Jael went out to meet Sisera. — This makes it probable that her design was already formed, unless we suppose that Jael as a chieftainess was placed above the ordinary rules which regulate the conduct of Oriental women. As nothing is said of Heber, he may have been absent, or he may have kept out of the way in order to further his wife’s designs.
Turn in to me. — Without that special invitation Sisera would not have ventured to violate every law of Oriental propriety by entering the privileged sanctuary of the harem.
Fear not. — Treachery is far too common among Bedouin tribes to render the exhortation needless.
She covered him with a mantle. — Rather, with the tent-rug. Evidently, the moment he was satisfied that her intentions were honest the weary and unfortunate fugitive flung himself down on the ground, or on a divan, to sleep. The word used for “mantle” — semîcah (Vulg., “pallio”; Luther, “mit einan Mantel”) — occurs nowhere else; from its root it probably means “a coverlet” (LXX., epibolaion, for which the Alexandrine Codex reads derrhis, “a skin”). A large “tent-rug” of goat’s hair is usually a part of the furniture of an Arab tent.