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Deborah’s leadership of Israel was effective. The nation experienced more than 40 years of peace after her rule (Judg. 5:31b). But as the curtain falls on her song, darkness falls on Israel.
Don’t let this verse blend into the others like it that you have read before: “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel” (6:1–2a). What is different about this description of God’s discipline of the Israelites?
On one level, absolutely nothing is different. It is an all-too-familiar mantra of cause and effect, of sin and consequences. But notice that hundreds of years later, Isaiah mentions this season of punishment twice (9:4; 10:26). Perhaps it was especially harsh, as the crops of Israel were destroyed for seven years straight. Imagine the suffering of seven years without a harvest; the cries of the hungry children; the raiders coming in on camels, setting the grain ablaze, taking what they wanted. It is not a pleasant thought.
Or was it something else? The writer of Judges gives us a hint as to why this was so memorable. “For [Midian] would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it” (6:5).
Locusts. Every man, woman, and child would recognize the swarming grasshoppers, remembering the stories of how God plagued Egypt with them. They also would remember God’s solemn curses, ones that they could not believe He ever would have reason to keep: “ ‘A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor.… You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it’ ” (Deut. 28:33a, 38). That the writer of Judges harkened back to the curse of the swarming insects in the context of the invasion of Midian sets this harsh punishment in an even more dramatic light—this was a covenant sanction, as when so many died at Peor for worshiping Baal (Num. 25), as when 36 died fleeing the little town of Ai (Josh. 7). Israel was not facing a human enemy it could outwit or destroy. Israel was facing Almighty God.
You and I face new covenant sanctions when we walk in disobedience to God. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). If we are His people, we face the fearsome discipline of our Father. “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly” (Prov. 13:24).
We are His beloved sons, for He has lavished us with His love by adopting us into His family. And if we are His sons, He will not spare His rod.