The Judges. Day 12, The Fourth Judge: Deborah, Part Three

During the time that Deborah was the judge of Israel, the Lord sent her a prophetic message to relay to a man named Barak who was to call up 10,000 soldiers to fight against Israel's oppressor, Jabin the king of the Canaanites. Barak said he would call the men up and go to battle only if Deborah went with him. She agreed to accompany him but warned him that the credit for defeating Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite army, would go to a woman and not to Barak. Deborah did not, however, mean herself. Today we'll meet the woman who defeats a mighty foe of Israel. 

Yesterday we learned that a man named Heber, who was a Kenite, had separated himself from the main body of Kenites who were living within the borders of Judah and that he was living in a tent near Kedesh. Kedesh is the hometown of Barak, where he made the call to arms to 10,000 men, and it is near the battle site where Barak and his soldiers will face down Sisera and his soldiers. The Kenites are connected to the Israelites by Moses' marriage to his first wife, Zipporah, who was a Kenite. The Kenites have shown great kindness to the Israelites and have been living among them ever since Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt. But Heber is an exception. He's no friend of the Israelites. We will find out later that Heber is an ally of Jabin, king of Canaan, to whom the Israelites are currently forced to pay tribute.

Jabin's army commander hears that Barak and his men have marched to Mount Tabor. "When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron." (Judges 4:12-13) Israel does not have horses and chariots but it doesn't matter. With the Lord on their side they can't lose.

Deborah knows they can't lose. She gives Barak the signal that it's time to charge down the mountain with his soldiers and she encourages him in the Lord at the same time. "Then Deborah said to Barak, 'Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?' So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. At Barak's advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot. Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera's troops fell by the sword; not a man was left." (Judges 4:14-16) Sisera isn't so tough now, is he? He's fought many successful battles in the past but he's no match for Israel's God. He runs like a coward from the battlefield, deserting his men.

"Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite." (Judges 4:17) Sisera doesn't end up at this tent by accident. He knows this family and expects them to give him aid.

Jael's tent was not the family's shared living space but her own personal space. We could compare this to the habit in more recent eras for well-to-do husbands and wives in fine houses to each have their own personal sitting rooms and bedrooms. Heber and Jael are no doubt well-to-do if Heber is a friend of King Jabin. This explains why Jael is alone in her tent when Sisera shows up. It also explains why she has to invite Sisera into it, for men were not allowed to enter women's private living spaces uninvited. Sisera runs into the campsite and she either hears him arrive or perhaps he calls out to her or perhaps she was waiting for him because the Lord has revealed to her the part she can play in Israel's victory. "Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, 'Come, my lord, come right in. Don't be afraid.' So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket. 'I'm thirsty,' he said. 'Please give me some water.' She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up. 'Stand in the doorway of the tent,' he told her. 'If someone comes by and asks you, 'Is anyone in there?' say 'No'". (Judges 4:18-20) Sisera believes there's a very good chance that no one will barge in to search the tent of a woman who is presumed to be alone. That would be a very grievous trespass against her privacy. 

Jael has lulled him into a sense of security. The adrenaline high of the battle and of his panicked dash away from it has subsided, leaving him shaky and worn out. He's warm and cozy under the blanket. The light inside the tent is dim and relaxing. His thirst has been satisfied not by the water he requested but by warm milk, further adding to his sense of comfort and security. He had not eaten in many hours, perhaps not all day, and now his tummy is full. Though he might have preferred to remain awake and on the alert, he can't. This Kenite housewife, whose people other than her husband and his close relatives have always been friends with the Israelites, makes her move. Heber may be willing to betray Israel and the Lord in favor of serving a heathen king and his gods, but she is not. She steps into the role she has been called by the Lord to play in Israel's victory and in so doing she becomes the mightiest warrior of the day. She slays the general of Jabin's army. "But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died." (Judges 4:21)

The heroines in the Bible were no "shrinking violets" as the expression goes. They weren't weak and pampered. They were the type of women whose character was praised in Proverbs 31. There the author says a woman of noble character "works with eager hands" and "sets about her work vigorously" and states that her arms "are strong for her tasks" and that she "does not eat the bread of idleness". In Jael's day, driving tent pegs was a task usually assigned to the wife, and this explains why she had a hammer and pegs in her tent. It explains why she was skilled with these tools and why her arms were strong enough to drive a tent peg straight through the skull of a grown man. She is a woman of the Lord, a woman of noble character who obeys the Lord by striking a blow for Israel. 

"Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. 'Come,' she said, 'I will show you the man you're looking for.' So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple---dead. On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him." (Judges 4:22-24) Deborah's prophecy has come true. The Lord gave Sisera into the hands of a woman. Because this woman trusted and feared and served the Lord, the Lord used her faith in a mighty way to help Israel obtain victory. A song about this victory will be composed in Chapter 5 and Jael will be featured prominently in that song where she will be pronounced, "most blessed of women".

We've already seen the Lord using unusual people and unusual circumstances to bring about victories. We must never say, "Who am I? How can the Lord use me? I'm not anybody important or influential. I'm just an ordinary person doing ordinary things." We must never say that because God uses people of faith to do extraordinary things! Most of the men and women of the Bible were ordinary people and we'd never have heard of a lot of them if they hadn't had the faith to obey the Lord. But because they trusted Him, they obeyed Him and they experienced amazing victories. What extraordinary things might you and I experience if we just wholeheartedly follow Him?