Judges Chapter 5 verse 26 Holy Bible
She put her hand to the tent-pin, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote through his head; Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples.
read chapter 5 in ASV
She put out her hand to the tent-pin, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; and she gave Sisera a blow, crushing his head, wounding and driving through his brow.
read chapter 5 in BBE
She put her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen's mallet; she struck Sis'era a blow, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.
read chapter 5 in DARBY
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
read chapter 5 in KJV
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and struck through his temples.
read chapter 5 in WBT
She put her hand to the tent-pin, Her right hand to the workmen's hammer; With the hammer she struck Sisera, she struck through his head; Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples.
read chapter 5 in WEB
Her hand to the pin she sendeth forth, And her right hand to the labourers' hammer, And she hammered Sisera -- she smote his head, Yea, she smote, and it passed through his temple.
read chapter 5 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 26. - With the hammer. These words are not in the Hebrew, and should be omitted. She smote (not smote off), yea, she wounded (Psalm 68:21); she pierced through his temples.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(26) Nail. . . . workmen's hammer.--See on Judges 4:21.Smote.--Hammered.Smote off his head.--Rather, shattered his head. The Hebrew is onomatopoetic, i.e., the sound echoes the sense, recalling the smashing and crashing blows of the hammer. The repetition of these terrible alliterative verbs, "hammered," "shattered," "battered," "transfixed," the signs that the imagination of the prophetess seems to revel in the description, have been ascribed to "the delight of a satisfied thirst for revenge." This is hardly a right view of her character. It must be remembered that the feelings of modern times are far more refined and complex than those of previous ages. The sense of tenderness, the quickness of compassion, the value set on human life, are immeasurably increased, and with them the power of realising by universal sympathy the position and sufferings of others. In ancient days no close moral analysis was applied to acts of which the general tendency was approved as right and beneficial. Caesar was not inherently a cruel man, yet he records without a shudder the massacre and misery of multitudes of Gaulish men, women, and children at Alesia; and he suffered the brave Vercingetorix to be led away from his triumph, to be strangled in the Tullianum, without the slightest qualm of pity. Deborah, in the spirit of her day, seems to regard with pitiless exultation the wild throes of Sisera's death, and the agonising frustration of his mother's hopes. only because she views those events in the single aspect of the deliverance of Israel. The tenderness of the Mother of Israel was absorbed in the thought of her own long-afflicted, but now rescued, race. "She was a mother in Israel, and with the vehemency of a mother's and a patriot's love, she had shot the light of love from her eyes, and poured the blessings of love from her lips on the people that had jeopardised their lives unto the death against the oppressors, and the bitterness awakened and borne aloft by the same love she precipitates in curses on the selfish and cowardly recreants who came not to the help of the Lord against the unjust" (Coleridge); and we may add, on all connected with the cruel oppressor.
