Day 105 – Judge Deborah & Barak

• We read about another judge today, and of course – once again – we see the same cycle of sin happening. Yesterday we read that Ehud had defeated the Moabites, and Shamgar did his work, and there was peace for many years. By the start of Judges 4, however, the Israelites had once returned to their sinful ways. This has led to the Canaanites “cruelly oppressing” them for 20 years. We read about how cruel it was in Deborah’s song in Judges 5; in verse 7 it says that all the people in the villages abandoned their homes to live in the safety of the city.
• Unlike the Moabites and other enemies, who probably invaded the Israelites to get their treasure, the Canaanite people probably invaded to try and get their land back. Remember that they had been driven out of the land as the Israelites came in, many years ago by this point.
• Deborah is introduced to us today. She is the only female judge listed amongst the twelve. She is a great leader and a woman of God, and one of the few female prophets listed in the bible. Deborah doesn’t lead the Israelites in battle of course, but she helped the Israelites to follow God’s commands in doing so. Who helps her to lead the battles?
• In Judges 4, Barak is listed as the leader of the army sent to defeat the Canaanites. Don’t confused him with the King Balak who lived many years ago! Barak fights valiantly, but we see that he is initially timid in Judges 4:8-9. Because of his lack of trust in God, God says that it won’t be him that kills their enemy – Sisera, the Canaanite king – but a woman instead.
• The death happens in the gruesome story in Judge 4:17-22. Did you spot what happened in the verses? After routing the Canaanite army, Barak’s army kill everyone except the king, who escapes on foot. Jael, the woman I mentioned, lures the escaping king into her house where he thinks he’ll be safe, but she kills him to complete the Israelite victory. With what painful method does Jael use to bring Sisera to a messy end?
• Who, rightly, gets the credit for the victory at the end of Judges 4?
• The song that Deborah sings in chapter 5 is an example of a common practice at the time to sing about national victories. It’s one of the oldest poems in the bible and gives lots of extra information about the events of chapter 4. Resist the temptation to skim read it. How did it help you to understand the events, and something more about Deborah? For example, what does Judges 5:19-21 tell us about the difficulties that Sisera’s iron chariots had?
• I rather enjoyed the dark comedy of verses 28-30 of the song. It rather gleefully pictures the mother of Sisera waiting for her son to return, which of course he never does. This image of a mother is the opposite of the image of Deborah being the “mother in Israel” in verse 7.
• Which name that we read about today is listed as a hero of faith in the Hebrews passage?

You may think that women get a pretty raw deal in the Bible sometimes. God’s speaks most often to men, He gives His promises mostly to men, and men make up the vast majority of the major players in both the Old and the New Testaments. But whilst it’s indeed true that men play a more significant role in much of the history we’re reading, women do play vital parts too, setting the bible radically apart from much of the culture of the day. We’ve read about Rahab’s bold faith recently, haven’t we, and before about the quiet wisdom of people like Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Now we see Deborah’s leadership. Next week we’ll read about the wonderful story of Ruth, and her honourable actions.

Men are called to have different roles in the family and the church to women, but as we read today, Deborah, as judge and prophetess, was equal to to her male compatriots in the role she played. Despite the fact that there are indeed biblically-ordained gender roles, you should never think that women have a lesser role, or have less worth or dignity in what they can bring or who they are.