Although the Old Testament is undoubtedly a patriarchal text, there are passages in it that have a much less clearly masculine ring to them, and this makes it clear to the careful reader that gender relations are not discussed in the Hebrew Bible. uniform throughout. The Deuteronomic texts, Ruth and Judges, reveal a special interest in the role of women in ancient society and in the fulfillment of the covenant with God. Although patriarchal aspects of faith are not entirely unknown, these aspects of female autonomy should at least bring awareness that no interpretation of the Bible is ever cut and dried, and at the very least suggest that women role in Israel, Deborah is not to be confused with her literal mother; it is not to bear children or provide sexual gratification to a male figure of greater importance – a back office to which most women in the Old Testament are relegated to a distinctly patriarchal one – but rather exists in a unique relationship with the patriarchy, a. a hybrid of feminine and maternal and masculine and militant.
Another iconic woman introduced in Judges and perhaps the saddest of the two, Jahel is best known for her depiction of the slaying of Sisera. By deceiving Sisera into custody and killing him in his sleep, Jael undercuts the victory for Israel by seeming to take on heroic significance with Deborah’s kinship. But what his actions are are less clear. At base, his act, like Deborah’s leadership, is an inversion of societal expectations for gender roles: striking violently, a traditionally masculine action , attributes a distinctly feminine and sexualized Jael to Israel.
However, they examine Yale’s actions more closely in the light of the head’s most serious rhetoric. As is clear from Leah, Jahel, soliciting Jacob, calls Sisera to enter his tent. Sisera, “like the obedient Jacob” (Fewell & Gunn 392) assumes safety, his partner’s loyalty also, to answer his call, and enter his tent. In the Hebrew Bible, traditionally, the act of entering a woman’s tent carries sexual connotations, symbolically (as an analogy to penetration) and in practice (a man would only enter a woman’s tent if he was married or sexually involved). The sexual undertones of the passage are then heightened by Sisara’s request “Please, give me a little water to drink, for I am in a siege” (Jdg. 4.19). At first glance, this request seems quite simple, but it takes on a new meaning when it is considered in the common biblical trope of water, as a symbol of fertility and sexuality, which Prov. :15 (Fewell & Gunn 392).
Jael takes on the connotation of undeniable sexuality, however, when considered in conjunction with her maternal features. Rather than Sisera bringing water (a symbol of sexuality) to the supplicant, she brings him milk, indicative of nursing, maternal kinship. This relationship is further confirmed by the fact that he covers twice with a blanket, as a mother and child as a bed, and as a guard at the door for demand. In the resulting image, the entrance to the screen is a double representation of the vaginal and uterine image; Sisara entered Jael’s Tabernacle, an act involving intercourse and penetration, but she sleeps inside while guarding him, without performing any sexual act (Fewell & Gunn 393). Both the sexual and maternal characteristics of Jael are known.
He is all the more powerful, because of his excessive femininity, because Jael kills Sisera in a perversion of both tropes, lover and mother. The undoubtedly phallic image of the tent peg only heightens the sense of masculinity with which Jael is suddenly imbued. It is worth noting that, rather than merely giving power to Jael in persecuting Sisera, he actively Explicit his life. Because of this violent act Jael becomes the hero of Israel, he is praised in song together with Deborah.
In fact, the two seem most closely related to their contributions to Israel and, as Fewell and Gunn suggest, their actions share a community of violence. While exercising “authority of violence” (Fewell & Gunn 396), a distinct reversal of the typical women in a patriarchal society, both Jael and Deborah take their power into their own hands and enjoy success and praise. In this way, the two figures become iconic of the possibility for women to defy, violently, the strictures imposed on them by human society and to retain their sexuality in their actions.
Sources:
Holy Bible, Vulgate edition.
New York: Penguin Books, 1974.
Danna Fewell and Gunn, David. “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men, & Authority if Violence Judges 4 & 5.”
