UG 3-5{M. When the Lord was displeased with the children of Israel He said, Because they have transgressed my covenant, I will not drive out any more of the nations for them. So the Lord left those nations to prove Israel, to try whether they would keep His commandments or no; and also that the people might learn what war was, because those who were born in the land had not seen the wars of Joshua.
S. Why was it good for them to learn what war was?
M. To cast them upon God for strength to overcome. When their enemies were quiet they got idle, and forgot God. They thought they could do without God while they were safely enjoying His mercies; but God does not choose His people to enjoy His mercies, and forget Himself; so He allowed their enemies to afflict them, and He let one king rule over them for eight years. But when they cried to the. Lord, He sent a man to save them, and that was Othniel, Caleb's nephew. So he was the first of the judges.
S. That was the man who married Achsah, Caleb's daughter.
M. Yes; he was a man of faith, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and he went out to war, and the Lord delivered the wicked king into his hands, so that the land had rest for forty years till Othniel died.
But the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the king of Moab joined with Ammon and Amalek and came against Israel; so they served the king of Moab eighteen years. This was a sad disgrace to Israel, for they ought not to have had anything to do with these people. God had said a Moabite should not come into His congregation, and He also said that He would fight against Amalek forever; at last they cried to God, and He raised up a man of the tribe of Benjamin, whose name was Ehud. He was not a grand deliverer, for he was left-handed, that means, that he could not use his right hand. God would not put honor upon His people while they were dishonoring Him, for He says, He that honors me I will honor. But Israel had forgotten God, and served idols.
S. It was wonderful that God answered them when they cried.
M. The reason was that He loved His people. But He is a jealous God, and He was grieved at their idolatry. This man Ehud killed the king of Moab, and his army destroyed a great many of The Moabites; so that the land had rest for eighty years. And after him a man named Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines, and he also delivered Israel. But they did evil in the sight of the Lord again, and He allowed the king of Canaan to oppress them for twenty years. He had nine hundred iron chariots, and a great captain whose name was Sisera. And the children of Israel cried to the Lord the third time, and this time He sent a woman. She was a prophetess, her name was Deborah, and she judged Israel at that time.
S. What is a prophetess?
M. I explained to you before what a prophet is—one who sees things that God, reveals to him, and one who is able by the power of God's Spirit to tell people what he sees—this is called prophesying; and when a woman prophesies she is called a prophetess.
S. Why did God make a woman judge the people?
M. To show how weak and poor the people were, when there was not a man to be found to do it. It showed that there was not a faithful man in Israel. But there was this faithful woman, and she sat under her own palm-tree, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
S. Why did she sit under her own palm-tree?
M. Because there she was at home; the judges ought to sit in the gate of the city, that was the place of power. But this woman stayed at home, in her own proper place; but all the people knew that God was with her, so they came to her for judgment. And when Israel cried to God, she sent for a man named Barak and she told him what the Lord had said to her. She said, Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying, Go to Mount Tabor and take ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and Zebulun, and I will deliver Sisera and his chariots into your hand? And Barak answered her, If you go with me I will go, but if not I will not go. For Barak did not know the power of God. She answered, I will surely go with you, but the journey shall not be for your honor, for the, Lord will give Sisera into the hands of a woman. So they went to battle and the Lord gave them victory and Sisera got down from his chariot and ran away. And as he fled, he came to the tent of Jael, and she asked him to come in to hide; then she covered him with her cloak, and when he asked her for a drink of water, she gave him a bottle of milk. So Sisera thought himself quite safe, and he fell fast asleep. But Jael took a nail and a hammer in her hand, and she went softly up to him, and she hammered the nail into his temples, and it went through into the ground. So he died.
S. Was not that very cruel?
M. It was a shocking act, but it was right of Jael to kill Sisera, he was the enemy of God's people; and Jael is praised for what she did.
S. But why did she do it in that dreadful way?
M. I think the Spirit of God is showing us, in the book of Judges, how unlovely our nature is, so that even in doing a right thing the person is made little of; everything in Israel was all wrong, because God was forgotten; there were no fighting men to be found like Joshua or Caleb, so the Lord praised a woman for doing what the captains of Israel ought to have done. But how different to the time when they set out from Gilgal to march round Jericho! How beautiful the way God gave them victory then! They had only to pray and praise, while God made the walls fall down! But now the people had forgotten God, and He was proving them, to see if there were any that did seek God. God tried man's heart by everything He gave him—God tried man by goodness in the garden of Eden, and he thought for himself and disobeyed God; He tried man on a new earth after the flood and they built the tower of Babel to do without God; then they all worshipped idols, and God called out a man from among them, and He showed Abram what a happy thing it is to walk by faith in Him, God tried Abram and He found that he had faith, so He chose the children of Abraham to be His people. He led them about, He instructed them, He kept them as the apple of His eye—He carried them from Egypt to Canaan. He tried them by law, and He tried them by manna; and then He put them into the good land, to try if they would keep His commandments there.
S. Was God more grieved with them in Canaan than in the wilderness?
M. Yes. In the wilderness they murmured against God, but in Canaan they forgot Him; they said, We are rich, we have plenty of good, we do not want God. And when they were careless about their own true God, they did not keep themselves separate from the people of the land, they worshipped idols, so God allowed the people of the land to oppress them, that they might cry to Him in their distress; and when they cried He delivered them. But it shows how weak they were, when in all the hosts of Israel there was not found one than who was able to command the people, and a woman led the army to battle. And God gave Deborah a great victory, and she and Barak sang a song of triumph, and said, Praise ye the Lord, for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. And the land had rest for forty years.