Deborah and Barak
4
📚Then, after Ehud died, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. 2 📚And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin 📖 king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor 📖. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles. 3 📚And the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots 📖 and he mightily oppressed the children of Israel for twenty years. 4 📚And Deborah, a prophetess 📖, the wife of Lapidoth, judged 📖 Israel at that time.
4:4 The Hebrew name Deborah means “bee”.⚜
5 📚And she used to stay under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel 📖 in the hill country of Ephraim 📖; and the children of Israel would come up to her for judgment. 6 📚And she sent and called Barak 📖 the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the LORD God of Israel given a command 📖? Go and proceed to Mount Tabor 📖, and take with you ten thousand men from the children of Naphtali and from the children of Zebulun. 7 📚And I will draw 📖 Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude to you at the Kishon 📖 river, and I will deliver him into your hands”.
8 📚And Barak said to her, “If you go with me, then I will go; but if you do not go with me, then I will not go”.
4:8 It was not enough for Barak that God had told him to go and that God would be with him. Obviously his faith was weak, yet he had true faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 his timid nature and his fears are not mentioned. God will remember the best things about His people and forgive and eventually forget the worst (Heb 6:10; 8:12). But this does not mean that they can follow the worst without penalty.⚜
9 📚And she said, “Certainly I will go with you. However, the journey that you are about to take will not result in your honour. For the LORD will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman”. And Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh 📖. 10 📚And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men on foot, and Deborah went up with him.
11 📚Now Heber 📖 the Kenite, who was of the children of Hobab 📖 the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites and camped in the plain of Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.
12 📚And they reported to Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor. 13 📚And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, nine hundred iron chariots, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles to the Kishon river.
4:13 Verse 7.⚜
14 📚And Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone out before you 📖?”
So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men behind him. 15 📚And the LORD routed 📖 Sisera, and all his chariots and his whole army, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. 16 📚But Barak pursued after the chariots and after the army, to Harosheth of the Gentiles. And the whole of Sisera’s army fell by the edge of the sword and not a man was left.
17 📚However Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the household of Heber the Kenite.
4:17 Verse 11. Jael means “mountain goat”.⚜
18 📚And Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me. Don’t be afraid”. And when he had turned aside to her into the tent 📖, she covered him with a rug.
19 📚And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty”. And she opened a container 📖 of milk and gave him a drink, and covered him.
20 📚Again he said to her, “Stand in the door of the tent, and if it so happens that any man comes and asks you, saying, ‘Is there any man here?’ you must say, ‘No.’ ”
21 📚Then Heber’s wife Jael took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temples and fastened it into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
4:21 Barak with an army had been afraid to meet Sisera (v 8). This woman, alone and without weapons of war, dared to slay him. Obviously she did not agree with her husband when he forsook Israel to become friends of Israel’s enemies.⚜
22 📚And as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael appeared, coming out to meet him, and she said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man for whom you are looking”. And when he came into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead, with the peg through his temples.
23 📚So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. 24 📚And the hand of the children of Israel bore down more and more heavily on Jabin the king of Canaan until they had destroyed 📖 Jabin the king of Canaan.