July 15 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Judges 5

¹Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,
²Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.
³Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.
⁴LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.
⁵The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
⁶In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.
⁷The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.
⁸They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
⁹My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the LORD.
¹⁰Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.
¹¹They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.
¹²Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.
¹³Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people: the LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.
¹⁴Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek; after thee, Benjamin, among thy people; out of Machir came down governors, and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.
¹⁵And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar, and also Barak: he was sent on foot into the valley. For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart.
¹⁶Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.
¹⁷Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches.
¹⁸Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.
¹⁹The kings came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; they took no gain of money.
²⁰They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
²¹The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.
²²Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.
²³Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.
²⁴Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
²⁵He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
²⁶She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
²⁷At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
²⁸The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
²⁹Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself,
³⁰Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?
³¹So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.

Devotional

Deborah and Barak are singing antiphonally, leading their people in the praise of God for His victory over the hosts of Sisera. Their strangely beautiful song is a tribute to the God who gave them the victory.

There are three women in this song-"Deborah, Jael, and the mother of Sisera. First there is Deborah, the mother in Israel who arose at a time of desperate need. Why did God call Deborah from her home to assume this leadership and rally the forces of her people? Were there no men? Did God choose her so that we might see that it was He who won the victory in the way of His choosing, with the leader of His choosing?

Then there was Jael, who slew the enemy when he came, parched and weary, to the very door of her tent. Again God used a woman in His battle. Was this to shame the enemy before the Israelites? Was it to encourage women that they, too, may be instruments in the hand of God?

Then there was the mother of Sisera, a heathen woman who waited in vain for the return of her son, inventing for herself peaceable and safe reasons to explain his delay. Why did God include her in His Book? There is surely something more important than the poignancy of her language, although we are struck by the way in which the destruction of the enemies of God is crystalized in the experience of this woman. The grief of the mother of Sisera symbolizes the grief of unbelief and hopelessness of the person outside God. And God is pointing out, obliquely, the universality of the mother-heart and the dignity of personality. As we read this we see striking evidence that man is made in the image of the Creator and that every human being is special.

The song concludes:

Thus let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord:
But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might (5:31 NASB).

The verse and chapter end, 'And the land was undisturbed for forty years,' forty years of peace in an Israel which had known so much of bloodshed! And the Lord used two women to bring about this peace.