The Covenant Ratchet: Yahweh Raises Up Deborah and Barak Text: Judges 4:1-3
Introduction: The Downward Spiral
The book of Judges is not a straight line; it is a spiral. It is a series of cycles, a repeating pattern that spins ever downward into greater chaos and depravity. And yet, in the midst of this grim account of human failure, we see the astonishing, inexorable mercy of God. The book is a record of Israel's covenant unfaithfulness, but more than that, it is a record of God's covenant faithfulness. He is faithful even when His people are faithless, for He cannot deny Himself.
The pattern is laid out for us early on, a four-beat rhythm that defines this entire era. First, the people do evil in the sight of the Lord. Second, God, in His righteous judgment, hands them over to their enemies for oppression. Third, the people, groaning under the consequences of their own sin, cry out to Yahweh for deliverance. And fourth, God, in His staggering mercy, raises up a deliverer, a judge, to save them. Then there is peace for a time, until the judge dies, and the whole sorry cycle begins again, only this time, they are worse than their fathers.
We come now to the fourth such cycle. Ehud, the left-handed assassin of fat King Eglon, had given the land rest for eighty years. That is a long time. It is long enough for a generation to be born, grow old, and die without ever knowing the sting of foreign oppression. It is long enough to forget the God who gave them that peace. And forget they did. As we enter chapter four, the peace is over, the deliverer is dead, and the people of God are once again running headlong into idolatry and rebellion. They are about to learn, once again, that sin has consequences, that God is not mocked, and that He is utterly sovereign over the affairs of nations, using even the technological might of pagan kings to discipline His wayward children.
This is not just ancient history. This is the story of our own hearts. We are prone to wander, prone to forget the great salvation God has wrought for us. We enjoy the peace that Christ purchased, and we grow fat, lazy, and complacent. And so God, in His severe mercy, brings hardship. He introduces trouble. He sells us into the hand of some Jabin or other, not to destroy us, but to wake us up. He is a good Father, and a good Father disciplines the sons He loves. The story of Deborah and Barak is a story of a nation in shambles, of leadership in disarray, but ultimately, it is a story of a God who refuses to abandon His people, a God who hears their cry and comes down to save.
The Text
Then the sons of Israel again did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh. Now Ehud had died.
And Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.
Then the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh; for he had 900 iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.
(Judges 4:1-3 LSB)
The Rot of Amnesia (v. 1)
We begin with the first step in this predictable, tragic dance.
"Then the sons of Israel again did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh. Now Ehud had died." (Judges 4:1)
The word "again" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. This is not their first rodeo. The story of Judges is a story of chronic spiritual adultery. Israel is the unfaithful wife, and Yahweh is the long-suffering husband. The evil they did was not just a series of unfortunate moral lapses. At its root, it was idolatry. It was turning from the living God who had saved them to the dead, impotent gods of the Canaanites they had failed to drive out. It was a violation of the very first commandment. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
And notice the reason given. It is stark in its simplicity: "Now Ehud had died." This reveals the immaturity and externalism of Israel's faith. Their obedience was tied to the personality of the deliverer, not to the character of the God who sent him. As long as the strong man was around, they behaved themselves. But as soon as he was in the ground, their true character reasserted itself. They were like schoolchildren who are quiet when the teacher is in the room, but erupt into chaos the moment he steps into the hall. Their righteousness was borrowed, secondhand, and superficial. They had not internalized the covenant. They had not learned to love God for His own sake.
This is a perpetual danger for the people of God. We can easily become dependent on a dynamic pastor, a strong leader, or a particular season of blessing. But true, biblical faith is not dependent on circumstances or personalities. It is grounded in the unchanging reality of who God is. When our obedience is merely a function of external pressure, it is not obedience at all; it is just crowd management. God wants sons, not trained animals. He wants a people who will do right even when no one is watching, a people who remain faithful after the deliverer has died, because they know that their Redeemer lives.
Sovereign Discipline (v. 2)
Because Israel broke the covenant, God now brings the covenant curses, as He promised He would in Deuteronomy. Their sin was not done in a corner, and God's response would not be either.
"And Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim." (Judges 4:2)
Take careful note of the verb. It does not say that Jabin, through his own military genius or political ambition, conquered Israel. It says Yahweh sold them. God is the primary actor here. Jabin and his commander Sisera are not sovereign agents acting outside of God's control; they are the rod of His anger, the instrument of His discipline. God is the one who puts His people into bondage. This is a hard truth, but it is a profoundly comforting one. If our troubles come from the hand of a sovereign God who loves us, then we know they are purposeful, measured, and designed for our ultimate good. If, on the other hand, we are simply victims of blind chance or the malice of our enemies, then we have every reason to despair.
The pagan nations are God's chess pieces. He moves them on the board of history to accomplish His purposes for His people. He raised up Assyria to discipline the northern kingdom and Babylon to discipline Judah. Here, He raises up Jabin, king of Canaan. This is particularly humiliating. Hazor was a major Canaanite city that Joshua had conquered and burned (Joshua 11:10-11). The fact that a king is now reigning there, and oppressing Israel, is a sign of how far they have fallen. They have lost the ground their fathers had won. Sin always leads to a loss of inheritance. The very people they were supposed to have dispossessed are now dispossessing them.
God's judgment is never arbitrary; it is always fitting. It is poetic. He makes the punishment fit the crime. Israel wanted to be like the Canaanites, to worship their gods and adopt their ways. So God says, in effect, "You want to be like them? Fine. You can be their slaves." He gave them over to the object of their illicit desires, and they found that it was a cruel master.
The Cry of Desperation (v. 3)
The oppression was not a light slap on the wrist. It was severe, and it was long. And it finally produced its intended effect.
"Then the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh; for he had 900 iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years." (Judges 4:3)
After twenty years of severe oppression, the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh. We should not mistake this for wholehearted, godly repentance. It was more likely the cry of pain than the cry of contrition. They were not crying because they had sinned against God; they were crying because they were getting hurt. Their theology was being hammered out on the anvil of their suffering. They were in a foxhole, and as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes.
The reason for their fear is specified: 900 iron chariots. This was the cutting-edge military technology of the day. It was the ancient equivalent of a fleet of tanks. From a human perspective, Israel's situation was hopeless. They were a disorganized collection of tribes with inferior weaponry, facing a centralized, technologically superior foe. The iron chariots represented overwhelming, terrifying power. They were the reason Israel had failed to drive out the Canaanites in the first place (Judges 1:19). The chariots were a tangible symbol of their unbelief.
But God is not impressed by iron chariots. In fact, He specializes in overthrowing them. The Psalmist would later write, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God" (Psalm 20:7). God brought this overwhelming threat into their lives to teach them that very lesson. He cornered them. He brought them to a place where they had no other options, no other hope, no other place to turn but to Him. He allowed them to be crushed by the might of iron so that they would learn to rely on the might of His right arm.
God's Strange Providence
And so the stage is set. The people are in sin. The land is oppressed. The enemy is strong. The situation is desperate. And it is in this moment of weakness and failure that God chooses to act. He is about to raise up a most unusual deliverer, a prophetess named Deborah. The fact that God had to raise up a woman to lead Israel was, in itself, a judgment on the men of that generation. When the men will not lead, when they are passive and faithless, God will sometimes shame them by raising up a woman to do the job. It is an indictment of the cowardice of the men that a woman had to call them to battle.
But it is also a glorious display of God's sovereign freedom. He is not bound by our cultural expectations. He can use anyone He chooses: a left-handed man, an ox goad, or a woman with the heart of a lioness. He delights in using the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The cycle we see here is a microcosm of the gospel. We, like Israel, do evil in the sight of the Lord. We are sold into the slavery of sin, oppressed by a power far greater than ourselves, the power of the devil, who, like Sisera, holds us in cruel bondage. In our misery, we cry out to God. And God, in His infinite mercy, does not send us a mere judge or a temporary deliverer. He sends His own Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus confronts the enemy who has all the iron chariots, and on the cross, He wins the decisive victory. He delivers us not for eighty years, but for all eternity.
This is the pattern. Sin leads to bondage. Bondage leads to misery. Misery leads to a cry for help. And that cry, even if it is the desperate cry of pain, is met by the overwhelming, chariot-crushing grace of God. He hears, He sees, and He comes down to deliver.