Judges

Book Written:  material gathered during reign of King David; edited in 7th-6th centuries

Time Period/Setting:   200 years, 1200-1000 B.C.,  during which Israel had no centralized authority or king

Title:   Judges or military-theocratic leaders ruled over the different tribes; word 'judge' is mentioned only once in book; not necessarily charismatic leaders 

Judges contains the line, " In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did as he pleased,"  a line which pretty well describes our modern culture of moral relativism where moral standards are determined not by God's truth but by  "what's right for me."    Of the twelve judges described in the book, four are said to be major, and, of those, two in particular interested me--Deborah and Samson.

So,  here we have Deborah, a woman whose name in Hebrew means 'bee,'  sitting under a palm tree giving orders. What an image.  It has to be only a matter of highly unusual coincidence that Barak is the name of the  military leader that Deborah summons to fight  King Jabin's army led by Sisera.  It must again be coincidence of the highest order that Barak is a  ditherer.  My study Bible uses the words 'reluctant' and 'hesitant'  to describe our president  the man.  It's no surprise that Barak doesn't want to follow Deborah's instructions unless she goes with him.   Barak does screw up the pep to take 10,000 troops against Sisera (maybe those are the 10,000 he's planning to call back from Afghanistan in July?) and he even has the guts to pursue Sisera's chariots.   A woman, Jael, finishes the job for Barak by luring Sisera into her tent and then killing him.  

The literary subtleties of the Song of Deborah, Ch. 5, elude me but there are some beautiful verses that capture the drama of Deborah's victory.  Jael killing Sisera with a tent peg is as follows:

She put her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen's mallet;

she struck Sisera a blow,

she crushed his head,

she shattered and pierced his temple.

He sank, he fell, he lay still at her feet; at her feet he sank, he fell;where he sank, there he fell dead.