Jael (3): Jael, Mary, and Jesus’ Crucifixion

« Part 1: “The Lord will hand over Sisera to a woman”
« Part 2: Sexual and Maternal Imagery in Jael’s Story

Jael as a Type of Mary the Mother of Jesus

After Judges 4 and 5, Jael is not mentioned again in the Hebrew Bible, and she is not mentioned at all in the New Testament. She is mentioned in early Jewish[1] and early Christian writings,[2] but her popularity picks up in the Middle Ages where she is the subject of art and is used as a type of Mary defeating the devil.

In Speculum humanae salvationis (“Mirror of Human Salvation”), Jael and two other women are presented as types of Mary. “Mirror” was a much-copied, illustrated book that was originally produced in the 1300s. It focussed on biblical typology and aimed to show that certain events in the New Testament were prefigured by three Old Testament or historic events.

Judith, who beheaded the Assyrian general Holofernes, and Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai, who placed the severed head of Cyrus in a vessel filled with blood (Herodotus 1.214.1), are presented along with Jael, who hammered a tent peg through Sisera’s skull. The three women are connected by their gory acts of violence on the heads of three powerful enemies. These women, according to “Mirror,” prefigured Mary who is the person who crushes the serpent’s head, the serpent being the devil (cf. Gen. 3:15).

Illustrations of Mary, Judith, Jael, and Tomyris.
From Speculum Humanae Salvationis, circa 1450. (The Warburg Institute)

Intertextual Connections Between Judges 5 and Other Bible Verses

Some scholars see significant similarities, or intertextual connections,[3] between Judges 5:24 and 26 with all or some of the following verses. Note the keywords “blessed” and “head” which I’ve italicised.

Deborah and Barak sing about Jael: “Most blessed of women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; she is most blessed among tent-dwelling women” … “She reached for a tent peg, her right hand, for a workman’s hammer. Then she hammered Sisera—she crushed his head; she shattered and pierced his temple” Judges 5:24 & 26 CSB.

God speaks to the serpent about Eve’s offspring: “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. Her offspring will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” Genesis 3:15.

Uzziah (leader of Bethuliah) praises Judith for decapitating Holoferenes: “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to cut off the head of the leader of our enemies” Judith 13:18 NRSV.

Elizabeth praises Mary and her offspring: “Blessed are you among women, and your child will be blessed!” Luke 1:42 CSB.

Intertextuality between Judges 5:24 and Luke 1:42

There is an intertextual connection between Jael and Mary as both are called “blessed of women” in the Bible. Lawson Younger is one of many scholars who sees a connection between the words in Judges 5:24 and Luke 1:42, and he comments, “The unrestrained praise of Jael is analogous to that given to Mary in Luke 1:42.”[4]

Brittany Wilson notes that the texts in Judges and Luke, as well as in Judith 13:18, each “have the passive form of εὐλογέω [‘blessed’] and place the term at the beginning of the sentence. Mary, Jael, and Judith are all initially named ‘blessed’ at the outset of their descriptions.”[5]

But there are more echoes of Jael’s story in Luke 1. In both Judges 4–5 and Luke 1, there are prophecies from women: Deborah prophesied about Jael’s victory; Elizabeth prophesied about Mary as the “mother of my Lord.” And there is singing: Deborah and Barak sing a victory song and Mary sings the Magnificat.

Clinton McCann observes that both Jael and Mary were chosen by God to defeat God’s Enemy and to establish justice and righteousness. [6] However, McCann and others believe the allusion in Luke 1:42 to Jael in Judges 5:24 and also to the Woman in Genesis 3:15 point to Mary’s offspring: Genesis 3:15 says that the Woman’s offspring will crush the serpent’s head. According to this understanding, Mary defeated God’s Enemy by being willing to give birth to the Saviour.

Illustration of Jael and Sisera.
From Speculum Humanae Salvationis, circa 1360.
More images of Jael as a type of Mary are here.

Jesus on the Cross is the Head-crusher

PhD student Julie Walsh has observed that there are close to 2000 quotes, allusions, and echoes from the Old Testament in the New Testament. In her ThM thesis—which she turned into the book, The Cross and the Tent Peg—Julie argues that the events that happened with the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus closely and intentionally follow the sequence of events from Jael’s story which prefigures them. This is because Jael initially fulfilled God’s words in Genesis 3:15 when she crushed Sisera’s head.

Julie notes that the events portrayed in the Gospels roughly follow Jael’s story in several ways. (The similarities are more pronounced in the Greek versions of the New Testament and Judges.)

1. skull imagery (Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, Luke 23:33, John 19:17; cf. Judges 4:21; 5:26)
2. drink (Matthew 27:34, Mark 15:23, 36, John 19:28, 30; cf. Judges 4:19; 5:25)
3. a stake going into the skull or ground (Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:33, John 19:18; cf. Judges 4:21, 5:26)
4. dividing of clothes among soldiers (Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23, 24; cf. Judges 5:30)
5. darkness coming over (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44; cf. Judges 4:21b)
6. earthquakes or quaking (Matthew 27:51, 54, 28:2, 4; cf. Judges 5:4, 5)
7. requests to stand guard at the entrance of the tomb or tent (Matthew 27:64, 65, 66; cf. Judges 4:20)
8. dawning sun, people going (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1; cf. Judges 5:31)
9. “He is not here” (Matthew 28:6a, Mark 16:6, Luke 24:5; cf. Judges 4:20. See also Matthew 28:12-13.)
10.  seeking or requesting to come in/ enter a tomb/ beholding (Matthew 28:6b, Mark 16:5, 6, Luke 24:3, 5, John 20:5, 6, 11, 15; cf. Judges 4:22)
11. forty years of calm (there is about 40 years between Jesus’ resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; cf. Judges 5:31)

Julie states that Jesus on the cross fulfilled God’s promise that the offspring of the Woman would crush the Serpent’s head, even as Jael’s tent peg did by analogy. This is especially seen in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (See also Zech. 10:4.)

Conclusion

Mary defeated the enemy indirectly through her son Jesus. She did this, not through violence, but through peaceful, though risky, obedience. The scriptures do not tell us what Jael’s motivation was, but perhaps she was also obedient to the promptings of God when she defeated Israel’s enemy. Jael is a controversial figure with blood on her hands, nevertheless, both she and Mary are praised in the Bible as “blessed among women.”

I’ve enjoyed looking more closely at Jael for this series, and I have an increased admiration for her and for how her story has been told in Judges 4 and 5. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series too.

Mary punching the devil in the face.
From De Brailes Hours (f.40v) circa 1240 (British Library)
See also images 23–27 from The Taymouth Hours (1325–1350) (British Library).

Footnotes

[1] For example, Jael is mentioned in Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews 5.5.4 and in Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities 31:3–9 and 32:12. Pseudo-Philo states, “Jael has elevated herself among women, because she alone has brought this good way to success, in that with her own hands she killed Sisera” (Biblical Antiquities 32:12).

[2] For example, Jael is mentioned in book 3 of Reply to Marcion (“Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments”), in Ambrose’s treatise Concerning Widows 8.47–48, and in comments on Judges 4–5 by Origen, Jerome, Augustine,  and Isidore of Seville.
Reply to Marcion, an anonymous work, includes this line: “Suddenly renegade, a woman’s hand—Jael’s—with wooden weapon vanquished quite, for token of Christ’s victory” (Book 3.138–142 [1495])
See David M. Gunn, Judges (Blackwell Bible Commentary; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 57–58, who writes that in early Christian interpretation “Jael is valued as a type and as a forerunner of Christ or the Church.”

[3] Serge Frolov explains that intertextuality is a concept which was developed by literary critics in the late-twentieth century and that explores relationships between two or more texts with similar words or ideas. It creates opportunities to see texts in a new light. He explains more in his article on Zipporah here: TheTorah.com

[4] K. Lawson Younger Jr., Judges, Ruth (NIVAC; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002, 2020) (Google Books)

[5] Brittany E. Wilson, “Pugnacious Precursors and the Bearer of Peace: Jael, Judith, and Mary in Luke 1:42,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68.3 (July 2006): 436–456, 439.
In fact, the word “blessed” occurs twice in Judges 5:24, Judith 13:18, and Luke 1:42. In each of these verses parallelism, a feature of Hebrew poetry, is used.

[6] J. Clinton McCann, Judges (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 58. (Google Books)

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Image Credit

Photo at the top of the page by Mabel Lee via Pexels (cropped).

Further Reading

Julie Walsh, “Jael’s Story as Initial Fulfillment of Genesis 3:15,” Priscilla Papers 33.4 (Autumn 2019): 22––27 (Online: CBE International) Julie’s book The Cross and the Tent Peg: How Jesus Retraced Jael’s Story can be purchased on Amazon.com

Sex and Violence in the Days of Jael (Series)

« Part 1: “The Lord will hand over Sisera to a woman”
« Part 2: Sexual and Maternal Imagery in Jael’s Story

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The Taymouth Hours (1325–1340) (British Library)