So Barak sent messengers to all the tribes who lived among the hills by the Great Plain. Some of the tribes said that they would not come, some said that they would think about it; but Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali sent soldiers, until Barak and Deborah had ten thousand men. In the meantime, Sisera gathered his great army, thousands upon thousands of footmen, and thousands upon thousands of prancing horses, and nine hundred chariots of iron. And Barak and his soldiers were on the side of Mount Tabor, and Sisera and his soldiers were in the Great Plain. And there came a storm out of the north, as if the clouds were an army in the sky pouring water out of great buckets. And Deborah cried, “Up, Barak; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand.” And Barak rose up and his men with him, and down they charged over the side of the mountain. And the Great Plain was filled with mud by the beating of the rain, so that the wheels of the chariots sank like the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots in the Red Sea. And the Kishon overflowed its banks. And the army of Sisera fled east and west, and the army of Barak followed them. Now Sisera, when he saw that he was defeated and that his chariot was stuck fast in the mud, leaped down in great haste and ran for his life. And as he ran he came to a tent away off among the hills, where a man lived whose name was Heber and his wife’s name was Jael. Heber had no [Illustration: JAEL TAKES THE TENT PIN] part in the battle of the day. He lived by himself, and was neither on the side of Barak nor on the side of Sisera. While the others were fighting he was in the distant pastures tending his sheep, and his wife was at home alone. So Sisera came breathless and weary with running, and Barak was following him far behind. And Jael came out to meet Sisera, and she asked him to come in and hide. “Turn in, my lord,” she said, “turn in to me: fear not.” So he went in. And he said, “Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty.” And she opened a bottle and gave him milk to drink. And he lay down in the tent, and she covered him with a mantle, so that he was hid. And he said, “If anybody comes to the tent, and asks, ‘Is there any man here?’ you must say, ‘No.’” Then he went to sleep, for he was very tired.