Reading
- Judg. 4:1-5:31
Devotional
After Ehud, the second Israelite leader (called a judge) died, the Israelites once again did evil, so GOD gave them over to twenty years of oppression under Jabin, king of Hazor, a Canaanite. The commander of Jabin's army was Sisera. They had 900 chariots of iron and treated the Israelites cruelly. Finally they cried out to GOD for help and He sent Deborah.
Deborah was a judge and she called for an Israelite general named Barak, of the tribe of Naphtali, and said:
“Has not the LORD God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?”
And Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!”
So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.
(Judg. 4:6-9 NKJV)
Barak took ten thousand men and the LORD defeated Sisera's chariots in battle. Sisera fled into the tent of a wife named Jael.
And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; do not fear.” And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. Then he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him. And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No.’”
Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. And then, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, “Come, I will show you the man whom you seek.” And when he went into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead with the peg in his temple.
(Judg. 4:18-22 NKJV)
On that same day the Israelites destroyed Jabin, the Canaanite king. And GOD gave the Israelites peace for forty years afterward.
