exegesis
Explanation
The Joke
A woman is reading the Bible and exclaims "Dear Lord!" after encountering the story in which Jael (from the Book of Judges) drives a tent peg through the head of the Canaanite general Sisera after luring him into her tent. Her companion asks what she is reading, and she recounts the violent passage. The companion reacts with shock, calling it obscene and wondering how it made it into the book.
The woman explains that it is a cautionary tale, but then notes that after the killing, there is a song praising how great Jael is for the act, followed by forty years of peace. The companion then asks if this whole section should be taken literally, and the woman responds that it was written like history, asking how the companion would derive a moral from it. The companion declares she is going to go worship, and rushes off -- completely sidestepping the difficult interpretive question.
The Humor
The comedy here is in the tension between the graphic violence described in the biblical text and the difficulty of fitting it into a neat moral or theological framework. Each time one character tries to explain away the passage (it is cautionary, it is metaphorical), the other points out that the text itself does not support that reading -- it celebrates the killing. The final punchline, where the companion simply decides to go worship rather than engage with the difficult exegesis, satirizes the common approach of ignoring uncomfortable scriptural content rather than wrestling with its implications.
References
The comic references the Book of Judges, chapters 4-5, specifically the story of Jael killing the Canaanite general Sisera by driving a tent peg through his temple. The "Song of Deborah" in Judges 5 praises Jael as "most blessed of women" for this act. The title "Exegesis" refers to the critical interpretation of religious texts, a major discipline in theology.