4:1 And Benai Yisrael again did evil in the sight of YHWH (יהוה), when Ehud (אהוד) was dead.
4:2 And YHWH (יהוה) sold them into the yad Yavin melekh Kenaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose tze'va (army) [was] Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the ha Goyim.
4:3 And Benai Yisrael cried unto YHWH (יהוה): for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed Benai Yisrael.
4:4 And Devorah, a Neviyah (naviess, נביאה), the wife of Lapidot, she judged Yisrael at that time.
4:5 And she dwelt under the palm tree of Devorah between Ramah and Beit-el in har Efrayim: and Benai Yisrael came up to her for mishpatim.
4:6 And she sent and called Barak Ben Avino'am out of Kedesh Naftali, and said unto him, Hath not YHWH (יהוה) Elohim (אלהים) of Yisrael commanded, [saying], Go and draw toward har Tavor, and take with thee ten thousand men of Benai Naftali and of Benai Zevulun?
4:7 And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Yavin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.
4:8 And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, [then] I will not go.
4:9 And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for YHWH (יהוה) shall sell Sisera into the yad a woman. And Devorah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.
4:10 And Barak called Zevulun and Naftali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet: and Devorah went up with him.
4:11 Now Hever the Kenite, [which was] of Benai Hobab the father in law of Mosheh, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the oak at Tzaanannim, which [is] by Kedesh.
4:12 And they shewed Sisera that Barak Ben Avino'am was gone up to har Tavor.
4:13 And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, [even] nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that [were] with him, from Harosheth of the ha Goyim unto the river of Kishon.
4:14 And Devorah said unto Barak, Up; for this [is] the day in which YHWH (יהוה) hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not YHWH (יהוה) gone out before thee? So Barak went down from har Tavor, and ten thousand men after him.
4:15 And YHWH (יהוה) discomfited Sisera, and all [his] chariots, and all [his] tze'va (army), with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off [his] chariot, and fled away on his feet.
4:16 But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the tze'va (army), unto Harosheth of the ha Goyim: and all the tze'va of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; [and] there was not a man left.
4:17 Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Ya'el the wife of Hever the Kenite: for [there was] shalom between Yavin the melekh Hazor and the bayit Hever the Kenite.
4:18 And Ya'el went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.
4:19 And he said unto her:
Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.
4:20 Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.
4:21 Then Ya'el Hever'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.
4:22 And, hinnei, as Barak pursued Sisera, Ya'el came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her [tent], hinnei, Sisera lay dead, and the nail [was] in his temples.
4:23 So Elohim (אלהים) subdued on that day Yavin the melekh Kenaan before Benai Yisrael.
4:24 And the yad Benai Yisrael prospered, and prevailed against Yavin the melekh Kenaan, until they had destroyed Yavin melekh Kenaan.
Sisera Heb. סיסרא binding in chains Commander of the army that opposed Yisrael, Defeated by Devorah and Barak and killed by Ya'el while he slept. His name is usually regarded as Hittite or Hurrian. Some speculated that its origins were Egyptian (Ses-Ra, "servant of Ra"). After all was lost, he fled to the settlement of Heber the Kenite in the oak at Tzaanannim. Yael, Heber's wife, received him into her tent with apparent hospitality and "gave him butter" (i.e., lebBen, or curdled milk) "in a lordly dish." Having drunk the refreshing beverage, he lay down and soon sank into the sleep of the weary. While he lay asleep, Yael crept stealthily up to him and, taking in her hand one of the tent pegs, with a mallet she drove it with such force through his temples that it entered into the ground where he lay, and "at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead." (Judges 5:24) It was because Sisera's mother cried a hundred cries when he did not return home that the shofar is blown for a total of 100 blasts on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
Ya'el : wild she-goat. A kenite woman wife of Hever who pretended to offer Sisera (the enemy) hospitality, but illed him while he slept.