Judges 4:1–24

August 2nd, 2022| Topic: aBeLOG, Judges | 0

Fearless faith in God results in blessing.

The Israelites have not learnt a whole lot—they are “continuing” to do evil in Yahweh’s sight (Jdg 4:1). And so Yahweh sells them into the hand of Jabin, the Canaanite king (4:2), and the Israelites cry in desperation (4:3). Same old story.

But the next few elements of the standard paradigm are missing in the Barak narrative. Instead, we have a relentless echo of feminine nouns and suffixes: “Deborah [a feminine ending], a woman, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth [usually a feminine ending]” (4:4). But it does not stop there; we also have, literally, “She she-judged Israel.” This focus on her gender points a sly finger at the absence of men to fill such roles.

Deborah’s judging, by the way, was not the militarily active judging and delivering of the previous and following judges; her portfolio was more a civil settling of disputes. The focus of this pericope, then, is on Barak, while Deborah is the oracle, the stand-in for, and the prophetess of, Yahweh, the one who commissions the judge-deliverer (4:6).

But our man, Barak, is unwilling to execute his commission to fight unless accompanied by the prophet, Deborah (4:8). And so, twice the narrator hastens to mention that Deborah “went”/“went up” with Barak (4:9, 10). The guy demonstrates an unusual lack of confidence, despite his explicit commissioning by Yahweh and an express confirmation of future victory over the enemy (4:6–7). And twice Deborah has to urge Barak into action, both times with a rhetorical question about Yahweh’s power and presence (4:6, 14). Yet Barak is faithlessly fearful.

In neither of the two preceding judge stories has such a recruitment of a diffident deliverer been encountered. In fact, God is not said to have uttered even a word in his raising of Othniel and Ehud as his deliverers (3:9, 15). Here, not only does Yahweh need a personal human representative on the scene to call the deliverer to account face to face, she—she!—has to deliver not one, but two explicit exhortations to goad the nerveless judge into action (4:6–7, 14), not to mention that her physical presence as God’s agent had to accompany this deliverer to buttress his buckling backbone.

God does not need macho individuals or magnificent implements or any such person or thing. Nor is God’s man or woman to be deterred by the seeming power of the enemy. But because of Barak’s fearful lack of faith, God would instead work through the most unlikely individual and “sell Sisera into the hands of a woman”—not a warrior, not a leader, not even an Israelite! And the honor and glory of victory would fall out of Barak’s hand.

Yet for all the lack of nerve and spine in Barak, the situation is not desperate—God is always faithful and keeps his promise (given in 4:6–7, 9, 14) to his people. And the Canaanite army is defeated. But the long and short of the story is that because of his fearfulness and faithlessness, Barak gets no glory: Jael kills the enemy commander and she is lauded (4:17–24; 5:24–27). One might think from the narrative thus far that Barak at least had a role in defeating Sisera’s army, but the narrator would have us think otherwise: Barak’s role is simply mentioned in passing: Yahweh had “gone out before you [Barak]” (4:14), and “Yahweh routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army, with the edge of the sword before Barak” (4:15). All the man did, it seems, was watch things happen “before” him! There is no indication that Barak or his men did the honors: neither chieftain nor army is the subject of any active verb indicating wielding of weapons. Later, with regard to the killing of Sisera, too, all Barak did was watch: “Come, and I will show you,” said Jael, after she had finished off Sisera, and Barak entered, “and—behold!—Sisera, fallen dead with the tent peg in his temple” (4:22). The loss of blessing because of failure of faith and the success of fear!

[For more details, see my Judges commentary.]