What Does Judges 5:26 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew uses the same root for the workmen’s hammer and Jael’s blow, making the weapon’s name echo in the act of striking.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with an unsoftened act of violence: Jael sends out her hand, strikes Sisera, and pierces his temples. In Hebrew, the word for the hammer echoes the verb for striking, so the force of the action is audible in the wording. The weapon, wound, and result stay fully in view.
THE ROOT
לְהַלְמוּת
lehalmut
GROWS FROM
הלם
halam
To strike or hammer.
“hammer / smote” in this verse is lehalmut. The hammer’s name and the verb for Jael’s blow share the root הלם (halam). English separates the implement from the action, while Hebrew makes them sound like branches of the same striking force.
ALSO GROWS
halmut: Hammer.
הַלְמוּת
The tool’s name carries the same striking root as the action that follows.
halam: To hammer, strike, or smite.
הָלַם
This is the verb echoed in the line’s description of Jael striking Sisera.
תִּשְׁלַחְנָה
tishlachnah
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
To send forth, send away, or release.
The KJV’s “put” gives the action plainly, while the Hebrew also presents Jael’s hand as sent forth toward its target. The same root can carry the sense of release, but here its movement is directed toward the nail and hammer.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: A messenger, one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch preserves the root’s sense of being sent forth, as the verse gives Jael’s hand a directed movement.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name keeps the root’s sending sense visible, which the English “put” does not carry.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly pictures hostile power being overthrown through a blow to the head.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.The Hebrew verb translated “put” in Judges is תִּשְׁלַחְנָה (tishlachnah), from שָׁלַח (shalach), meaning to send forth or release. Exodus uses that same root in “Let my people go”; here the hand is sent toward its target, while there a people are sent out from bondage.
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