What Does Judges 5:24 Mean?

(24) **Blessed above women.**—Jael would be regarded as a patriotic heroine, whose daring had secured to Israel the fruits of their victory. The morals of that early age were not sufficiently enlightened to understand that treachery and assassination are *never *justifiable, however good may be the end in view. But, as serious moralists, even in the nineteenth century, have held up to admiration the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday, and have even given to her the title of “the Angel of Assassination,” we can hardly be surprised that Deborah should exult in Jael’s heroism, and her choice of the right side, without expressing—perhaps even without the degree of later moral enlightenment which would have led her to feel—any moral reprobation of the means by which the end was accomplished. But to compare this outburst of patriotic approval for such a deed with the salutation of “Blessed art thou among women,” addressed by the angel to the blessed Virgin Mary (as is done by some commentators), seems to me a most dangerous way of handling the mere words of Scripture, apart from their context and true significance. **Above women in the tent.**—The honour paid to her because of her deed would raise her far above the common mass of ignorant and downtrodden nomad women. Instead of a Kenite woman, she would be lauded and honoured as a heroine of Israel.