Why did Jael give Sisera milk and not water as he requested?<\/p>\n\t
“However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; do not fear.” And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. Then he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him. 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. So on that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan in the presence of the children of Israel<\/em>” (Judges 4:17-23).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There can be several reasons. One, she gave him more than he requested. He asked only for a little water, but she gave him rich milk to drink. In recounting the events, Deborah said, “He asked for water, she gave milk; She brought out cream in a lordly bowl<\/em>” (Judges 5:25). By treating him so well, he assumed that she was on his side and that he was safe. Having a full stomach also makes a person more tired, especially after a hard day. All this combined to cause Sisera to fall asleep without too much worry about being attacked. Little did he expect an attack from the woman who was treating him so kindly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Why did Jael give Sisera milk and not water as he requested? Answer: “However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1391],"class_list":["post-18549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-judges"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30975,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-jael-morally-right-in-killing-sisera\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":0},"title":"Was Jael morally right in killing Sisera?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was wondering about Jael. Was what she did right? It's shocking to our modern sensibilities (or at least to mine) to read the story as presented in Judges 4. And yet Deborah and Barak (who seem to be relatively moral people?) praise her for everything she did in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90692,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-we-told-the-story-of-jael\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":1},"title":"Why Are We Told the Story of Jael?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Perry Hall There is only one woman in the Bible who directly killed a man. Her name was Jael. She hammered a tent peg into the skull of Sisera (Judges 4). Why are we told this story? Considering she is the only woman in the Bible to have killed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27021,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-god-have-some-people-killed-if-murder-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":2},"title":"Why did God have some people killed if murder is wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: in Judges, some people were risen up by God to bring Israel out of the hands of other nations.\u00a0 But why do so many of them murder other people? Ehud stabs a king and Jael drives a post through Sisera's head.\u00a0 I thought God wasn't allowed to lead people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51930,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/were-the-kenites-descendants-of-cain\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":3},"title":"Were the Kenites descendants of Cain?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Who were and who are the Kenites (Hebrew word meaning children of Cain, the first murderer)? Answer: Names are not often unique to a single individual. There can be more than one Cain in world history. Thus, at best you can say that the Kenites trace their origins to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8075,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-do-you-know-about-the-kenites\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":4},"title":"What do you know about the Kenites?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was wondering about the teaching of the Kenites and the six-day man. Answer: Prior to your query, I hadn't heard that there were teachings attributed to the Kenites. But a little bit of Internet searching told me a bit about this philosophy. First, let's establish what the Bible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84977,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/women-in-gods-scheme\/","url_meta":{"origin":18549,"position":5},"title":"Women in God’s Scheme","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Floyd Chappelear via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 31, 1989 An Amalekite, one of the people Saul had been commanded to destroy utterly (I Samuel 15:3), told David that he had killed the wounded Saul (II Samuel 1). David, acting hastily, ordered him slain without ascertaining the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}