The Bible is certainly a male-dominated book that reflects a male-dominated culture. Even if we separate the history in the Bible from World History, we see that human history is full of tales of testosterone-driven leaders using the force of military might, personal strength, and personal charisma to cause change. It is rare to see the female Pharaoh, Hatshepset, the brilliant Austrian monarch, Maria Theresa, the strong English queens (two Elizabeths and one Victoria), Jeanne d’Arc’s (at least titular) command of the French army which lifted the Siege of Orleans during the so-called Hundred Years War, Indira Gandhi’s leadership bringing the new nation of India into the modern era, or Margaret Thatcher’s firm leadership during Britain’s latter portion of the 20th century. Yet, we know that the involvement of women in history has been critical AND, surprisingly enough, we know that the involvement of women in the male-dominated narratives of the Bible was absolutely vital.
Remember that it was Samson’s mother who first encountered God’s messenger and Hannah, Samuel’s mother, who dedicated her son to God. It was Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Jacob, who ensured the eventual dominance of the royal lineage of Judah and Ruth, the Moabitess, who also acted with the kind of faithfulness that ensured this royal lineage. Remember that it was to Mary that the angel spoke of Jesus’ birth and that it was to Mary Magdalene that Jesus first spoke upon His resurrection. Remember that it was Moses’ mother who had the courage to hide the baby Moses and a woman of ill-repute, one Rahab, who helped Israel with vital intelligence to take Jericho. Pastor Cho of Full Gospel Central, ultimately our mother church, has noted that New Testament texts where the wife is listed ahead of the husband (such as when Paul greets Prisca and Aquila) would be unheard of in Asian culture UNLESS the woman was in a leadership position within the house church where they served. Only in that case in Asian culture would the woman be mentioned first. It isn’t like western culture where we believe in “women and children first” (at least, in our conversation—if not our actions).
And so we come to a crisis in the life of early Israel. Judges 4:1-3 sets it out for us. (Read these verses) Israel did evil AGAIN—right in front of God. I say it that way because it is so often that we forget that God is aware of everything we do. Sometimes, as humans, we forget and think we’re doing stuff in secret. So, it’s good to remind ourselves that we’re always in God’s presence.
For a time, I was addicted to a BBC television series called Kingdom. It was a show about an English solicitor named Peter Kingdom and starred Stephen Fry, the actor who played Jeeves in the series Jeeves & Wooster with another favorite actor, Hugh Laurie who now chews scenery on the doctor show, House, M.D. A particular episode dealt with CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) used for police surveillance. There were some funny bits where the attorney is spied upon in his bedroom, a serious plot point where the camera didn’t tell the whole story and someone was falsely accused, and another plot point where the surveillance saved a life. I personally don’t like surveillance cameras. I value my privacy. But as I was watching that show, I realized anew that nothing we do is hidden. And that’s what the text is telling us when it says that Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD (v. 1).
Then, almost as an afterthought, it tells us that this happened after Ehud’s death (v. 1).
What is it with the human condition that causes us to require a leader? Are we that unsure of ourselves? I honestly don’t know, but I see over and over again in the Book of Judges where a judge, a leader, dies and the people go back to the “easy way,” the “accepted” culture of their surroundings, instead of holding to their convictions in God Who rules over all. And too often, even in modern churches, we see churches that become cults of their pastors instead of armies of the Lord. Now, I know there is a certain sense of identity in recognizing, even sometimes promoting, one’s pastor in a PR, “face of the church” sense, but churches really gain power when the members feel empowered to win victories for God.
Now, as we’ve seen over and over again, God puts Israel in a fix to fix her and God’s people cry out for help. In this case, I like the wording that God SOLD Israel to Jabin. God’s people thought they were free to serve these other gods, so God showed them via King Jabin of the Canaanites (this is the second Jabin we’ve run into in the Old Testament, so we should probably call him King Jabin II) what slavery is really like. And you want to know the real irony? The Canaanites are the descendents of Noah’s grandson, Canaan, Ham’s son. Do you remember Noah’s curse upon Ham’s son? All of his descendents were to be slaves to the descendents of the other boys—including Shem, ancestor to Abram and hence, ancestor to Israel. Israel was sold into slavery to those who were intended to be slaves to Israel.
It’s also interesting that the name Jabin means “He understands.” Does this name reflect that the fact that Jabin II understood the opportunity that existed or does the name suggest (in an oblique way) that God understands about Israel’s faithlessness and is using Jabin as God’s fix to fix Israel? Or maybe, as with great literature in other contexts, we should understand both.
King Jabin II ruled from a city called Hazor. The very name means enclosed settlement. It signifies a certain amount of security, militarily speaking. Yet, Hazor has more than one destruction layer discovered by archaeologists, signifying that cities—even walled ones—weren’t necessarily secure. God is the only guarantee of security, yet God’s people had turned to other sources for that security. They may have thought that Jabin understood them and may have thought that the Canaanites had the kind of security they wanted, but the events of the rest of the chapter (as well as others in history) prove them wrong.
The next character we meet is Sisera, whose name means either “go between” or “swift bird.” He’s a mediator, all right, a mediator of oppression. Some of us who have worked in large corporations know how miserable it can be to work for a middle manager that doesn’t really care about you, your crew, or your projects. Sisera, with his 900 chariots of iron, seems to be one of those types of middle managers. Note the wording in verse 3 where Sisera “mightily oppressed” Israel. Literally, he oppressed them with strength.
Sisera comes from a town called Harosheth-hagoyim, a name that means “forest land” of the peoples. Doesn’t it seem strange that an officer of the Gentiles would live in such a beautiful sounding place when God’s people, who were promised this land, were living in harsher conditions? Yet, isn’t that what often happens when God’s people rebel against God? Other people than those chosen by God end up with the bounty of OUR promises! Of course, we’ll see that there are two other Gentiles living in Harosheth-hagoyim, a Kenite named Heber and his wife, Jael. They’ll come into our story shortly and demonstrate the futility of judging what God is doing prematurely.
But we were talking about women in leadership and verse 4 introduces us to a very important one. (Read verses 4-5) Here’s a woman whose name is Deborah. The name means “bee” and seems incredibly appropriate as the leader of a people who were promised a land flowing with milk and honey. Bees, after all, are pretty vital to honey as well as vital to the ecosphere in general. She isn’t merely a prophetess, though she does prophesy. It tells us that she lived under a palm tree placed between Ramah and Bethel and the people of Israel came to her for justice. She was a sitting judge. She was an authority. And, I don’t want to shock anyone, but she had authority over men! Not only did she settle disputes, but she called out to a general of Israel and he came to her.
We’re going to get to Barak in a moment, but before we do, I want to mention something about the placement of Deborah’s seat of justice. It was located between Ramah and Bethel. Is it just me or does that sound a lot reminiscent of Abram building an altar between Ai and Bethel? The names of the cities in Abram’s case meant “Ruin” and “House of God” and I suggested when we preached on Abraham that God’s people always need to see that they are camped between “Ruin” and the “House of God.” If we get too far away from the House of God, we’re headed for RUIN. The names of the cities in Deborah’s case mean “High” (or “Exalted”) and “House of God.” I’d like to suggest that these names indicate that those who allow themselves to be caught up in high status or exalted position aren’t grounded enough in the “House of God.” I’d like to suggest that Deborah’s position between the two cities suggests both a respected position due to holy exercise of authority and a sense of needing to remain close to the place where God had spoken to Jacob, the “House of God.” I would also suggest that any of us who want to have authority in God’s service need to be grounded in the discipline of worship, faithful attendance in God’s presence in the congregation. You may think I’m overreaching, but I think the wording about the two cities is interesting and bears examination.
So, let’s move to Barak. (Read verses 6-10) Though his name sounds like the verb for “blessing” or “kneeling” this name means “Lightning” (and on other occasions, the flash off a metal weapon—Nahum 3:3, Exodus 21:15, 20, 33) have at least one source that suggests his name means “Lightning.” And he hails from a place called Kedesh-Naphtali that means “Holy Place of Naphtali” (Naphtali may mean crafty ones or cunning ones) and was sired by a father whose name, Abinoam, meant “My father is gracious.” Lightning from a holy place for the purpose of grace? That sounds like God at work to me!
Notice also that Deborah is the one who voices God’s command for Barak to head toward Mount Tabor, recruiting from the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtali along the way. As we’ve seen before, 10,000 fighting men could be a nice round number designed to tell us the total was 10 (human sufficiency 2 *5) times the number of divine sufficiency (1,000 is 10 to the divine (3) power). It definitely suggests that Barak had just the right resources to accomplish God’s task—victory over Sisera’s elite chariot forces. I might, as I’ll suggest later, even mean that they out-recruited Sisera’s forces and caught them by surprise.
Notice also that Barak says that he will only go face Sisera if Deborah will go with him. Barak acknowledges by this insistence that he is only capable of winning the victory if he submits to God and, in this case, God’s representative in Israel is Deborah herself. Ungraciously, I’d like to suggest that he wanted Deborah to go with him in order to put her life where her mouth was. Graciously, I’d like to suggest that he was willing to share the honor with Deborah. Unfortunately, when she says that Barak won’t get the honor of killing Sisera, she seems to imply that he might have wanted the credit. But instead of being promised the credit, he is told that a woman would be the heroic one.
But I want you to see how terrific God’s plan was. Starting from right under the noses of Jabin II and Sisera, Barak goes through the mountain regions where those iron chariots are not going to come into play. God chose a route where His forces would be relatively sheltered and hidden in the mountains until they were ready for contact. You know how hard it’s been for US forces to find Osama bin Laden in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Our tanks, the descendents if you will of those iron chariots, don’t accomplish much in those mountains. They can maneuver a lot better than those chariots could have in the mountains, but it’s still not ideal terrain for those combat units.
Also, notice that God’s promise was to bring Sisera to Barak at the Kishon River. Now, there are two ways that chariots were useful in the ancient world. First, they were primarily used as moving platforms for missile units. Station a driver and an archer in the chariot and you could move them pretty much anywhere on the battlefield where you needed some extra artillery. Less often, but perhaps responsible for the Bible’s emphasis on the fact that these were chariots of IRON, they could be used to smash through infantry and use the weight of the chariots to great effect. The Hittite approach at Kadesh (against the Egyptians in the early 13th century BCE) was to put the chariots in the vanguard, charge furiously at the enemy infantry, scatter the enemy, and use the infantry to clean up. That wasn’t always a very reliable technique because horses are naturally skittish and, at least by the time of the Romans, they’d learned how to negate the advantage of cavalry using pole arms and circling together for defense (sort of an ancestor to the Napoleonic Era’s cavalry square).
Okay, regardless of how Sisera intended to use his chariots, look what happened. God brought them to the Kishon River. And where is the most famous place to fight a battle near the Kishon River? It’s the plain of Megiddo, just below the fortress. And guess what’s there? Kina Brook is there, one of the sources of the Kishon River. Guess what else is there? There is a marshy area there. How well do you think those iron chariots functioned in that marshy area? See the green areas on this map? They represent foothills with trees and brush. How well do you think those archers were able to fire into those areas? And what about the shock value of those iron chariots? It’s pretty hard to charge into water with any degree of success. God’s plan negated the very strength of the Canaanites.
We don’t know how many men Sisera had. It is entirely possible that they underestimated the fighting force the Israelites could put together. At the Battle of Kadesh, Egypt only had 20,000 troops—only twice as much as Israel had in this battle. A couple of centuries before, we estimate that Egypt had 10-20K troops and the Canaanites had 10-15K. We estimate that 250 chariots would have about 750 men associated with them. Let’s round up the 900 chariots to 1K and that would suggest about 3K support infantry. Since we only have the chariots mentioned with any numbers, we aren’t sure whether they brought a small force to handle Israel through overconfidence or underestimating Israel or whether the Bible was strictly focusing on the Canaanites’ secret weapon and there was a huge force.
Regardless, there is a lesson to be learned. God’s timing, God’s direction, God’s guidance is critical to our success as the people of God. If Barak had tried to meet those iron chariots out in the middle of the plain, I have no doubt that those herdsmen and mountain dwellers of Israel would have run for the hills in panic after the first chariot charge or barrage of arrows. But by following God’s plan, the strength of the enemy was negated. And when we prayerfully, carefully seek God’s will in our lives, the strength of the enemy is negated.
In fact, the enemy’s strength wasn’t just negated, the enemy routed and a lot of the Canaanite soldiers fell on their swords—committing suicide rather than facing the onrushing, victorious Israelites. Let’s read (Read verses 11-17.) about the victory. Here we read about Heber (whose name means “companion”), a Kenite (the tribe of Moses’ father-in-law) who seems to have distanced himself from his society. Does this reflect the idea of someone trying to get right with God? Was he about to convert? We don’t know. In fact, Heber isn’t even presented as an important character. His importance is indeed as a companion to our major heroine, Jael. The importance of Heber is simply that God will use whatever resources God wants to use. Help doesn’t always come from the sources we expect.
But let’s get to the main portion of the passage. (Read verses 18-24) Here, we’re lulled into a false sense of security, as was Sisera. Listen to verse 18 as it reads in the Hebrew (watatsay yahel likrahth sisrah wahtohmerhr aylaywah soorah ahthohnai soorah aylee ehl teerah wahyahsar aylehhah haohehlah wahtuhcasayhoo basuhmeecah). Notice how many times the S sound appears. It is sort of soothing and fits the seductive nature of Jael’s effort to lull this military man to sleep.
Heber’s wife, Jael, is the woman who wins the victory God promised. Her name means “mountain goat” and that seems amazingly appropriate for “…the heroine who offers milk instead of water, death instead of sleep, a corpse instead of a captive.” (Polzin, p. 166) Was that milk intended to make Sisera sleepy? I think that’s probable.
She waits until the warrior is fast asleep and she gets out a tent peg and drives it right through his temples. I read one commentary where the scholar was horrified at the idea that this is a premeditated murder that is celebrated as being the hand of the Lord. Worse, it is a murder that provides the beginning of the end for Jabin II, King of Canaan. But I don’t want you to focus on the killing. I want you to focus on the fact that a woman provided the key to victory. We can argue the method for years, but it’s not going to change anything.
The important factor is to see that victory came about by means of a non-Israelite, and a woman at that. We would usually expect a male warrior to win the victory.
Yet, there are many times in churches when little would happen if we waited for the men. I grew up in a Christian denomination where the very existence of funding for foreign missions was largely due to the efforts of women. The men were focused completely on the home front. I have a friend who pastored a church that was growing by leaps and bounds. I thought he was doing a great job of outreach and then, discovered that a lot of the new people were coming because of the efforts of one woman, a woman with a very serious illness, who recorded the church services, placed free CD-ROMs at Korean grocery stores, worked the phones every week, and packed her car every week. It wasn’t the pastor; it was a dedicated woman. I know of a lot of churches that wouldn’t have a Sunday School if it wasn’t for dedicated women who took those teaching positions when men wouldn’t. At one time, I remember controversy over female music directors/worship leaders, but there are a lot of churches who wouldn’t have music programs without female music ministers.
Our own mother church in Korea experienced its phenomenal growth during a period when MOST of the small group leaders were women because the men didn’t believe in the concept. So, do I want you women to become sitting judges? Do I want you to become murderesses? No, but here are some things I believe we can learn from this passage.
First, those of us men who want to be victorious better learn to listen to the dedicated, faithful women around us. Second, the most powerful people in prayer I’ve ever known were women and I’m believing God is going to give us some women who are such prayer warriors that they can speak about God’s will with authority. Third, we need women who, like Jooyon and Eun, will make their homes available for small groups and fellowships. In fact, Wailam and I would like for you to pray for us that we will be able to find a place where we can host some small groups and fellowships.
Finally, for all of us, we need to pay close attention to what God wants to do. We can’t do that without prayer and Bible study. That’s the only way to really be sure that we’re going to be where God wants us to be WHEN God wants us to be there. And in order to challenge you to deeper prayer, I’m going to hand out some prayer sheets, today. I’ve expurgated any embarrassing prayer requests from my list in order to put it on the slide. But I want to encourage you to make a list, ask for specific items, find a scripture text to claim on behalf of that request, and celebrate it when it’s answered.
