Deborah

In the days of the judges, a foreign king rose up against the Israelites, but only two tribes were willing to help. Two tribes were like the Tennessee volunteers.

They came with 10,000 people from Naphtali and from Zebulun, ready to give their lives for the cause of freedom for their land. And they followed and rallied around Deborah. It's unusual in the Old Testament for the national leader to be a woman, but when God called Deborah to lead the armies of Israel against Naphtali, she rose to the challenge with strength and wisdom that only God could provide.

Today on Renewing Your Mind, we continue Dr. R.C. Sproul's series, Great Men and Women of the Bible. As we continue our study now of great men and women to live by, I want to turn your attention today to the extraordinary story of the Old Testament prophetess and judge whose name was Deborah. Deborah represents to me a person who is what I would call the Joan of Arc of the Old Testament.

She is a woman who, in an hour of extreme emergency and crisis, was used of God to rescue her entire nation. Now the story of Deborah takes place during the period of the judges. Remember how the Bible goes? The book of Judges represents a transition period in Israel's history. We remember that the nation was formed at the foot of Mount Sinai after God had brought the people out of bondage in Egypt, and he formed them into his covenant people and gave them his law. But then they wandered for years in the wilderness before they set about to conquer the promised land.

And the book of Joshua, for example, records for us the conquest of the land of Canaan. And after the Jewish people came into Canaan, they settled there in proportionate allotments distributed by tribes. So one tribe settled here, and another tribe settled there, and so on. Now what was the form of government they had in that time? It was not a democracy.

It was not a monarchy. It's what the scholars call amphictony, or what we simply call the period of judgeships, where each of the tribes had its own clan leaders, and they organized really like extended families throughout their own tribes. But the tribes were linked together, not by elected or appointed officials, but by kind of a loose federation of tribal leaders.

And the only time that there would be any kind of consolidation or unity of the tribes was in the time of a crisis, or what we would call a national emergency. Then leadership over the entire nation of these loosely federated tribes was what we call charismatic. We had charismatic leaders. Now what that means is that the leadership over the nation was selected and chosen by God.

And what would happen is that whenever the need arose, God would endow an individual with his Holy Spirit and empower them to be the leader for the season. It's during the period of judges that we hear of Samson, whom God raises up and enables, with power from on high, to defeat the Philistines. Gideon was a judge, Ahud was a judge, Othniel was a judge, and so on.

We have these heroic individuals who are especially gifted. That's what charismatic means, that they were gifted by God to lead the nation in a time of crisis. Now if we read the book of Judges, we read a litany that goes through the book again and again. There's sort of a pattern developing where the people of Israel begin to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. They begin to get enamored with the local pagan deities, and they depart from obedience to the law that God had given them at Sinai.

And so when they do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, God punishes them by giving them over to some pagan king who does not do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. And so God raises up the Philistines, or the Midianites, or whoever. And then the people repent, and they cry out to God, and they say, please deliver us. And God raises up an Ahud, or an Othniel, or a Gideon, or so on, or a Samson. And these mighty leaders come, and they drive out the pagan princes, and Israel rejoices. And then the people come, and they cry out to God, and they cry out to the Lord. And so God raises up the Philistines, or the Midianites, or whoever, the Amalekites.

And it just goes on and on and on and on. Well, as the book of Judges opens, we see this pattern already established, and it's happened two or three times already. And by the time we get to the fourth chapter of the book of Judges, we see that Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord after Ahud died. Ahud was the left-handed judge, you know, who killed the king, and he had delivered the people of Israel.

But as soon as this righteous, charismatic leader dies, the people go right back to their old ways. And what do we read next? And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, and the commander of his army was Sisera.

Now listen. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years. Now, I don't know exactly when the period of Judges took place.

There's all kinds of debates about that among archaeologists, among historians. Conservative scholarship places the time of this crisis that we're speaking of now roughly in the thirteenth century B.C. In the thirteenth century B.C., the Jews are being tyrannized and oppressed by this king who has an enormously powerful military that includes nine hundred iron chariots. Now we read in verse four, Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time, and she used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Rama and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. What this means is you remember when Moses had all the people in the wilderness and God made Moses the judge over the whole nation. If people had disputes, contractual disputes or domestic problems in the law courts of the day, they had leaders over tens and twenties and fifties and hundreds who would solve these little squabbles. But anything that was really significant and heavy came to Moses, and Moses would hear the case, try the case, and make a decision. So he was like the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Moses was, only without the other justices.

He sat by himself on the bench of the Supreme Court and he made the final decisions. He was not the king, he was the judge. And this is the role to which God now calls Deborah. So she's not only Joan of Arc, she's Margaret Thatcher and a whole lot more than that. But again, she's not elected, she's not won by regular officer development, she is charismatically chosen and endowed by God for this role in history. And so she begins as a prophetess and as a judge. She's married, we don't know what her husband did, but we know who she is.

She is handling the leadership at the highest level among all of these tribes here in Israel. Now what has happened, we read, is that this oppression has gone on for twenty years. Now I want to turn your attention for a minute over to chapter 5 and come at the story a little differently. We hear the story two ways. We hear it in chapter 4 in normal prose historical narrative literature. In chapter 5 we read the song of Deborah after the event in which poetically and prophetically she sets forth the relevant issues of what has taken place during her reign as judge. And we get so much more poignant information in the song of Deborah that I want to jump now to that to see what happens with this crisis. We read that Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoham sang on that day singing that the leaders led in Israel, that the people volunteered, blessed the Lord. Hear, O kings, give ear, O rulers, I to the Lord I will sing, I will sing praise to the Lord the God of Israel.

Lord, when thou didst go out from sea or when thou didst march from the field of Edom, the earth quaked, the heavens dripped, even the clouds dripped water, the mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord, this Sinai at the presence of the Lord the God of Israel. The background, the beginning, the first verse, if you will, of her song recapitulates the roots of the Jewish nation where she talks of the glory of the Lord that had appeared at Sinai when these people were first formed into a nation by God. And then she said, In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jeho, the highways were deserted and travelers went by roundabout ways. Now, the peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel. Now, what she is saying here is fascinating. She said that in this preceding years, now bringing it right up to her present moment, in the last twenty years, the thing that we find is that the main streets and highways of the Jewish people are deserted. Why? Why do you suppose?

What? Exactly, because they are controlled by Jabin, the king of the Canaanites, so that for all intents and purposes, commerce in Israel ceases. They could not use the high roads, the highways, that's what they're called, highways, because they were on the elevated levels where the waters didn't pour down and where they were safe. That's why they're called highways.

Even today they're called highways. But in any case, the highways were in utter disuse because Jabin, with his military leader, Sisera, had a stranglehold on the Jews. Now, this happened until I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel. New gods were chosen and then war was in the gates.

New gods were chosen by whom? The Jews started embracing the pagan deities, and the Jews were so intimidated by these Canaanites that we read this, not a shield or a spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel. 40,000 healthy, virile, military men in the Jews, and I looked at them, I didn't see a single spear, I didn't see a single shield.

None of them would lift a finger to resist the oppression and the terrorism of Sisera, the leader of the Canaanite army. My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel, the volunteers among the people. Again, in the refrain here in the song, she said, because what had happened was she came to her general, whose name was Barak.

And let me jump back, you can keep where you are, I'll just jump back for a second. Verse 6 of chapter 4. Now, I'm going to read to you a little bit about chapter 4. Now, Deborah summoned Barak and said to him, behold, the Lord God of Israel has commanded, go and march to Mount Tabor and take with you 10,000 men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. And I will draw to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin's armies, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand. The prophetess, Joan of Arc of Israel, Deborah, comes down to the chief military leader of the armies of the Jews and said, okay, I have a prophecy for you. God has told me to tell you to get 10,000 from Zebulun and Naphtali and go into battle against Sisera and God will deliver you. What does he say?

Listen to what he says. This is the mighty champion of Israel. Barak said to her, if you will go with me, then I will go. But if you will not go with me, I will not go. The whole male-female order of protection and chivalry and knighthood is reversed right here in redemptive history. You know, the guy always rides up on a white horse and says, I'll take care of you. I'll protect you.

You just, you know, don't worry about a thing. As long as I'm at your side, dear maiden, you don't have to worry about anything. Now the hero, the masculine champion of Israel says, well, I'll go into battle only if you'll go with me, mother, if you hold my hand. But if you don't go, I'm not going.

Deborah said, I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman. All right, now back to chapter five, verse 10. You who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who travel on the road, sing at the sound of those who divide flocks among the watering paces. There they shall recount the righteous deeds of the Lord, the righteous deeds for his peasantry in Israel. Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates. Now the song is becoming a song of celebration, a song of victory.

Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, sing a song. Arise, Barak, take away your captives, O son of Abinuim. Then survivors came down to the nobles, and the people of the Lord came to me as warriors. From Rephirim, those whose roots is in Amalek came down, following you, Benjamin, with your people. From Makar, commanders came down. And from Zebulun, those who wield the staff of office, and the princes of Issachar, were with Deborah, as was Issachar, so was Barak. Into the valley they rushed at his heels.

Now let me just stop right there. She is celebrating the fact that she told Barak to make the sound of the trumpet, and at the sound of the trumpet that was the signal to all the tribal leaders to rally to the cause of the nation. This is their moment of liberation. Barak is going to raise the standard and going to march against Sisera, and he—remember, there's no standing army. There's no conscription.

There's no federal government. What you have are little tribal militias. And again, the trumpet is blown at a time of controversy, and you hope the volunteers show up. And the praise and the glory of this is that at the call of Deborah and then Barak, the rallying came from Issachar, from Naphtali, from Zebulun, and from the others that are mentioned here, Benjamin, and so on. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah. Now listen, in verse 15, among the divisions of Reuben there were great resolves of heart.

And what does that mean? When we look at this closely, what the tribe of Reuben did, the elder tribe, the one that has a heavy measure of responsibility here, what did they do? The elders of Reuben got together and got together and passed resolutions, decrying the tyranny of the Canaanites. They went through all kinds of political machinations, issuing press releases and vocal denunciations against the injustices that were perpetrated. But when the crisis came and the bugle was blown, they stayed home. That happens all the time in world history.

The people are quick to make the political noise, but when the push comes to shove, the politicians go home or go out to lunch when the bullets start flying. Gilead remained across the Jordan, and why did Dan stay in the ships? Asher sat at the seashore and remained by its landings. See, these groups stayed home. But Zebulun was a people who despised their own lives, their own souls, even to death, and Naphtali also on the high places of the field. So two tribes were like the Tennessee volunteers. They came with 10,000 people from Naphtali and from Zebulun, ready to give their lives for the cause of freedom for their land.

And they followed and rallied around Deborah. The kings came and fought. The kings are the federation of the kings of the Canaanites, now under the leadership of the king of the kings of the Canaanites, Jabin. He gets his military might and brings them, and they fought the kings of Canaan at Tanakh near the waters of Megiddo. This battle takes place at the plain of Jezreel, very close, within just a few miles of Nazareth, okay, the childhood home of Jesus. The name Megiddo is the name that the book of Revelation has in mind when it speaks about that last cosmic battle between the forces of evil and the forces of good, which is called the battle of what? The battle of Armageddon, our Megiddo. See, the earthly point of reference for the battle of Armageddon is exactly where this battle takes place now, between Deborah and her general Barak and her general Barak and the kings of Canaan. But the kings of Canaan took no plunder in silver.

They are rallied there. They expected to utterly destroy the Jews and to take the booty of victory home with them, but they got not one piece of silver. For the stars fought from heaven, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happened, but it makes it very clear that on that moment of confrontation, God miraculously brought deliverance to the Jews. Now, probably it was through some kind of tempestuous storm, because the River Kishon, and there are all kinds of wadis in this area, that when a sudden dramatic rainstorm comes to pass, these things fill up instantly and become conduits for raging flash floods. Now, what happens to chariots of iron in marshland? What happens to chariots in the midst of a tidal wave?

They didn't have a chance. And the Jews were waiting for them, and God opened up the heavens somehow, miraculously, at the right time, and delivered all of these charioteers and the armies of Jabin into the hands of Barak. But Sisera, the general for the Canaanites, escaped.

And Barak is pursuing him. And what happened was that Sisera escaped into some obscure place and came to the tent of this woman whose name was Jael, J-A-E-L, Jael. And he asked for refuge and hospitality, according to the Semitic law. Well, she goes out of her way to give him sanctuary, invites him into the tent, and puts him down on the finest skins, covers him up, takes care of him, gives, he asks for water. She doesn't just give him water.

She gives him milk. She calms him down, and he falls sound asleep into what the Bible calls a very deep sleep, because he's exhausted from the battle. And as soon as he's deeply in sleep, Jael sneaks over and gets one of the pegs that they use to keep the tent up and takes a hammer and drives the stake right through his head and plugs his head into the ground, sticks it into the ground.

Bam! I mean, this is one of the most brutal, gory scenes in all the Bible. She nails it.

She literally nails this guy, nails his head to the ground. And so, in the celebration, who gets credit for the vanquishing and the conquest of the mighty General Sisera? This woman, Jael. So, it is Deborah who is the leader and this woman who's not even a soldier that kills the opposing general. And so, the prophecy of Deborah comes to pass. But what can we say about a woman like this, a woman who believed God, a woman who was faithful to God, who was willing to go up against 900 chariots of iron, up against a standing army, in spite of the fact that when she did what God told her to do and gave the call to alarm among her people, that the leading tribes of the nation did not rally around her. But she said, we're going, and God will bring us victory. And under the impetus of the Spirit of God, Deborah led the people to freedom. What a great story.

God's purposes will not be thwarted, and He's able to use willing men and women to accomplish those purposes. Today's message is from Dr. R.C. Sproul's series, Great Men and Women of the Bible. We're making our way through the series each Saturday here on Renewing Your Mind.

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