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"Is not the Lord gone out before thee?"
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The only woman in the Bible who was placed at the height of political power by the common consent of the people was Deborah. Though she lived in the time of the "Judges," some thirteen centuries before Christ, there are few women in history who have ever attained the public dignity and supreme authority of Deborah. She was like Joan of Arc, who twenty-seven centuries later rode in front of the French and led them to victory.
Deborah was the wife of an obscure man named Lapidoth. The rabbis say she was a keeper of the tabernacle lamps. If so, what a wonderful yet humble task for this woman who was to become so great in Israel! Later, when her faith in God became the strength of Israel, she would become the keeper of a new spiritual vision that
would light all Israel.
In all of her roles, first that of counselor to her people, next as judge in their disputes, and finally as deliverer in time of war, Deborah exhibited womanly excellence. She was indeed "a mother in Israel.'' She arose to great leadership because she trusted God implicitly and because she could inspire in others that same trust.
For twenty years Jabin, king of Canaan, had oppressed the children of Israel. Their vineyards had been destroyed, their women dishonored, and their children slain. Many had turned to the worship of idols.
Deborah's story comes in the first part of the book of Judges. These men were more than judges in today's meaning of the term, for they were chieftains and heroes as well, and their influence was felt mainly in war. Long before Deborah became a leader in war, she was a homemaker. Her house was on the road between Ramah and Beth-el, in the hill country of Ephraim, where flourished olive and palm trees. It was under one of the most royal of date palms that she would sit and give counsel to the people who came to her.
As a counselor in time of peace, Deborah became known far and near, but her greatest service came in time of war. And she led her people into war. Most of them had stood by fearfully because they were afraid of the enemy's 900 chariots of iron, when they had none. While they paled with fear, Deborah burned with indignation at the oppression of her people. A gifted and an intrepid woman, she felt a call to rise up against such fear and complacency, for she carried in her heart the great hope that God would come to her people's rescue if they would honor Him.
Because the men of Israel had faltered in leadership, Deborah arose to denounce this lack of leadership and to affirm that deliverance from oppression was at hand. Her religious zeal and patriotic fervor armed her with new strength. She became the magnificent personification of the free spirit of the people of Israel.
We can imagine that Deborah looked the part of a great and noble woman. She must have had fire in her eyes, determination in her step, and a positive ring to her voice. We can see her, a tall, handsome woman, wearing a dress of blue crash striped in red and yellow and a yellow turban with a long, pure-white cotton veil, lace edged, reaching to the hem of her dress. A feminine woman, who never had had the ambition to push herself forward, Deborah better personified the homemaker in Israel than a warrior. But as she counseled with her people and began to sense their common danger, she kindled in them an enthusiasm for immediate action against the enemy.
She had the courage to summon one of Israel's most capable military men, Barak, from his home in Kedesh. Together they worked out a plan for action against the enemy. Deborah let Barak know she was not afraid of Sisera, commander of Jabin's army; neither was she afraid of his 900 chariots. She made him feel that the spirit that could animate an army was greater than either weapons or fortifications. Probably she recalled to him that God had led the Israelites through the Sea of Reeds and had broken a mighty oppressor, Pharaoh. And she made Barak realize that God, who had proved Himself to be mightier than Pharaoh, also was mightier than either Jabin or Sisera.
"Go," spoke Deborah positively to the fainthearted Barak, "and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun." (Judges. 4:6). And she convinced Barak that the Lord would deliver Sisera and his chariots and multitudes into their hands.
Barak, sensing the spiritual insight that Deborah possessed and feeling the urgent need for her presence and spiritual counsel, answered, "If thou will go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go." (Judges. 4:8) . That is one of the most unusual passages in the Bible spoken by a man to a woman. It demonstrates a general's great confidence in a woman, a homebody, too, who had risen to a high place in Israel largely because of one quality, her abiding faith in God.
Without hesitation, the stouthearted Deborah declared triumphantly, 'I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." (Judges. 4:9). In these words Deborah demonstrated more than leadership. Her people were to discover that she was also a prophet.
In Judges 4:9 we learn that "Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh." That one word"arose" best explains her positive action. She did not sit at home and ponder the matter when the time came for action, but she arose, believing firmly that she was armed with strength from God.
When Barak summoned his tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, he saw that none was well armed and none rode in chariots. But Deborah's faith carried the Israelites forward unafraid. When she and Barak and their ten thousand men came to the spur of the hills, near where Sisera and his charioteers were, Deborah, looking out from a lofty rock, exclaimed to Barak, "Up; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the Lord gone out before thee?'' (Judges. 4:14).
We learn directly from Josephus and indirectly from the song of Deborah that a storm of sleet and hail burst over the plain from the east, driving right into the face of Sisera and his men and charioteers. The slingers and archers were disabled by the beating rain, and the swordsmen were crippled by the biting cold.
Deborah and Barak and their forces had the storm behind them and were not crippled by it. As they saw the storm lash the enemy, they pushed on, believing all the more in providential aid. The flood waters were now racing down the Kishon River. So violent was the rain that Sisera's heavy iron chariots sank deep in the mud, and as they did, many of the charioteers were slain. And the hoofs of the cavalry horses splashed through the mud as a small remnant made its retreat.
Sisera, abandoning his mighty chariot, ran for his life through the blinding rain. He managed to reach the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. Because the Kenites had been at peace with Sisera, he thought that here he would be safe, especially since Jael had come forth to offer him her hospitality. Weary from battle and comforted by the warm milk and lodging which Jael had so hospitably given to him, Sisera fell soundly asleep. And as Sisera lay sleeping Jael took a peg which her husband had used to stretch the tents on the ground and with a hammer drove it into Sisera's temples.
Hot in pursuit of Sisera, Barak soon came to the tent of Jael. She went out to meet him and said to him, "Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest." (Judges. 4:22) . And Jael took him into the tent where lay the dead Sisera. It was just as Deborah had prophesied: "For the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.'' (Judges. 4:9).
To celebrate this great victory the Ode of Deborah, one of the earliest martial songs in history, was composed. It began: "Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel.'' (Judges. 5:2). Deborah took no credit to herself. She gave all the credit to God, for she knew that only He could cause the earth to tremble, the heavens to drop torrents of water, and the mountains to melt. In the song she is called "a mother in Israel.''' for she, like a mother, had led the panicky children of Israel to victory. Their cry to her to lead them echoes in the refrain: "Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song." The tribes of Israel who had stood by her in the conflict were praised.
Tribute is paid to Jael for putting Sisera to death. In every line of the song one senses Deborah's extreme devotion to God and to the well-being of her nation. At the end of the song, which runs through thirty-one verses of Judges 5, her courageous voice sounds forth like the clear notes of a trumpet of freedom. Her people were no longer enslaved. Now with her they could declare, "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." Such fire as Deborah possessed literally never died out of Israel.
Her glorious victory is best recorded in these concluding but meaningful lines of her Bible biography: "And the land had rest forty years" (Judges. 5:31).
