Just to orient ourselves a bit in our study. Now can you see this all right? We've got one more bank of lights we can turn off. It'll put me in the dark, but that wouldn't be the first time. Okay. We'll hit the light. Is that better? Okay. We probably won't use that the whole time, so we'll just leave it on or leave the lights off while we work our way through some of these transparencies. Thank you. Let's open our Bibles together to the book of Judges.
We're going to look tonight at chapters four and five as we talk about a woman of God. What we have before us here is an outline of the book. I would make one slight change and call it 350 years of apostasies. Thank you. We'll get straightened out. Thanks, Dave. 350 years of apostasies, oppressions, and deliverances. You will notice the first two chapters are introduction. Chapter one giving us the political background of the book, the failures of the people to drive out all of the enemies.
We have in chapter two the spiritual background of the book, the spiritual causes. In that chapter we are introduced to the cycle that appears over and over again in the book. The people fall into sin. Remember the four S's that Phil used last week? First there was sin, and then there was what? What was his word? Sorrow. Sorrow. Some use the word suffering. Servitude is another word that can be used. The second part of the cycle is that judgment comes from God.
As a result of that, what comes next? Sounds like a zoo of snakes. Supplication would be the third S, and salvation is the fourth one. Over and over again. It's interesting that that cycle takes place, but it's a cycle downward. The nation is not even staying on a level, but it's going downward each time the cycle takes place. Tonight we're looking at chapters four and five where Deborah is the judge. Up through chapter 16 we have a history of the judges.
Then the book concludes with a double appendix regarding some terrible sins that were in the nation. The first part is about Dan, then Benjamin. That gives you an outline of the book. The period we're dealing with here is approximately 398 B.C. when the conquest of the land was concluded. The initial conquest under Joshua through the time when Saul was named as the first king of Israel. The establishment of what we call the monarchy. That was about 1050 B.C.
It's 300-350 years from the time of Joshua's ministry being concluded until the time that Saul is established as king. One of the chief characteristics of this period is that there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was what? Right in his own eyes. Everybody did his own thing. There was no central government. Now if the first one was bad, this one's even worse. We'll have a better map in just a moment. I wanted to see, well I can't see the color up there. I used too light a color.
This is out of a Rand McNally book. You probably have a map like it in the back of your Bible. Hence this is not a critical map to our understanding. It shows here where the tribes are located. Here's Manasseh for example. Half of the tribe of Manasseh was on the west side of the Jordan River. By the way, here's the Dead Sea down here, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River flowing down into the sea. Half of Manasseh is on the west side. Half is on the east side of the river.
Here's the tribe of Naphtali in this area. Zebulun is right here. Remember here's the Sea of Galilee. Here's Zebulun. Here's Mount Carmel and flowing toward Mount Carmel and out into the Mediterranean Sea is the Kishon River. Let me throw up another map. Hopefully this one is a little clearer for you. Once again you see the Sea of Canary or Galilee as it came to be called. Jordan River. Here's Mount Carmel. The Kishon River. You will notice here Mount Tabor.
Mount Tabor rises out of the valley up to about 1200 feet. It's a very notable landmark and as you drive toward it you can just see it there. Some people feel that that's where the Transfiguration of Jesus occurred. Although others say it was at Mount Hermon way up here. You can see that Mount Tabor is on the north side of what's called the Valley of Jezreel. It's a huge agricultural area in Israel and over here is the fortress called Megiddo. Mount Gilboa is here.
Where do we know Mount Gilboa from? Does anybody know who died on Mount Gilboa? King Saul died there. And Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim where the people spoke the blessings and the curses of the law when they came into the land. Of course the city of Jerusalem down here. So that gives you a little bit of an orientation. We're going to talk tonight about Hazor. That's one of the major enemies of the people of Israel. The king of the Canaanites was living there in Hazor.
And so as we talk about Hazor, Mount Tabor, the Kishon River, this gives you an idea of where all that is taking place. This one final map will kind of put it in perspective in terms of tonight's study. So I'm just going to leave that up there for now and we will get into our narrative. Before we do that, there are four main characters in chapters four and five. The first one is Deborah. Deborah was a mother in Israel.
She was a judge, that is, a leader, an authority that was used by God in giving civil administration and management to the people who lived around her in northern Israel. She was also a prophetess, which means that she was God's mouthpiece, that God spoke through her. Now there are those who say, well, you mean a woman was in this role? And the answer is absolutely yes. We acknowledge that that was not God's usual order as we read through the Old Testament, but it's not altogether that uncommon.
Can you think of some other women in the Bible that were used of God in a significant way? Hannah, Esther, Mary. Moses had a sister whose name was Miriam and she also sang a song like Deborah did. So this is not unheard of, but it seems to be the exception. And especially if there is no man, and that is particularly the case here with Deborah, there was no man that God was able to use. The second main character is Barak. He is a soldier. He has those skills about him.
He is a man who is reluctant to go into battle. He seems to have needed assurance beyond God's spoken promise through Deborah. The victory would be theirs. The third main character is Sisera. Sisera was the general of the army of the man Jabin, who was the king of the Canaanites. Jabin lived in Hazor. And then there is J.L., who is the wife of Heber, a Canite. So those are the four main characters that will be introduced in our study.
In chapter four we have the story of the battle, and in chapter five the song of the battle. In chapter four we have the record in prose, and in chapter five we have it in poetry. And it is beautiful poetry.
Reading this chapter in English makes me wish that I knew Hebrew, because while I am not convinced that Hebrew is essential to know for study in the Bible, because there are so many helps available these days, when it comes to poetry like this or in the Psalms, we would appreciate so much more the poetry if we understood Hebrew and could read that. We will talk a little bit about that as we get there.
In chapter four, verse one it says, Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. We are probably dealing with a period some eighty years after Ehud. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan. The name Jabin was probably not a personal name, but a title. A title that was like Pharaoh and was inherited by successors. So this Jabin, who was the king of Canaan, reigned in Hazor, and he had a commander whose name was Sisera.
And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, for he had nine hundred iron chariots. As best as archeologists are able to determine, the Israelites did not have the knowledge of how to use iron for weaponry at this point. But the Canaanites did have that knowledge, and they had applied it to their chariots. It may refer to armor that was put on to the chariots that was made of iron, or it's possible that they had devised spokes of iron that stuck out from the hubs of the chariots.
Maybe you have seen that sort of thing in some of the films of ancient days. These spokes were often sticking out six, twelve inches, and they would have knife blades on them at different angles. So you can imagine that as these soldiers would aim their chariots toward a group of their enemy, they could cut a swath right through the middle by running over them with a chariot and cutting them up with the iron sticking out from their chariot wheels. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.
Now you notice already we've gone through three sections, three parts of this cycle. The sons of Israel did evil sin. The Lord sold them servitude. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord. There was supplication to God. And as we get over to verse 23, we see the fourth step in the cycle. So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan. So there's salvation. But the real story we're going to study is in between steps three and four in how God brought about that salvation.
It says now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. The name Deborah means honeybee. That's nice, isn't it? Honeybee. It says that she was a prophetess and the wife of Lapidoth. But as someone pointed out, probably Lapidoth ought to be known as the husband of Deborah. That has some modern day parallels, doesn't it? And she used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.
That's down toward the middle here between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. That was her area where she would establish her administrative headquarters, so to speak. And the sons of Israel would come to her to settle their disputes. Now she sent and summoned Barak, the son of Abinadom, of Kiddish, Naphtali. Kiddish is the name of the town. Naphtali is the tribe, so it's telling us that it's a particular village.
It's the Kiddish that is found in the area that was given to the tribe of Naphtali. And probably was on the southwest side of the Sea of Galilee. There are other Kiddishes in ancient Palestine, but this is that particular one. He was from there. And what she said was, Behold Yahweh, the Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, so as a prophetess now she is speaking, Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun.
And I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and his many troops, to the river Kishon. And I will give him into your hand. Now there's a very clear promise from God. There's no equivocation. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. I'm going to do this, he says. Now you go and march. It's interesting that the word march, in verse 6 as it is in the New American Standard, and the word draw out in verse 7 are the same Hebrew word. They mean to draw alongside.
And so God is saying, you go and lead, go alongside your soldiers to Mount Tabor. And I will lure, will go alongside Sisera and bring him there to battle. I'm going to come back to that at the end and show you a bit of an application from that. But then it says, Baruch said to her, if you will go with me, then I will go. Here we see the reluctance of this man. J. Vernon McGee, in his typical blunt way, says that he was a sissy.
Now I don't know if the man was a sissy or not, but he's a little disappointing, isn't he? Because we would hope that he would respond immediately to the word of God and would go. But he is, for some reason, wanting Deborah to go along. Perhaps it was that he felt Deborah's presence would be an extra guarantee of victory. Something like the Ark of the Covenant was used by the sons of Israel when they went into battle earlier. As long as the Ark was with them, they had victory.
If the Ark wasn't with them, they were defeated. It may be kind of a carryover of that idea that caused Baruch to say to Deborah, you come along. And she said, I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman. A prophetic statement. And as you read that, you might think, well, she's talking about herself. But of course she is not.
She is talking about another woman that we'll be introduced to in a few moments. So Deborah arose and went with Baruch to Kedish. And Baruch called Zebulun and Naphtali together in Kedish, and 10,000 men went up with him. Deborah also went up with him. And so looking at the map, you can see that they gathered around Mount Tabor. They were coming from that area just to the south and to the west of the Sea of Galilee. So this is not far from home.
And indeed, that's why they were most interested in this battle. This is not a battle that involved the tribes living further to the south. And remember, that's one of the characteristics of the judges. Not only were they leaders for a period of time, but they were leaders in a locality. Not leaders of the whole nation, but over parts of it. And so that is true here. It's the northern tribes, and particularly these two tribes that Deborah and Baruch are dealing with.
Now in verse 11, we have a parenthesis. It explains something about the background of this woman that's yet to be introduced. Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites from the sons of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Ziananim, which is near Kadesh. This is the background. First of all, the Kenites were relatives of whom? Of Moses. Moses has been gone for a while, several decades, but we have some of his relatives.
He married a lady from this family. The Kenites were nomadic peoples, and they generally dwelt in an area that was even off of our map. It was far enough south. It was south of Jerusalem, down into the wilderness area, and they lived there in tents. But this man, Heber, separated from the rest of his brethren and went north, and was living here, up close to the Sea of Galilee. It says that he had pitched his tent at this particular oak. That word means a great tree.
It is mentioned also in Joshua 19 and verse 33, which is to say that this is another very familiar landmark to those people. As they wrote this, that oak was well known. There was no question as to where that was. Now we get back to the story. It says, Then they told Sisera that Berak, the son of Abin-en-om, had gone up to Mount Tabor. Sisera called together all his chariots, nine hundred iron chariots, and all the people who were with him from Harosheth, Hagoyim.
Harosheth is the name of the city. Is it on this one? Yeah, there it is, up there. Hagoyim means of the nations, so that was just the name of it. You see the word, G-O-Y-I-M, goyim? Does anybody know what that means? What is it? Gentiles, that's right, Gentiles. It's a word that is even used today by the Jewish people of referring to non-Jews, the goyim, the Gentiles. So this is the city that is known by that, the Harosheth of the nations, or the Gentiles.
And Deborah said to Berak, Arise, for this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Behold, the Lord has gone out before you. Here is employed a technical term that is used of a king going before his troops into battle. And it is said that God went out before his people. It is used in that way in 1 Samuel 8 and verse 20. And so Berak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. Now why did he gather on Mount Tabor?
Well, as I told you before, Mount Tabor rises out of the valley up to 1,200 or 1,300 feet. It's a notable promontory there. And chariots have a hard time going up a steep hill, do you know that? They're great down the valley, but they don't do well on hills. And so he gathered his 10,000 soldiers up on the top of the hills where the chariots couldn't go. And from there then, it says they went down to the valley.
Now this map suggests that they may have gone two ways to attack Sisera and his army from two sides. And it says that as they did this, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Berak. The word routed in verse 15, what is that in the NIV? Does somebody have that? Verse 15. Prophets say the Lord did. Routed, the same word. The word means panicked. The word means panicked with confusion.
It's the same word that is used of Pharaoh and his army in Exodus chapter 14 and verse 24, when God destroyed Pharaoh's army. God brought great confusion to them and they were destroyed in the Red Sea. And so here it is that God again caused panic among Sisera's army. And it says Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. As we see the narrative here, we notice that Berak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Herusheth again.
And all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. Not even one was left. And so most of the army from the battle took off to the northwest. Sisera did not. He knew that his army was lost and so to preserve himself, and this was not unusual, he as the general took off the other direction to try to escape and to get back up to Hazor.
And so he went around Mount Tabor apparently to the east and headed north toward the Sea of Galilee, intending to go along the sea and on up eventually to Hazor. And eventually he came to the tent of Jayel, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin and the house of Heber. That is that there was some sort of an agreement or treaty between these two men. Heber was apparently a very wealthy nomad and perhaps had soldiers at his command.
And so he as a gentile had made some agreement or treaty with Jabin. And so Sisera thought that he was home free at this point. And says Jayel went out to meet Sisera and said to him, Turn aside my master, turn aside to me, do not be afraid. And he turned aside to her into the tent and she covered him with a rug. And he said to her, Please give me a little water to drink, I'm thirsty. So she opened a bottle of milk. Now this bottle is not like you get down a cub.
He's talking here about a goat skin and the goat skin had in it not 2% milk or 1% milk, but curdled milk. Doesn't that sound delicious? Me either. It was something like our yogurt, I suppose. And it was probably goat's milk, really good for you. Sometimes it was good for you, it didn't taste too good.
But for them it was a wonderful thing and she gave him this extra and covered him up and he said to her, Now there's already peace you understand, but now he says, Stand in the doorway of the tent and it shall be if anyone comes and inquires of you and says, Is there anyone here? You shall say no. And so he's reinforcing the treaty that already exists. He's reinforcing the nomadic law of hospitality that existed among the nomads. And he's saying to her, Now you really will protect me.
And if they ask you the question, you tell them I'm not here. But it says, J.L., Heber's wife, took a tent peg and seized a hammer in her hand and went secretly to him and drove the peg into his temple. And it went through into the ground. He was sound asleep, I guess so, and exhausted. Now the word sleep here, by the way, is the same word used of the anesthesia that God gave to Adam back in the book of Genesis. I mean, this guy is zonked. He is really out.
He's totally exhausted and he did not realize what was taking place around him and he died. Now some people say that the language in chapter 5 suggests that she hit him on the head, stunned him, and then did her deed. They say, Well, my goodness, this seems like quite a woman. Well, you need to understand that putting up a tent in that day was a woman's job. It's part of what she was supposed to do. And so she knew how to handle her tools.
She recognized the tent pegs, she knew how to handle a hammer, and she used them on a sisera. And so it says, Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking. And he entered with her, and behold, Sisera was lying dead with the tent peg in his temple.
So God subdued on that day Jabin king of Canaan before the sons of Israel, and the hand of the sons of Israel pressed heavier and heavier upon Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan. He was never again able to rally his strength to attack the people of Israel. Now one of the things about the death of Sisera is that the word, the prophetic word of Deborah came true. She said, Barak, you've lost the honor of taking this man.
It's going to be given to a woman, and that woman is Jael. And furthermore, a woman killing Sisera was the worst disgrace that could befall him. That was the worst way that a soldier could die as they looked at it. You see that again in chapter 9 verse 54 when, is it a beninom or a heninom? One of those nomes had a millstone dropped down on his head by a woman, and it crushed his skull.
And he knew he was dying, and so he asked his sword bearer to kill him with a sword so it wouldn't be said he was killed by a woman. Well, dead is dead, you know. Now chapter 5 recounts this whole story, and we're not going to look at all of this in detail, but this is a piece of magnificent poetry. As you think of songs, apart from the book of Psalms, what other chapter would come to mind as you think of songs in the historical record of the Old Testament? There's one I alluded to earlier.
After the Red Sea, when Miriam and the people of Israel sang a great song, and Exodus chapter 15 is the record of that account, Judges chapter 5 is equal with that. It starts out by saying that the leaders led in Israel, that the people volunteered, blessed the Lord. That's God's plan. Leaders are to lead. People are to serve with them. And what happened here? Barak, Deborah rose up, the people volunteered, 10,000 soldiers, and blessed the Lord.
The word blessed here is a Hebrew word for praise, and the name of the word is Barak. So there's a hint of the poetry that's in this Psalm. The very word praise, the Lord, is Barak, the name of the general. Hear, O kings, give ear, O rulers, I to the Lord I will sing. And so we have in verse 3 there the dedication of this song. It's to Yahweh, it's to the Lord. The covenant name of Israel used here. She says, I will sing to him.
Lord, when thou didst go out from Seir, when thou didst march from the field of Edom, the earth quaked, the heavens also dripped, even the clouds dripped water, the mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord. This is a picture of a theophany. Now did God really appear to Deborah, to Barak? We don't have any indication that he literally appeared, but poetically now, you see, she is describing God coming to deliver his people.
And so she poetically pictures it as a theophany, that is, an appearance of God. And she seems to go back and pick up some of the language of Mount Sinai, when there was a storm and there were the trumpets and the earthquake. And in fact, she calls him this one of Sinai in verse 5. The mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord, this one of Sinai. Talking about God. At the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel.
So there is a comparison here between God's dealings with his people now in Deborah's day and his appearance in Mount Sinai less than a hundred years before this. In verse 4, we have the clouds dripping with water. In verse 5, the mountains quaking. And so it suggests to us that there may have been an earthquake as well as a storm. Most assuredly, there was a storm. That was God's way of routing the army of Sisera. Remember, they are in chariots. Chariots depend upon dry ground.
They are only good on flat and dry ground. And apparently what happened was that this was the season of the year when things would normally be dry. And so he did not hesitate to get all of his chariots together, all 900 of them, and go against the people of Israel. But God sent a storm out of season. The heavens just opened up. And as a result of that, their wheels became stuck in the quagmire of the soil. And the chariots were absolutely of no use. And this caused great confusion.
There is also something else here, and I think I've got it written down to say later, but I'll say it now anyway. These people worshiped the Baals, B-A-A-L-S, a pantheon of false gods. The chief Baal, the chief god of the pantheon, was the god of the storm. The god of the storm. Here the god of the storm turned against them. Their chief god that they worshiped in their pagan idolatry could not come through for them and deliver them in the time of the storm.
What it is, is the god of heaven mocking Baal and bringing a storm to defeat this great enemy of the Lord. Well, he goes back and talks about Shamgar, whom we heard about last week. In the days of jail, the highways were deserted. You see, there could not be travelers in Israel on that day because of these marauding bands representing Jabin. They were like terrorists, not unlike the Palestinian terrorists today over there that limit people in their activities.
It says in verse 7, the peasantry ceased. I like better, I think what the NIV says, village life ceased. Villages were not walled, you see. Thus they were not protected, and therefore these marauding bands had their way. So life in the time of this oppression was very difficult for the people. That is why they cried to the Lord finally. In verse 8, we understand why God brought this oppression. New gods were chosen. Then war was in the gates.
The cause of God's punishment in sending Sisera and Jabin to punish his people was that they had been unfaithful to him. They had accepted new gods, and therefore war was at the gates. Folks, whenever people turn away from God, it brings a lack of peace. The psalmist talks about righteousness and peace kissing, doesn't it? Righteousness produces peace. Where there is not righteousness, there is not peace. Why is there not peace in our land today? Because there is not righteousness.
Because our nation is plunging itself into a cesspool of ungodliness and wickedness. Therefore there is no peace, and there will not be peace in our land. Unless the people turn back to God. These people likewise had turned away from the Lord. There was no peace in their land because of their new gods. War was at the gates. Not a shield or spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel. It is kind of a hard sentence to figure out. The 40,000 did not show up at Mount Tabor. How many did? 10,000.
40,000 may have been the potential army had everybody shown up. That may be what it is referring to. My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel, she says. The volunteers among the people, bless the Lord. Now what we have here in verses 9-11 is a call in all the classes of travelers to recount this victory. Normally as they would travel along, they would come to watering places. There they would tell each other stories.
She says, let them recount what God did in destroying Sisera, his righteous deeds on behalf of the peasantry of his people. Verse 12, awake, awake Deborah, awake, sing a song. She is saying that God laid this in my heart. Arise, Beric, and take away your captives, O son of Abin-anom. The survivors came down to the nobles. The people of the Lord came down to me as warriors from Ephraim. Following you, Benjamin. Verse 14 talks about Zebulun. Verse 15, Issachar were with Deborah.
Into the valley they rushed at his heels. Among the divisions of Reuben there were great resolves of heart. Now you need to notice a change here in this song. She has named Ephraim, Benjamin, Zebulun, Issachar. These are some of the tribes who fought in the battle. But not all of them would come to fight. Reuben, the people from the tribe of Reuben would not come. They were debating about it in their hearts. Why did you sit among the sheepfolds to hear the piping for the flocks?
Among the divisions of Reuben there was great searching of hearts. They were trying to make up their minds, should we, should we not? And they were listening to their piping among the flocks as they were debating it. Gilead did not come. He remained across the Jordan. By the way, Gilead is a term for a large geographical area that basically starts about here at the end of the Sea of Galilee and goes all the way down. You can see the name. But it's this whole area.
People from over there did not come. Why did Dan stay in the ships? So here's another tribe. They didn't bother to come. Asher sat at the seashore. The tribe of Asher is over here in this area. They didn't come to the battle. Remained by its land. Zebulun was a people who despised their lives even to death and naftali also on the high places of the field. These are the two tribes that made the major contribution to the 10,000-fold army. Zebulun and naftali. The kings came and fought.
They fought the kings of Canaan at Tanakh near the waters of Megiddo. They took no plunder and silver. What it means there is that Sisera and his army would always come back with plunder. Not this time. Verse 20 says, The stars fought from heaven. From their courses they fought against Sisera. Now this could simply mean that God fought against Sisera. We know that. What does she say then the stars fought? A couple of possibilities and both of them intrigue me.
One is that not only did the Canaanites worship the Baals, but part and parcel with that was astrology. They would go to the stars to figure out when they should go to war. Here the stars fought against them. There are those who think also, another intriguing thought, that the stars here refer to angelic warfare. That it is a poetic reflection of battle that was going on among the angels.
The angels of God and the demonic forces of Satan while this battle was going on between Sisera and the army with Barak. The torrent of Kishon, here we see now this flood. The torrent of Kishon swept them away. The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon, oh my soul, march on with strength. Then the horses' hooves beat from the dashing, the dashing of his valiant steeds. Talking here about the confusion of the horses, of these chariots. As I told you before, I do not know Hebrew, but I can read.
The Hebrew word here, dashing in verse 22, is the word daharat. Daharat. Have you ever heard of onomatopoeia? What is that? That is not a Hebrew word by the way. It is a word that sounds like what it means. So in the Hebrew, and here again this is the poetry of it, daharat, daharat. You can just hear the horses' hooves beating as they are trying to pull out these chariots from the quagmire of the mud. They can't do it. She says, curse Miraz. That is what the angel of the Lord told her.
Utterly curse its inhabitants because they did not come to the help of the Lord against the warriors. Miraz, we are not sure where that is. It was a town, but its location is uncertain. But its inhabitants, like these other tribes, did not come out. But these people, for some reason, are singled out for a special curse. Most blessed of women is Jael. Now notice the contrast between curse, verse 23, and most blessed, verse 24. Most blessed of women is Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite.
This is a little bit remarkable in that Jael was a Gentile woman, and she is said to be most blessed. He asked for water, she gave him milk. In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds. She reached out her hand for the tent peg, and her right hand for the workman's hammer. Now notice these following sentences, how the repetition, even in the English, is striking. Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple. Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay.
Between her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell. Dead. And the real emphasis there is on that last word, destroyed. Dead. At the hands of a woman. Out of the window. Now we are going to change scenes. We are going to go back to Hazor, back to where Sisera's mother is waiting for him to return. She is looking out the windows, it says. Why does his chariot delay? Why do the hoofbeats of his chariot's terry? It says her wise princesses would answer her.
Indeed she repeats to herself, she is trying to convince herself that this is the case. Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil? A maiden, two maidens for every warrior. To Sisera a spoil of dyed work. A spoil of dyed work embroidered. Died work of double embroidery on the neck of the spoiler. You see, trying to convince herself that the reason they are not coming back yet is because there is so much spoil. But down deep in her heart she probably knew that her son was dead.
And Deborah concludes by saying, Thus let all thine enemies perish, O Lord. But let those who love him be like the rising of the sun in its might. The land was undisturbed for forty years. Let me close with just a question to you and one lesson. J.L. is a woman who is praised, who is honored because of what she accomplished. And yet she used deceit, didn't she? She used deceit. She tricked this man, offering him safety.
And then when he was asleep with his tummy full of warm curds, she killed him. How could God honor that? Has anybody got a thought about it? Remember now we are just a class here. So we can all talk and share. How could God honor this? She is exalted, she is praised here as a great woman. Steve? I'm sorry? Well, we are not talking about Deborah, but we are talking about J.L. I don't see a command here to her to kill this man. She undoubtedly knew who he was. J.B.
Our time is gone, so let me just tell you that my understanding of this would be as follows. God does not here honor her deceit. We don't see that. God doesn't praise her because she tricked him. But God does praise her because she was used by him, even though her method was not proper, to accomplish what he said he was going to do. God said he was going to destroy this man, and he did. And we could argue all night, well, could he have done it some way that wouldn't have involved trickery?
Those are kinds of questions for theologians who like to argue. That's not for us. But God doesn't here honor her deceit. We need to understand that. But God does honor her because she was used by him in accomplishing the death of this man who had declared himself God's enemy. I wanted to point out one thing before we go, and that's back early on. I mentioned to you in verse 6 and verse 7 that the two words were the same in Hebrew. Go and march to Mount Tabor. I will draw out to you Sisera.
I believe that what we learn from this is that when we, let's put it this way, if we do our part, God will do his part. God told Barak to go and to march to Mount Tabor, prepare for battle. And God said, you do that, and I'll do my part. I'll lure out the man, and I'll destroy him. There's an important lesson there for us. Sometimes we think we have to do it all. Sometimes we think God needs to do it all.
The fact is that in many aspects of the Christian life, God designs it to be a partnership so that we do what we can do, and then he does what we cannot do. And that honors him. Thanks for being here tonight. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the example of Deborah, this great woman of God. We thank you for the faith and obedience that is evidenced in her.
And we pray that we might be, as she was, one who is usable in your hands in a day when everyone is doing that which is right in his own eyes. Make us people of faith as were Deborah and Barak. And, Lord, though it seems strange to us to say words like this, nonetheless we conclude by praying back to you your own word. Thus let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, but let those who love you be like the rising of the sun in its might. Amen. Good night.