Judges 4:1-7

Deborah, Barak, and Jael

1 After Ehud had died, the Israelites again did things that the LORD saw as evil.

2 So the LORD gave them over to King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, and he was stationed in Harosheth-ha-goiim.

3 The Israelites cried out to the LORD because Sisera had nine hundred iron chariots and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly for twenty years.

4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was a leader of Israel at that time.

5 She would sit under Deborah's palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the Ephraim highlands, and the Israelites would come to her to settle disputes.

6 She sent word to Barak, Abinoam's son, from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "Hasn't the LORD, Israel's God, issued you a command? ‘Go and assemble at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand men from the people of Naphtali and Zebulun with you.

7 I'll lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, to assemble with his chariots and troops against you at the Kishon River, and then I'll help you overpower him.'"

Judges 4:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 4

This chapter shows how that Israel sinning was delivered into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, by whom they were oppressed twenty years, Jud 4:1-3; and that Deborah and Barak consulted together about their deliverance, Jud 4:4-9; and that Barak, encouraged by Deborah, gathered some forces and fought Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, whom he met, and obtained a victory over, Jud 4:10-15; who fleeing on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, was received into it, and slain by her while asleep in it, Jud 4:16-22; which issued in a complete deliverance of the children of Israel, Jud 4:23,24.

Footnotes

• [a] Or he
• [b] Or a woman of torches