(Judges 4:21)
What can we learn from Jael today? To find that out, we need to examine her action in detail. Sisera was “army chief under Canaanite King Jabin.” (Insight on the Scriptures, volume II, page 975) The Canaanites dwelt in the country that God had promised to the Israelites. Hence they foreshadowed the worldlings of today, who also live on the earth that Jehovah has promised to his witnesses. So Jabin and Sisera depict people who are hostile towards Jehovah’s Witnesses – apostates, sect advisers, scientists, or intellectuals. Our task today is to kill these people in a transferred sense, while we are waiting on Jehovah to arrange for their literal death before long.
When Sisera approached Jael’s tent, she readily asked him in though her husband was not at home (Judges 4:18) If a Jehovah’s Witness of our time would do the same, the elders would assume that there is fornication, and in fact, the Babylonian Talmud says that Jael committed adultery with Sisera. (Horavoth 10b) Besides, “there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite [to which Jael belonged].” (Judges 4:17) She must have known “that, according to the Oriental code, it was a host’s responsibility to protect guests in his home, defending them even to the point of death if necessary.” (The Watchtower, December 1, 1979, page 31) But “Jael acted courageously, seizing the opportunity” to kill her guest insidiously. – The Watchtower, September 15, 1978, page 23.
What do we learn from this? Adultery has always been a serious sin, and murdering a guest was something utterly unthinkable in Jael’s culture. Still, she knew that she was not to miss any opportunity to kill the enemies of Jehovah and his witnesses. Sisera’s death was by far more important that any worldly or religious laws. We too “must obey God as ruler rather than men” whenever we run across an apostate. – Acts 5:29.