Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time.- Jdg_4:4.
1. The crowning event of this period, both in its intrinsic interest and in our knowledge of it, is the victory of Deborah and Barak. The years of “rest” which the land enjoyed under Ehud's rule came to an end with his death. The “children of Israel again did (continued to do) evil in the sight of the Lord.” The interval of comparative piety is over, and the under-current of distrust and idolatry again resumes its influence. The spiritual fidelity of Israel is an occasional thing; the apostasy is the result of a permanent tendency, often checked, but ever recovering its sway. Ehud, by the moral ascendancy he had acquired, was for the time the bulwark of his people's faith. But the presence of Sisera in “Harosheth of the Gentiles” with “nine hundred chariots of iron” overawed the Israelites; and “twenty years he mightily oppressed” them. This force powerfully affected their imagination, and rendered them all but helpless. They forgot that God is able to break the chariots in pieces, and to make all their massive strength a disadvantage and a difficulty, as when the Egyptians laboured heavily in the Red Sea sand and waves; that the spirit that animates an army is greater than weapons or fortifications. The spirit of patriotism was dead, and there was little to distinguish God's people from the people that surrounded them. The fear of Sisera and his nine hundred iron chariots shook the hearts that were once proud and free, and his military raids and exactions kept the land in constant terror.
2. “Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time”-not, it would seem, only the families near where she resided, for many from far and near sought the guidance and counsel of this woman. The report of her wisdom, of her zeal and devotion to Israel's God, had travelled north and south and east and west; she judged Israel. A prophetic woman, a seer somewhat like what Samuel was in later times, not content to give direction to the people for pay, she carried in her breast faith in Jehovah and His helping hand. The distress of the people went to her heart. It was at the same time a dishonour to Jehovah. Therefore help must be given, and deliverance must be at hand. The thought that the tribes belonged to one another, that they were Jehovah's tribes-perhaps also that they must become Jehovah's nation-lived in her. Though to a great extent dead among a multitude which was disheartened, and by this time tired of the obligation of nationality, it still certainly lived here and there in individuals. Deborah's wrath was fierce against all who slipped aside from the worship of Jehovah, and all this religious passion mingled with her patriotic rage at the misery of her people to drive her into insurrection. She is the magnificent impersonation of the free spirit of the Jewish people and of Jewish life.
On the coins of the Roman Empire, Judæa is represented as a woman seated under a palm-tree, captive and weeping. It is the contrast of that figure which will best place before us the character and call of Deborah. It is the same Judæan palm, under whose shadow she sits, but not with downcast eyes, and folded hands, and extinguished hopes; with all the fire of faith and energy, eager for the battle, confident of the victory. Strength of character, intellect, clear-sightedness, tact, and the wisdom which He alone who had called her to that lofty position could give, were the endowments of Deborah, and she bravely did her best with them for the problems and duties of that terrible time. The people must be roused to meet and conquer Sisera. It was the will of God. So she sent for the man whose duty it was to summon the fighting-men to action, Barak, the son of Abinoam, and reiterated to him the command of God, and His instructions for the arrangements of the battle.
We want in England-women who will understand and feel what love of country means, and act upon it; who will lose thought of themselves and their finery and their pleasure in a passionate effort to heal the sorrow and to destroy the dishonour, dishonesty, and vice of England; to realize that as mothers, maidens, wives, and sisters, they have but to bid the men of this country to be true, brave, loving, just, honourable, and wise, and they will become so, just as they will become frivolous, base, unloving, ashamed of truth and righteousness if women are so; to be not content to live only for their own circles, but to take upon their hearts the burden of the poor, the neglected, and the sinful, for whom many now exercise a dainty, distant pity, and no more.1 [Note: Stopford A. Brooke.]
