DEBORAH AND BARAK
Introduction
Now we have the fourth cycle of the seven cycles of Judges. It involved a common name even Sunday school students know--Deborah. Up to this point, we have watched Israel capture Canaan under Joshua because Joshua led Israel to be obedient to God. Rapidly, upon Joshua's death, Israel slid into idolatry. God punished Israel with oppression by a nation from the area of Edom, and God raised up Othniel as a Judge.
Othniel died some years later, and Israel went right back to its lax ways and idolatry. God responded by allowing Moab to oppress the southeastern tribes, but then He raised up Ehud to break the oppression. After eight decades of peace, Ehud dies. Immediately, Israel goes right back to its idolatry. On the west coast of Israel, a different group of tribes learns nothing from what has happened to their brothers on the east. They begin worshiping idols, and God punishes them by opening the door for the Philistines to conquer them. Again, the LORD took pity on them and raised up Shamgar, who pushed the Philistines out of the Israelite territory.
And this all leads us to chapter four. We are right back to where we were at the beginning. There is another region of Israelite tribes doing what was evil in God's eyes. They again are punished by God. They cry out to God, and faithful God raises up another Judge.
Underlying all these cycles of apostasy and deliverance was the LORD convincing Israel that they could not operate without a king. I am sorry to tell you that this goes for all mankind and not just Israel. What God wants for Israel is to have a king in the mold of Joshua, who was a servant both to God and to the people. But as we will see at the end of the Book of Judges and as we move into the lifetime of Samuel, even though they finally recognized their need for a king, they wanted one that operated in the mode of their gentile neighbors. Why would they want to leave behind the freedoms of the tribal structure that they have for a central government ruled by a king? It was inevitable because of their human nature.
Here is where we need to look into the mirror of God's Word and apply it to our day and our lives. We are reliving the era of the Judges, but we generally refuse to see it. Look at the Western cultures of today. We revel in the notion of the USA having created the most free, wealthiest society the world has ever known. We have done it with the kind of self-rule that we call a republic and have an economic system called capitalism. America was created that way intentionally. The whole point of America's creation was to get out form under the rule of a king and serfdom. At first, Christians came to the USA for freedom of religious expression; so, godly principles are what we strove for. But every year, our existence as a nation has slowly eroded away these principles.
Rome was an even earlier attempt at self-rule, although having an emperor meant it was no democracy as we think of it. Even so, every society of any kind has eventually failed. Why? Because no society that is not obedient to God and no governmental body that does not abide by the principles of the Torah is going to survive for long. That is the stark but undeniable lesson of the Book of Judges.
Many Believers have spent lots of sleepless night as we watch our nation dash headlong towards a secular based government, and a society that wants nothing to do with God. The end result is predictable. The world wants a king! The world is looking for a king to save us from where we all instinctively know we are heading--world war and worldwide calamity. European socialism is an intermediate step along the road back to a dictatorship or monarchy. And America is catching up quickly to Europe.
Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time has been taught about the Anti-Christ and the end of days. The Bible makes it very clear that the entire world will be in such a mess and the earth's population will be so confused that we will INSIST that we turn it all over to one man to save us and to rule over us. While he will probably not have the title of "king", he most definitely will be a king. He will be a king with more power and authority than history has ever seen.
Mankind must be ruled by a king. That is what God is going to great lengths to show Israel during the time of the Judges. It is our nature, and it is the way the universe was created to be. All humans inherently know that we need a strong leader. The problem is, man has his definition of a king, and God has His definition. The two are light years apart.
The king that men always insist upon is created in our own image. We want him to have the best at his disposal. We want him to be regal and handsome. We want him to take control and make rules that address our current dilemmas. We only want to go about our lives, pursue enjoyment and leave the details to the leader. The king that men want inevitably gives great personal power and wealth to the leader.
But the king that God wants is a sacrificial servant. His appearance is irrelevant. The rules he should employ in every situation have been ordained by the Creator since eternity past. They do not change or shift with the situation, times or our needs. This kind of king seeks only the LORD'S will and serves in an attitude of humility, putting people's needs before his own.
While we do not need to be accepting of what we see Israel doing during the time of the Judges, we do need to have understanding because we are on the same path. In the Book of Judges, whenever the people of Israel repent of their evil ways and cry out to the LORD, God sends a Savior. Some Christians think that we can stave off the coming of Messiah and all the bittersweet happenings which will accompany His return by repenting. I do not believe this is so. The Biblical pattern is that by our being obedient and crying out to the LORD, repenting can only hasten the return of Messiah. But if we do not repent, we will have a king soon--the Anti-Christ. If we do repent, we will assuredly have a king soon--the Son of the Living God. Ancient Israel made the wrong choice too often. It was very costly and painful. Either road they chose, they WOULD have a king in time. Down one path was oppression and servitude; down the other was blessing and shalom.
Up to this point in the Book of Judges, it is the southern tribes that have been oppressed. The scene now shifts northward in Judges chapter four.
With the Judge Deborah, the scene shifts to the northern end of Canaan and the Israelite tribes who lived there. Thus, it was the Canaanites and other nations whose kingdoms and nations were located to the north and northeast that created havoc for those particular Israelite tribes
Note, that the result of this northern versus southern picture that is painted for us means that when we look at the list of Judges, the order they are presented, which appears on the surface to be chronological is likely only partially correct. Certainly, some judges in the south were operating at the same time as some judges in the north; there was some overlap. This happened because the various enemies of Israel were not acting in concert with one another but in their own interests. Thus, what occurred in the north had little to do with what went on in the south.
It is important to note this north/south dynamic. Israel by the time of Deborah has only been in the land for a little more than a century. The natural terrain of Israel with a ridge of hills at the northern end of Judah provides a natural boundary between the three main tribes in the south (Judah, Simeon and Benjamin) and the remaining tribes in the north. This geography will have an ongoing effect on Israel's politics and economy. The Book of Judges sets the stage for the conditions that would establish and cement the north versus south mindset among the Israelites, which in turn would make it a challenge for the 12 tribes to ever unite into one sovereign nation under one ruler. The unintended alliances would greatly affect Israel's history and will even continue to play out in our present and future.
A. Deborah, the fourth Judge
1. (Judges 4:1-3) The cycle begins again; apostasy, servitude and supplication
Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died. And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 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.
Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor: Jabin is not actually this king's personal name. Like Adoni-Bezek, Jabin is the dynastic title of a line of kings who ruled from Hazor. About 150 years earlier in the Book of Joshua, Israel fought against Jabin at Hazor and burned the city. But, Israel did not inhabit it. So, some years later, Hazor was rebuilt, and the descendants of the same royal family ruled again over a group of people called the Canaanites. Do not think that this mean that Jabin ruled over all the Canaanites. Canaanite is being used as a general and generic term for any group of gentiles living in Canaan.
Sisera: Jabin was king, but his military commander was Sisera. Sisera lived in a place called Harosheth-hagoyim, which translated means the Woodlands of the Gentiles. Exactly where this place is has not been identified, but it is not far from Hazor. The ancient city of Hazor has been discovered.
Hazor: Hazor is located north of the Sea of Galilee at the southern end of the Hulah Valley. It was a strategic location along the ancient trade superhighway called the Via Maris. Via Maris was the most important trade route of those times as it began in Egypt and traveled all the way to Western Asia.
Hazor was the lead nation in a coalition of other Canaanite nations that were located in the north. This was a role Hazor played off and on for centuries. For the time, Hazor was a large city. It was more than 200 acres and was home to around 40,000 people.
Nine hundred iron chariots: The army that Sisera commanded was enormous, well-funded and fully equipped. Nine hundred iron chariots for this time in history is simply astounding. It was by means of these chariots that Sisera, Jabin and the other coalition kings were able to keep the northern tribes of Israel under their control. This round of oppression lasted 20 years.
We must keep in sight that there was a duality occurring here. From an earthly/human standpoint, it was Sisera's military might that permitted these Canaanites to subjugate Israel. But from a heavenly/spiritual perspective, this was only possible because the LORD ordained precisely this as a punishment for these Northern Israelite tribes' idolatry and apostasy.
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