Judges 4:1

DEBORAH AND BARAK'S DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL

IV. DEBORAH and BARAK (Judges 4-5)

In our text, only Deborah is said to have "judged" Israel, but we have bracketed her name with Barak because in Hebrews 11:32 he is listed with other judges such as Gideon and Jephthah. Also, it was Barak, not Deborah, who actually led the army in the battle with Sisera.

LaGard Smith's summary of the situation at the time of this deliverance is as follows:

"One of the areas which Joshua's forces had never been able fully to take over was the plain of Esdraelon (Jezreel) in the north central region of Palestine between Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, and Asher. When local Canaanite forces under Jabin and Sisera unite, it falls to a courageous woman named Deborah to take the initiative in repelling the Canaanites. She was able to persuade a cautious general (Barak) to lead the northern tribes to victory. Another woman (Jael) also shared in the glory of the victory when she bravely killed Sisera."[1]

For an ingenious, unbelieving account of how "editors," "redactors" and "compilers" have confused this battle with Jabin's army under Sisera vs. the forces led by Barak, with the account in Joshua 11 of another battle with the Canaanites more than a century before the battle reported here, one should read Soggin's Commentary on Judges. Careless commentators are totally in error in such unwarranted conclusions!

Another error is that of understanding the poetic account of the battle here given in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) as an account of a different battle from the prose record in Judges 4. It is true, of course, that these TWO ACCOUNTS, "Bristle with historical and geographical difficulties, most of which would probably quickly fade if precise details were known; and so many details agree that the suggestions pointing to two separate battles must be discounted."[2]

The simple Biblical record which has come down to us should be received as the truth. The sacred record is a far superior account of what happened, as contrasted with the "scissors-and-paste" productions of radical critics whose "composite" guesses about ancient events are extremely muddled and contradictory. With regard to the narrative as recorded in the Bible, Cundall correctly observed that, "There are no insoluble difficulties in the narrative as it stands."[3]

The old allegations of the radical critics that Judges 4 and Judges 5 concern DIFFERENT events have now been fully discredited and rejected. As Dalglish, writing in Beacon Bible Commentary stated it, "There is general agreement that the two chapters have the same engagement in review and that the conflict related in Joshua 11:1-15 was a different event."[4] In this light, we may therefore ask, "What happened?" Barnes explained it. "Subsequently to the events narrated in Joshua 11, Hazor had been rebuilt and had resumed its position as the metropolis of the northern Canaanites. The other cities must also have resumed their independence and restored their fallen dynasties."[5]

THE CANAANITE OPPRESSION (Judges 4:1-3)

"And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, when Ehud was dead. And Jehovah sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto Jehovah: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel."

This paragraph is not "a Deuteronomic framework" imposed upon the historical record; it is a simple, factual statement of how and why the children of Israel needed a deliverer at that particular time.

"Jabin king of Canaan" (Judges 4:2). A century earlier, Joshua had defeated "Jabin king of Hazor," who actually headed a coalition of a large number of petty `kings of Canaan' (Joshua 11), but that Jabin was not the same man as the `Jabin' of Judges 4. We do not know whether or not he was another king bearing the same name, or if `Jabin' was a dynastic designation of all the kings of Hazor. Keil stated that, "The `Jabin' here bore the same name as the earlier Jabin."[6] Davis affirmed that, "The name `Jabin' was probably not a personal name, but a dynastic title.[7] Contrary to Soggin's incredible allegation that, "The title `King of Canaan' never existed, calling it `an absurdity,'"[8] that title is here assigned to Jabin, and here the title has "existed" for more than three millenniums! Joshua's record of that previous encounter with the `King of Canaan' (called in Joshua `the King of Hazor') does NOT contradict what is written here. The Joshua record reveals that Jabin King of Hazor was the chief executive for all of the other `Kings of Canaan' and the commander-in-chief of their united armies. If such an executive was not a `king,' what was he?

"Nine hundred chariots of iron" (Judges 4:3). Israel had no chariots at all, and such a formidable striking force would normally have made the King of Canaan invincible. However, "The mustering of the united tribes of Israel against him under Barak coincided with a storm in which the Kishon, normally a dry river-bed, rapidly became a raging torrent in which the chariotry were engulfed."[9]