Deborah and Barak

We have been speaking in our studies this week of the judges as people who “deliver” Israel from oppressors. Scripture itself speaks this way (Judg. 3:31). The underlying reality, of course, is that God is always and everywhere the one who delivers Israel (3:10). He chooses a human deliverer, raises him up, and ensures his success. The role of Deborah in the calling of a judge to deliver Israel from Jabin the Canaanite highlights this truth. She is a prophetess, one who speaks the Word of God. And the word she speaks in today’s passage has to do with who should lead Israel against Jabin and how he should do it.

Deborah summons Barak, a Naphtalite, and tells him that God has chosen him to lead Israel against Jabin’s general, Sisera. “ ‘Has not the LORD God of Israel commanded, “Go”?’ ” she asks rhetorically. Matthew Henry speculates that Barak already has been opposing Jabin, perhaps even leading guerrilla assaults in an attempt to spark a general uprising. He may be right, but Barak apparently is not chosen for his skills at strategizing; indeed, God gives him step-by-step orders. He is to raise an army of ten thousand men from among the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun (though it appears that Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh and Issachar participate, too, and Reuben, Dan, and Asher may have been summoned—Judg. 5:13–18). He then is to muster the army atop Mount Tabor, an exposed hill on the north side of the Jezreel Valley. Then he is to wait, for God, through Deborah, promises to deploy the Canaanite army and deliver it into Israel’s hand. God is saying that He will lead Israel’s oppressors as lambs to the slaughter.

Barak accepts this commission and the promise of God on faith (Heb. 11:32–33), but he asks that God’s messenger come with him to the battle. “Barak insisted much upon the necessity of [Deborah’s] presence, which would be to him better than a council of war,” Henry writes. “[His request] seems to arise from a conviction of the necessity of God’s presence and continual direction, a pledge and earnest of which he would reckon Deborah’s presence to be.” She agrees to go, but she warns him prophetically that he will not get glory in the battle, for Sisera will be killed by a woman. Barak is not deterred; he wants Deborah with him, whether the glory be his or hers. He cannot imagine the unexpected way in which God will fulfill Deborah’s prophecy.