Deborah: a story of unlikely heroes

2. Deborah: a story of unlikely heroes • This is a story for both genders that emphasizes the sovereign freedom of God to empower whomever He so chooses to create and cultivate Godly culture. God can and will use whomever He pleases for His purposes and as we learned over the past weeks, often it is those deemed weak or hindered whom God uses to unseat the power of pagan culture.

3. Gender and Culture • We live in a culture that treats women as objects to be bought, sold and used for male enjoyment. In large part, in our culture, women are still valued for their appearance or their “usefulness” rather than for whom they are as a person. • As followers of Jesus, we must recognize women for their inherent worth as people loved and cherished by God first and foremost and we must evaluate the culture we are creating and cultivating, ensuring that we are in no way enabling the objectification of women to continue within our developing community.

4. “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in HaroshethHaggoyim. Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help. Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.”(Judges 4:1-5)

5. The Judges Cycle • Israel consumes pagan culture experiencing Moabite oppression. • God raises Ehud as a judge. • Israel consumes pagan culture experiencing Philistine oppression. • God raises Shamgar as a judge. • Israel consumes pagan culture experiencing Canaanite oppression. • God raises Deborah as a judge.

6. In Hebrew, Deborah means “bee” and the same term used of the other male judges is used of Deborah. • She was “the wife of Lappidoth” revealing that even while leading Israel as a judge, she lived a traditional marital life. • Deborah was not one to simply break gender rules for the fun of it. Rather than combatively attack norms of gender roles, Deborah created a new place in culture for a new way to “rule”. • In the land “flowing with milk and honey”, under Deborah’s leadership, the people of Israel received the sweetness of justice from “the bee”, while being strengthened on the milk of a “mother of Israel”. • Deborah was an incredibly Godly empowered woman, a prophet and a judge, and a singer-songwriter - a rare God-blessed triple threat in the world of ancient Israel.

7. Under Deborah served Barak, a leader in the Israelite army, whose name means “lightning”, “thunderbolt” or “flash”, and whom Deborah charged with leading an assault against the Canaanites. • Barak is only conditionally obedient; he responds to Deborah, saying “if you go with me, I will go, but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go” (Judges 4:8). • Deborah agrees to go with Barak, but that the honour of victory “will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman” (Judges 4:9). • QUESTION: To what woman do you expect the honour of victory will go?

8. “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. But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as HaroshethHaggoyim”(Judges 4:15-16). • Scholars believe that as Sisera’s chariots swept into the Kishon River valley, God sent a storm that generated a flash flood that unseated the entire Canaanite army. • Siserafled on foot, while the “flash” – Barak – pursued the chariots instead. Not the sharpest thunderbolt in heaven, eh?

9. Siserastumbled into the camp of Heber, where Jael, Heber’s wife, invited Sisera into her tent, to provide him with a hiding place and a spot to rest. • Jael was a non-Israelite, whose name means “ibex” or “mountain goat”. • Jael gave Sisera a drink of warm milk, and after he promptly fell asleep, grabbed a tent peg and a hammer and pounded it into Sisera’s temple, killing him and affixing him firmly to the ground. Shortly thereafter, “lighting” showed up on the scene, and Jael presented to Barak, Sisera’s dead body. • Our passage closes with this statement, “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 4:23-24) and from Judges 5:31, “then the land had peace for forty years”.

10. Incredibly, the people of Israel, in the land “flowing with milk and honey”, were saved by “the Bee” and “the Mountain Goat” and given 40 years of peace!

11. Application • We must follow God’s call even when it might result in unfavourable cultural repercussions. We cannot permit cultural expectations to drive our obedience, but must model a humble submission to the call of God upon our lives. • We must consider what God might already have gifted us with that we ought to put to use to see the creation and cultivation of God-pleasing culture? • We must be quickly responsive to the prompting of the Spirit in our lives. When God provides us an opportunity, we ought to jump at the chance to serve Him, with whatever we have in hand.