Word Live: Resolver
Think about the people that God has used as channels of his grace and love in your life; thank him for them.
Bible passage
Judges 4
Deborah
4 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.
4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: “Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the River Kishon and give him into your hands.”’
8 Barak said to her, ‘If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.’
9 ‘Certainly I will go with you,’ said Deborah. ‘But because of the course you are taking, the honour will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.’ So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. 10 There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.
11 Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.
12 When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13 Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the River Kishon all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron.
14 Then Deborah said to Barak, ‘Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?’ So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. 15 At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.
16 Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera’s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left. 17 Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.
18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, ‘Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.’ So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.
19 ‘I’m thirsty,’ he said. ‘Please give me some water.’ She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.
20 ‘Stand in the doorway of the tent,’ he told her. ‘If someone comes and asks you, “Is anyone in there?” say “No.”’
21 But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.
22 Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘I will show you the man you’re looking for.’ So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple – dead.
23 On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. 24 And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
In keeping with the narrator’s insistence on the Lord’s sovereignty over human affairs, this account of Israel’s deliverance from Jabin attributes their salvation to God (v 23). However, in this instance God works his saving purposes through Deborah, Barak and Jael. Barak’s insistence that Deborah the judge accompany him to the battlefield (v 8) is evidence of the authority and respect she commanded (v 5) and suggests that – for Barak at least – her presence was indicative of God’s presence. At a human level, Jael’s murderous actions (v 21) could be interpreted as self-defence by a woman left in fear for her life by Sisera’s flouting of ancient hospitality customs. However, from God’s perspective she displays the resolve necessary to rid Israel of the oppression to which he is so opposed, but that was sorely lacking among his people on their entry to the Promised Land (see Judges 1).
The prominence given to Deborah and Jael – women in a male-dominated society – demonstrates that God is not bound by cultural norms and expectations. He can use anyone to work out his purposes. That should give us encouragement that no expectations of our culture preclude us from serving God, but also pause for thought that the same is true for everyone else.
Author
Nigel Hopper
Respond
Call to mind the people you find really difficult. Ask God to give you grace to see them in a new light as potential agents of his saving purposes.
Deeper Bible study
Think of ways in which Jesus is a surprising saviour. Thank him.
Notice here the stages in the cycle of unfaithfulness which we saw yesterday. The oppressor is King Jabin, through his general, Sisera. This is surprising since decades ago a King Jabin of Hazor fought against Israel under Joshua and was ‘completely destroyed’ along with his army and his cities.1 It seems that Hazor had been rebuilt and Jabin was a popular name for its kings! This reminds us that evil is never entirely defeated: after being rebuffed by Jesus, the devil only ‘left him until an opportune time’2 and we are warned, ‘if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!’3 For example, we may have thought that the evil of slavery was defeated 200 years ago, but we are well aware of it again in our generation.
The Lord instigates his rescue by means of a prophetic word to Deborah, who is close to being a ‘judge’ in our meaning of the word (v 5).4 However, it is appropriate to describe each of the rescuers of Israel in this book as a ‘judge’ when we consider the biblical teaching about justice: God’s justice is his putting right what is wrong in a community in order to restore it to what it was meant to be, and in so doing God is acting as Judge. Similarly, the judges in this book are the Lord’s spirit-anointed agents, restoring Israel to her intended state in the Promised Land.
In today’s passage God saves his people through an unlikely trio: Deborah is a surprising saviour in that culture because she is a woman, Barak because he is a wimp (vs 8,9) and Jael because she is both female and a foreigner. Jael’s treachery is a sharp reminder that the judges are not heroes to be emulated but fallible and human beings whom God graciously uses.
Do you sometimes think that God cannot use you? What light is shed on this feeling by this passage?
1Josh 11, especially vs 1,14 2Luke 4:13 31 Cor 10:12 4 See NIV footnote to v 4
Author
Paul Oakley