Deborah and Barak

Let's learn a little bit about the only female judge of God's people.  Let's look at the Judges. Between Joshua’s conquest of Canaan and the coronation of Israel’s first king, judges provided guidance for Israel. The word judge, as a noun, indicates a public officer appointed to administer the law.  In Hebrew the word shophet literally means "Judge", from "to pass judgment". 

The judges served more like appointed leaders rather than strictly in a judicial nature, as magistrates or rulers rather than ones who judged in the sense of trying a case. The Biblical judges were chieftains who united various Israelite tribes in time of mutual danger to defeat foreign enemies. They led of the tribes from 1350 - 1014 BC for a total of 336 years.  Some Biblical judges seemed to serve during the same time period as other judges. Samuel was the last of the Judges in 1014 BC. He anointed Saul as king and assisted Saul until Samuel's death in 1014 BC, according to a source.

The period of the Judges is initiated in 1350 BC with Othniel until his death in 1302 BC when Ehud arises as Judge.  Following Othniel's death, in 1294 BC Naomi (from the Book of Ruth) moves to Moab and in 1284 BC her two sons are killed and she and Ruth move to Bethlehem. Also in 1284 BC Ehud freed Israel by stabbing Eglon, the king of Moab. This brought about an eighty-year period of peace in Israel. However, the Israelites returned to wickedness.  In response, God let them experience the result of their choices by being oppressed by King Jabin and the Canaanites who oppressed them for the next twenty years when, finally, the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

Deborah's Judgeship occurred in the middle of the period of the Judges, from about 1204 to 1144 BC.  We look in Judges 4:4-8,12-16; and 5:1-5 and learn that your service to God is valuable, no matter who gets the credit.

Let's first look at Deborah and Barak.

Judges 4:4-8

4 Deborah, a prophetess and the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 She would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to settle disputes.  6 She summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedeshin Naphtali and said to him, “Hasn’t the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, deploy the troops on Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the Naphtalites and Zebulunites? 7 Then I will lure Sisera commander of Jabin’sarmy, his chariots, and his infantry at the Wadi Kishon to fight against you, and I will hand him over to you.’” 8 Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go. But if you will not gowith me, I will not go.”

First some background information.  Deborah, the only female judge of God's people, is described as a prophetess, one who served to speak for God to the people.  Only three other Old Testament women are mentioned in such light by the writer of Judges – Miriam (Ex 15:20), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14) and Isiah's unnamed wife (Isa 8:3).  

Deborah held court under a palm tree somewhere in the hill country of Ephraim in the very center of all of the tribes.  She is described as sitting under the tree implying that she was an instructor, for teachers would sit to instruct their students.  It is not likely that she heard and rendered decisions upon every issue in the nation, but primarily with the more difficult issues, or the one effecting people across the tribes.  People might also have come to her for spiritual direction as well.  

In response to the Israelite cries for help, Deborah, who was the wife of a man whose name means flame or torch, summoned Barak, whose name meant lightning, to recruit troops from Zebulun and Naphtali from the northern part of the nation to engage in a campaign against the Canaanites. Deborah was speaking for YHWH when she rethorically asked Barak  “Hasn’t the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you?” The command also included the strategy: ten thousand troops from Naphtali and Zebulun were to be placed on Mount Tabor. God would then lure all the enemy’s forces into a trap at the Wadi Kishon. While normally a dry plain, this wadi or gully rapidly became a river when the rains fell. Part of God’s strategy included sending heavy rains, muddying the battlefield and bogging down the Canaanite iron chariots making them useless.

The Lord promised victory to Barak and his army. Even with God’s assurance that He would defeat Sisera, Barak would still have to respond in obedience. Barak came to her court to hear the word from God. He was willing to accept his commission, but with one condition. Barak would only go up against the enemy if Deborah would go with him. Because of his choice here, God states that the honor of defeating the enemy would be given to a woman.  

The mustering and assembling of such a large army took some time and did not go unnoticed. Deborah and Barak with the Israelite army gathered on the slopes of Mount Tabor. Sisera realized that the Israelites were preparing for battle – they were going on the offensive. He gathered his chariots at the Valley of Jezreel alongside the Kishon River. Sisera chose the site of the battle, where his chariots would have an advantage with plenty of room to maneuver.  Let's read his point of view and its outcome:

Judges 4:12-16

12 It was reported to Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up Mount Tabor. 13 Sisera summoned all his nine hundred iron chariots and all the troops who were with him from Harosheth of the Nations to the Wadi Kishon. 14 Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the Lord has handed Sisera over to you. Hasn’t the Lord gone before you? ”So Barak came down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him. 15 The Lord threw Sisera, all his charioteers, and all his army into a panic before Barak’s assault. Sisera left his chariot and fled on foot. 16 Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth of the Nations, and the whole army of Sisera fell by the sword; not a single man was left.

It was obvious that Israel was preparing for war as 10,000 warriors gathered on a mountainside in plain view of the enemy.  Sisera responded with his strategy apparently one of laying siege.  They can't attack my 900 iron chariots, so I'll have them penned on the mountain to dispose of at my leisure.

YHWH initiated the attack on Israel's enemy with rainy weather, a fierce rainstorm, maybe one of those 20 inchers in a day storm. Deborah ordered Barak to carry out YHWH's instructions and move out.  As they moved out down the mountain Sisera's chariots found that their ability to maneuver was SEVERELY limited in the now muddy plain.

The Canaanites’ tactical advantage went down the drain as God threw Sisera and all his army into a panicked confusion. The fierce rainstorm caused the Wadi Kishon to overflow and turned the battlefield into a sea of mud crippling the chariots and their ability to mow down the Israelites. Considering that the Canaanite god Baal was the god of the thunderstorm, the sudden storm would have increased the superstitious Canaanite warriors’ panic. They likely would have surmised that Baal, whom they worshiped and believed controlled the storms, had been overcome by the God of Israel. 

So the "battle" becomes a rout and with his chariot bogging down, Sisera had no choice but to jump and make a run for it. Deserting his troops, he hotfooted eastward it towards the tents of Heber the Kenite who had friendly relations with Jabin. However, Heber’s wife, Jael, apparently did not share her husband’s allegiance to Jabin. She kindly offered Sisera refuge in her tent, where he met his death as Jael drove a tent peg through his head as he slept.  Barak had chased the routed Canaanite troops westward, all the way to Sisera’s home base 

So the battlefield stretched over about fifteen miles from Mount Tabor westward as the Israelites spilled Canaanite blood across the entire valley. Not even one enemy combatant survived.  This day marked a new day of freedom from twenty years of Canaanite oppression.  Let's see what Deborah and Barak did in response.

Judges 5:1-5

1 On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang: 

2 When the leaders lead in Israel, when the people volunteer, blessed be the Lord. 3 Listen, kings! Pay attention, princes! I will sing to the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. 4 Lord, when you came from Seir, when you marched from the fields of Edom, the earth trembled, the skies poured rain, and the clouds poured water. 5 The mountains melted before the Lord, even Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel.

The Jewish people often expressed themselves in song to celebrate special occasions.  Deborah took the lead.  Barak eventually began leading after she urged him and agreed to go with him. When they led, ten thousand warriors followed. Deborah recognized the necessary involvement of the leadership. When leaders lead as they should, people will follow their lead even against impossible odds. The song commended the people for offering themselves freely to God. In so doing, they looked head-on at an enemy equipped with the latest weapons of modern technology, including almost one thousand iron chariots, tanks in our nomenclature.  Deborah and Barak recognized the Lord’s hand in the fact the people had willingly volunteered for battle.  

Since Israel had no kings or princes, Deborah and Barak were addressing the rulers of the heathen nations. They summoned neighboring kings and princes to listen in the sense of hearing and heeding how the Lord received the praise due His name, urging them to discern the mighty acts of the Lord God of Israel and to fear Him. In this way, they might understand and take to heart what He had done for Israel and learn not to oppress God’s people. The focus pointed toward praising God, not any human hero. God is presented as the God who had exerted His miraculous power by marching forth from Seir and Edom to deliver His people from Egypt and into the promised land. 

This reference to Seir identifies an ancestor of an ethnic group associated with the Horites, who lived in the hill country of Seir. By the time the Israelites came out of Egypt, the Edomites (descendants of Jacob’s twin brother, Esau), had displaced the Horites and taken over the territory. This area extended along the south from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. This identifies YWHW as a God whose origin was first recognized by humanity in the land where Moses and his father-in-law interacted during the exodus.  This allusion to Moses and the exodus recalled its significance to the people of Israel. Deborah and Barak’s poetic description focused on God renewing the commitment to help His people that He had promised to them generations before in the wilderness.

The song continued the poetic description of the Lord’s descent to the earth as all nature convulsed as God acted. God made His presence known as He passed through the heavens with such strength that the earth shook and the clouds released their water. Again, such phenomena should have reminded the people of when God descended upon Sinai at the time of Moses. These descriptions gave powerful poetic expression to the belief that the miraculous storm that threw Sisera’s army into panic and retreat was not a mere natural event. No, the same God who had rescued Israel in the past had come again to save His people. 

Melting mountains perhaps to the volcanic fields of the seir region, alluded to the floods of water pouring out of the clouds and flowing in a mighty stream to the lower grounds, carrying part of the mountain with it. The psalmist said, “The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord”. If Sinai could not bear the presence of God when Israel camped there, the mountains of the idolatrous Canaanites could only melt and tremble before Him. 

Israel, who entered into a covenant relationship with the Lord at Sinai had become fascinated with Baal.  Perhaps thinking that the more cosmopolitan Baal was superior in a fashion sense to the "country god from the wilderness."  This brought on their crisis, but even so, it was YHWH, not Baal, that marched through the clouds to rescue His people.

Barak was obedient to God’s call on his life and after twenty years of being oppressed, he was willing to take up arms and fight. But he set a condition. The presence of the prophetess, bringing God’s direction and guidance, would be reassuring for the men who were about to fight for their lives.  Barak was willing to summon his tribesmen for battle. He was willing to forgo honor and glory for himself and to see the enemy defeated by whatever possible means.  Deborah and Barak were successful, for God instigated this partnership. 

Matthew Henry summarizes Deborah's sidekick with this statement:  "Barak of Naphtali, he could do nothing without her head, nor she without his hands; but both together made a complete deliverer and effected a complete deliverance." 

Sometimes teamwork is preferable to heroism.