Heber the Kenite

Who is Heber the Kenite?

Heber the Kenite was, in accordance with the Book of Judges in the Tanakh and the Holy Bible, a descendant of Reuel the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law. He had separated himself and his wife Yael from the other Kenites and pitched their tent in the plain of Zaanaim, which is near Kedesh in the tribal territory of Napthali. Heber lived approximately during the 12th century BC in the Hula Valley of northern Israel during the time of the Israelite judges.

Heber and his household had peace with Jabin, the king of Canaan who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite army, knew this and, after having been defeated by Israelite forces, fled towards Heber's tent where he was greeted by Heber's wife Yael. Yael, however, sympathized with the Israelites because of their twenty-year period of harsh oppression inflicted to them by Jabin, his commander Sisera, and his nine hundreds iron chariots. After Sisera had drank milk from a bottle which Yael had opened, he fell asleep in exhausted stupor and Yael covered him with a mantle. She therefore drove a tent peg through his temples which nailed into the ground, and henceforth he died.