Heber the Kenite had separated himself from his tribe, the children of Hobab, who led a nomad life in the desert of Judah (Jdg 1:16), and had pitched his tents as far as the oak forest at Zaanannim (see at Jos 19:33) near Kedesh. This is introduced because of its importance in relation to the issue of the conflict which ensued (Jdg 4:17 ff). נפרד with Kametz is a participle, which is used in the place of the perfect, to indicate that the separation was a permanent one.
Verses 12-14
As soon as Sisera received tidings of the march of Barak to Mount Tabor, he brought together all his chariots and all his men of war from Harosheth of the Goyim into the brook-valley of the Kishon. Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up; for this is the day in which Jehovah hath given Sisera into thy hand. Yea (הלא, nonne, as an expression indicating lively assurance), the Lord goeth out before thee,” sc., to the battle, to smite the foe; whereupon Barak went down from Tabor with his 10,000 men to attack the enemy, according to Jdg 5:19, at Taanach by the water of Megiddo.
Verses 15-16
“And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his army, with the edge of the sword before Barak.” ויּהם, as in Exo 14:24 and Jos 10:10, denotes the confounding of the hostile army by a miracle of God, mostly by some miraculous phenomenon of nature: see, besides Exo 14:24; 2Sa 22:15; Psa 18:15, and Psa 144:6. The expression ויּהם places the defeat of Sisera and his army in the same category as the miraculous destruction of Pharaoh and of the Canaanites at Gibeon; and the combination of this verb with the expression “with the edge of the sword” is to be taken as constructio praegnans, in the sense: Jehovah threw Sisera and his army into confusion, and, like a terrible champion fighting in front of Israel, smote him without quarter, Sisera sprang from his chariot to save himself, and fled on foot; but Barak pursued the routed foe to Harosheth, and completely destroyed them. “All Sisera's army fell by the edge of the sword; there remained not even to one,” i.e., not a single man.
Verse 17
Sisera took refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, to escape the sword of the Israelites, as king Jabin lived at peace with the house of Heber, i.e., with this branch of the Kenites.
Verse 18
Jael received the fugitive into her tent in the usual form of oriental hospitality (סוּר, as in Gen 19:2-3, to turn aside from the road and approach a person), and covered him with a covering (שׂמיכה, ἁπ. λεγ., covering, or rug), that he might be able to sleep, as he was thoroughly exhausted with his
