Now Jael took a stake in her left hand and approached him, saying, “If God will work this sign with me, I know that Sisera will fall into my hands. Behold I will throw him down on the ground from the bed on which he sleeps; and if he does not feel it, I know that he has been handed over.” And Jael took Sisera and pushed him onto the ground from the bed. But he did not feel it, because he was very groggy.
And Jael said, “Strengthen in me today, Lord, my arm on account of you and your people and those who hope in you.” And Jael took the stake and put it on his temple and struck it with a hammer.
And while he was dying, Sisera said to Jael, “Behold pain has taken hold of me, Jael, and I die like a woman.”
And Jael said to him, “Go, boast before your father in hell and tell him that you have fallen into the hands of a woman.”
Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 31.7
Oh yeah. That’s funnier than one would think an ancient pseudepigraphon should be. “That’s right! Tell your daddy in hell that a woman did you in!”
Jael, of course, rocks.
It’s like an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess!
Complete with the sassy comments!
Is this an original translation? And can I post this to the wikipedia article on Jael?
Hi Ryan! No, it’s not original. It’s from the translation of Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum included in Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, in volume 2. I’ll look up the details for you later.
Great! I have volume 1. I found it at a used book store. I am thinking seriously about buying volume 2 from Amazon.
I’d definitely recommend it. There’s some really good stuff in volume 2 that you don’t want to be missing. I’ll bet you could find a used copy at AddAll for cheaper than at Amazon, too. That’s usually the case.
I’m working on two reference books as companions to the OTP volumes. One is a complete Scriptural/etc/citation index, since one was not included, and the only one published lists only the refs to Protestant “canonical” books. The other is a concordance to the translations. I’m almost done with the first and about to start on the concordance. I’ve been checking every reference. I’m up to nearly 40 handwritten pages of a list of corrections to citations alone. I’ll be able to get alot done over the coming holidays, thankfully.