1. Judges 4:21 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Why does the author call Jael by her full name?

Judges 4:21 (ESV)

21 But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.

The author calls her Jael the wife of Heber to emphasize that the act of killing was done by a woman, and the treachery of her actions. “Sisera may be a nobody, but she is not. She is the wife of the ally of Jabin."1