Deborah sat patiently under the palm tree that was her office. Dozens and dozens of people lined up every day. Every person had his or her own complaint. Each one wanted somebody else straightened out. Wearily she listened to their cases. She must often have felt like Moses, so weary she could not bear the load, yet someone had to do it. Someone had to teach these people the ways of the Lord.
One hundred years earlier, Ehud had arisen, struck down the oppressing King of Moab and set their people free — free to worship the Lord, free to raise their own families, free to pursue their own priorities. For a time most people followed the Lord. They stopped worshipping at the pagan altars. They forsook the high places where people kind of made their religion up as they pleased.
But as the years passed, people began to drift. At first only a few had gone over to the pagan temples. But by now, it was disgusting how many Israelites had forsaken their heritage and their God. Their idol worship was little more than a good luck charm and their worship of God a sentimental old memory.
Deborah yearned to see their nation steadfast in the worship of the Lord. When would they learn? When would they realize that there is only One True God? All the rest are fakes.
But no! Israel kept up the same cycle of backsliding, suffering, repenting, reviving, then backsliding again! As soon as Ehud was dead, maybe even before, the people had begun turning away from God. Their weakened culture invited enemy attacks. Their intermarriage with pagan wives compromised whatever determination a man might have had concerning the One True God.
Sure enough the enemies began taking advantage of the weakened Israeli culture and religion. The city of Hazor, which was the capital of Jabin’s kingdom, Joshua had burned to the ground 170 years earlier. An old conquered enemy rose again from the ashes to taunt and terrify the people of God. The oppression became the more bitter when Israel remembered that Joshua had once conquered these very enemies and now through negligence these same enemies had arisen with a special vengeance!
The writer of Judges teaches us that the military defeat came as a result of spiritual failure.
The harsh oppression took two forms: forced slave labor timbering for the foreign king and forced military service because Judges 5:6 records, “in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.” With the special part women play and with the expression of Judges 5:30, “every man a damsel or two,” one must understand there was especially oppression of the women!
For 20 years, the people cried out in anguish under foreign oppression. The bottom fell out of the Israeli economy. The attendance at the Lord’s house slumped ever lower. A military comeback seemed impossible. But God intervened! He worked through three weaklings!
I. DEBORAH – A FEMALE
Deborah patiently taught and encouraged the people the God could deliver them. She was the leading voice of the Lord in those days. They must repent, but the Lord would not forget His people!
She had her office under a palm tree, in the district more remote from the oppressors. Hearing the cases of Israeli complaints against each other must have wearied Deborah beyond endurance. They could not see the real enemy. They were fighting each other!
Was she the first feminist? No! She simply rose to the challenge of the current crisis. Many women throughout history have risen to meet the need — especially in the absence of a willing man. In fact, that is part of the message of this incident. God chose to use what men considered a weak instrument in order to bring an incredible victory.
She must have spoken with considerable authority. She sent a message to Barak, a known military leader, that he should muster 10,000 troops and plan to attack the enemy forces. She described where the battle would take place and promised the Lord would give him the victory.
But Barak declined. Ten thousand was not a large army. Sisera had 900 chariots of iron, plus a huge infantry! Barak would only agree to go if Deborah accompanied him in person. He was weak in faith but he was also shrewd. He knew if Deborah did not really believe what she had said, she would never go with him into battle. Besides, he knew how her presence would inspire the soldiers.
In that day of focus on physical strength, women were looked on as weaker, but the fact that men were stronger did not dissuade Deborah from leading the army into war. She saw it as an emergency measure. This was not her preference, but she rose to meet the need. “There are prophets who sit with Deborah under the palm tree, and advise noble deeds while they excuse themselves from facing the danger of achieving them." (Pulpit Commentary, Judges, p. 42)
Deborah was no arm-chair general. She hesitated not to risk all for God.
She was a mother. She had not deserted the duties of marriage, family, and children. Her ministry to the public grew out of having been a successful mother.
Judges 5:8 announces that not one in 40,000 Israelites had a shield or spear. The enemy had disarmed them and controlled the blacksmiths.
God’s weaponry:
“Shamgar’s ox-goad, and Gideon’s three hundred, and Samson’s jawbone, and David’s pebble, and Paul, the Lord’s earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7) whose bodily presence (they said) was weak and speech contemptible — all these were to be matched by an unlooked-for act of emancipation through a poor weak woman threatened with something worse than death.” (Henry Whitaker, http://christadelphianbooks.org/haw/judges_ruth/ch04.html)
Deborah did not have to deny her femininity. Hers was not the fierce fighting that belonged to Barak. Her patriotic faith was demonstrated in a manner consistent womanly dignity.
After the battle, she composed a song to celebrate the bravery and the victory of the day. In this she contributed something permanent in the life of the nation. Surely the Song of Deborah has been sung with dancing and music across the millennia. Many Jews and Christians have been challenged with the stalwart faith and the jubilant celebration of the moving of God in its lines.
What were the influences that motivated her to attack the enemy?
- General Divine Promises of assistance?
- Personal Example of Ehud?
- Special prompting from the Holy Spirit?
- Weariness with the Oppression of the Enemy?
Now let me move the stage lights from Deborah to focus them on Barak.
II. BARAK – A FEARFUL GENERAL
He knew he would pay with his life and maybe with a torturous death if he lost the battle. The enemy would search him out. He desired not the physical strength of a woman, but the company of a colleague and the faith of this prophetess. However, he demonstrated a weak faith in the Lord.
The prophetess announced that because of his fearfulness, the credit for the victory would not go to him, but would be given to a woman. Barak was unaffected. He desired success in the battle, not fame.
“Deborah cannot lead the army, but she can inspire it. Barak cannot prophesy, but he can fight…. There is work for the seer and work for the warrior. The world always needs its prophets and its heroes…. Brain work is at least as important as mechanical work.” (Pulpit Commentary, Judges, p. 42)
The men of Israel were driven by desperation for their national and economic survival, whereas Sisera’s men were probably mercenaries who desired only their pay. Now this reminds us of the American Revolution. Grossly outnumbered, under-staffed, and poorly armed, the colonists fought bravely against the experienced British military machine. They were defending their homes and families. Their only hope was in God.
Barak’s courage is highlighted against the fearfulness of the Benjamites and Reubenites. Barak and his men charged into the battle while other Israelite tribes looked on and feared to commit themselves to the fray (ch.5:14-18). Deborah sang that the Reubenites had “great thoughts of heart.” The NIV puts it, “much searching of heart.” Paralyzed by indecision, the Reubenites first wanted to join the fight, then pulled back in trembling. Barak was weak, but he was miles ahead of the Reubenites.
The third “weakling” was
III. JAEL – A FOREIGNER
Kenites. V.11 explains that they were descendents of Moses’ in-laws.
Jael’s husband, Heber was friendly toward both Israel and the Canaanites. Heber had betrayed the country that had adopted him and made a league with the Canaanites. Actually Jael had nothing to fear personally from Sisera. Why then, this treachery?
Scripture records that Sisera had “mightily oppressed Israel.” The Pulpit Commentary observes that “Harshness may appear to silence all opposition, but it really provokes the most dangerous enmity — secret and treacherous enmity. Sisera meets with a just doom. There is something cowardly in brutal oppression; it is fitting that the man who descended to practice it should not fall in honorable warfare, but meet his miserable fate at the hand of a deceitful woman.” (Pulpit Commentary, Judges, p. 42)
By the way, what was in that milk?
Ver. 17. Sisera fled to the tent of Jael. In the east, the pavilion of a lady is sacred; and by the covenant of Heber, he was personally known to the family. (Sutcliffe Commentary, Judges)
In our lesson, God’s use of the weak is the more remarkable when it is compounded by His use of a foreigner. As a Kenite, Jael or her husband was related to the Israelites, yet her husband had identified with the Canaanites. They occupied a kind of middle-ground with the opportunity to appeal to either Israel or to the Canaanites. (Right now it was not too favorable to identify with the Israelites.) Unexpectedly, Jael used this double relationship to cut down the enemy of Israel. Jael chose to identify with the people of God. Like Moses, she decided “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. (Heb.11:25).
God delights in using weak instruments so that He receives the glory. That is why Barak was limited to 10,000 soldiers! Remember that Ehud was left-handed.
I Co.9:27-29 declares,
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
CONCLUSION
God worked a marvelous deliverance.
Deborah — A Female, yet God used her courage to inspire an entire army and then the whole nation. First Feminist? Hardly! She was not out to complain about discrimination nor to reform society’s view of women, but simply to meet the crisis of the moment.
Barak — A Fearful General, but we should not criticize him until we have shared his responsibility. At the call of Deborah, he marched into action.
Jael — A Foreigner. God can use the weakest among us.
Heb.11:34 declares that the Heroes of the Faith “out of weakness, were made strong.”
