Judges 4:17-20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Sisera fled—to the tent of Jael— The common Arabs so far observe the modes of the east, as to have a separate apartment in their tents for their wives, made by letting down a curtain, or a carpet, upon occasion, from one of their pillars; though they are not so rigid as some of the eastern people in these matters. Dr. Pococke tells us, that his conductor, who was an Arab, led him two or three miles to his tent, where there was an encampment of Arabs; and that there he sat down with his conductor's wife and others round the fire.—"The Arabs," says he, "are not so scrupulous as the Turks about their women; and though they have their harem, or woman's part of the tent, yet such as they are acquainted with come into them. I was kept in the harem for greater security, the wife being always with me; no stranger ever daring to come into the woman's apartment, unless introduced." According to the custom of the present Arabs, therefore, it was not absurd in Sisera to hope that he might be received into Jael's tent, the harem of Heber. It appears too, that her tent was a much safer place than any other in that encampment, wherein to secrete himself, as it would have been a much greater insult to this Kenite Emir, for any Israelite to have attempted to search for him there, than in any other of his tents. Observations, p. 79.