We Need a Hero | Season 2 Episode 2

Deborah is a nominally well-known bible character. And rightfully so. She led the Israelites to victory over an army of 900 iron chariots that had been plaguing them for like twenty years. (By the way, iron chariots at that time would be like a tank.) This was no small feat. The opposing army could literally roll right over them.

This is pretty much all we know about Deborah. She is introduced in Judges 4 and 5. She is a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, and judge. She settled disputes among her folks sitting under the Palm of Deborah in between Bethel and Ramah in the hill country of Ephraim. Under her leadership forty years of peace were enjoyed. This all sounds great. Until you look at the details through the lens of what was normal at the time.

Israel had a time of being led by judges. This was after Joshua led them into the Promised Land and before they asked for a king. This was a time of moral decline. The Israelites had not done what God told them to do. They did not get rid of pagan influences and slowly but surely, as God knew would be the case, they had devolved into pagan worship and idolatry. Judges is a vicious cycle of sin and its consequences, crying out for help, deliverance, and back to sin. The common phrase of the book is “Israel did what was right in their own eyes.” None of the judges led the entirety of Israel. They were more like regional leaders. Israel was not exactly unified at this point. Remember, each of the twelve tribes had gone into their own inheritance of the Promised Land.

Now you may be asking what doesn’t sound so great about our girl Deborah being the leader. See, the fact of being led by a woman was sort of humiliating. Yet, God used her. When she told her general, Barak, to lead the men out to meet the enemy he said he wouldn’t go without her. She said she would go, but that the victory would be to her credit. And that is why we know her.

Here’s the thing…and it is so encouraging to me. Deborah was not who the enemy was expecting. They thought she was a joke and surely not a threat. But she was. Oh, the power of being not who the enemy expected. Sit with that truth. Are you who the enemy is expecting?