In these verses a sudden transition is made to the mother of the Canaanite general, and a striking picture is drawn of a mind agitated between hope and fear-impatient of delay, yet anticipating the news of victory, and the rewards of rich booty.
Verse 28. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice. The window in an Eastern house is made of wood in the latticed form, to serve as a folding door, and is large, extending from the ceiling to the floor, for the purpose of being fully opened, not only for the admission of light, but for the circulation of air. Windows commonly look into the quadrangular court, while the side of the house next the street is a dead, bare wall. But there were anciently, as there still are, exceptions to this general rule (2 Kings 9:30; Proverbs 7:9). The windows which front the street in the modern East are high in the wall and narrow, so that although, when opened, the inmates are enabled to see whatever is going on without, it is impossible for any passenger to distinguish any object in the interior of the dwelling. Doubtless the latticed window out of which Sisera's mother looked was in the same style; and as she probably chose it as commanding a view along the spacious plain of Jezreel (Esdraelon), her thoughts were naturally engrossed with one subject of intense and hourly-increasing anxiety, as she strained her eyes to catch the first glimpse of the general and his troops returning, as she doubted not they would do, flushed with, victory and laden with booty. (Byron's 'Giaour' has a fine passage, in which Hassan, having been slain by a sudden onslaught of his foe, the Giaour, the mother of Hassan is represented as awaiting his return, and wondering at his delay.
`His mother looked from her lattice high `His mother looked from her lattice high. 'Tis twilight-sure his train is nigh. She would not rest in the garden bower, But gazed through the grate of the steepest tower.
Why comes he not?-his steeds are fleet; Nor shrink they from the summer heat,' etc.
This spirited description is evidently a modern adaptation of the concluding passage in the beautiful dithyrambic of Deborah.)
Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?, [ pa`ªmeey (H6471)] - the paces of his chariots.
Verse 29. Her wise ladies answered her. In her impatient anxiety she is represented as seeking comfort from her maids of honour, who, from their experience or by their adroitness in practicing the arts of courtiers, suggested many probable causes of the delay, without including the possibility either of discomfiture or of death.
Yea, she returned answer to herself. J. D. Michaelis suggests that the reading should be, 'and she (namely, the mother of Sisera) replied to her (namely, the wise lady) who was comforting her.' 'There is,' he remarks, 'in the following a truly exquisite imitation of female conversation, the mother of Sisera, a proud, light-minded woman, always expressing a hope of better tidings than her attendants promised, and drawing a bright picture from her excited imagination.'
Verse 30. Have they not sped? The conversation is thus arranged by the writer abovenamed:-The wise ladies-`Will they not have got?' Sisera's mother, interrupting-`They will be dividing the prey. That must be the cause of the delay.' The wise ladies-`A maiden to every man' (literally, to the head of a man). Sisera's mother-`Two maidens' (namely, to every man). They-`To Sisera a prey of divers colours' (i:e., a garment, not made of coloured patches sewed together, but woven with threads previously dyed) (see the note at Exodus 35:25: cf. Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egypt.,' 3:125). She, dilating adds-`A garment of divers colours of needle-work, of divers colours of needle-work' (i:e., the word being dual, embroidered on both sides) (Rosenmuller, 'Scholia,'
h. 1.; J.D. Michaelis, ed. of Lowth's 'Lectures on Hebrew Poetry,' p. 259); or, two embroidered cloaks (Bertheau, 'Commentary,' h. 1.) for the necks [ shaalaal (H7998) for 'iysh (H376) shaalaal (H7998)] of a warrior.
Sisera's mother attributed the delay in his return to the great number of captives (female captives) taken from the enemy-females of the Israelite soldiers taken prisoners in their camp, equally with seizures made in the villages and towns through which the conquerors passed (see Xenophon, 'Cyrus,' 1. 4:; Herodotus, 'Polhymnia,' cap. 39:; Homer, 'Iliad,' b. 1:, capture of Briseis). With regard to sumptuous dress, gorgeous and party-coloured cloaks are worn by military officers of high rank in the East, and these are made like what are used among ourselves, to fit closely to the neck. The devices of embroidery are bestowed chiefly on those portions of the robe which are close to the neck, and which frequently display both ingenuity and taste. Such cloaks are much valued, being worn, not by the women only, but by men, even by stern warriors; and as a rule in ancient warfare, a richly embroidered cloak, when discovered among the booty, was reserved after a victory as a prize for the general or commander of the victorious party. Hence, Sisera's mother, in the fondness of her maternal anticipations, allotted an elaborate and gaily decorated cloak to her son as the reward of his gallant conduct.