Failing to Learn

27 It came about when he had arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was in front of them. 28 He said to them, “Pursue them, for the Lord has given your enemies the Moabites into your hands.” So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross. 29 They struck down at that time about ten thousand Moabites, all robust and valiant men; and no one escaped. 30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land was undisturbed for eighty years. Shamgar Delivers from Philistines 31 After him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel.

Chapter 4 [Deborah and Barak Deliver from Canaanites] 1 Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died. 2 And the Lord 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. 3 The sons of Israel cried to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years. 4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6 Now she sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, “Behold, the Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. 7 ‘I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand.’ ”

ABINOAM Barak’s father. Barak was the companion of Deborah, an Israelite judge, in the war against the Canaanites (Judges 4:6, 12; 5:1, 12).

Deb•o•rah \ˈde-b(ə-)rə\ n [Heb Dĕbhōrāh] 14c : a Hebrew prophetess who rallied the Israelites in their struggles against the Canaanites

Harosheth-Ha-Goiim---Harosheth-ha-goiim (ha-rohʹsheth-ha-gaw-yeemʹ; Heb., ‘Harosheth of the Gentiles’), the home base of Sisera, the commander of the army of the Canaanite king Jabin (Judg. 4:2). There Sisera gathered his men and chariots and was defeated by Barak and Deborah (4:13-16). Harosheth-ha-goiim was strategically located near the Plain of Esdraelon southeast of Mt. Carmel, but its exact location remains unknown. It has been identified with modern Tell Amr or Tell Harbaj on the Kishon River, or with that general region, on the assumption that the name is related to the Hebrew root hrsh (‘wooded height’).

IX. End of the second commonwealth

During the 20 years or so that followed the death of Herod Agrippa I, troubles multiplied in Judaea. The people in general found the re-imposition of procurators all the more irksome after their brief spell of government by a Jewish king; and the procurators themselves did little to conciliate the sentiments of their Jewish subjects. There was a succession of risings stirred up by pseudo-Messiahs such as *Theudas, who was killed by a cavalry detachment sent against him by the procurator Fadus (ad 44-46), or by Zealot leaders such as James and Simon (two sons of Judas the Galilean), crucified by the next procurator Tiberius Julius Alexander (ad 46-48). The fact that Alexander was a renegade Jew, scion of an illustrious Jewish family of Alexandria, did nothing to ingratiate him with the Jews of Judaea.

Lappidoth (lahʹpee-dohth; Heb., ‘flash’), husband of the prophetess Deborah (Judg. 4:4). He is mentioned only once in a narrative especially concerned with commander Barak (Heb., ‘lightning’). See also Barak.

Ῥαμά Rhama Ramah*

A city (Heb. rāmâ) in the area of the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18:25) 8 km. north of Jerusalem near the border between Judah and Israel (modern er-Râm; cf. further Judg 19:13; 1 Kgs 15:17ff.; Isa 10:29; Hos 5:8). According to Jer 31:15 Rachel, as Benjamin’s mother (cf. Gen 35:16–20), weeps in Ramah over the abduction of her children. Rachel’s grave (Gen 35:19: between Bethel and Ephrath; 1 Sam 10:2: on the border between Benjamin and Ephraim) came to be associated with Bethlehem (cf. Gen 48:7; Jub. 32:34; also Mic 5:2: “Bethlehem-Ephrathah”; the domed structure of Rachel’s tomb erected during the Crusades lies north of Bethlehem today). So also Matt 2:18, following Jer 31:15, associates Rachel’s lament with the murder of male children in Bethlehem: φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμὰ ἠκούσθη.… Kopp, Places 9, 31f., 36f.; K. Elliger, BHH 1547f.; A. van den Born and H. Haag, BL 1444, 1445f.

4:1. That the Israelites once again did evil indicated their continuing tailspin into the idolatrous practices of the Canaanites (cf. 2:19; 3:7, 12). This defection seems to have reappeared only after Ehud died, indicating his positive influence in leading the people as judge. The dating of this chapter with the judgeship of Ehud suggests that Shamgar’s deliverance of Israel (3:31) occurred during rather than after Ehud’s period of leadership.

b. The distress under the Canaanites (4:2-3)

4:2-3. About 200 years earlier the Lord had freed Israel from slavery in Egypt. Now, in contrast, He sold them into the hands of the Canaanites as punishment for their sins (cf. 2:14; 3:8; 1 Sam. 12:9). Jabin was probably a hereditary title (cf. a different Jabin in Josh. 11:1-13). Hazor (Tell el-Qedaḥ) was the most important northern Canaanite stronghold in northern Galilee about 8 1/2 miles north of the Sea of Kinnereth (Galilee). Neither Hazor nor its king Jabin play an active role in the narrative in Judges 4-5, for attention is centered on Sisera, the Canaanite commander from Harosheth Haggoyim (cf. 4:13, 16) sometimes identified with Tell el-Amar (located by a narrow gorge where the Kishon River enters the Plain of Acre about 10 miles northwest of Megiddo). The Canaanite oppression was severe because of their superior military force, spearheaded by 900 iron chariots (cf. v. 13). The oppression lasted for 20 years, so that the Israelites again cried to the Lord for help.

c. The deliverance by Deborah and Barak (4:4-5:31a)

(1) The leadership of Deborah.

4:4-5. Deborah (whose name means “honeybee”) was both a prophetess and a judge (she was leading Israel). She first functioned as a judge in deciding disputes at her court, located about 8 or 10 miles north of Jerusalem between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. She was apparently an Ephraimite though some have linked her with the tribe of Issachar (cf. 5:15). Nothing else is known about her husband Lappidoth (meaning “torch,” not to be identified with Barak, meaning “lightning”).

(2) The commissioning of Barak (4:6-9).

4:6-7. Deborah summoned Barak who was from the town of Kedesh in Naphtali, a city of refuge (Josh. 20:7), usually identified as Tel Qedesh, five miles west by northwest of Lake Huleh, close to the Canaanite oppressors in Galilee. An alternate site, Khirbet el-Kidish on the eastern edge of the Jabneel Valley, about a mile from the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, is more closely located to Mount Tabor where the army of Israel was mustered by Barak. Deborah, speaking as the Lord’s prophetess, commanded Barak to muster 10,000 men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them to Mount Tabor. Conical Mount Tabor rises to 1,300 feet and was strategically located at the juncture of the tribes of Naphtali, Zebulun, and Issachar in the northeast part of the Jezreel Valley. (Issachar, not mentioned in this chapter, is mentioned in Jud. 5:15.) Mount Tabor was a place of relative safety from the Canaanite chariots and a launching ground from which to attack the enemy below. The message from God informed Barak that He would be in sovereign control of the battle (I will lure Sisera . . . and give him into your hands).

God’s Deliverance through Deborah and Barak

4.1 Israel again doing evil

4.2 – 3 Distress under the Canaanites

4.4 – 7 The Deliverance

Merriam-Webster, I. (2003). Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary. Includes index. (Eleventh ed.). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (1:388). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.