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The Mighty Judges Deborah, Gideon, and the LORD And the land had rest forty years.—Judges 5:31; 8:28. James Parkinson The time of
Deborah and Gideon was one of the high points in Israel’s history under the
judges (deliverers). Many times “the children of Israel again did that which
was evil in the sight of the LORD”
(Judges 4:1, ASV).1
Then, when Israel was sore distressed and cried unto the Lord, “the LORD raised up judges, who saved them
out of the hand of those that despoiled them” (Judges 2:16, ASV). As
we open Deborah’s page of history, the Canaanites had subjected Israel in the
north, and to the west of the Judean Hills. The capital of Canaan was the large
and mighty city of Hazor, ten miles north of the Sea of Galilee. The Canaanites
maintained an iron-fisted control by the military high technology of the
time—nine hundred iron chariots, 50% more chariots than the Pharaoh of the
Exodus had (Judges 4:3; Exodus 14:7). From the south, the Midianites and their
Amalekite and Arab allies tyrannized by sheer numbers of both soldiers and
camels. The Courageous Prophetess Deborah was a
prophetess of the Lord, who lived and worked around six to twelve miles north
of Jerusalem. When the Israelites came to her for judgment against the heavy
hand, she called for Barak to come from the holy city of the tribe of Naphtali
(about eighty miles to the north). She told him in the name of the Lord to
gather ten thousand men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon and take
them to Mt. Tabor on the northeast side of the great plain, northeast of
Megiddo and Taanach. The Lord would then draw the Canaanite army, their
chariots and their captain, Sisera, to the River Kishon at the foot of Mt.
Carmel’s northeastern slope. And there Barak would resoundingly defeat them.2 Barak
was apprehensive that so few and ill-equipped Israelite troops could defeat
such a well-equipped and trained army. He agreed to go only if Deborah had the
courage to go with them. She did and she went. Only now Captain Sisera was to
be slain by a woman, for which Barak would receive no glory. Details
of the encounter, omitted in the historical account of chapter four, are hinted
at in Deborah and Barak’s victory hymn of chapter five (see “The Song of Deborah,”
p. 21). From the height of Mt. Tabor Deborah could see the storm clouds
approaching from over the Mt. Carmel range, and she knew when they would reach
the road Sisera and his army were traveling. That road is well south of the
River Kishon, at the foothills, so that Sisera’s band could not have seen the
clouds blowing in from behind the mountains. Sisera
doubtless exulted as he watched his nine hundred chariots rolling downhill
towards the poor Israelites. Then the storm clouds hit, first dumping water
upstream, and then striking Sisera and his band. The chariots became mired in
the mud, the archers could not see to shoot their arrows, and the
suddenly-unsupported foot soldiers panicked and fled. The flash flood killed
many of them. The Israelites then chased the rest and turned the battle into a
rout.3 Sisera
sized up the situation in time to give up his horse-and-chariot to the mud and
run away from the crowd. He ran a few miles to Kedesh-Kishon, to the tents of
Heber and his wife Jael, who had been allies. Jael let him hide in her tent
(giving the appearance he was violating her marriage) and gave him warm milk to
drink to put him to sleep. While he slept she took a hammer and tent-pin and
executed him, which was according to the word of Deborah. Barak, pursuing Sisera, arrived minutes later, and Jael showed him the dead body.4 After
this great victory, Israel continued the struggle against Jabin, the king of
Canaan, until they had destroyed him. And the tribes of Israel had forty years
of peace in their lands. The Emboldened Wheat Farmer Meanwhile, the
main Jordan Valley was still under the control of the Midianites, with their
Amalekite and Arab allies.5 These allies had destroyed Israel’s
crops and stolen their animals. Israelites fled their farms and hid in the
multitude of caves that are in the Judean hills. Then the Lord sent a prophet
to stress to Israel that when they had compromised to worship Baal and the
other gods of the Amorites, they had abandoned the Lord, who had in turn
abandoned them to their enemies. The
angel of the Lord then appeared to a poor, but strong man, Gideon, who was
secretly harvesting wheat. The angel commissioned Gideon to save Israel from
the hand of Midian. Gideon put on a rock the meat of a young goat and
unleavened breads; a pot of broth he poured out. The angel gave him a sign by
causing fire to come out of the rock and consume the meat and breads. That
night Gideon used a bullock to throw down the local altar of Baal and the
associated wooden Asherah idol, and he replaced them with an altar to the Lord
(Judges 6:11-27). In
the morning the men of the nearby city called for the death of Gideon, likely
in fear of Midian. Gideon’s father, Joash, refused their demand, saying, “Let
Baal contend against him.” He renamed his son, Jerubbaal, meaning, “Let Baal
contend.” The
Midianites recognized Gideon’s action as a revolt. They came amassed with their
allies and encamped in the Jezreel valley, north of the river, and at the foot
of the Hill of Moreh and of a lesser hill to the southeast of it. Their army
covered the valley for numbers. In contrast to the Canaanites, who had relied
on the high technology of the time, the Midianites used huge armies to simply
overwhelm their victims. Here the soldiers numbered at least 135,000 (Judges
8:10). By
contrast, on the other side of the river Gideon was gathering an Israelite
army, which numbered a mere 32,000. Gideon wanted the Lord’s reassurance that
he was doing the right thing so he put out on the ground a woolen fleece and
asked for a sign that the fleece alone be wet with dew in the morning. When it
was so, he put out the fleece again and asked for a sign that the fleece be
dry, but the ground be wet with morning dew. Again, the Lord made it so. But
then the Lord told Gideon that his army was too large and needed to be reduced,
lest Israel boast that they had won by their own strength. Gideon followed
directions and told all those who were fearful to return; 22,000 returned. Only
the 10,000 who were fearless remained. Again the Lord told Gideon to reduce the
army by watching the way they would drink water at the spring of Harod. Those
who put their mouths to the water (as a dog drinks) were to be sent home, but
those who lapped up water in their hands to drink were to go for the battle. The
latter, who were able to watch while they were drinking, numbered only three
hundred. The
Midianites had seen 32,000 soldiers, and almost all had disappeared in two
waves. They must have wondered where these soldiers had gone. Where was this
imminent threat? The
Lord told Gideon in the night that he could take his servant and go down to an
outpost of the Midianite camp and listen to what they were saying. There they
heard one tell of his dream that a barley loaf (a symbol of Israel) tumbled
into the camp of Midian and flattened its tent; his friend interpreted it to
mean that the Lord had given up Midian and their whole camp to the sword of
Gideon. Then Gideon was emboldened to return to the three hundred, and say,
“Arise, for the LORD hath
delivered into your hand the host of Midian” (Judges 7:15) Gideon
gave to each a trumpet and an empty pitcher with a torch put inside. And he
told them to do as he did when he got to the outermost part of the camp. He
divided them into three companies, presumably to block the three roads out of
the camp: upstream to the west, downstream to the east, and between the two
hills on the north. At
about ten p.m. the Midianites set the middle watch of the night. Before the
watchers had time to become acclimated, Gideon and his hundreds blew the
trumpets, broke their pitchers to let their light shine, and shouted
in unison, “The sword of the LORD,
and of Gideon” (Judges 7:20). The
nervous soldiers near the outer reaches of the camp, and therefore nearest
Gideon’s men, were frightened to see the lamps (normally representing at least
a thousand soldiers each) and to hear the battle trumpets and shouting; they
fled from the Israelites. The rest of the camp saw the lamps of captains, and
saw the inrushing soldiers, whom they naturally presumed to be Israelites.
The battle was on, and it was every man’s hand against his neighbor. Messengers
gathered the soldiers of three northern tribes, Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh,
who then pursued the scattering foreign soldiers. Gideon sent messengers also
to the tribe of Ephraim, to block the escape of those crossing the river
southward. Ephraim slew the two great military chiefs, one at a rock, and the
other at a winepress.6 Gideon and the many who now joined him were
faint, but continued the pursuit until they caught up with the Midianite kings,
Zebah and Zalmunna, and fifteen thousand of their Arabian allies. Those kings
had slain Gideon’s brethren so they in turn were slain, and the power of the
enemy was destroyed. Israel then had peace in its land for forty years. Archaeology and the Peace in Israel The forty years
peace in the camp of Israel evidently did not extend to Israel’s enemies: “And
the hand of the children of Israel prevailed more and more against Jabin the
king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan” (Judges
4:24, ASV). Not only did the
Israelites make progress against their enemies, with the waning of Jabin and
the fall of Midian, the several Canaanite princes struggled also against each
other and appealed to Amenhotep III and Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) of Egypt, the
only remaining major power. The situation is well documented in archaeological
discoveries at el-Amarna in Egypt, and its Royal Archives. Lab’ayu,
prince of Shechem, writes to Amenhotep III, “To the king, my lord and my
Sun-god: Thus Lab’ayu, thy servant, and the dirt on which thou dost tread. At
the feet of the king, my lord, and my Sun-god, seven times and seven times I
fall.7 “…
My crime is namely that I entered Gezer and said publicly: ‘Shall the king take
my property, and not likewise the property of Milkilu [prince of Gezer]?’ I
know the deeds which Milkilu has done against me. Further, the king wrote
concerning my son. I did not know that my son associates with the ‘Apiru
[Hebrews], and I have verily delivered him into the hand of Addaya”8
(EA No. 254—EA means “El Amarna” tablet). Birdiya,
prince of Megiddo (in the neighborhood of Barak’s battle), writes, “… we are
not able to go outside the gate in the presence of Lab’ayu, since he learned
that thou hast not given archers; and now his face is set to take Megiddo, but
let the king protect his city, lest Lab’ayu seize it. Verily, the city is
destroyed by death from pestilence and disease” (EA No. 244). Mut-ba’lu,
a prince south of the Sea of Galilee (in the neighborhood of Gideon’s battle),
writes, “Again, at the instance of the house of Shulum-Marduk, the city of
Ashtartu came to (my) help, when all the cities of the land of Garu [Gerasenes?] were hostile … and when Hayanu and Yabilima were captured”9
(EA No. 256). In
the south, where Midian and their Amalekite ally had dominated, Shuwardata,10
prince of Hebron, writes, “The chief of the ‘Apiru [Hebrews] has risen (in
arms) against the lands which the god of the king, my lord, gave me; but I have
smitten him. Also let the king, my lord, know that all my brethren have
abandoned me, and it is I and ‘Abdu-Heba (who) fight against the chief of the
‘Apiru. And Zurata, prince of Accho, and Indaruta, prince of Achshaph, it was
they (who) hastened with fifty chariots—for I had been robbed (by the
‘Apiru)—to my help; but behold, they are fighting against me, so let it be
agreeable to the king, my lord, and let him send Yanhamu, and let us make war
in earnest, and let the lands of the king, my lord, be restored to their
(former) limits!”11 (RA, xix, p. 106). But
‘Abdu-Heba, prince of Jerusalem, writes, “Behold the deed which Milkilu and
Shuwardata did to the land of the king, my lord! They rushed troops of Gezer,
troops of Gath and troops of Keilah; they took the land of Rubutu; the land of
the king went over to the ‘Apiru people. But now even a town of the land of
Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi12 by name, a town belonging to the king, has
gone over to the side of the people of Keilah. Let my king hearken to
‘Abdu-Heba, thy servant, and let him send archers to recover the royal land for
the king! But if there are no archers, the land of the king will pass over to
the ‘Apiru people.” The
princes of Canaan were in great fear of the Hebrews—the Israelites. They were
begging the kings of Egypt for help.13 But the eighteenth-dynasty
kings of Egypt may have remembered that they and the Hebrews alike had been
enemies of the Hyksos king at the time of the Exodus.14 They may
also have respected the plagues and miracles the Lord had wrought. The Power of God The God who had
created natural law was also able to use his natural phenomena. There may not
be anything supernatural about a cloudburst and a flood over the banks of the
Kishon River, but the timing of it was precise. Sisera’s host was mired
down and swept away. Midian
therefore stayed to the east of the Kishon River and its potential to become a
swamp. They relied not on high technology but instead on an allied force too
massive to be resisted. By stratagem of surprise, the Lord used their own
armies to destroy one another. In
modern application, neither western high technology nor eastern masses of
humanity have been able to stop the rebuilding of natural Israel nor halt the
development of spiritual Israel. Lessons for the Practicing Christian There are
several lessons that the practicing Christian may draw from Deborah and Gideon.
Chief among these:
End Notes 1. The word “again” is omitted in Judges 6:1 (and otherwise only in 2:11 and 3:7). This absence suggests that Gideon’s forty years of peace is the same as Deborah’s forty years of peace. The two great victories were only about ten miles apart. The Kishon and Jezreel Valleys are connected along a slightly elevated divide. 2. Interpreting the names, the account might be: Bee, the wife of Torches, dwelt between High Place and House of God in the Doubly-Fruitful hill country. She called for Lightning, son of My Delightful Father, to come from the Holy City of Naphtali (My Wrestling) and to gather ten thousand men from My Wrestling and its Neighbor to Mt. Mound. The LORD will draw Battle Array, captain of the army of Whom God Watches, king of the Merchants, to the Winding River for his defeat. 3. Even had some horses been unharnessed, the distance back to Harosheth was somewhat greater than the ten miles a fresh horse can run before resting. A horse can run faster, but a man can run longer. (Few horse races reach three miles, but a Marathon is twenty-six miles.) Therefore, a strong Israelite could have pursued and eventually overtaken horse and rider. 4. Some think of this battle as a type of the French Revolution, linking the flood to the mass of peoples overflowing their government. Others may look for fulfillment in World War I, or in the Armageddon yet to come. (The subsequent forty years of peace in Israel might well typify the thousand-year kingdom of Christ.) 5. To have had access to the Jordan Valley, it might be inferred that these southern tribes had also subjugated the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites (Idumeans). Two Midianite kings fled across Jordan, suggesting such control. 6. The Ephraimites were jealous that they had not had the major role (though the LORD had not called them). Gideon’s soft answer placated them this time. Their pride was based on Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim, and on the preeminence of Joshua and Deborah, both Ephraimites. That pride was later to cause their own destruction in the time of Jephthah (Judges 12:1-6). There is a lesson here for the Christian: Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18). 7. “Seven times and seven times” prefaces most of the Palestinian letters to the king of Egypt; it implies a double oath. 8. “Addaya was the Egyptian resident governor of Palestine, with his seat at Gaza.” The el-Amarna letters are here taken from The Ancient Near East [ANE], ed. James B. Pritchard, Vol. 1; Princeton Univ. Press, 1958, 1973. 9. “Mut-ba’lu (literally “Man of Baal”) was prince of Pella in the northern Jordan Valley, opposite Beth-Shan; Ayab (Ayyab, Hebrew Job) was prince of Ashtartu (biblical Ashtaroth) in Bashan. The land of Garu lay in southern Golan between Pella and Ashtartu. Yanhamu, to whom the letter is addressed, was a high Egyptian official of Canaanite … origin, who seems to have been the Egyptian governor of Palestine at the beginning of the reign of Akh-en-Aton.” 10. “An Indo-Aryan name,” “like most other princely names of northern Palestine at that time.” 11. “This letter, from the beginning of Akh-en-Aton’s reign, is an extraordinarily illuminating illustration of the situation in Palestine at that time. Just who this redoubtable ‘Apiru chieftain was we do not learn, since the proud feudal princes disdained even to mention names of the semi-nomadic ‘Apiru. However, he was sufficiently dangerous to unite the arch-foes, ‘Abdu-Heba and Shuwardata, and to induce them to offer fifty chariots (a very considerable offer for Palestinian chieftains) to the princes of Accho and Achshaph in the Plain of Acre, far to the north. One suspects that Milkilu of Gezer and Lab’ayu of Shechem, who are not mentioned at all, were—either or both—involved with the ‘Apiru.” 12. “An almost certain reference to the town of Bethlehem, which thus appears for the first time in history. Keilah may have been the home of Shuwardata, prince of the Hebron district.” 13. Their professed allegiance to Egypt could hardly have preceded Barak’s victory. (Amenhotep’s death and the beginning of Akhenaten’s reign is commonly dated somewhere around January 1363 B.C., although an earlier co-regency has not been ruled out. Donald B. Redford, J. Near Eastern Studies 25, 2, p. 113-124 (April 1966).) 14. At the time of the Exodus, Hazor had been a major Hyksos site, and allied with the Egyptian Hyksos dynasty. Thus, the Canaanites had been enemies of Amenhotep’s dynasty, which afterwards drove out the Hyksos dynasty. |