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HITTING THE NAIL "IN" THE HEAD In Judges chapter four, while in servitude to Jabin king of Canaan, the Israelites cried unto the Lord for a deliverer. One might expect God to raise up a great warrior to overthrow Israel’s enemies, but God takes no pleasure in being predictable. When the battle between the Isralites and the Canaanites became intense, Sisera, captain of Jabin’s army, fled on foot to the tent of a woman named Jael. That was unfortunate for him. The name Jael means “wild mountain goat.” Bad move, Sisera, especially since your name meant “servant of Ra”! By the time the whole scene was over, the servant of Ra had started the “I-got-it-in-the-head” club, later to be joined by Abimelech, Goliath, and the Antichrist. Judges 4:21 says, “Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” Ouch! Now, did God need a mighty man of valour with a suit of armour? No, just a woman, a hammer, and a nail. In fact, this woman is said to be “blessed above women” (Jud. 5:24), not to be beaten by the Roman Catholic goddess who is only blessed “among” women (Luke 1:42). The song of Deborah and Barak is quite descriptive of the incident: “She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.” (Jud. 5:26-27) So much for that. Though a woman is called the weaker vessel in I Peter 3:7, her weakness becomes a great strength in the hands of God.