Judges 4 | Deborah the Judge

Scripture Reference | Judges 4

What it's about:

God saved His people from an evil king of Canaan by sending a female judge, Deborah. Deborah and her military general went to war and had the evil king running on foot. When the evil king tried to hide and rest up in a tent, a housewife went and killed him in his sleep by hammering a tent peg through his head. Yep...a painful way to go.


Summary:

The story begins with the people of Israel already in hot water for disobeying God. They kept on doing what was evil in His sight. As punishment, God used King Jabin of Canaan and his military general Sisera to oppress them for twenty years. After awhile, the people of Israel repented and cried out to God for help. In response, God raised up the prophetess and judge, Deborah. A judges role in those days were to act as leader in times of war and afterwards. During those times, the people of Israel didn't have a king. God spoke to Deborah and gave her instructions to give to her military general, Barak, for defeating the Canaan's general Sisera in battle. But Barak wasn't brave enough to go to battle alone, he wanted Deborah there with him. Barak didn't have full faith in God. So Deborah agreed to go, but told him because of his fear, victory and glory will be given to a woman instead of him. In the end, her prophecy came true. Even though Barak defeated Sisera's army, a woman killed Sisera himself by pounding a tent peg through his skull while he was asleep. Lesson to be learned... repent from sin and trust God!

Interesting Bible Facts...

Often times when we hold a Bible, we forget the resources God used to pull this book together. Below, is some interesting facts of the world's best selling book of all time...

The Bible was written:

- over a 1500 year span (from 1400 BC to AD 100)
- over 40 generations
- over 40 authors from many walks of life (i.e. - kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, scholars)
- in different places (i.e. wilderness, prisons, palaces)
- at different times (i.e. through war and peace)
- on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe)
- in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek)