Heber

Heber (meaning passing over or a companion) is the name of several individuals in the Old Testament. The most narratively significant is Heber the Kenite, the husband of Jael (Judges 4:11, 17–22). Heber had separated himself from the main body of the Kenites and pitched his tent near Kedesh in Naphtali, in a position of apparent neutrality or alliance with the Canaanites — his tent was near the oak of Zaanannim, and there was peace between King Jabin of Hazor and the house of Heber. When Sisera, the defeated Canaanite commander, fled to Heber's tent seeking refuge, his wife Jael killed him by driving a tent peg through his temple while he slept, fulfilling Deborah's prophecy that Sisera would be delivered into the hand of a woman (Judges 4:9; 5:24–27).

Other men named Heber include: (1) the son of Beriah and grandson of Asher, from whom the Heberites descended (Genesis 46:17; Numbers 26:45); (2) a son of Ezrah in the Judahite genealogy (1 Chronicles 4:18); (3) a Benjaminite (1 Chronicles 8:17); and (4) a chief of the Gadites (1 Chronicles 5:13).