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Chapter 4: The Judge Deborah and the Northern Campaign
Judges 4:1-10 ~ The Story of Deborah and Barak
The seven-part sequence of the story of the Judge Deborah begins in 4:1 but won't be completed until 5:31.
"Jabin" is the name of a dynasty of kings who ruled from the Canaanite city of Hazor north of the Sea of Galilee. Joshua fought and defeated a king Jabin and his chariots in Joshua chapter 11. Sisera is the new king Jabin's commanding general who lives at Harosheth-of-the-Gentiles, Canaanite territory which was strategically located somewhere in the forests near Mount Tabor west of the Plain of Megiddo.
Deborah (whose name means "honey bee") is a prophetess (verse 4) from the tribe of Ephraim (a half tribe of Joseph) in north-central Israel. She has the same Hebrew name as the nurse of Rebekah wife of Isaac (Gen 24:59; 35:8). Deborah the Judge is one of four prophetesses whose names are recorded in the Old Testament in addition to Miriam sister of Moses (Ex 15:20); Huldah (2 Kng 22:14; 2 Chr 34:22) and Noadiah (Neh 6:14). Isaiah's wife is also called a prophetess but is not named (Is 8:14). Deborah is the only judge who is described in the act of dispensing justice as God's representative to the people (verse 6).
Deborah sent for her general, Barak (means "lightening" in Hebrew) from the tribe of Naphtali in the Galilee. It seems from her questioning of Barak that she may have previously commanded him to prepare for battle against the Canaanites and he had not yet rallied his forces.
Question: What is Barak's problem? What is Barak's concern and what is his condition for beginning the war? What is Deborah's solution to the problem?
Answer: Barak lacks confidence. Deborah must go with him because he does not know when to begin the attack. She agrees to go to battle with the army of Israel, and she encourages her general that his victory is assured.
Deborah takes up a very unconventional role for a woman of her times. She is a judicial leader and she is a military strategist. It is her plan that the battle should take place at Mount Tabor and the Kishon River. The Kishon is a stream that flows westward through the Plain of Megiddo for most of the year, but during the rainy season the stream swells to the point of overflowing its banks to make much of the plain near the river swampy. She commands Barak to enlist his own tribe and the neighboring Galilean tribe of Zebulun to fight the Canaanites. The battle will take place during the rainy season (see Judg 5:21).
Question: Why does Deborah choose Mount Tabor and the surrounding plain as the site of the battle at the rainy season of the year? What is her strategy?
Answer: The Canaanites have the military advantage over the Israelites in their war horses and nine hundred chariots, but in the rainy season the horses and chariots will be mired in the mud and God will increase Israel's advantage while decreasing the effectiveness of the Canaanites chariots.
Question: What penalty does Deborah impose on her general for his hesitation concerning engaging in the battle without her presence?
Answer: The final "glory" of the battle will not be his but will be given "into the hands of a woman."
Judges 4:11 ~ Heber the Kenite
The Kenites are pastoral nomads who live in tents and herd domestic sheep and goats (see Num 24:21; Judg 1:16; 4:11). Moses' wife Zipporah was related to the Midianites and the Kenites. Her father was said to be a priest of Midian, but her brother is said to be a Kenite.
Question: Who are the Kenites?
Answer: They are the Gentiles who are descendants of Moses' brother-in-law Hobab who settled within the tribal lands of Judah.
Judges 4:12-16 ~ The Battle at Mount Tabor
The Israelites charged down from Mount Tabor to meet the Canaanites on the plain of Megiddo. According to Judges 4:7 and 5:19 the Canaanites were drawn into battle at Taanach near the Kishon River. The main pass that runs northeast through the hill country from the Plain of Sharon to the Valley of Jezreel was dominated by the cities of Megiddo and Taanach (about five miles southeast from Megiddo). This area's strategic location caused it to be frequently used as a battleground. Archaeological excavation at Taanach indicate it was destroyed about 1125 BC; the destruction may be associated with this battle and may help us set the date of this part of the narrative. The victory of Barak at the Kishon River is recalled in Psalm 83:9.
Question: According to Christian tradition, what theophany took place at Mount Tabor in the New Testament?
Answer: It is the traditional site of the Transfiguration of the Christ.
Jael and Sisera (Jacopo Amigoni)
Judges 4:17-24 ~ The Death of Sisera
Sisera fled to Kedesh near Hazor in northwestern Galilee. He believes he is safe at the settlement of Heber who is an ally of the Canaanites and seeks sanctuary in the tent of Heber's wife. Jael (literally Ya-el, there is no letter "j" in Hebrew), is a Hebrew/Semitic name. Jael's invitation is to Sisera is seductive. Ironically Sisera feared the Israelite general Barak when he should have feared the woman Jael. Like Shamgar she also uses an unconventional weapon that was part of her everyday life.
Question: What is the contrast in this passage?
Answer: Sisera's cowardliness is contrasted with Jael's courage.
Jael's husband Heber may have had good relations with the Canaanites, but it is clear from her actions where Jael's loyalty rested. She is honored as a heroine of Israel, and she is the third woman named in the Judges narrative: Most blessed of women be Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; of tent-dwelling women, may she be most blessed! (Judges 5:34).
Question: What prophecy has been fulfilled in Jael defeating Israel's enemy Sisera?
Answer: It is a fulfillment of Deborah's prophecy to Barak in Judges 4:9 that the final victory would come "at the hands of a woman."
Question: Jael's action in crushing the head of her enemy recalls what prophecy from Genesis 3:15? The pronoun in that passage can be read as either "he" or "she." See Rev 12:9 for the identity of the "serpent" in Genesis chapter 3.
Answer: The prophecy is that there will be enmity between "the woman" and the "serpent" Satan and their offspring. The prophecy continues that she or he (her offspring) will crush the head of the serpent. The prophecy ultimately concerns "the woman" Mary whose son Jesus will come to redeem mankind and destroy the works of Satan, but figuratively Sisera is a son/offspring of Satan and Jael has filled the role of the woman who defeats Satan's agent who intended to destroy God's people.
Some commentators have accused Jael of violating the regionally observed "law of hospitality" in killing Sisera. However, they are failing to take into account that in those same understood rules of hospitality that a man was never to approach a woman who was alone. The head of the household could invite a male guest to sleep in the porch area of a tent, but invasion of the women's quarters in the interior of a tent was punishable by death. The same rules are observed by Bedouin tribes today. Technically, Jael was acting within her rights in killing Sisera.
Question: What is the irony in comparing the two generals (Barak and Sisera) with the two women (Deborah and Jael) in the narrative?
Answer: Barak was hesitant and Sisera was a coward, but both Deborah and Jael were courageous, confident and decisive; it is an ironic role reversal.
Judges 5:1-31 ~ The Victory Song of Deborah and Barak
The victory hymn of Miriam and Moses in Exodus 15:1-18 and the victory hymn of Deborah and Barak are two of the oldest poems/hymns in the Bible.
Question: What do both hymns have in common
Answer: Both hymns were composed to remember a victory of Yahweh over Israel's enemies. In both victory hymns, the singers are a woman who is a prophetess of Israel and a man, and both are acknowledged as leaders of the people of God. Women have always been important in God's plan for man's salvation.
The Israelite warriors unbound their hair because it was a tradition for them to fight with their hair loose like a consecrated Nazirite since they were God's "holy warriors" (Num 6:5; Judg 16:17). Israelite warriors consecrated themselves for battle: they prepared themselves by becoming ritually "clean," and they had no relations with a woman (1 Sam 2-5/2:1-4). In the case of King David's rebellious son Absalom, his unbound long hair was his undoing (2 Sam 18:9). The singers glorify God and bless those Israelites who willingly came forward to fight the pagan kings and princes who were the enemies of Israel.
Seir is the mountainous region southeast of the land of Canaan. This poetically descriptive passage recalls the great event of Yahweh leading the people of Israel in final part of the march from the mountains of Seir in southern Edom to the plains of Moab and the camp on the east side of the Jordan River prior to the conquest. It is an event remembered with the same imagery in Psalms 68:7-8.
The story of Judge Shamgar was told in 3:31; he was apparently a contemporary of Deborah and Barak. There were no more caravans because of the violence in the land. The caravans avoided the northern territory of Canaan and took other routes.
Verse 8 reminds us of the apostasy in the period of the Judges. The Israelites were abandoning Yahweh in favor of "new gods" and calling on them instead of Yahweh. There should have been more than 40,000 men in Israel. Perhaps the reference is to those Israelites who responded to Barak's call to war. Nevertheless, the Israelites were unprepared for war and without shields and shears. Despite the low numbers of the Israelites willing to fight, the hope for victory is with the military leaders and the willing warriors for whom Yahweh is to be blessed.
Notice that Deborah is given precedence over Barak as she was in verse 1 and will be again in verse 15. She is named four times (verses 1, 7, 12, 15, and Barak is named three times (verses 1, 12 and 15). Barak is listed among the "heroes of the faith" in Hebrews 11:32.
In Biblical poetry "stars" often refer to "angels" (see Rev 1:20). God intervened to bring Israel victory. It was the rainy season and God sent so much rain that the Kishon was swollen beyond its banks and flooded the plain.
A near-by Israelite town is cursed for the people's failure to join the fight. Its curse was fulfilled since no site identified as this town has been discovered.
In verses 24-27 we have the retelling of Sisera's death. Notice the repetition three times that "crumpled, he fell," emphasizing the momentous event of Sisera's death at the hands of Jael. His gruesome defeat in death is contrasted in the next verses by the description of Sisera's mother anxiously waiting for her son's victorious return.
Verses 28-30 paint a painful picture of an anxious mother who loves her son. Her servants try to comfort her by explaining that her son is delayed in dividing the spoils of war with his men. She comforts herself by repeating their words to herself and thinking about what gifts he will bring her. The irony is that he is already dead and beyond the concerns of this world.
Question: How many times is the Divine Name YHWH invoked in this poem?
Answer: Fourteen times.
Judges 5:31 ~And the country had peace for forty years.
Question: How is the story of Deborah presented in the seven-part formulaic sequence?
Answer:
- Announcement of Israel's wrong doing (4:1)
- Statement of Yahweh's response (4:2)
- Notice of how long Israel was oppressed by the enemy (4:3b)
- Reference to Israel's repentance in "crying out" to God (4:3a)
- Announcement of God not "raising up" a deliver but a prophetess (4:4)
- Description of how deliverance was achieved (4:5-10)
- Concluding statement of how long peace lasted (5:31)
Deborah, unlike the other Judges, is never explicitly called a "deliverer"/ "savior," nor does the text ever state that she "delivered"/ "saved" the Israelites from the "hand of their enemies" (compare with Judg 2:16 and 6:14; 8:22; 12:2; 13:5), or brought "deliverance"/ "salvation" to Israel (compare with Judg 15:18). The verb "to save" is never applied to Deborah. Instead she is called "the mother of Israel" in 5:7; it is a title that can be applied to no other Judge!
Ruth in Boaz's Field (Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld) Ruth Chapter 2
CHALLENGE: “Genesis 1 is inaccurate. Modern science reveals that the world was created over eons, not six days.”
DEFENSE: Genesis 1 uses symbolic language. “God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity, and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work’” (CCC 337).
The Church acknowledges the value of scientific studies. “The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies, which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator” (CCC 283).
A careful reading of Genesis 1 shows it uses symbolic language. It says that initially “the earth was without form and void” (Gen. 1:2). During the six days of creation, God solves both these problems.
First, he gives the world form by separating day from night (day 1), sky from sea (day 2), and the waters of the sea so dry land appears (day 3).
Second, he revisits these realms and populates them so they are no longer “void” (empty): He populates day and night with the sun, moon, and stars (day 4), sky and sea with birds and fish (day 5), and land with animals and man (day 6). Then he rests on the seventh day.
Genesis 1 thus takes the work of the Creator and symbolically fits it into the structure of a Hebrew week.
A clue that this is literary rather than literal is the fact that the sun is not created until day 4, yet the day/night cycle was established on day 1. The ancients knew the presence of the sun is what makes it day, so the creation of the sun on day 4 shows the audience the text is symbolic.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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