The Choice to Serve God and Assist His People 85 fashion. In the Rahab story the soldiers are sent to her to find the spies and she disrupts their mission when she sends them out of the city: And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab,… and she said: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them (Josh 2, 3.5). The spies have been sent by Joshua; they come to Rahab who sends them to hide in the mountains and assists them in their mission: And Joshua…sent… two men to spy…and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab…And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you (Josh 2,1.16) (11). Similarly, Yael stands against Barak and Sisera and she decides whom to assist and whom to defeat, achieving both her goals. The women’s encounters with these two men are described in a similar way (12). Jael came out to meet Sisera, and said to him, ‘Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; have no fear.’ So he turned in to her into the tent (4,18). Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, ‘Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.’ So he went into her [tent] (4,22). Yael’s dominant role is intensified especially since Sisera and Barak are rivals. And the organization of the two armies by their generals is described in a similar manner to the description of Yael’s interaction with the men (13): Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up by foot with ten thousand men behind him (4,10). Sisera summoned all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops who were with him (4,13). The two descriptions use the same phrase “Sisera/Barak summoned” but they contrast Sisera’s advantage “nine hundred chariots of iron” with Barak marching by foot. In the battle scene the two forces are compared: “Barak went down from mount” (4,14). After Sisera’s army was defeated it is said: “Sisera went down from his chariot and fled away on foot” (4,15). Barak goes down from Mount Tabor to his victory; Sisera goes down from his chariots, the symbol of his power, and flees on foot. Now the reader is under the impression that the battle is reaching an end. But at this point Yael appears on the scene and she overshadows both generals, Sisera and Barak. (8) Finally, it might be added that both stories deal with wars of Israel and the Canaanites. (11) See NELSON, Joshua, 40. (12) D.F. MURRAY, “Narrative Structure and Technique in the Deborah-Barak Story, Judges iv 4-22”, Studies in the Historical Books of the Old Testament (ed. J.A. EMERTON) (SVT 30; Leiden 1979) 172; R.H. O’CONNELL, The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges (SVT 63; Leiden 1996) 129. (13) These parallels are discussed by L. Alonso Schökel (“Erzählkunst im Buche der Richter”, Bib 42 (1961) 160-167) mainly on stylistic grounds. They are developed and viewed in the context of their narrative function by MURRAY, “Narrative Structure and Technique in the Deborah-Barak Story”, 169-171. In the present discussion the emphasis is on the function of these parallels in the characterization of the figures in the narrative.