DEPRAVITY WITHOUT GOD PART 4: WONDER WOMAN ARISES!

Now where was I?

Oh, yes Israels recurring theme:

Oops, I did it again

I played with your heart, got lost in the game

Oh baby, baby

Oops…

The people of Israel did it again, they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

This time God got so angry with the Israelites turning their backs on him again that “The Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, King of Canaan.” 

This may raise an eyebrow or two…perhaps. That name Jabin appeared before back in Joshua 11:1-14. This first occurrence happened just after the day that the Lord made the sun stand, as told in Joshua 10. Joshua was leading the invasion into the Promise Land after having destroyed Jericho and Ai. He now destroyed a collation of five king and took Southern Canaan.

In Joshua 11 we read that Jabin, King of Hazor, formed his own collision of kings when he heard what Joshua was doing and they went to battle against the Israelites. Here was the result:

And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel.

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” So Joshua and all his warriors came suddenly against them by the waters of Merom and fell upon them. And the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel, who struck them and chased them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim, and eastward as far as the Valley of Mizpeh. And they struck them until he left none remaining. And Joshua did to them just as the Lord said to him: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.

And Joshua turned back at that time and captured Hazor and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting them to destruction; there was none left that breathed. (Joshua 11:4-11)

So wait a minute, if Joshua killed this guy Jabin and burnt down his city and killed his army, why are we speaking of Jabin again? Did he come back to life? 

No, as it turned out Jabin wasn’t the name of an individual, it was a title and it meant wise. Whether these men who got that title over time were really so wise is not for me to say. We know from archeological digs there were at least four men with the title of Jabin that ruled at times in Canaan. After the death of Ehud, when the Israelites turned to unfaithfulness again, God sold them to the latest Jabin.

This word “sold” in Hebrew literally means to sell, as sell into slavery. So once again the Israelites found themselves in slavery to some other nation, this time to the nation they were supposed to go into and totally destroy and take over and call Israel. This was the land God had promised to Abraham, but the weak-kneeded, weak-willed Israelites failed to take it. See what can happen when you disobey God. This is where depravity without God leads. Depravity is to be in slavery to sin and the wages of sin is death. And don’t think we aren’t recognizing ourselves in the behavior of the Israelites. We recognize this truth: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Now, the commander of this particular Jabin’s army was a man named Sisera and he had under him 900 iron chariots, a formidable force like Patton and his tanks. He cruelly suppressed the Israelites for 20 years.

At that time a woman was sitting as Judge over the Israelis. It wasn’t Britany Spears, whose song “Oops, I Did It Again” we quoted earlier. It was Deborah.

She was a prophetess. What exactly does that mean?

There are a couple of possibilities. The Hebrew word neveya, translated prophetess, indicates an inspired woman, probably a poetess. It also hints that a prophetess was the wife of a prophet. It is said Deborah was married to Lapidoth, so perhaps he was a prophet. We don’t know very much about this guy, other than he was married to Deborah. In fact, the word Lapidoth in Hebrew is a proper famine noun meaning torches. Strongs translates it as “the husband of Deborah in the time of the judges.” Therefore, maybe Lapidoth was not actually her husband’s name, just her husband. (Deborah, by the way, means Bee and she is about to do some stinging.)

There are two Deborahs in Scripture. You’ll find the first one in Genesis 36:8, when she dies. This Deborah was Rebecca’s nurse and she was greatly admired by Jacob and his family. To honor her she was buried under an oak tree and he called the site, Allon-bacuth, which means “the oak of weeping”. The Deborah we are about to talk about could be found alive beneath a tree as well. It was not a fig tree, just so you know.

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I am curious about something, but have not been able to find out why Deborah Hospital was named Deborah or which of these Deborahs it was named for, if either. I lean toward the first Deborah, only because this is a hospital and she was a nurse.

The Deborah we are concerned with dwelt under a palm tree on Mount Ephraim. You may recall it was to Mount Ephraim that Ehud fled after he killed Eglon back in Judges 3:27, and there he blew a trumpet that rallied the Israelites to defeat the Moabites. This of course was where the tribe of Ephraim settled. It is central mountain country in Israel that reaches from Bethel, were we just learned the first Deborah was buried, to the plain of Jezreel  where much of the Battle of Armageddon will take place. It is to a hill in Ephraim that people come to Deborah to receive judgements.

This was certainly not a good time for the Israelites. In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, (remember him with his Ox Goal?) in the days of Jael (we’ll get to her in a bit), the highways were abandoned and travelers kept to the byways. (Judges 5:6)

At this time the Israelites again called on God for mercy. And God in turn tapped Deborah as their new savior.

The villagers ceased in Israel;they ceased to be until I arose; I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel. (Judges 5:7 “The Song of Deborah”)

Deborah sent for a man named Barak. This is another person we do not know a great deal about. He appears mostly in Chapters 4 and 5 of Judges. He is mentioned in 1 Samuel 12:1, but it is a brief reference to the battle in Judges. In Hebrews 11:32, known as the “faith chapter” he receives a sort of honorable mention along with a few others that the Epistle Writer doesn’t feel he has time to really go into.

We do know that Barak’s father was named Abinoam, which means “My father is pleasantness” and he was a man of Kedesh-Naphtali, once a very large city. Barak’s mother was from the Tribe of Benjamin. 

Remember Lapidoth, the husband of Deborah? One point of interest perhaps is that Lapidoth means  “torches” and Barak means

“Lightening”. Recall that there is some question whether Laoidoth was actually a proper name when it says he was married to Deborah. This has led some to speculate that Lapidoth and Barak were the same man. Not a lot to go on, but we do see a close relationship between Deborah and Barak, so it is credible.. Nevertheless whatever may be, Deborah calls Barak to her and orders him to take ten thousand men of the Naphtali and Zebulum tribes toward Mount Tabor as commanded by God.

Mount Tabor is in lower Galilee in the eastern Jezreel Valley. This mount is where it is believed that Jesus’ Transfiguration took place. It is also considered to be part of the valley where Armageddon will occur.

Deborah tells Barak that God has promised he will deliver Sisera, the enemy commander, into his hands. Oddly, Barak bulks a little and puts a condition on his going forth to this battle. He will only fight if Deborah goes with him. This is curious for Deborah is a woman and Barak is a man, yet he is deferring to her in this battle. 

And she agrees to go, but warns Barak that if she does he will not receive the honor from the Lord for this victory. She says, “The Lord shall sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” This statement has caused controversy and been long debated, as we shall see.

Deborah arose and went with Barak and the army to Mount Tabor.

Sisera was told by a man named Heber that Barak was at Mount Tabor. I had a Uncle Heber. He wasn’t named for this particular Heber who squealed on where Barak was, for that man was something of a traitor to the Israelites. My Uncle was probably named for Heber, the great-grandson of Shem, Noah’s son (Genesis 11:15-16: he was also called Eber.). The name Hebrews came from his name. Allegedly, Heber and his family refused to help in the construction of the Tower of Babel and as a result they retained the original language of man, which was then called Hebrew.

Sisera led his chariots and warriors to Mount Tabor where he met

Barak and the Israelites. A very nosy battle ensued. By the end Barak chased down the Chariots and all this army fell before the Lord and were killed, except Sisera, who jumped from his chariot and fled on foot, deserting his army to their fate as he attempted to save his own skin.

He ran through a woods, ducking here and there until he came to the tent of that stool pigeon Heber, the Kenite.  Perhaps he felt Heber, because he was an ally of the King Jabin would protect him, but Heber was no where in sight, so Sisera loitered outside his tent.

He was found there by Jael who was Heber’s wife. She told Sisera to go into her dwelling and rest. He lay down and asked for a drink of water. She gave him a bottle of milk to drink instead and then covered him with with a mantle to keep him warm. Sisera tells her to stand guard at the door and send away anyone who enquires of him. Soon, Sisera falls asleep.

Obviously, Sisera is reasonably tired. He fought in a brutal battle and then ran some distance through a woods. Falling asleep does not sound out of line and probably the milk and mantle Jael gave him helped him ease into rest. In fact, according to Judges 5:25, she not only gave him the milk to drink, she also gave him a bowl of butter, which he ate. It says it was a royal bowl, so most likely it was a creamy butter sauce of some sort, which would have had sleepiness qualities.

Jewish tradition says Jael went further than this. According to ancient Jewish texts, Jael had sex with Sisera seven times in order to exhaust him and make him sleep.

After Jael observed Sisera was indeed slumbering, she took a tent

nail and a  hammer and crept beside him. She pounded the nail through his temples into the ground and Sisera died.

This is put this way in Judges 5:24-27, part of the “Song of Deborah”:

Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, of tent-dwelling women most blessed.

He asked for water and she gave him milk; she brought him curds in a noble's bowl.

She sent her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen's mallet; she struck Sisera; she crushed his head; she shattered and pierced his temple.

Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still; between her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell—dead.

Could not these stories have flickered across our TV screens on the evening news? The violence of the acts, the deaths. These are people just like us, but I know it is hard to put that human face on characters who existed thousands of years ago. We have no back story on Sisera and Jael. Why did he expect protection from this woman? Was it because Heber had told him where Barak was? Perhaps he knew where Heber lived and sought out his dwelling as a safe house. But what was his relationship to Jael and what were her feelings about what her husband had done in separating from their people? Was the Jewish tradition about Sisera and Jael true? Did she seduce him to tire him or was it rape? Whatever had happened between Sisera and Jael, she apparently held a great deal of pent up anger against him. Why this is like a modern day soap opera.

Now lets really put a human face on the death of Sisera. As Jael sat by the body of the man she had just killed, another woman sat and stared out a window:

The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?

Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself,

Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?(Judges 5:28-30 KJV)

Even brutal warlords have a mother; and mothers and wives and love ones wait for their sons and husbands and fathers to return from battle. The mother of Sisera waits and wonders why it is taking so long to dispatch of the Israelites, and she fully expects that to be the outcome. She ponders, consoling herself that the delay is due to the division of spoils after the victory. She understands what spoils there will be. There will be Israeli women for the soldiers to have their way with, plus valuables to split among them. One such valuable would be the finely sewn silk material she believed Sisera would bring as a gift to her and her ladies. The best of this silk would go to those of rank and Sisera ranked the highest, so she could expect the best of colored silks.

We are left with that mother’s longings, but the woman’s son will not be returning to her. She will soon be wearing grieving blacks, not silks of color.

When Barak finally arrived in pursuit of Sisera, Jael met him outside and took him to the corpse. The summation is: Thus God subdued Jabin the King of Canaan and delivered Sisera into the Israelite’s hand. 

At the beginning, when Barak asked Deborah to go with him to the battle, Deborah had told Barak that the Lord would sell Sisera into the hands of a woman. The question has remained. Which was the woman, Deborah or Jael?

There may be a clue in Judges 5:24 Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

Deborah would remain as a prophetess and judge. Israel would have peace and rest for the next 40 years.

I wonder what happened within those 40 years?

Play the recurring theme, maestro.