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Sisera


Sisera (Hebrew: סִיסְרָא Sîsərā) was commander of the Canaanite army of King Jabin of Hazor, who is mentioned in Judges 4-5 of the Hebrew Bible. After being defeated by the forces of the Israelite tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali under the command of Barak and Deborah, Sisera was killed by Jael, who hammered a tent peg into his temple.

According to the biblical book of Judges, Sisera commanded nine hundred iron chariots and oppressed the Israelites for twenty years from Harosheth Haggoyim, a fortified cavalry base. After the prophetess Deborah persuaded Barak to face Sisera in battle, they, with an Israelite force of ten thousand, defeated him at the Battle of Mount Tabor on the plain of Esdraelon. Judges 5: 20 says that "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera", and the following verse implies that the army was swept away by the river Kishon. Following the battle, there was peace for forty years.

After losing the battle, Sisera fled to the settlement of Heber the Kenite in the plain of Zaanaim, where he was received by Jael, Heber's wife. Jael brought him into her tent with apparent hospitality and gave him milk. Jael promised to hide Sisera and covered him with a rug; but after he fell asleep, she drove a tent peg through his temple with a mallet, her blow being so forceful that the peg pinned his head to the ground.

Sisera's name has been variously identified as Philistine, Hittite, Hurrian, or Egyptian (Ses-Ra, "servant of Ra"). The Israeli scholar and archaeologist Adam Zertal identifies Sisera with the sea people called Shardana (or Sherden), arguing that Sisera came from the island of Sardinia. Zertal and Oren Cohen proposed that the excavation at El-Ahwat between Katzir-Harish and Nahal Iron is the site of Harosheth Haggoyim, Sisera's military base.


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