JAEL
146
JAGER
ical exaltation of Jael be viewed in the light of these cognate passages, and it will be found to contain noth- ing at variance with the verdict wliich every impartial mind must be disposed to pronounce upon her conduct. It is, in reality, the work of God's judgment, through her instrumentahty, that is celebrated, not her mode of car- rying it into execution; and it might be as just to re- gard the heathen Medes and Persians as a truly pious people because they are called God's ' sanctified ones' to do his work of vengeance on Babylon (Isa. xiii, 3), as, from ^vhat is said in Deborah's song, to consider Jael an example of righteousness" (Fairbairn). See Deborah.
As to the morality of the act of Jael for which she is thus applauded, although it can not fairly be justified by the usages of any time or people, yet the considerations urged by Dr.Kobinson {Biblical Kepos. 1831, p. GOT) are of some force : " We must judge of it by the feelings of those among whom the right of avenging the blood of a relative was so strongly rooted that even Moses could not take it away. Jael was an ally by blood of the Is- raelitish nation ; [Sisera, the general of] their chief op- pressor, who had mightily oppressed them for the space of twenty years, now lay defenceless before her ; and he was, moreover, one of those whom Israel was bound by the command of Jehovah to extirpate. Perhaps, too, she felt caUed to be the instrument of God in working out for that nation a great deliverance by thus extermi- nating the chieftain of their heathen oppressor. At least Israel viewed it in this light ; and, in this view, we can not reproach the heroine with that as a crime which both she and Israel felt to be a deed performed in ac- cordance with the mandate of heaven." We must, moreover, not forget the halo with which military suc- cess gilds every act in the popular e^ye,, and that, in times of war, many things are held allowable and even commendable which would be reprobated in peace. Dr. Thomson, indeed {Laml and Bool; ii, 146 sq.), justifies Jael's course by the following considerations : 1. Jabin, although nominally at peace witli the Kenites, had doubtless inflicted much injury upon them in common with their neighbors the Israelites, and may have been ^probably was — specially obnoxious to Jael herself. 2. "We are not to assume that Bedouin laws were of strict force among the settled Kenites. 3. Jael must have kno>vn her act would be applauded, or she would not have ventured upon it. 4. Tliere is every reason to believe she was in full sympathy with the Israelites, not only from friendly, but also reUgious grounds ; and the neutrality of the Kenites seems to be mentioned merely to account for Sisera's seeking her tent, although he appears to have felt himself insecure. Nor did her promise of protection contain any warrant against vio- lence at her hands, but only of secretion from the hostile army. See Sisera.
The Jael mentioned in Deborah's song (Judg, v, 6) — " In tlie days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travel- lers walked through byways" — has been supposed by some (e. g. Gesenius, Lex. s. v. ; Dr. Robinson, ut supra ; FUrst,and otliers) to have been a local judge of the Is- raelites in the interval of anarchy between Shamgar and Jabin. It is not necessary, for this supposition, to make Jael the name of a man, for the case of Deborah shows that the place of judge might be occupied by a female. The reasons for this supposition are, 1. That the state of things described in Judg. v, 6 as existing in Jael's days, is not the state of things existing in the days of Jael, the Avife of lleber, whose time was famous for the restoration of the nation to a better. 2. That the wife of a stranger would hardly have been named as marking an epoch in the history of Israel. (See Ber- theau in the Exeget. Ilandbuch, ml loc.) But there is no CAndcnce either of such an interval or of such a judgeship ; and it is, therefore, more natural to refer the name to the wife of Hcbcr as the most prominent char- acter of the period referred to, the recoUectian of her late act giving her a distinction that did not previously'
attach to her. The circumstance that the name Jael is masculine in the Hebrew is of no force, as it is freely used (literally) of the female deer (Prov. v, 19, "roe"). See Judges.
Jaffe, PiiiLiPP, a celebrated modem Jewish scholar, was born at Schwersenz, near the city of Posen, in Prussian Poland, about 1820. His early education he received first at the high school of his native to^ra, and then under the care of the father of the writer of this article. After graduating at the Gj-mnasium of Posen, he began his university career by the study of medi- cine, and duly obtained his degree. He declined, how- ever, to compl}' with the wishes of his friends to en- ter the medical profession, and continued his stay at the university, devoting himself to his favorite studies, history and philology. In 1848 he gave to the world a History of the German Empire under Lothair the Saxon, and, owing to the excellence of this work, he subse- quently became a regidar contributor to Pertz's Mon- umenta Germanice Historica. His articles and essays — the outgrowth of most laborious researches — were read eagerly, and admired by aU scholars interested in the history and literatiu-e of Germany, and led ulti- mately to his appointment as " extraordinary" professor of history at the University of Berlin. He was the first Jew upon whom the honor of such a distinguislied appointment was conferred by the Prussian govern- ment. He now further distinguished himself by a con- tribution to the history of the papacj^ — Regesta Pontijic, Roman, ad MCXCVIl'l (Berol. 1851, 4to)— a work wh"ich at once was acknowledged a masterpiece in its depart- ment, and wiU forever remain valuable for the chrono- logical records of the Roman hierarchy. In 1868 Jalfe embraced Christianity, evidently with a design to fur- ther promotion, from which, by his religious profession, he seemed to be barred. But he soon repented of the step, and so great became the conflict in his heart that he committed suicide in the summer of 1870. (J. H. ^A'.)