Now, I venture to assume that whatever, from its extraordinary character, perplexes us in Scripture, is a difficulty only to ourselves; that moral Marvels and physical Miracles, alike, would cease to create any difficulty if we knew more about God. The Morality of the Life to come, I do believe will prove none other than the Morality of the life which now is; and so I presume that it may be their Divine Author's will, that the physical Laws of the Universe shall be eternal likewise. And yet, as no thoughtful man will probably be found to say that he thinks he knows as much about the nature of these last now, as he expects to know hereafter,—so it is to be presumed that a sublimer, and therefore a juster view of the relation in which the Creature stands to the Creator, will disclose to us much which, at present, we should be little prepared to admit, if it were speculatively presented to us, ("as in a glass, darkly,") respecting the Moral Government of God.
I. In the very fore-front, however, of what I have to say concerning those phenomena which are generally cited as the Moral Marvels of Holy Scripture, I must freely declare my opinion that nothing is wanted but that the whole of the historical evidence should be before us, in every case, in order that we might cease to look upon them as marvels at all. But so it is, that Scripture is severely brief: takes no pains to conciliate our good opinion: seems to care nothing either for our applause or our censure. Scripture, in short, has been made an instrument of Man's probation[591]. It is for us to search curiously into the record; to take an enlarged view of times and manners; and finally, in the exercise of a generous Faith, to decide whether the difficulty is such as ought to occasion us any real distress. I proceed, in this spirit, to consider, as briefly as possible, the history of Jael; simply because I have heard stronger things said against her, than against any of the Worthies of old time who are mentioned with distinct approbation in the Book of Life.
1. Now, if you choose to consider Jael as one who lured a weary and unsuspecting soldier into her tent,—shewed him hospitality,—and when he was asleep, murdered him in cold blood,—you certainly cannot help recoiling from the inspired decision that, "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be." But I take the liberty of saying that this is quite the wrong way to read her story. You must begin it from the other end.
God pronounces this woman blessed, and distinctly commends her for her deed. From this point you must start; remembering that no action can be immoral which God praises. The Divine sentence, instead of creating a difficulty, is, on the contrary, exactly the thing which removes it[592]. To weigh the story apart from this, (which is the prime consideration of all,) is like condemning the immorality of an executioner without caring to hear that he is but carrying out the sentence of the Lawgiver. Furnished with the clue of God's approbation of Jael's deed, we retrace our steps, and reconsider the narrative. If all were still dark and hopeless, we might be sure that there are circumstances withheld, which if known would have made God's justice clear as the light. But, as a matter of fact, it generally happens that, when we "know the Scriptures," the difficulty in great measure disappears; and I am going to shew that it is so on the present occasion.
I find that when the people of God were on their way out of Egypt into Canaan, they were indebted to one family (the Kenites) for kindness and help[593]. The head of that family was Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, high-priest of Midian,—in which land the Lord, from the burning bush, had commissioned the future Lawgiver of Israel to redeem His people from the bondage of Egypt. Jethro met them in the Arabian desert; became their guide[594] till they reached the promised Land; and with them entered the borders of their future possession. It was a covenant between the two races that they should share the goodness of Jehovah. Accordingly, the Kenites made their settlement amid the Royal tribe of Judah; and it is easy to foresee how close a bond would spring up between the alien family and their avowed protectors, when, to the memory of past dangers shared together, was superadded the consciousness of present blessings;—especially in an age when the law of hospitality was held most sacred. How strong the bond became, the sequel of the story convincingly shews[595]. The children of Israel, at the end of a hundred and fifty years, find themselves cruelly oppressed by the most powerful of the Kings of the conquered but not extirpated race. God promises deliverance: and Deborah is raised up to organize the resistance against Jabin, "the captain of whose host was Sisera." Now, while Heber the Kenite is gone with the rest to the battle,—(for he had pitched his tent, remember, by Kedesh; and it was from Kedesh[596] that Deborah "sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam;")—while Heber, the husband, I say, is gone to the battle, and Jael the wife is left alone, distracted with anxiety, in the tent;—when, weak and unprotected woman as she is, she beholds the Captain of the hateful oppressor of God's people hastening to her tent, slumbering at her feet, and unexpectedly within her power:—will you pretend that she, a Midianitess, is to blame if she yields to the strong impulse which prompts her to compass the man's downfall, as speedily as she may? "There was peace between Jabin the King of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite[597]," you will remind me. True: (between Jabin,—not between Sisera, by the way:) without this, the whole incident would not have happened. Sisera presumed on the peaceful relations which existed between his lord and Heber; and supposed that the sympathy of one alien race for another was to outweigh every other consideration. Yet, how stood the case? Heber had thrown in his lot, irrevocably, with the people of God; while Jabin had already utterly violated the conditions of peace. For twenty weary years, had Jael and her family shared the hardships of that sacred line which Jabin had "mightily oppressed." All her life long[598], the highways have been unoccupied; and travellers have had to walk through by-ways; and the villages have been deserted by their inhabitants. Archers have infested the very places of drawing water[599]. Meanwile, a sure word has gone forth from the Prophetess who dwells under the palm-tree between Ramah and Bethel on Mount Ephraim[600], to the effect that God will give a mighty victory this day to His people[601]. Moreover, Deborah, (to whom the children of Israel go up for judgment,) has foretold that the Lord will "sell Sisera into the hand of a woman[602]". How can you marvel at the rest!... With a faith strong and undoubting as Rahab's, Jael,—weak woman as she is,—seizes the wooden tent-pin and the mallet, (the only weapons which are within her reach!); and, (somewhat as David afterwards employed a stone and a sling for the slaughter of the Philistine,) with these vile instruments, at one blow, she smites to the earth the enemy of God's people.... O, it was not because she was treacherous, or because she was cruel! Treachery and cruelty were not the vices to which a dweller in tents (and she a woman!) was prone, when a thirsty soldier begged a draught of water; and most assuredly, had she been either, she would not,—she could not, have won praise from God! (Witness God's wrath against David in the matter of Uriah, because he had no pity[603]; as well as dying Jacob's denunciations against Simeon and Levi because "instruments of cruelty" were "in their habitations[604].") O no! It was because she beheld in the slumbering captain at once the enemy of her own afflicted race,—and of God's oppressed people,—and above all of God Himself. That was why "she put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer!" ... The fight, you are requested to remember, had been a tremendous fight; and the battle, as she thought, was yet raging. Reuben, and Dan, and Asher had kept aloof from the encounter;—the first, in his rich pasture-land east of the Jordan, abiding "among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks;" the two others, intent on their maritime pursuits. Only some of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh[605], had been found willing to throw in their lot with the two northern tribes of Zebulun, and Naphtali,—who had "jeoparded their lives unto the death." And the battle which these had fought had been the Lord's; and as many as had taken part with them, were considered to have come "to the help of the Lord." Such then was the quarrel which Jael had made her own; and such the spirit in which she had done her wild deed of unassisted prowess!
To appreciate her constancy and courage, you may not overlook how fearful were the odds against the cause she was espousing: on the oppressor's side, nine hundred chariots of iron; whereas, "was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?" It had been so terrific a day, that if the Lord had not been on their side,—if the stars in their courses had not fought for Israel,—how could Sisera have possibly been overcome? But the very river was employed to sweep the enemies of Israel away,—"that ancient river, the river Kishon!" ... Now I boldly ask you, if the Angel of the Lord may curse bitterly the inhabitants of Meroz, "because they came not to the help of the Lord,"—(pray mark that phrase; for it shows exactly in what light the conflict was regarded!)—"to the help of the Lord against the mighty;" shall we wonder if, by the Spirit of God, Deborah the prophetess proclaims "blessed above women in the tent" Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite to be;—the undaunted one by whose right hand the captain of all that mighty host had been slain? Find me another "woman in the tent" who may be compared with her! ... Or rather, (for that is the only question,) shall these words embolden us to impeach the morality of Holy Writ?... I am sure there is not one of you all who really thinks it. She was—was she not?—a courageous, a faithful, and (according to her light,) a strictly virtuous woman. She was content to risk all, "as seeing Him who is invisible:" and to believe that "they that be with us are more than they that be with them[606]." From the unmistakeable evidence of her uncompromising boldness in a good cause, her unwavering faith, her readiness to cast in her lot with the people of God,—no one but a hypocrite will turn away to criticize the details of her deed by the Gospel standard of Grace and Truth. "He asked for water, and she gave him milk." What would you have had her do? It is by no means certain that she foresaw the deed which was to follow, and which cannot, (from the nature of the case,) have been the result of a preconcerted plan. The impulse to terminate the tyranny of Canaan, and the sufferings of her adopted people, as well as to decide the fortune of that critical day, by slaying one whom she regarded as the enemy of God Himself, may have seized her while she stood in the door of the tent,—weighing Sisera's petition against Deborah's prophecy. Be this as it may,—would you have had the woman connive at Sisera's escape,—the enemy of God's people, when God Himself had unexpectedly put him into her power?
It will assist us to understand this story, that we should bear in mind how it fared with Ahab, King of Israel, in the matter of Ben-hadad, King of Syria, as recorded in the xxth chapter of the First Book of Kings. "Thus saith the Lord," (was the Divine sentence,) "Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people[607]." It is quite evident that as the enemy of God, in the strictest sense, each fresh oppressor of Israel was regarded; and that, as the enemy of the Lord God of Israel, Sisera was summarily slain by the Kenite's wife.
Be so good as to remember also, that forgiveness of enemies is strictly a Christian duty. You have no right to expect to find the brightest jewels of the kingdom of Heaven glittering on the swarthy brow of an Arabian wife in the days of the Judges. "Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ[608]." You cannot expect to find the wife of Heber the Kenite more truthful than Sarah, and Rebekah, and Rachel,—or even than Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David: neither should you be so unreasonable as to expect that the God of Truth will award praise and blame to His creatures by a higher standard of Morality than He has seen fit, at any given period, to allow. A perfectly enlightened conscience, no doubt, will never consent to lie. A Christian woman in Jael's place, ought not, of course, to be guilty of Jael's deed. But you are forgetting the time of the world in which your lot is thrown. I say nothing of the circumstances of terror under which she acted,—she was forced to act. How could she tell that Sisera would not awake ere she should strike the blow,—or at least before she could achieve his death? What if a company of Jabin's host should come up to the tent-door, the instant she had done the deed, and inquire after Sisera? Suppose the issue of that day's encounter should prove disastrous, what would be her own and Heber's fate?... Feel a little for the poor wife,—for the lonely, helpless "woman in the tent,"—not entirely for the fierce soldier against whom you have heard the Lord's decree of death!... O ye, who, living in the full blaze of Gospel light, in cold blood can reject the doctrine of the Atonement, and deny the Lord who bought you, and teach that the Bible is "like any other book;" who can make light of its Inspiration, and evacuate its Prophecy, and idealize its Miracles; who with your lips can profess the Church's doctrines, and with your pens can deny them;—go ye and prate of Morality, and Honesty, and Truth! We shall heed mighty little your opinion of Jael's conduct, and of the Divine Commendation which it met with. I believe that, instead of suspecting the morality of the Bible in this instance, there is hardly an honest Christian heart among us, but cries out, on the contrary,—"So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord! But let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."
2. There is no time to consider, as I fain would, any other story; that of Jacob for example. It is quite amazing to hear the presumptuous speeches concerning that great Saint, in which good men sometimes permit themselves: as if the sum total of Jacob's history were this:—that he once obtained an ungenerous advantage over his Brother, and then shamefully deceived his blind and aged Father. Whereas those were the two great blots in an otherwise holy life! actions which were followed by severe, aye lifelong punishment.—But I must not enter on Jacob's history,—even to shew you that a careless reader overlooks certain circumstances which go a very long way indeed to excuse the actions just alluded to. I prefer reminding you that since, at Bethel, God blessed the exile's slumbers with a glorious vision, and most comfortable promise, on his first setting out for Haran; and again at Jabbok, as well as at Mahanaim, blessed him with a vision of Angels, and a renewal of the blessing, on his return; from this point, as before, it will be our wisdom to reason; and we shall reason backwards. Had Scripture been quite silent in all other respects, such proofs of the Divine approval ought to be enough to convince a believing heart that the only thing wanting must be fuller details,—more evidence,—in order to shew us that the Patriarch deserved the Spirit's praise. But in truth, in Jacob's case, the details are abundant and the evidence decisive.
3. Of all the other (so called) difficulties which occur to my memory,—as the extinction of the Canaanites, (who yet were not extinguished,)—the Sacrifice of Isaac, (who yet was not sacrificed,)—the life of David;—I have only to say that before you can pretend to have an opinion upon the subject you must be sure that you "know the Scriptures:" else, I make bold to say, you will inevitably err in your cogitations concerning them. Thus, men are heard to insinuate astonishment that the King who so basely compassed Uriah's death should have been "a man after God's own heart:" whereas the Hebrew original, (as they would know, if they knew the Scriptures,) conveys nothing of the kind; while the murder of Uriah is found to have drawn down upon David unmitigated wrath and terrible punishment from the right Hand of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.