(23) So God subdued.--The word used for God is here Elohim, while Jehovah occurs through the rest of the narrative. We are not yet in a position to formulate the law which regulates the interchange of these names. It need hardly be added that this attribution of the deliverance of Israel to God's providence and aid does not necessarily involve the least approval of the false and cruel elements which stained the courage and faith of Jael. Though God overrules even criminal acts to the fulfilment of His own purposes, the crimes themselves meet with their own just condemnation and retribution. This may be seen decisively in the case of Jehu. His conduct, like that of Jael, was of a mixed character. He was an instrument in the hands of God to punish and overthrow the guilty house of Ahab, and in carrying out this Divine commission, he, too, showed dauntlessness and faith, yet his atrocious cruelty is justly condemned by the voice of the prophet (Hosea 1:4), just as that of Baasha had been (1 Kings 16:7), though he, too, was an instrument of Divine retribution. To explain this clause, and the triumphal cry of Deborah--"So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord"--as Bishop Wordsworth does, to mean that "the work of Jael is represented by the sacred writer as the work of God," is to claim Divine sanction for a wish that wicked or hostile powers should always "so" perish by cruel and treacherous assassination. At the same time, Jael must not be classed with women actuated only by a demoniacal thirst for vengeance, like Criemhild, in the Niebelungen; or even with Aretophila, of Cyrene, whom Plutarch so emphatically praises (On the Virtues of Women, p. 19, quoted by Cassel); but rather with women like Judith in ancient, or Charlotte Corday in modern times, who regarded themselves as the champions of a great and good cause.
4:17-24 Sisera's chariots had been his pride and his confidence. Thus are those disappointed who rest on the creature; like a broken reed, it not only breaks under them, but pierces them with many sorrows. The idol may quickly become a burden, Isa 46:1; what we were sick for, God can make us sick of. It is probable that Jael really intended kindness to Sisera; but by a Divine impulse she was afterwards led to consider him as the determined enemy of the Lord and of his people, and to destroy him. All our connexions with God's enemies must be broken off, if we would have the Lord for our God, and his people for our people. He that had thought to have destroyed Israel with his many iron chariots, is himself destroyed with one iron nail. Thus the weak things of the world confound the mighty. The Israelites would have prevented much mischief, if they had sooner destroyed the Canaanites, as God commanded and enabled them: but better be wise late, and buy wisdom by experience, than never be wise.
So God subdued on that day Jabin king of Canaan before the children, of Israel. Freed Israel from subjection to him and delivered him into the hands of the Israelites; for Josephus (o) says, that as Barak went towards Hazor, he met Jabin, and slew him; who perhaps having heard of the defeat of his army under Sisera, came forth with another against Israel, which being overcome by them, he was slain, and the city utterly destroyed, as the same writer says; but by what follows it seems rather that the total conquest of him was afterwards and gradually accomplished.
(o) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 5. sect. 4.