When the Men Are a Disgrace: The Song of Deborah Text: Judges 5:6-8
Introduction: The Anatomy of a Collapse
We are living in an age of managed decay. Our civilization is not simply falling apart through neglect; it is being deliberately dismantled by those who hate the God who built it. And because we are in the middle of it, we often fail to see the rot for what it is. We get used to the smell. We adjust to the crookedness of the floors. We learn to step over the rubble in the hallways. But the Word of God does not allow us this comfort. It shows us, in stark and vivid terms, what a society looks like when it abandons God, and what it looks like when God, in His mercy, intervenes.
The book of Judges is a brutal and necessary education in this reality. It is a repeating cycle of apostasy, oppression, crying out, and deliverance. And in the middle of this book, we find this song, the Song of Deborah and Barak. It is a song of victory, but it is a victory that was born out of utter collapse. Before the celebration, there was desolation. Before the triumph, there was cowardice. Before the mother in Israel arose, the men of Israel had abdicated.
These verses in Deborah’s song are a diagnostic report on a culture that has lost its nerve. It is a picture of what happens when the men forget their posts, when faith evaporates, and when the covenant is treated as a relic. It is a description of a society where basic functions have ceased, where commerce is dead, where the people are disarmed and afraid, and where the leadership is vacant. And I want you to pay close attention, because if this sounds at all familiar, it is because the same principles of sin and judgment are at work today. When a nation turns its back on God, God turns that nation over to its own folly. He lets them experience the full weight of their rebellion.
But this is also a story of hope. It is a story that shows that when the situation is at its most bleak, when the men have failed and the structures have crumbled, God can raise up the most unlikely instruments to bring about His deliverance. He is not constrained by our failures. The central lesson here is not about girl power; it is about God’s power. It is about how God shames the proud and uses the weak to confound the mighty. And it is a lesson our generation desperately needs to learn.
The Text
"In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the paths had ceased, So travelers went by roundabout paths. The peasantry ceased; they ceased in Israel, Until I, Deborah, arose, Until I arose, a mother in Israel. God chose new leaders; Then war was in the gates. Not a shield or a spear was seen Among forty thousand in Israel."
(Judges 5:6-8 LSB)
Social and Economic Paralysis (v. 6)
Deborah begins her description of Israel's sorry state by painting a picture of total societal breakdown.
"In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the paths had ceased, So travelers went by roundabout paths." (Judges 5:6)
She brackets this time period between two figures, Shamgar and Jael. Shamgar was a judge who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad, a mighty act, but apparently one that did not result in a lasting reformation. Jael is the woman who will drive a tent peg through the skull of Sisera. But in the time between these acts of deliverance, the nation was paralyzed.
"The paths had ceased." This is a picture of economic and social collapse. The highways, the main arteries of commerce and communication, were empty. Why? Because they were not safe. The rule of law had evaporated. To travel on the main road was to invite robbery, assault, or murder. This is what happens when a nation is under judgment. The very structures that make civilization possible, things as basic as safe travel, crumble.
So what did people do? "Travelers went by roundabout paths." They took the back roads, the winding byways, the hidden trails. Life did not stop entirely, but it became inefficient, fearful, and furtive. Commerce slowed to a trickle. Communication broke down. Every journey was undertaken with anxiety. This is a society looking over its shoulder. This is the fruit of apostasy. When you abandon the straight paths of the Lord, you will soon find that you cannot even travel on your own straight paths.
We see this today. When a culture despises God's law, lawlessness abounds. Our cities become places where people are afraid to walk at night. Businesses board up their windows. Honest citizens are forced to navigate a landscape made treacherous by the wicked. This is not a policy failure; it is a theological reality. A people who will not have God to rule over them will be ruled by thugs.
The Vacated countryside (v. 7a)
The decay was not just on the highways; it hollowed out the very heart of the nation.
"The peasantry ceased; they ceased in Israel..." (Judges 5:7a)
The word for peasantry here refers to the inhabitants of the unwalled villages. This means the countryside emptied out. The farmers, the backbone of the nation, abandoned their fields and fled to the fortified cities for safety. Why? Because to live in an open village was to be a sitting duck for marauding Canaanites. The productive heartland of Israel was abandoned.
This is a picture of a nation devouring itself. When the farmers cease, the food ceases. When the villages are empty, the nation is starving. This is the result of covenant infidelity. God had promised them that if they obeyed Him, they would dwell securely in their land, that their threshing would overtake their vintage, a picture of overflowing abundance (Lev. 26:5). But He also promised that if they disobeyed, the sword would pursue them, and they would flee when no one was chasing them (Lev. 26:36). Here we see that promise made good. Their enemies were not phantoms; they were real, and they had driven the Israelites into hiding.
This is a fundamental principle. A nation's strength is not ultimately in its walled cities or its sophisticated weaponry, but in the faithfulness and productivity of its common people. When the peasantry ceases, the nation is already dead. It has lost its vital connection to the land and to the blessings of God that flow from faithful labor.
A Mother for a Fatherless Land (v. 7b)
Into this vacuum of leadership and courage, God raises up His instrument. And it is a shocking instrument.
"...Until I, Deborah, arose, Until I arose, a mother in Israel." (Judges 5:7b)
Notice the repetition, "Until I... arose, Until I arose." This is not arrogance. This is a statement of fact from a woman who knows God has called her. But the crucial point is that she arose because no man would. Her presence as the leader of Israel is, in itself, a stinging rebuke to the men of Israel. It is a sign of God's judgment. As Isaiah would later say, "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them" (Isaiah 3:12). When the men become effeminate, God will sometimes use a woman to shame them back into their duty.
And look at how she identifies herself. Not as a general, not as a queen, but as "a mother in Israel." This is key. Deborah is not a feminist icon. She is not trying to erase the distinctions between men and women. She is acting in a motherly capacity toward a nation of lost, frightened children. A mother protects, she nurtures, she defends, and she instructs. And when the fathers have run off, a mother will do what needs to be done. Her leadership is an anomaly, an exception that proves the rule. The rule is that men are to lead. The fact that she had to lead demonstrates how profoundly the men had failed.
She was a prophetess, and she was a judge. But her authority came from God, and she used it to call a man, Barak, to do his duty. She did not seize the command for herself. She said, "God has commanded you." She was a mother calling her son to be a man. This is the opposite of modern feminism, which seeks to overthrow the created order. Deborah’s actions were aimed at restoring it.
Disarmed and Desperate (v. 8)
The final part of this diagnosis reveals the spiritual root of their political and military impotence.
"God chose new leaders; Then war was in the gates. Not a shield or a spear was seen Among forty thousand in Israel." (Judges 5:8)
The translation here can be tricky, but the sense is clear. The first line should be understood as "They chose new gods." This is the root of the entire problem. Israel's apostasy, their chasing after the idols of the Canaanites, is what brought the "war in the gates." When you worship other gods, you get other lords. When you abandon the Lord of Hosts, you get Sisera and his nine hundred iron chariots.
And what was the result of this idolatry? They were completely disarmed. "Not a shield or a spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel." This was a deliberate policy of their oppressors. The Philistines would later do the same thing, ensuring there were no blacksmiths in Israel (1 Sam. 13:19). An unarmed populace is an enslaved populace. But their disarmament was not just physical; it was spiritual. They had no weapons because they had no courage, and they had no courage because they had no God. They had traded away their birthright for a bowl of pagan porridge, and now they were defenseless.
A people who will not defend the honor of their God will soon find they cannot defend their own homes. A church that lays down the sword of the Spirit will soon find the state has taken away all the other swords too. Cowardice is a direct consequence of faithlessness. They were forty thousand men, a sizable army, but without weapons and without conviction, they were nothing more than a flock of sheep waiting for the slaughter.
Conclusion: The Call to Arise
This grim portrait of Israel is a mirror. We live in a time when the paths have ceased, when wickedness walks the main roads in broad daylight. We live in a time when the peasantry, the faithful, productive Christian culture that built our civilization, has been routed and is in retreat. We live in a time when men have become soft, indecisive, and unwilling to lead, creating a vacuum that is eagerly filled by priestesses of a new and angry paganism.
We have chosen new gods, the gods of secularism, of materialism, of sexual autonomy. And because we have chosen new gods, there is war in our gates. It is a cultural war, a spiritual war, and it is being waged against our children, our churches, and our homes. And for the most part, the church is disarmed. We have laid down the sharp doctrines of the faith. We have traded the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit for seeker-friendly platitudes and a desperate desire to be liked by the world.
The story of Deborah is a call to repentance. It is a call for the men to arise. God does not need us to be a majority. He does not need us to have all the political power or cultural influence. He requires faith. He requires men who will pick up the weapons He has given them, the Word and prayer, and stand their ground. He requires men who will lead their families, who will build strong churches, and who will not bow the knee to the idols of the age.
And if the men will not do it, God is perfectly capable of raising up mothers in Israel to shame them. But that is not the ideal. The ideal is a restored order, where men gladly take up the sacrificial responsibility of leadership, and women gladly encourage and strengthen them in that calling. The victory over Sisera came because a woman of God had the courage to call a man of God to his duty, and that man, in faith, obeyed. That is the path out of our decay. It begins with repentance, it is fueled by faith, and it results in the kind of victory that makes the people of God break forth in song.