The thunder of chariot wheels rushed past on the road below the berm that hemmed in Heber’s encampment. Jael’s heart skipped a beat as she peered around the trunk of a large oak tree, watching for Sisera’s insignia on his gilded chariot. He would come. Surely. He had promised Heber he would come soon for the last shipment of his weapons. Heber had worked long into the night, and when he wasn’t working, he’d paced the tent.
Jael swallowed the fear, feeling the unease from her husband seeping into her heart, encasing it with dread too great to bear. The memory of Sisera’s stench, his probing, the way he touched Daniyah . . . She shuddered, her fear growing, a living thing, only heightened by what Heber had not said, what she knew he had seen in Hazor.
She closed her eyes, blinking away the thoughts, the images. For now, her girls would be safe in the cave Ghalib had found nearby. Especially with him standing guard. Had they reached the spot by now? She glanced at Heber, who would have sent her with the girls, but she could not, would not, leave him. He gave her a troubled look. Chariots whizzed past with no sign of slowing. Why in such a hurry? She strained and squinted her eyes, certain there must be something wrong with her eyesight, but despite her searching, there was no sign of Sisera’s chariot or his arrogant face.
The last chariot disappeared from sight, and Jael backed slowly away from the tree, looking in every direction. Quiet descended with the dust the chariot wheels had kicked up, until the only sounds she heard were the sudden chirping of birds in the branches high above. Even they had seemed to hold their breath in the wake of Canaan’s iron beasts.
She drew a breath, then another. When at last she felt her heart slowing to a normal rhythm, she stepped down from her perch along the base of the berm and met Heber walking toward her with their sons.
“He didn’t stop for his weapons.” Jael looked directly into Heber’s pinched face, as though the tension had caused him a massive headache.
“No, he didn’t.”
“More men are coming.” Fareed stepped closer. “One walks like Barak of Naphtali.”
Voices grew louder as men approached, and the company of them was not small. Jael glanced at Heber, a question in her eyes. But he only shrugged and motioned her to return to her tent. She thought to resist him, but when he handed her a knife larger than the normal dagger she carried, she did not argue.
Had Barak summoned an army?
She moved to the awning of her tent, waiting. She stiffened, listening intently to see if Barak’s voice was among the throng.
But it was a woman’s voice she heard, one she immediately recognized.
“It is the prophetess, Deborah,” Jael said, moving out from the tent’s protection to the center of the camp, where Heber and her sons now stood. “We can trust her.”
“Can we?” Heber raked a hand over his beard, the gesture born of weariness. “You did not seem so sure when you returned without the maid. You said Deborah seemed unable to make a decision and had no power to restore the woman to her home.”
“Yes, but Deborah took her in to protect her. She is not one who intends our harm.” She slipped her arm through Heber’s. “Let us meet them.”
And in the next few moments, she did see Deborah climbing over the rise with Barak at her side. The woman’s hand shaded her eyes as if she were searching to find where they were hidden in the trees. At last both Barak and Deborah climbed down the berm, followed by another woman and a few men. Was that Talya, the woman Ghalib could not stop talking about?
For the briefest moment Jael wondered if God had brought the girl here to fulfill Ghalib’s dreams, ridiculous as they were. But when she saw the weapons hanging from the Israelites’ shoulders and strapped to their sides, she knew they had not come for a marriage alliance.
“Heber, my friend,” Barak said, stepping from the group to greet her husband. “Jael.” He nodded at her, then at Mahir and Fareed. “Forgive our intrusion so unexpectedly. We are headed to Kedesh-naphtali.” He motioned to Deborah and those with them. “God has called us to war against Sisera. I came seeking weapons. Deborah said you have many that will go unused, and that you would be willing to give them to us.”
Jael lifted a brow and looked at her husband, then glanced at Deborah. How did she know this? Even Jael did not know it for sure. She had only sensed it in her husband’s expressions, in the change in him since Hazor. She did not think him capable of deceiving Sisera and giving the general’s weapons to his enemy.
“Your prophetess knows much,” Heber said, his voice kind. “Please, won’t you join us for a meal while my sons gather what you seek?” He motioned to the hearth outside of his tent, then spoke to Mahir and Fareed to gather Ghalib and donkeys and fill baskets with the weapons planned for Sisera. “You are fortunate to come at such a time. I have just finished the largest order I have yet made for Canaan’s forces. Sisera’s men just flew past our camp and did not stop to retrieve them.”
“Sisera’s days are few,” Deborah said, taking a seat on one of the stones lining the hearth. “We thank you for entrusting us with this gift.”
Heber sat opposite her, while her husband and daughter sat at her sides. Barak leaned closest to Heber, and Jael hurried to her tent to retrieve grain and a large jug of water to make a quick porridge. By the look of her guests, they were hungry but anxious to be off, and she knew her sons would work quickly to gather the weapons that were already waiting for Sisera’s men.
When Jael returned a short time later with porridge and clay bowls to pass to each one and flatbread to dip into the spicy grain, the men were discussing war plans.
“I will go with you,” Heber said quietly.
Jael startled, nearly dropping the bowl. Deborah caught her arm, steadying her. She glanced at the prophetess but spoke to her husband. “You can’t. Who will protect us?”
Heber studied her a moment. “You have the cave. And the guards.” He did not say, “And our sons.”
“You plan to take our sons with you?” The shock of his decision made her knees weak. She looked around and found a place to sit before they completely gave way. “You can’t,” she said again, but her voice carried no strength.
“Your sons and your husband will be safe, Jael.” Deborah’s words broke the sudden silence that had fallen over the group. “Trust Adonai. Soon we will rid the land of the Canaanite tyrant. No more will our women and children or our men live in fear of him. We will worship Adonai in freedom, no longer in hidden caves and villages carved out of the rock.” She paused, looking over the men and women gathered there. Her daughter’s eyes gleamed, and Ghalib’s shone the moment he stepped into the camp and saw the girl sitting there.
“You are allowing your daughter to go to war?” Jael struggled to comprehend why two women would follow thousands of men into battle.
“Their gods are women. A woman will kill Sisera.” Talya spoke before her mother could, and the confidence in her eyes told Jael that Talya had full intention of being that woman.
“Your God is powerful if He can defeat the Canaanite goddess of war,” Jael said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to warm them from a sudden chill.
“He is,” Deborah agreed, her smile reassuring. And suddenly Jael’s fear vanished in the presence of the prophetess. “Our God is a consuming fire.”
Deborah’s words crackled with the fire coming from the pit, and each man and woman glanced as one at the flames sparking upward. Sisera did not stand a chance against a God like that. And yet . . . why had it taken Israel’s God so long to destroy the man?
The question would not leave as Jael accepted the help of her daughter and daughters-in-law to feed the crowd and then help their men gather all they needed to head off with Israel to war. Neither did it leave as she lay alone in her bed that night, listening to Daniyah’s soft breathing, wondering how the girl could relax when the threat of Sisera loomed larger than the shadows of the trees overhead.
Jael’s fear came and fled with the dawn as she awoke to a quiet camp, as she went about her morning tasks, and as she prayed to the Unseen One words she could not even form to fully express. Keep them safe seemed so simple. Destroy Sisera, too bold.
As dawn turned to day and the girls quietly spun or ground a far less amount of grain, keeping to the door of her tent, Jael’s only heart cry turned to a single, hopeless word.
Help.