1. Judges 4:22 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

How does the text express Barak's shock?

Judges 4:22 (ESV)

22 And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple.

Though not in the ESV, the original includes the word behold between and and there. Barak probably expected upon entering the tent to find Sisera cowering in a corner. But instead, and to his shock, Barak finds Sisera “pinned to the ground with a tent peg through his skull. His silence is deafening. In a flash, gone is the victory! In a moment, gone is the glory, from Barak, that is!... Deborah’s dual prophecy has been fulfilled. Yahweh has committed Sisera into Barak’s hands (Judges 4:7), but he has also committed him into the hands of a woman. Unfortunately for him, the woman has won the honor (Judges 4:9)."1