Deborah and Barak. Now she sent word and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, “Behold, the LORD, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men [of war] from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun. Jdg 4:6
INTRODUCTION
This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.
The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.
It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.
There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.
Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances
INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.
RULE OF THE JUDGES, Judges 3:5-16:31
Following repeated apostasy and oppression, the Israelites were successively delivered:
3. From the King of Canaan by Deborah and Barak, Jdg_4:1-24; Jdg_5:1-31
7. Compare the faith of Deborah with that of Barak.
THE LORD RAISES UP JUDGES
DEBORAH AND BARAK
But the Israelites again did evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died.
So 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-hagoyim.
Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD [for help], for Jabin had nine hundred iron chariots and had oppressed and tormented the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.
She used to sit [to hear and decide disputes] under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment.
Now she sent word and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, “Behold, the LORD, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men [of war] from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun.
I will draw out Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his infantry to meet you at the river Kishon, and I will hand him over to you.'”
Then 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.”
She said, “I will certainly go with you; nevertheless, the journey that you are about to take will not be for your honor and glory, because the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.
And Barak summoned [the fighting men of the tribes of] Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, and ten thousand men went up under his command; Deborah also went up with him.
Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, from the sons of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the terebinth tree in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
Judges 3:1-11
A WOMAN’S DELIVERANCE
The scene changes to the northern part of Canaan. Deborah probably belonged to Issachar, Jdg_5:15; but her seat of government was removed to the hill country of Ephraim, probably for greater security. Her spirit was susceptible to God, and she recognized that the hour for the emancipation of her suffering country was at hand. Indeed, the command had gone forth, Jdg_4:6. But the divine method is ever to link command and promise, as we discover in Jdg_4:7. Barak had true faith, Heb_11:32; but it needed inspiration and stimulus, as a dying fire calls for the bellows.
Kedesh, the gathering-place, was not far from the shores of the Lake of Galilee. From the table-land on the top of Tabor, these two heroic souls watched the gathering of Sisera’s vast host, far away to the slopes of Carmel and the banks of Kishon, soon to be encrimsoned with blood. What a moment that was when Deborah summoned Barak to arise, because the Lord had already gone forth! Who of us need fear and who need hesitate in the face of difficulty, if we are simply called upon to go in the wake of our Lord?
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