then, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, “Come, I will show you the man whom you seek.” And when he went into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead with the peg in his temple. (Judges 4:20-22)

Divine Justice With A Tent Peg

When Israel came into the land of Canaan, the Lord instructed them to utterly destroy the people of the land, including the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, and the Hivites and the Jebusites. They were to receive no mercy from the people of Israel. Under the leadership of Joshua, the people of Canaan were subdued within seven years but not annihilated.

After the death of Joshua, Israel was ruled by judges, and the people did what was right in their own eyes. As a story of peace, war, oppression, and salvation, Judges is how the Lord brings the enemies of Israel against them to punish them. One hundred twenty years after Joshua died, Deborah became the fourth judge of Israel. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan. His commander was a man named Sisera.

The salvation of Israel came by the hand of Deborah and Barak, son of Abinoam. Deborah enlisted the help of Barak to lead the people to war against the Canaanites. The Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots (nine hundred chariots of iron) and all the people with him. Sisera escaped capture and hid in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.

Jael invited Sisera into her tent and covered him with a blanket. She offered him some milk to drink, and Sisera fell fast asleep. As the commander slept, Jael took a tent peg, took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple. The force was so great the peg came out of his head into the ground. Sisera died immediately.

Barak was passing by when Jael called out to him and told him the man he sought was in her tent. Entering the tent, Barak saw Jael lying on the ground with a tent peg driven through his temple. He was dead. That day, God subdued the enemies of Israel, and there was much rejoicing.

Deborah would later sing a song of praise for the great victory over the Philistines, mentioning what Jael had done. She described how Jael had taken a tent peg with a workman’s hammer; pounding Sisera, piercing his head, and split and struck him through his temple. In a mournful prose of the death sonnet, Deborah speaks of Sisera’s mother, who looked for her son to return home with no hope. Sisera met his end through the divine justice of God.

Divine justice is a constant theme throughout the Bible. God never hesitates to describe the penalty of His wrath against evil men. Sisera was a wicked and evil man. God used Jael as an instrument to exact justice against a wicked man. The divine justice of God is swift and without mercy. God promised Abraham He would not destroy Canaan until the iniquity of the Philistines was full and overflowing. What Jael did was divine justice.

God is a loving and compassionate Father. What many fail to believe in is the wrath of God. In the days of Noah, God destroyed every living being save those in the ark. Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain were destroyed with fire and brimstone. At the same time, Lot’s wife was killed for disobeying the command of God. The Israelites wiped out the nations of Canaan under the direction of the Lord. Jael drove a tent peg through the temple of Sisera. The wrath of God was completed.

The warning of the wrath of God is the eternal question. Satan has convinced everyone there is no such thing as divine judgment. The devil does not mind if a man believes in God as long as he believes God would never punish anyone for anything. That is a lie (one of the biggest). Sisera thought he had escaped the wrath of God. He was wrong. No one will escape the wrath of God. Jesus died to save man from God’s wrath, but that is a choice that must be made. Will you make that choice?