Judges 4:12

THE OPENING ENGAGEMENT OF THE WAR

"And they told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount Tabor. And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, unto the river Kidron. And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which Jehovah hath delivered Sisera into thy hand; is not Jehovah gone out before thee? So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And Jehovah discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot, and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; there was not a man left."

When Sisera learned of the military muster of the Israelites at mount Tabor, he deployed his forces at the river Kishon, where he no doubt supposed that his force of nine hundred chariots of iron would be more than a match for Barak's troops. However, there was a very heavy untimely rain that made a roaring river out of the Kishon and flooded the plains at the foot of mount Tabor (Judges 4:5:4,19-21). Simultaneously, Barak with his ten thousand men rushed down the steep slopes of Tabor and cut to pieces Sisera's entire force. The chariots of iron were not merely useless, bogged down in the mud; but the charioteers, trapped in their mired vehicles, were an easy prey to Barak's men. Sisera himself, seeing that the engagement was a total disaster, left his chariot and fled away on foot. This astounding debacle that broke the back of Canaanite power could have been nothing other than a Divine intervention upon behalf of the Chosen People. It was God who planned and precipitated the engagement, and it was God who sent the untimely rain. It was God's foreknowledge of that rain and the very time when it would occur that lay behind this remarkable victory!

But there was yet another providential element in the encounter that the Lord had prophesied, namely that God would deliver Sisera into the hand of a WOMAN, and the next paragraph relates how that occurred.