Table of Contents
Volume 41, Number 4
July - August 2010

Son of Abinoam
Alexander V. Miller

Son of Abinoam

After the death of Ehud, Israel slid back into a period of rebellion, which led to captivity under the Canaanites. After twenty years of oppression, the Israelites finally called out to God for deliverance. Deborah, Israel's judge at the time, sent for Barak and ordered him to lead an army against Sisera, the Canaanite general. He agreed on the condition that she accompany him into battle, so they headed to Mount Tabor to fight. Sisera brought nine hundred iron chariots and a massive infantry to meet him. Just as the battle began, a heavy rain swept over the mountain, creating mud that disabled the chariots.

The Canaanites, terrified of this change of events, broke formation and fled into the hills, where the Israelites pursued and killed every one of them, except for Sisera. He managed to evade the Israelites on foot until he staggered up to the tent of Jael, where he begged for water, shelter, and protection. She took him in, served him some milk until he fell asleep, and then quietly drove a tent spike through his head. When Barak arrived at the tent looking for Sisera, Jael walked him into the tent and showed him Sisera's body lying on the floor. Deborah and Barak sang a song that day about how the Lord had delivered them, and the land had peace for forty years.

Up until I started working on this article, I always had my own idea of what this story was trying to teach. I'm not sure if I heard it in a Sunday School lesson one time or if was all my own interpretation, but here's how I had always boiled the passage down: Women can be leaders like Deborah was and do a good job of it too, but God always prefers men to be in authority and the only time that a woman ought to lead is when none of the men who should be leading, in this case Barak, are stepping up and doing their job, so men need to act like more like men so that women never have to do that sort of thing again.

I assumed that God wanted Barak to be Israel's judge all along instead of Deborah, but Barak just refused to accept his calling and it took a great deal of coaxing to get him to fight even this one battle against Sisera. When Barak refused to go without Deborah's accompaniment, God rebuked him for being afraid and trying to cower behind a woman, and arranged for a woman to kill Sisera and receive the honor for it instead.

That seemed at first to be the best interpretation and the most obvious lesson to learn from Barak and Deborah. As I studied the story in depth, however, I found several details that didn't line up with that view. First, Deborah was a prophetess long before Barak entered the scene. She didn't start because Barak turned down the job offer himself because as far as we know, he was never meant to be a judge or a prophet. Deborah had a husband, Lappidoth, who is only mentioned as part of Deborah's introduction, and we never get the idea that he should have been doing her job for her either. Like it or not, God apparently wanted Deborah to be the leader of Israel at that time, and we can't go around blaming guys for not taking over that position because they weren't the ones He had in mind.

Some Christians have trouble with the idea of women in political authority, preferring to vote for men no matter what. Now, there are definitely guidelines for women in certain areas of authority that should not be crossed, women should not be church pastors, for example, yet in most situations, women are perfectly capable of being leaders and in some cases even make better ones than men. If a woman is applying for an executive position at a company or running for office somewhere, we shouldn't hold her gender against her. She may in fact be God's ideal person for the job, and we should let her character and qualifications alone determine our decision.

Another detail I noticed in the story is that during Deborah and Barak's song in Judges 5, they point out several tribes (Reuben, Gilead, Dan, and Asher) that stayed at home and didn't help the Israelites fight the battle. If they're already mentioning all the people who slacked off and didn't really pull their weight, you would expect them to throw in a little jab toward Barak as well, saying something like, “You really should have done this on your own, but even though you messed up, God still saved the day by using a woman!”  We don't find anything like that in the song, though, which makes me think maybe he didn't let everybody down like I always thought he had.

The biggest discrepancy that stood out to me was the fact that Barak is mentioned in Hebrews 11 as one of the most faithful people in history. The only decision Barak made that gets mentioned in the Bible was his asking Deborah to accompany him into battle. If he did that out of a lack of faith, then what on earth did he do to earn him a reputation of faithfulness? He would seem far more eligible for a list of cowards according to this story. Unless, of course, things didn't go quite the way I originally thought they did.

Perhaps instead of being a coward for bringing Deborah along with him, Barak was actually being wise. I found it interesting how several commentaries offered completely different points of view on this topic. According to the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary, Barak asked her to come along because he was being unmanly and  fearful. On the other hand, Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary suggests that Barak wisely brought her along to ensure success, that Deborah was a good leader for going with him instead of staying behind, and Barak was more concerned with winning the battle than he was with gaining honor for himself. After studying the passage thoroughly, I'm far more inclined to agree with Matthew Henry.

Even if Barak was afraid to fight Sisera's army, it's not like asking a woman to come along would have made much sense. That would hardly even the odds in his favor, plus it would actually be more embarrassing to fight alongside a woman than it would have been if he went at it alone. Now, if he had asked for more troops or weapons, that would make me think he was looking at things from a strictly tactical perspective. The fact that he brought Deborah along to fight with him seems to indicate more that he was giving the battle over to God instead of trying to do things on his own strength. He didn't let his ego get in the way of following God, similar to how Naaman had to humble himself and follow a slave girl and later an old man's advice in order to be healed of leprosy (II Kings 5).

Perhaps this whole story is less about bravery and more about humility. Are there situations in our lives where we've insisted on doing things our own way and justified that pride by labeling it as courage? We need to find out instead how God would want us to act, even though His plan might make us look weaker than we might like.