Up to this time, God had, in judgment, delivered the unfaithful Israelites into the hands of outside enemies. A further proof of unfaithfulness on their part is followed by more serious consequences. Jabin, king of Canaan, reigning in Hazor, conquered Israel and oppressed them. In Joshua 11 we find an ancestor of this very Jabin, and in those days Israel understood, under the mighty energy of the Spirit of God, that there could be nothing in common between them and Jabin. They smote him with the edge of the sword, after having burnt his chariots with fire, and they destroyed his capital.
Recourse to Worldly Power
Alas, all is now changed, and unfaithful Israel falls under the government of the world. Hazor, their ancient enemy, is rebuilt within the limits of Canaan, and the people’s inheritance becomes the kingdom of Jabin! This has its parallel in the history of the church, whose position at the beginning was one of entire separation from the world. But what road has the church traveled since then? In reality it is the world that governs the church. “I know,” says the Lord to Pergamos, “where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is” (Rev. 2:13). Even in the great revival at the Reformation, saints had recourse to the governments of the world and leaned upon them. In the present day there are Christians who, when persecuted, instead of rejoicing to suffer for Christ’s sake, claim protection from the powers that be. The judgment on the Hazor of Joshua is no longer anything but a remembrance.
The Faith of Deborah
Moreover, this was not the only symptom of Israel’s low condition in those days, for if outwardly they were ruled over by their enemy, what was the state of government within? Committed to the hands of a woman! But Deborah was a remarkable woman, a woman of faith, one deeply impressed with the humiliating condition of the people of God. She sees that it would be to the shame of the leaders in Israel that God should entrust a post of public activity to a woman in their midst. She says to Barak, “I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor, for Jehovah shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judg. 4:9). But, in all her exercise of authority for God, Deborah maintains, in circumstances which might have proved a great snare to her, the place assigned by God in His Word to woman. She would not, otherwise, have been a woman of faith. This chapter gives us the history of two women of faith, Deborah and Jael. Each maintains the character in keeping with the position assigned by God to woman. Where does Deborah exercise her authority? The Word says, “She dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah .... and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment” (Judg. 4:5). Prophetess and judge though she was in Israel, she did not step out of the sphere God had assigned to her.
The Lack of Character
Barak was a man of God and accounted by the Word a judge in Israel. “The time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae” (Heb. 11:32). But Barak was a man lacking in character, moral energy and confidence in God. Lack of character in Barak made him wish to be the woman’s helper, whereas Genesis 2:18 makes her the helper of the man. He degraded the office in which God had set him, and what was worse, he sought to take Deborah out of her place of dependence as a woman. “I will surely go with thee,” she says, for this she could do consistently with her place according to Scripture. We read in later times of holy women who accompanied the Lord, becoming His servants in order to minister to His needs. Deborah’s act was right, but Barak’s motive was wrong, and Deborah rebukes him severely. What was Barak’s motive at the bottom? He was willing to depend on God, but not without a human prop as well. There are many such souls today. There is, on their part, so little sense of the presence of God that, in order to go on in the pathway of faith, they prefer leaning on another instead of direct dependence on Him only. But God, the Lord, His Spirit and His Word are infallible. Faithful Deborah does not encourage Barak in this wrong course, and Barak suffers the consequences of his want of faith.
Jael in Her Sphere
Barak goes up with his army, and Deborah with him. Heber the Kenite had, in these troublous times, seen fit to sever himself from his tribe and pitch his tent elsewhere. Now “there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite” (Judg. 4:17). Heber’s act does not seem to have been one of faith. He separated himself from the people in their low estate so as to relieve himself of the responsibility of Israel’s sorrowful condition. Moreover, he was at peace with the avowed enemy of his people and had so managed as not to be disquieted by Jabin. But a woman dwelt under Heber’s tent—a woman who refused safety at such a price and did not acknowledge an alliance with the enemy of her nation. Israel had undivided possession of her heart. Barak gains the victory, and Deborah, this woman of faith and mother in Israel, plays no part in it. Sisera’s army is defeated, and he himself, forced to flee away on foot, comes to the tent of Jael, where he counts on finding a hospitable shelter. Jael hides him; he asks for a drink of water, and she gives him what was better, milk. She does not treat him at first as an enemy, but with pity; yet in the presence of the enemy of her people she becomes pitiless.
The instrument she used for Israel’s deliverance was even more worthless than Shamgar’s, for the only weapons she had were the tools of a woman who keeps the tent; it is with them that she deals the fatal blow to the head of the enemy. With what feelings of humiliation Barak must have gazed on Jael’s victory, seeing a woman thus honored of God, in a path in which he, though leader and judge, had not wished to walk. But God made use of both Deborah and Jael to arouse the children of His people to a sense of their responsibility, for once awakened, they “destroyed Jabin, king of Canaan” (Judg. 4:24).
H. L. Rossier (adapted)