Last week I shared with you from the Book of Judges, chapter 11, the horrifying story of Jephthah’s unnamed daughter. This week we will look at the book of Judges once again, but this time the story is dramatically different. It is the story of a woman extraordinaire; it is the story of Deborah and Jael who delivered the Israelites from oppression. The story is told in narrative form in chapter 4 of the Book of Judges and retold in poetic form known as “The Song of Deborah” in chapter 5.

The stories in the book of Judges are set in the pre-monarchy time period of Israel’s history. During this period Israel was a confederacy of loosely organized tribes. They did not have a centralized government or a standing army and had limited weapons with which they could defend themselves.  During this time the tribes were “ruled” by judges rather than kings. In times of peace a Judge had the authority to settle disputes and problems. In times of war or oppression the Judges acted as a rallying point to gather the tribes and muster a militia together to defend themselves against their enemies. This could prove almost impossible at times, when certain tribes felt that it was not their fight and did not want to get involved. So sometimes the leader of an already existing militia group (somewhat similar to the warlords of today) would be pressured into the role of Judge to liberate the people, which is what happened to Jephthah.

So it should come as no surprise that many of these Judges (in spite of the pious sounding title) were hardly role models of any kind. Jephthah, as we discovered last week, sacrificed his daughter, Samson murdered his first wife and destroyed the lives of all who came in contact with him, Gideon promoted the worship of fertility gods, and the list goes on.

Deborah stands out among the judges for her wisdom, courage and faith in God. She is introduced as a judge in chapter 4. She is the only female judge mentioned in the Book of Judges. Yet, in spite of the patriarchal world she was living in, it seems that the people had no difficulty in accepting her as a judge. We read in chapter 4 that Deborah held court under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. There the people came to seek her advice and counsel, to hear her words of wisdom, to find a resolution for their problems and have their disputes settled. To be a judge in peace time was not an officially sanctioned position, but people such as Deborah, were recognized as individuals who were endowed by God with special gifts – thus Deborah had authority rather than power, and people respected her for the qualities she had and trusted her leadership.  She was the ideal role model of what a judge should be.

Deborah is also introduced as a prophet. A prophet was not someone who foretold the future, but someone who received divine oracles in order to make God’s will known to the people. In other words a prophet was a person called by God to proclaim God’s word to the people, many times to liberate and deliver the people from their enemies or to correct an injustice.  Although most of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures were men, several women were also called as prophets, such as Miriam, Huldah, Noadia, and Isaiah’s wife. It seems that female prophets were present throughout the history of Israel.

We read in chapter 4 that the Israelites were cruelly oppressed for twenty years by King Jabin of the Canaanites. The superior Canaanite army who kept the Israelites under control was under the command of a fearsome general called Sisera.  With nowhere to turn, the people called out in desperation to God.  Responding to a divine oracle Deborah speaks the prophetic words and summons Barak to gather the various tribes of Israel to fight against Sisera: The Holy One, the God of Israel, commands you, ‘Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.

Barak has reason to be reluctant to enter into battle against invincible Sisera. The Canaanite forces were a professional, well trained, and disciplined army of soldiers who possessed vastly superior military technology. They were literally armed to the teeth, while the Israelite militia was a motley group of “citizen” soldiers, fewer in number and armed with inferior weapons.  Victory was highly unlikely.

Still Barak agrees to go to battle, but only on one condition, Deborah must accompany him in battle: “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Deborah agrees to the condition but warns Barak that the honor of conquering the enemy will go to a woman instead of him: “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Holy One will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.

Some have seen Barak’s request that Deborah, a woman, accompany him into war as a sign of weakness, but I think Barak’s request attests to his absolute conviction that Deborah was sent by God and so he refuses to go into battle without her presence, since he is convinced that her presence would ensure God’s presence with the Israelite militia and victory against the terrifying Sisera.

Deborah seems to be one of those rare figures in human history that can inspire such loyalty and trust in people that they can indeed achieve what seems impossible; a trusted leader who can convince people to follow them to take extraordinary risks in the hope of succeeding against all odds.

We read that Sisera assembled a terrifying force: Sisera called out all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops who were with him, from Harosheth-ha-goiim to the Wadi Kishon.

The battle would be totally lopsided; the sight of iron-trimmed chariots was enough to make any opposing force cower in fear. They were the stealth bombers of the ancient world – their weight and velocity as they charged into an opposing army would plough a dreadful furrow through the ranks of soldiers, slaughtering the soldiers on foot and decimating the opposition. Defeat was in the air – liberation but a faded dream.

With the battle lines drawn, Deborah says to Barak: ‘Arise! This is the day Yahweh gives Sisera into your hands. God is indeed going out before you.’ Then something extraordinary and unexpected happened: a sudden torrential downpour caused a flash flood which turned the battlefield into a deep muddy mess. The iron wheels of the fearsome chariots got stuck in the mud, the chariots sinking under their own weight.  Trapped in the mud, confusion and bewilderment broke out among the ranks of the Canaanite soldiers, providing the Israelites with the opportunity to completely defeat Sisera’s army – meaning everyone that did not escape was killed.

The defeated Sisera escaped on foot and fled towards the encampment of Jael the Kenite woman. Biblical scholars explain that Jael and her family were tinsmiths who made various farming utensils and weapons. Since they were nomadic (tent-dwellers) they traveled wherever they could find work. Jael’s campsite was close to the battlefield because her family was probably making weapons for the army.

When Jael spots Sisera; exhausted, hungry, and scared, she calls him to her tent, feeds him and hides him by covering him with a rug. “Do not be afraid,” she assured him. And why should he be suspicious of Jael? After all, according to verse 17, there was peace between King Jabin and the Clan of Heber. Exhausted from the battle and the flight and thinking he is safe, Sisera falls asleep. But he was seriously mistaken: Jael had kinship ties with the Israelites. Jael’s husband Heber was descended from Jethro, who was Moses’ father in law. So, Jael waited till Sisera fell asleep, and then killed him by driving a tent peg through his skull into the ground with a mallet. Gruesome and disturbing to say the least. This fulfilled Deborah’s prophecy that Sisera would fall to a woman.

Chapter 5 recounts the events as a victory song. In the song Jael is called ‘most blessed among women’ and Deborah is identified as the “motherly protector” of Israel.  After the Israelite tribes were delivered from Jabin’s oppressive regime, there was peace in the land for 40 years.

This is an interesting story on so many levels and it challenges our understanding of womanhood on so many levels: How do we feel about women who are involved in violence? What about females as military commanders? Is there something morally wrong with a female warrior? Is violence only an appropriate activity for men?  Is all violence immoral? Does Deborah and Jael’s story justify violence? What would be the moral action if you lived in a world where you were cruelly oppressed?

I’ll leave you with the words of the Guatemalan theologian Julia Esquivel’s reflection on Deborah’s story:

Deborah’s story breaks the tradition of submission and calls on us to place our bodies before the machine guns. It observes that we continue to talk instead of taking liberation into our own hands while thousands of our people are being massacred. It breaks through the false understanding of pacifism that masks the face of God, reducing God to ineffectual neutrality in the face of injustice and oppression.

Some food for thought this week,

Kobie

For some background info on Guatemalan theologian, poet and activist, Julia Esquivel, see the following link:  http://www.whitworth.edu/News/2007_2008/Fall/EsquivelLecture.htm

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Bread for the Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.