1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000
Just to orient ourselves a bit in our study.

2
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,000
Now can you see this all right?

3
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,000
We've got one more bank of lights we can turn off.

4
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,000
It'll put me in the dark, but that wouldn't be the first time.

5
00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:25,000
Okay.

6
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,000
We'll hit the light. Is that better?

7
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:40,000
Okay. We probably won't use that the whole time, so we'll just leave it on or leave the lights off while we work our way through some of these transparencies.

8
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:46,000
Thank you.

9
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,000
Let's open our Bibles together to the book of Judges.

10
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:56,000
We're going to look tonight at chapters four and five as we talk about a woman of God.

11
00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:23,000
What we have before us here is an outline of the book.

12
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:29,000
I would make one slight change and call it 350 years of apostasies.

13
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000
Thank you.

14
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000
We'll get straightened out. Thanks, Dave.

15
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,000
350 years of apostasies, oppressions, and deliverances.

16
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:42,000
You will notice the first two chapters are introduction.

17
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:52,000
Chapter one giving us the political background of the book, the failures of the people to drive out all of the enemies.

18
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:59,000
We have in chapter two the spiritual background of the book, the spiritual causes.

19
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:05,000
In that chapter we are introduced to the cycle that appears over and over again in the book.

20
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:12,000
The people fall into sin. Remember the four S's that Phil used last week?

21
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:17,000
First there was sin, and then there was what?

22
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000
What was his word?

23
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000
Sorrow.

24
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:28,000
Sorrow. Some use the word suffering.

25
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000
Servitude is another word that can be used.

26
00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:37,000
The second part of the cycle is that judgment comes from God.

27
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:41,000
As a result of that, what comes next?

28
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:46,000
Sounds like a zoo of snakes.

29
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:56,000
Supplication would be the third S, and salvation is the fourth one.

30
00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:03,000
Over and over again. It's interesting that that cycle takes place, but it's a cycle downward.

31
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:12,000
The nation is not even staying on a level, but it's going downward each time the cycle takes place.

32
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:20,000
Tonight we're looking at chapters four and five where Deborah is the judge.

33
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:24,000
Up through chapter 16 we have a history of the judges.

34
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:32,000
Then the book concludes with a double appendix regarding some terrible sins that were in the nation.

35
00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,000
The first part is about Dan, then Benjamin.

36
00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:48,000
That gives you an outline of the book.

37
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:58,000
The period we're dealing with here is approximately 398 B.C. when the conquest of the land was concluded.

38
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:08,000
The initial conquest under Joshua through the time when Saul was named as the first king of Israel.

39
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,000
The establishment of what we call the monarchy.

40
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,000
That was about 1050 B.C.

41
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:29,000
It's 300-350 years from the time of Joshua's ministry being concluded until the time that Saul is established as king.

42
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:37,000
One of the chief characteristics of this period is that there was no king in Israel.

43
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:42,000
Everyone did that which was what? Right in his own eyes.

44
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:51,000
Everybody did his own thing. There was no central government.

45
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:55,000
Now if the first one was bad, this one's even worse.

46
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:58,000
We'll have a better map in just a moment.

47
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:04,000
I wanted to see, well I can't see the color up there. I used too light a color.

48
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:13,000
This is out of a Rand McNally book.

49
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000
You probably have a map like it in the back of your Bible. Hence this is not a critical map to our understanding.

50
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,000
It shows here where the tribes are located.

51
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:23,000
Here's Manasseh for example.

52
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:28,000
Half of the tribe of Manasseh was on the west side of the Jordan River.

53
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:36,000
By the way, here's the Dead Sea down here, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River flowing down into the sea.

54
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:41,000
Half of Manasseh is on the west side. Half is on the east side of the river.

55
00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:46,000
Here's the tribe of Naphtali in this area.

56
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:51,000
Zebulun is right here. Remember here's the Sea of Galilee. Here's Zebulun.

57
00:05:51,000 --> 00:06:02,000
Here's Mount Carmel and flowing toward Mount Carmel and out into the Mediterranean Sea is the Kishon River.

58
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,000
Let me throw up another map.

59
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:18,000
Hopefully this one is a little clearer for you.

60
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:27,000
Once again you see the Sea of Canary or Galilee as it came to be called.

61
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:32,000
Jordan River. Here's Mount Carmel. The Kishon River.

62
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:35,000
You will notice here Mount Tabor.

63
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:40,000
Mount Tabor rises out of the valley up to about 1200 feet.

64
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:45,000
It's a very notable landmark and as you drive toward it you can just see it there.

65
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:50,000
Some people feel that that's where the Transfiguration of Jesus occurred.

66
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:56,000
Although others say it was at Mount Hermon way up here.

67
00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:01,000
You can see that Mount Tabor is on the north side of what's called the Valley of Jezreel.

68
00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:09,000
It's a huge agricultural area in Israel and over here is the fortress called Megiddo.

69
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,000
Mount Gilboa is here.

70
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,000
Where do we know Mount Gilboa from?

71
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:21,000
Does anybody know who died on Mount Gilboa?

72
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,000
King Saul died there.

73
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:33,000
And Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim where the people spoke the blessings and the curses of the law when they came into the land.

74
00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:37,000
Of course the city of Jerusalem down here.

75
00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:40,000
So that gives you a little bit of an orientation.

76
00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:44,000
We're going to talk tonight about Hazor.

77
00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:49,000
That's one of the major enemies of the people of Israel.

78
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,000
The king of the Canaanites was living there in Hazor.

79
00:07:53,000 --> 00:08:11,000
And so as we talk about Hazor, Mount Tabor, the Kishon River, this gives you an idea of where all that is taking place.

80
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:21,000
This one final map will kind of put it in perspective in terms of tonight's study.

81
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:30,000
So I'm just going to leave that up there for now and we will get into our narrative.

82
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:35,000
Before we do that, there are four main characters in chapters four and five.

83
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:37,000
The first one is Deborah.

84
00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:41,000
Deborah was a mother in Israel.

85
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:58,000
She was a judge, that is, a leader, an authority that was used by God in giving civil administration and management to the people who lived around her in northern Israel.

86
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:07,000
She was also a prophetess, which means that she was God's mouthpiece, that God spoke through her.

87
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000
Now there are those who say, well, you mean a woman was in this role?

88
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,000
And the answer is absolutely yes.

89
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:22,000
We acknowledge that that was not God's usual order as we read through the Old Testament, but it's not altogether that uncommon.

90
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:32,000
Can you think of some other women in the Bible that were used of God in a significant way?

91
00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:42,000
Hannah, Esther, Mary.

92
00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:50,000
Moses had a sister whose name was Miriam and she also sang a song like Deborah did.

93
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:54,000
So this is not unheard of, but it seems to be the exception.

94
00:09:54,000 --> 00:10:02,000
And especially if there is no man, and that is particularly the case here with Deborah, there was no man that God was able to use.

95
00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:06,000
The second main character is Barak.

96
00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:08,000
He is a soldier.

97
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,000
He has those skills about him.

98
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:14,000
He is a man who is reluctant to go into battle.

99
00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:20,000
He seems to have needed assurance beyond God's spoken promise through Deborah.

100
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:22,000
The victory would be theirs.

101
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,000
The third main character is Sisera.

102
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:36,000
Sisera was the general of the army of the man Jabin, who was the king of the Canaanites.

103
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:43,000
Jabin lived in Hazor.

104
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:50,000
And then there is J.L., who is the wife of Heber, a Canite.

105
00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,000
So those are the four main characters that will be introduced in our study.

106
00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:59,000
In chapter four we have the story of the battle, and in chapter five the song of the battle.

107
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:06,000
In chapter four we have the record in prose, and in chapter five we have it in poetry.

108
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:08,000
And it is beautiful poetry.

109
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:12,000
Reading this chapter in English makes me wish that I knew Hebrew,

110
00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:22,000
because while I am not convinced that Hebrew is essential to know for study in the Bible,

111
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,000
because there are so many helps available these days,

112
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,000
when it comes to poetry like this or in the Psalms,

113
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:33,000
we would appreciate so much more the poetry if we understood Hebrew and could read that.

114
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000
We will talk a little bit about that as we get there.

115
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:45,000
In chapter four, verse one it says, Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died.

116
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:51,000
We are probably dealing with a period some eighty years after Ehud.

117
00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:58,000
And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan.

118
00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:04,000
The name Jabin was probably not a personal name, but a title.

119
00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:11,000
A title that was like Pharaoh and was inherited by successors.

120
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:19,000
So this Jabin, who was the king of Canaan, reigned in Hazor, and he had a commander whose name was Sisera.

121
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:26,000
And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, for he had nine hundred iron chariots.

122
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:30,000
As best as archeologists are able to determine,

123
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:38,000
the Israelites did not have the knowledge of how to use iron for weaponry at this point.

124
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:46,000
But the Canaanites did have that knowledge, and they had applied it to their chariots.

125
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:51,000
It may refer to armor that was put on to the chariots that was made of iron,

126
00:12:51,000 --> 00:13:00,000
or it's possible that they had devised spokes of iron that stuck out from the hubs of the chariots.

127
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:06,000
Maybe you have seen that sort of thing in some of the films of ancient days.

128
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:15,000
These spokes were often sticking out six, twelve inches, and they would have knife blades on them at different angles.

129
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:24,000
So you can imagine that as these soldiers would aim their chariots toward a group of their enemy,

130
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:30,000
they could cut a swath right through the middle by running over them with a chariot and cutting them up

131
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:34,000
with the iron sticking out from their chariot wheels.

132
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,000
And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.

133
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:42,000
Now you notice already we've gone through three sections, three parts of this cycle.

134
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:45,000
The sons of Israel did evil sin.

135
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:49,000
The Lord sold them servitude.

136
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,000
And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.

137
00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:56,000
There was supplication to God.

138
00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:01,000
And as we get over to verse 23, we see the fourth step in the cycle.

139
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000
So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan.

140
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:07,000
So there's salvation.

141
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:14,000
But the real story we're going to study is in between steps three and four in how God brought about that salvation.

142
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:21,000
It says now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

143
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000
The name Deborah means honeybee.

144
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:27,000
That's nice, isn't it? Honeybee.

145
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:30,000
It says that she was a prophetess and the wife of Lapidoth.

146
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:36,000
But as someone pointed out, probably Lapidoth ought to be known as the husband of Deborah.

147
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:42,000
That has some modern day parallels, doesn't it?

148
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:51,000
And she used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.

149
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:59,000
That's down toward the middle here between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.

150
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:05,000
That was her area where she would establish her administrative headquarters, so to speak.

151
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,000
And the sons of Israel would come to her to settle their disputes.

152
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:16,000
Now she sent and summoned Barak, the son of Abinadom, of Kiddish, Naphtali.

153
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,000
Kiddish is the name of the town.

154
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:23,000
Naphtali is the tribe, so it's telling us that it's a particular village.

155
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:31,000
It's the Kiddish that is found in the area that was given to the tribe of Naphtali.

156
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:35,000
And probably was on the southwest side of the Sea of Galilee.

157
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:41,000
There are other Kiddishes in ancient Palestine, but this is that particular one.

158
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:43,000
He was from there.

159
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,000
And what she said was,

160
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:53,000
Behold Yahweh, the Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, so as a prophetess now she is speaking,

161
00:15:53,000 --> 00:16:05,000
Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun.

162
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:15,000
And I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and his many troops, to the river Kishon.

163
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000
And I will give him into your hand.

164
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,000
Now there's a very clear promise from God.

165
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:23,000
There's no equivocation.

166
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,000
There's no ifs, ands, or buts.

167
00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:27,000
I'm going to do this, he says.

168
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,000
Now you go and march.

169
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:35,000
It's interesting that the word march, in verse 6 as it is in the New American Standard,

170
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:41,000
and the word draw out in verse 7 are the same Hebrew word.

171
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,000
They mean to draw alongside.

172
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:52,000
And so God is saying, you go and lead, go alongside your soldiers to Mount Tabor.

173
00:16:52,000 --> 00:17:05,000
And I will lure, will go alongside Sisera and bring him there to battle.

174
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:09,000
I'm going to come back to that at the end and show you a bit of an application from that.

175
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:17,000
But then it says, Baruch said to her, if you will go with me, then I will go.

176
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,000
Here we see the reluctance of this man.

177
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:28,000
J. Vernon McGee, in his typical blunt way, says that he was a sissy.

178
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:34,000
Now I don't know if the man was a sissy or not, but he's a little disappointing, isn't he?

179
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:40,000
Because we would hope that he would respond immediately to the word of God and would go.

180
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,000
But he is, for some reason, wanting Deborah to go along.

181
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:53,000
Perhaps it was that he felt Deborah's presence would be an extra guarantee of victory.

182
00:17:53,000 --> 00:18:00,000
Something like the Ark of the Covenant was used by the sons of Israel when they went into battle earlier.

183
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,000
As long as the Ark was with them, they had victory.

184
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,000
If the Ark wasn't with them, they were defeated.

185
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:14,000
It may be kind of a carryover of that idea that caused Baruch to say to Deborah, you come along.

186
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:16,000
And she said, I will surely go with you.

187
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:21,000
Nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take,

188
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:25,000
for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.

189
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:28,000
A prophetic statement.

190
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:32,000
And as you read that, you might think, well, she's talking about herself.

191
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,000
But of course she is not.

192
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:39,000
She is talking about another woman that we'll be introduced to in a few moments.

193
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:44,000
So Deborah arose and went with Baruch to Kedish.

194
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:50,000
And Baruch called Zebulun and Naphtali together in Kedish, and 10,000 men went up with him.

195
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,000
Deborah also went up with him.

196
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:59,000
And so looking at the map, you can see that they gathered around Mount Tabor.

197
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:05,000
They were coming from that area just to the south and to the west of the Sea of Galilee.

198
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,000
So this is not far from home.

199
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:12,000
And indeed, that's why they were most interested in this battle.

200
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:17,000
This is not a battle that involved the tribes living further to the south.

201
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
And remember, that's one of the characteristics of the judges.

202
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:28,000
Not only were they leaders for a period of time, but they were leaders in a locality.

203
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:32,000
Not leaders of the whole nation, but over parts of it.

204
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,000
And so that is true here.

205
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:39,000
It's the northern tribes, and particularly these two tribes that Deborah and Baruch are dealing with.

206
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:42,000
Now in verse 11, we have a parenthesis.

207
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:47,000
It explains something about the background of this woman that's yet to be introduced.

208
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:56,000
Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites from the sons of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses,

209
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:04,000
and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Ziananim, which is near Kadesh.

210
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,000
This is the background.

211
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:10,000
First of all, the Kenites were relatives of whom?

212
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,000
Of Moses.

213
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:18,000
Moses has been gone for a while, several decades, but we have some of his relatives.

214
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,000
He married a lady from this family.

215
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:31,000
The Kenites were nomadic peoples, and they generally dwelt in an area that was even off of our map.

216
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:32,000
It was far enough south.

217
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:38,000
It was south of Jerusalem, down into the wilderness area, and they lived there in tents.

218
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:50,000
But this man, Heber, separated from the rest of his brethren and went north, and was living here, up close to the Sea of Galilee.

219
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:55,000
It says that he had pitched his tent at this particular oak.

220
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,000
That word means a great tree.

221
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:08,000
It is mentioned also in Joshua 19 and verse 33, which is to say that this is another very familiar landmark to those people.

222
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,000
As they wrote this, that oak was well known.

223
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,000
There was no question as to where that was.

224
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:24,000
Now we get back to the story. It says, Then they told Sisera that Berak, the son of Abin-en-om, had gone up to Mount Tabor.

225
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:33,000
Sisera called together all his chariots, nine hundred iron chariots, and all the people who were with him from Harosheth, Hagoyim.

226
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:39,000
Harosheth is the name of the city. Is it on this one?

227
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,000
Yeah, there it is, up there.

228
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:47,000
Hagoyim means of the nations, so that was just the name of it.

229
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:56,000
You see the word, G-O-Y-I-M, goyim? Does anybody know what that means?

230
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:00,000
What is it? Gentiles, that's right, Gentiles.

231
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:08,000
It's a word that is even used today by the Jewish people of referring to non-Jews, the goyim, the Gentiles.

232
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:16,000
So this is the city that is known by that, the Harosheth of the nations, or the Gentiles.

233
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:22,000
And Deborah said to Berak, Arise, for this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands.

234
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:26,000
Behold, the Lord has gone out before you.

235
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:35,000
Here is employed a technical term that is used of a king going before his troops into battle.

236
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:39,000
And it is said that God went out before his people.

237
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,000
It is used in that way in 1 Samuel 8 and verse 20.

238
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:48,000
And so Berak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him.

239
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,000
Now why did he gather on Mount Tabor?

240
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:57,000
Well, as I told you before, Mount Tabor rises out of the valley up to 1,200 or 1,300 feet.

241
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000
It's a notable promontory there.

242
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,000
And chariots have a hard time going up a steep hill, do you know that?

243
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:09,000
They're great down the valley, but they don't do well on hills.

244
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:15,000
And so he gathered his 10,000 soldiers up on the top of the hills where the chariots couldn't go.

245
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,000
And from there then, it says they went down to the valley.

246
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:31,000
Now this map suggests that they may have gone two ways to attack Sisera and his army from two sides.

247
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:42,000
And it says that as they did this, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Berak.

248
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:46,000
The word routed in verse 15, what is that in the NIV?

249
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:50,000
Does somebody have that? Verse 15.

250
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,000
Prophets say the Lord did.

251
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,000
Routed, the same word.

252
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,000
The word means panicked.

253
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:01,000
The word means panicked with confusion.

254
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:13,000
It's the same word that is used of Pharaoh and his army in Exodus chapter 14 and verse 24,

255
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:16,000
when God destroyed Pharaoh's army.

256
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:21,000
God brought great confusion to them and they were destroyed in the Red Sea.

257
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:29,000
And so here it is that God again caused panic among Sisera's army.

258
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:34,000
And it says Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot.

259
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:43,000
As we see the narrative here, we notice that Berak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Herusheth again.

260
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,000
And all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword.

261
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,000
Not even one was left.

262
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:55,000
And so most of the army from the battle took off to the northwest.

263
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:58,000
Sisera did not.

264
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:03,000
He knew that his army was lost and so to preserve himself, and this was not unusual,

265
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:09,000
he as the general took off the other direction to try to escape and to get back up to Hazor.

266
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:16,000
And so he went around Mount Tabor apparently to the east and headed north toward the Sea of Galilee,

267
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:25,000
intending to go along the sea and on up eventually to Hazor.

268
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:30,000
And eventually he came to the tent of Jayel, the wife of Heber the Kenite,

269
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:36,000
for there was peace between Jabin and the house of Heber.

270
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:43,000
That is that there was some sort of an agreement or treaty between these two men.

271
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:52,000
Heber was apparently a very wealthy nomad and perhaps had soldiers at his command.

272
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:59,000
And so he as a gentile had made some agreement or treaty with Jabin.

273
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:04,000
And so Sisera thought that he was home free at this point.

274
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,000
And says Jayel went out to meet Sisera and said to him,

275
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:11,000
Turn aside my master, turn aside to me, do not be afraid.

276
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
And he turned aside to her into the tent and she covered him with a rug.

277
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:21,000
And he said to her, Please give me a little water to drink, I'm thirsty.

278
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,000
So she opened a bottle of milk.

279
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,000
Now this bottle is not like you get down a cub.

280
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:36,000
He's talking here about a goat skin and the goat skin had in it not 2% milk or 1% milk,

281
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,000
but curdled milk.

282
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Doesn't that sound delicious?

283
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,000
Me either.

284
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,000
It was something like our yogurt, I suppose.

285
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:49,000
And it was probably goat's milk, really good for you.

286
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,000
Sometimes it was good for you, it didn't taste too good.

287
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:56,000
But for them it was a wonderful thing and she gave him this extra

288
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,000
and covered him up and he said to her,

289
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,000
Now there's already peace you understand, but now he says,

290
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:06,000
Stand in the doorway of the tent and it shall be if anyone comes and inquires of you

291
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,000
and says, Is there anyone here?

292
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,000
You shall say no.

293
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,000
And so he's reinforcing the treaty that already exists.

294
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:25,000
He's reinforcing the nomadic law of hospitality that existed among the nomads.

295
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,000
And he's saying to her, Now you really will protect me.

296
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,000
And if they ask you the question, you tell them I'm not here.

297
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:41,000
But it says, J.L., Heber's wife, took a tent peg and seized a hammer in her hand

298
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:46,000
and went secretly to him and drove the peg into his temple.

299
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,000
And it went through into the ground.

300
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,000
He was sound asleep, I guess so, and exhausted.

301
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:59,000
Now the word sleep here, by the way, is the same word used of the anesthesia

302
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,000
that God gave to Adam back in the book of Genesis.

303
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,000
I mean, this guy is zonked.

304
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,000
He is really out.

305
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:13,000
He's totally exhausted and he did not realize what was taking place around him and he died.

306
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:17,000
Now some people say that the language in chapter 5 suggests that she hit him on the head,

307
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:22,000
stunned him, and then did her deed.

308
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,000
They say, Well, my goodness, this seems like quite a woman.

309
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:32,000
Well, you need to understand that putting up a tent in that day was a woman's job.

310
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,000
It's part of what she was supposed to do.

311
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,000
And so she knew how to handle her tools.

312
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:48,000
She recognized the tent pegs, she knew how to handle a hammer, and she used them on a sisera.

313
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:54,000
And so it says, Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him,

314
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.

315
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:04,000
And he entered with her, and behold, Sisera was lying dead with the tent peg in his temple.

316
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:10,000
So God subdued on that day Jabin king of Canaan before the sons of Israel,

317
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:15,000
and the hand of the sons of Israel pressed heavier and heavier upon Jabin king of Canaan,

318
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:19,000
until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.

319
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:26,000
He was never again able to rally his strength to attack the people of Israel.

320
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:36,000
Now one of the things about the death of Sisera is that the word, the prophetic word of Deborah came true.

321
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:40,000
She said, Barak, you've lost the honor of taking this man.

322
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:45,000
It's going to be given to a woman, and that woman is Jael.

323
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:53,000
And furthermore, a woman killing Sisera was the worst disgrace that could befall him.

324
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:58,000
That was the worst way that a soldier could die as they looked at it.

325
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:04,000
You see that again in chapter 9 verse 54 when, is it a beninom or a heninom?

326
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:13,000
One of those nomes had a millstone dropped down on his head by a woman, and it crushed his skull.

327
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,000
And he knew he was dying, and so he asked his sword bearer to kill him with a sword

328
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,000
so it wouldn't be said he was killed by a woman.

329
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,000
Well, dead is dead, you know.

330
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:30,000
Now chapter 5 recounts this whole story, and we're not going to look at all of this in detail,

331
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,000
but this is a piece of magnificent poetry.

332
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:43,000
As you think of songs, apart from the book of Psalms, what other chapter would come to mind

333
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:52,000
as you think of songs in the historical record of the Old Testament?

334
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,000
There's one I alluded to earlier.

335
00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:01,000
After the Red Sea, when Miriam and the people of Israel sang a great song,

336
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:08,000
and Exodus chapter 15 is the record of that account, Judges chapter 5 is equal with that.

337
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:15,000
It starts out by saying that the leaders led in Israel, that the people volunteered, blessed the Lord.

338
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,000
That's God's plan.

339
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,000
Leaders are to lead.

340
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,000
People are to serve with them.

341
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:30,000
And what happened here? Barak, Deborah rose up, the people volunteered, 10,000 soldiers, and blessed the Lord.

342
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:37,000
The word blessed here is a Hebrew word for praise, and the name of the word is Barak.

343
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:43,000
So there's a hint of the poetry that's in this Psalm.

344
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:49,000
The very word praise, the Lord, is Barak, the name of the general.

345
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:56,000
Hear, O kings, give ear, O rulers, I to the Lord I will sing.

346
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,000
And so we have in verse 3 there the dedication of this song.

347
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,000
It's to Yahweh, it's to the Lord.

348
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,000
The covenant name of Israel used here.

349
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,000
She says, I will sing to him.

350
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:15,000
Lord, when thou didst go out from Seir, when thou didst march from the field of Edom, the earth quaked,

351
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:25,000
the heavens also dripped, even the clouds dripped water, the mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord.

352
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,000
This is a picture of a theophany.

353
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Now did God really appear to Deborah, to Barak?

354
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:39,000
We don't have any indication that he literally appeared, but poetically now, you see,

355
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,000
she is describing God coming to deliver his people.

356
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:49,000
And so she poetically pictures it as a theophany, that is, an appearance of God.

357
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:54,000
And she seems to go back and pick up some of the language of Mount Sinai,

358
00:32:54,000 --> 00:33:00,000
when there was a storm and there were the trumpets and the earthquake.

359
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:09,000
And in fact, she calls him this one of Sinai in verse 5.

360
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:14,000
The mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord, this one of Sinai.

361
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,000
Talking about God.

362
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,000
At the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel.

363
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:26,000
So there is a comparison here between God's dealings with his people now in Deborah's day

364
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:32,000
and his appearance in Mount Sinai less than a hundred years before this.

365
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,000
In verse 4, we have the clouds dripping with water.

366
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,000
In verse 5, the mountains quaking.

367
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:44,000
And so it suggests to us that there may have been an earthquake as well as a storm.

368
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,000
Most assuredly, there was a storm.

369
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:54,000
That was God's way of routing the army of Sisera.

370
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,000
Remember, they are in chariots.

371
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,000
Chariots depend upon dry ground.

372
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:03,000
They are only good on flat and dry ground.

373
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:08,000
And apparently what happened was that this was the season of the year when things would normally be dry.

374
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:13,000
And so he did not hesitate to get all of his chariots together, all 900 of them,

375
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,000
and go against the people of Israel.

376
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,000
But God sent a storm out of season.

377
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,000
The heavens just opened up.

378
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:27,000
And as a result of that, their wheels became stuck in the quagmire of the soil.

379
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,000
And the chariots were absolutely of no use.

380
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000
And this caused great confusion.

381
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:39,000
There is also something else here, and I think I've got it written down to say later, but I'll say it now anyway.

382
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:50,000
These people worshiped the Baals, B-A-A-L-S, a pantheon of false gods.

383
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:58,000
The chief Baal, the chief god of the pantheon, was the god of the storm.

384
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:01,000
The god of the storm.

385
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,000
Here the god of the storm turned against them.

386
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:13,000
Their chief god that they worshiped in their pagan idolatry could not come through for them and deliver them in the time of the storm.

387
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:26,000
What it is, is the god of heaven mocking Baal and bringing a storm to defeat this great enemy of the Lord.

388
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:31,000
Well, he goes back and talks about Shamgar, whom we heard about last week.

389
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,000
In the days of jail, the highways were deserted.

390
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:42,000
You see, there could not be travelers in Israel on that day because of these marauding bands representing Jabin.

391
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:53,000
They were like terrorists, not unlike the Palestinian terrorists today over there that limit people in their activities.

392
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,000
It says in verse 7, the peasantry ceased.

393
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:04,000
I like better, I think what the NIV says, village life ceased.

394
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,000
Villages were not walled, you see.

395
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:12,000
Thus they were not protected, and therefore these marauding bands had their way.

396
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:18,000
So life in the time of this oppression was very difficult for the people.

397
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:23,000
That is why they cried to the Lord finally.

398
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,000
In verse 8, we understand why God brought this oppression.

399
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,000
New gods were chosen.

400
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,000
Then war was in the gates.

401
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:46,000
The cause of God's punishment in sending Sisera and Jabin to punish his people was that they had been unfaithful to him.

402
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:52,000
They had accepted new gods, and therefore war was at the gates.

403
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:59,000
Folks, whenever people turn away from God, it brings a lack of peace.

404
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:06,000
The psalmist talks about righteousness and peace kissing, doesn't it?

405
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,000
Righteousness produces peace.

406
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,000
Where there is not righteousness, there is not peace.

407
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,000
Why is there not peace in our land today?

408
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:21,000
Because there is not righteousness.

409
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:28,000
Because our nation is plunging itself into a cesspool of ungodliness and wickedness.

410
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:34,000
Therefore there is no peace, and there will not be peace in our land.

411
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,000
Unless the people turn back to God.

412
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:48,000
These people likewise had turned away from the Lord. There was no peace in their land because of their new gods.

413
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,000
War was at the gates.

414
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:55,000
Not a shield or spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel.

415
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,000
It is kind of a hard sentence to figure out.

416
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:04,000
The 40,000 did not show up at Mount Tabor. How many did?

417
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,000
10,000.

418
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:10,000
40,000 may have been the potential army had everybody shown up.

419
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,000
That may be what it is referring to.

420
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:17,000
My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel, she says.

421
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,000
The volunteers among the people, bless the Lord.

422
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:29,000
Now what we have here in verses 9-11 is a call in all the classes of travelers to recount this victory.

423
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,000
Normally as they would travel along, they would come to watering places.

424
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:37,000
There they would tell each other stories.

425
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:48,000
She says, let them recount what God did in destroying Sisera, his righteous deeds on behalf of the peasantry of his people.

426
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:53,000
Verse 12, awake, awake Deborah, awake, sing a song.

427
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,000
She is saying that God laid this in my heart.

428
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,000
Arise, Beric, and take away your captives, O son of Abin-anom.

429
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,000
The survivors came down to the nobles.

430
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:10,000
The people of the Lord came down to me as warriors from Ephraim.

431
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,000
Following you, Benjamin.

432
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,000
Verse 14 talks about Zebulun.

433
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:20,000
Verse 15, Issachar were with Deborah.

434
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:23,000
Into the valley they rushed at his heels.

435
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Among the divisions of Reuben there were great resolves of heart.

436
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,000
Now you need to notice a change here in this song.

437
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,000
She has named Ephraim, Benjamin, Zebulun, Issachar.

438
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:40,000
These are some of the tribes who fought in the battle.

439
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:43,000
But not all of them would come to fight.

440
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:48,000
Reuben, the people from the tribe of Reuben would not come.

441
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,000
They were debating about it in their hearts.

442
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:55,000
Why did you sit among the sheepfolds to hear the piping for the flocks?

443
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,000
Among the divisions of Reuben there was great searching of hearts.

444
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000
They were trying to make up their minds, should we, should we not?

445
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,000
And they were listening to their piping among the flocks as they were debating it.

446
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,000
Gilead did not come.

447
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,000
He remained across the Jordan.

448
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:21,000
By the way, Gilead is a term for a large geographical area that basically starts about here at the end of the Sea of Galilee and goes all the way down.

449
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,000
You can see the name.

450
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:24,000
But it's this whole area.

451
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:28,000
People from over there did not come.

452
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,000
Why did Dan stay in the ships?

453
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:32,000
So here's another tribe.

454
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,000
They didn't bother to come.

455
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
Asher sat at the seashore.

456
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,000
The tribe of Asher is over here in this area.

457
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,000
They didn't come to the battle.

458
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Remained by its land.

459
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:51,000
Zebulun was a people who despised their lives even to death and naftali also on the high places of the field.

460
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:57,000
These are the two tribes that made the major contribution to the 10,000-fold army.

461
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,000
Zebulun and naftali.

462
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:01,000
The kings came and fought.

463
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:08,000
They fought the kings of Canaan at Tanakh near the waters of Megiddo.

464
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,000
They took no plunder and silver.

465
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:16,000
What it means there is that Sisera and his army would always come back with plunder.

466
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,000
Not this time.

467
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,000
Verse 20 says, The stars fought from heaven.

468
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,000
From their courses they fought against Sisera.

469
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:29,000
Now this could simply mean that God fought against Sisera.

470
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
We know that.

471
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:35,000
What does she say then the stars fought?

472
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,000
A couple of possibilities and both of them intrigue me.

473
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:48,000
One is that not only did the Canaanites worship the Baals, but part and parcel with that was astrology.

474
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:53,000
They would go to the stars to figure out when they should go to war.

475
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:58,000
Here the stars fought against them.

476
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:06,000
There are those who think also, another intriguing thought, that the stars here refer to angelic warfare.

477
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:13,000
That it is a poetic reflection of battle that was going on among the angels.

478
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:24,000
The angels of God and the demonic forces of Satan while this battle was going on between Sisera and the army with Barak.

479
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:29,000
The torrent of Kishon, here we see now this flood.

480
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,000
The torrent of Kishon swept them away.

481
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:38,000
The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon, oh my soul, march on with strength.

482
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:46,000
Then the horses' hooves beat from the dashing, the dashing of his valiant steeds.

483
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:52,000
Talking here about the confusion of the horses, of these chariots.

484
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:59,000
As I told you before, I do not know Hebrew, but I can read.

485
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:05,000
The Hebrew word here, dashing in verse 22, is the word daharat.

486
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,000
Daharat.

487
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,000
Have you ever heard of onomatopoeia?

488
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,000
What is that?

489
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,000
That is not a Hebrew word by the way.

490
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:24,000
It is a word that sounds like what it means.

491
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:29,000
So in the Hebrew, and here again this is the poetry of it, daharat, daharat.

492
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:36,000
You can just hear the horses' hooves beating as they are trying to pull out these chariots from the quagmire of the mud.

493
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,000
They can't do it.

494
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,000
She says, curse Miraz.

495
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,000
That is what the angel of the Lord told her.

496
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:52,000
Utterly curse its inhabitants because they did not come to the help of the Lord against the warriors.

497
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,000
Miraz, we are not sure where that is.

498
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,000
It was a town, but its location is uncertain.

499
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,000
But its inhabitants, like these other tribes, did not come out.

500
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:08,000
But these people, for some reason, are singled out for a special curse.

501
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,000
Most blessed of women is Jael.

502
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:18,000
Now notice the contrast between curse, verse 23, and most blessed, verse 24.

503
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,000
Most blessed of women is Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite.

504
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:33,000
This is a little bit remarkable in that Jael was a Gentile woman, and she is said to be most blessed.

505
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,000
He asked for water, she gave him milk.

506
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,000
In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds.

507
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:45,000
She reached out her hand for the tent peg, and her right hand for the workman's hammer.

508
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:51,000
Now notice these following sentences, how the repetition, even in the English, is striking.

509
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:56,000
Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.

510
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,000
Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay.

511
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,000
Between her feet he bowed, he fell.

512
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,000
Where he bowed, there he fell.

513
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:07,000
Dead.

514
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,000
And the real emphasis there is on that last word, destroyed.

515
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,000
Dead.

516
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,000
At the hands of a woman.

517
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:16,000
Out of the window.

518
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,000
Now we are going to change scenes.

519
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:24,000
We are going to go back to Hazor, back to where Sisera's mother is waiting for him to return.

520
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,000
She is looking out the windows, it says.

521
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,000
Why does his chariot delay?

522
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,000
Why do the hoofbeats of his chariot's terry?

523
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:35,000
It says her wise princesses would answer her.

524
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:40,000
Indeed she repeats to herself, she is trying to convince herself that this is the case.

525
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:45,000
Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil?

526
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,000
A maiden, two maidens for every warrior.

527
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,000
To Sisera a spoil of dyed work.

528
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,000
A spoil of dyed work embroidered.

529
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:57,000
Died work of double embroidery on the neck of the spoiler.

530
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:03,000
You see, trying to convince herself that the reason they are not coming back yet is because there is so much spoil.

531
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:08,000
But down deep in her heart she probably knew that her son was dead.

532
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:13,000
And Deborah concludes by saying, Thus let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.

533
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,000
But let those who love him be like the rising of the sun in its might.

534
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:22,000
The land was undisturbed for forty years.

535
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:28,000
Let me close with just a question to you and one lesson.

536
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:37,000
J.L. is a woman who is praised, who is honored because of what she accomplished.

537
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:41,000
And yet she used deceit, didn't she?

538
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:42,000
She used deceit.

539
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:46,000
She tricked this man, offering him safety.

540
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:55,000
And then when he was asleep with his tummy full of warm curds, she killed him.

541
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:01,000
How could God honor that?

542
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,000
Has anybody got a thought about it?

543
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:07,000
Remember now we are just a class here.

544
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,000
So we can all talk and share.

545
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,000
How could God honor this?

546
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:18,000
She is exalted, she is praised here as a great woman.

547
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:19,000
Steve?

548
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,000
I'm sorry?

549
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:28,000
Well, we are not talking about Deborah, but we are talking about J.L.

550
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:33,000
I don't see a command here to her to kill this man.

551
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:49,000
She undoubtedly knew who he was.

552
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:50,000
J.B.

553
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:57,000
Our time is gone, so let me just tell you that my understanding of this would be as follows.

554
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,000
God does not here honor her deceit.

555
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,000
We don't see that.

556
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,000
God doesn't praise her because she tricked him.

557
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:18,000
But God does praise her because she was used by him, even though her method was not proper, to accomplish what he said he was going to do.

558
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:23,000
God said he was going to destroy this man, and he did.

559
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:28,000
And we could argue all night, well, could he have done it some way that wouldn't have involved trickery?

560
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:33,000
Those are kinds of questions for theologians who like to argue.

561
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,000
That's not for us.

562
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:37,000
But God doesn't here honor her deceit.

563
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,000
We need to understand that.

564
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:48,000
But God does honor her because she was used by him in accomplishing the death of this man who had declared himself God's enemy.

565
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:52,000
I wanted to point out one thing before we go, and that's back early on.

566
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:58,000
I mentioned to you in verse 6 and verse 7 that the two words were the same in Hebrew.

567
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:02,000
Go and march to Mount Tabor.

568
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:07,000
I will draw out to you Sisera.

569
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:16,000
I believe that what we learn from this is that when we, let's put it this way, if we do our part, God will do his part.

570
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:25,000
God told Barak to go and to march to Mount Tabor, prepare for battle.

571
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,000
And God said, you do that, and I'll do my part.

572
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:32,000
I'll lure out the man, and I'll destroy him.

573
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,000
There's an important lesson there for us.

574
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:37,000
Sometimes we think we have to do it all.

575
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,000
Sometimes we think God needs to do it all.

576
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:48,000
The fact is that in many aspects of the Christian life, God designs it to be a partnership so that we do what we can do,

577
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,000
and then he does what we cannot do.

578
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,000
And that honors him.

579
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:56,000
Thanks for being here tonight.

580
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,000
Let's pray.

581
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:05,000
God, we thank you for the example of Deborah, this great woman of God.

582
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:11,000
We thank you for the faith and obedience that is evidenced in her.

583
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:24,000
And we pray that we might be, as she was, one who is usable in your hands in a day when everyone is doing that which is right in his own eyes.

584
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:31,000
Make us people of faith as were Deborah and Barak.

585
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:45,000
And, Lord, though it seems strange to us to say words like this, nonetheless we conclude by praying back to you your own word.

586
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:55,000
Thus let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, but let those who love you be like the rising of the sun in its might.

587
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,000
Amen.

588
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,000
Good night.