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Jael

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Biblical Character

The Resume

    Born in Israel
    Wife of Heber the Kenite
    Kills Canaanite General Sisera in Judges 4 by driving a tent peg through his head with a mallet
    Name in Hebrew is Ya'el, or Yael, roughly translating to 'Gazelle' or 'wild mountain goat'

Why she might be annoying:

    Little is known about her outside of her brief appearance in the Book of Judges.
    When Sisera fled to her tent, he asked for water and for some reason she brought him milk instead.
    She lulled him into a false sense of security and then killed him in one of the most painful ways possible (a tent peg through the temple - yow).
    Her actions seem both cowardly and treacherous from a modern perspective.
    Her story contains inconsistencies, as Deborah the Prophetess later describes Sisera falling to the ground after being struck, implying that he had been standing and not sleeping at the time of his death.
    She was heavily sexualized by Renaissance artists.
    She carries on the tradition of deceitful women in the Bible (Eve, Delilah, Jezebel, etc.)
    Sisera’s death is so sadistic that Judges 4 has warranted inclusion in both Leonard Woolf’s ‘Book of Terror’ and John Mortimer’s ‘Oxford Book of Villains.’

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her slaying of Sisera led God to deliver Israel from the Canaanites.
    Her brief appearance in the Book of Judges has inspired biblical art for centuries.
    Deborah prophesied that Sisera would 'fall by the hand of a woman' and so she’s not entirely responsible for the brutality (divine intervention).
    Her name is one of the most popular ‘baby names’ for girls in Israel.
    She is the subject of one of the oldest biblical texts, ‘The Song of Deborah.’
    Feminist theologians have reexamined Judges 4 in the context of Jael as the empowered woman.
    She has an installment in Ann Burton's 'Women of the Bible' series, depicted sympathetically as an overworked tent wife married to a brutish husband.
    She is included as one of the 3 'Women of Courage' in the American Bible Society's 'Extraordinary Women of the Bible' Special Edition magazine (2014).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 27 Votes: 51.85% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 13 Votes: 46.15% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 19 Votes: 47.37% Annoying