A Woman, a Warrior, and a Bloody Tent Peg

When I asked the Lord for wisdom on what I could share with a group of high school girls, I looked back at my own youth and wanted to pull out lessons and topics that I would have loved to hear, but didn’t necessarily receive in my own Romanian context. Today’s topic is the second lesson I had for these girls—and one gleaned from a pretty interesting biblical figure: Deborah, the prophet and judge.

I am not here to advocate for the #girlboss ethos of the 2010s that I matured in, nor am I here to try to claim that Deborah was going around stealing men’s jobs because the men of that time were too “weak and pathetic” to take the mantle (Looking at you Driscoll!).*

I’m simply looking at the text of Scripture, and discerning that Deborah teaches us some wonderful lessons in what it means to be a leader—and a female one at that! These are lessons that both genders can learn from, and hopefully, be encouraged by.

Before we dig in to our topic at hand, let’s refresh our memories on the passage of Judges 4:1-23 and what it has to say.

After the death of Moses and Joshua, Israel entered into a cycle of falling into idolatrous sin, turning from the Lord, and facing the judgement of God at the hands of enemy invasions. The enemy invasions were a clear symbol that the Lord had taken away his protection and covering over the nation.

But God still loved Israel, and was merciful to forgive them. Once Israel had their fill of being oppressed, they would turn back to God in repentance and God would raise up an individual who would save them from the enemy and bring relief and peace back to the land.

…until the cycle repeated again.

In Judges chapter 4, Israel had fallen into sin and come under the cruel oppression of Canaan for twenty years. They repent, and God raises up an unusually interesting group of people to deliver them out of the hands of the enemy. This theme is one that’s often repeated in Scripture. God raises up those who seem weakest and most ill-suited to the task to bring about his redemptive plans and purposes, so that the glory of victory doesn’t rest on man, but on God himself.

Let’s read through Judges 4:1-23

For obvious reasons….what makes Deborah interesting to us?

• She’s a woman

• She’s a wife

• She’s a “mother”,

  • Judges 5:7 says, “I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel”. Deborah says this symbolically, though it’s likely she was an actual mother as well.

• She’s a Judge over Israel

  • Deborah is the first woman to officially have a title of authority in the Bible to my knowledge, especially in the administrative/governmental sense. (Miriam who was known as a prophetess I would not include here)

• She’s a Prophet over Israel

  • Deborah is the first to pack a two-in-one punch by being both Judge and Prophet at the same time. It isn’t until Samuel comes along that we see this combination again.

Lessons of Leadership

All of us at one point or another in our lives, will realize that we hold a certain degree of influence over the people around us. Although many of us don’t necessarily look or see ourselves as “leaders” I’m here to tell you that we will all carry leadership roles and hold responsibility of others in our hands at some point.

You could be a nurse who’s managing five beds or an entire floor, or a mother who has little ones. You could be a small group leader at church, or a project leader at work or school, at some point responsibility of others will fall on your shoulders, and the test that God has for you in those moments is this: how will you lead?

The story of Deborah has a few answers for us as we study how she led Israel, we can learn a few lessons of leadership for ourselves too.

1. A good leader listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit…and obeys it!

In Judges 4:6, we see that Deborah has listened to the voice of God telling her that Israel must gather its troops and call out Sisera to go to war. This is not an easy word to hear, or to deliver…Israel was oppressed, but a mass mobilization of troops would mean a clear call to war for them. In essence, God was telling Deborah that the hornet’s nest needed to be kicked.

This is the same word that God had given to Barak, the commander of the Jewish army, but what made Deborah different was that she had listened and obeyed the voice of the Lord. She goes to Barak to call him out on his disobedience, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you…?” Those are some words that would bring the fear of God into anyone!

Even more than this, inspired by the word of the Holy Spirit, Deborah gives Barak the specific battle instructions that God wanted him to do so that they could conquer their enemy. This leads to the first large-scale military operation against a major foe that Israel had ever tried to do. God specifically wanted 10,000 men from Napthali and Zebulun to go to a specific geographic location. While the human commander of the army was shirking his duties, we can clearly see that the TRUE Commander of the Lord’s army had already prepared his battle plans.

As leaders and women of God we will need to be people who spend time listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit and obeying his commands as he tells them to us. It’s not enough to just listen, it’s important that we obey.

Watch any child who says that they’ll do something but then don’t end up doing it—action must follow devotion.

As leaders we need to spend time in the secret place, even when we are busy. That’s where we will hear the direction of voice of God best.

I am the first to raise my hand here, because this is something I fail at doing and take ownership of. Busy morning where I need to get up early and go do something? My devotional is the first to be cut from the morning routine.

But what does it mean to go to the secret place?

It means to go somewhere by yourself (be it your room, closet, car) and to intentionally come before Jesus in prayer. Feel free to take a journal and your Bible with you. Leave room for God to talk back in those moments too. And then throughout the rest of your day, be open to hearing the voice of God in a continual way.

Crucially, don’t rely on other people to hear God for you. Listen for his voice and word yourself. God will often send the mercy of confirmation to you through others, but I’ve noticed that when we are his friends, he speaks to us directly first.

In the case of Barak, he did hear God first, but it was his disobedience in executing God’s will that necessitated for Deborah to step in and be obedient.

2. A good leader is one who gives the hard truth but does it in LOVE

Ephesians 4:15 tells us that we need to always “speak the truth in love”. Deborah had a hard truth to tell Barak. The truth was that because of his fear, he disobeyed God and as a result lost the glory of a victory that should have gone to him. God would end up giving the glory to another woman who had more courage than he did.

This does not mean that Deborah goes to Barak and beats around the bush trying to protect his ego, she delivers the word directly. But she also doesn’t shame or ridicule him either. A good leader will say the truth in love, and that means directly but with kindness—not humiliation or an intent to tear others down. We must watch our words as leaders, to keep our speech peppered with salt and encouragement. There have been too many moments in my own life when an errant or thoughtless word on my end led to pain for the person on the receiving end.

3. As leaders, we need to be people who have faith, not fear

More specifically, we need to have faith that God will do what he said he will do, instead of fear. Why did Barak not listen? He let his fear conquer his faith.

Deborah had faith, and that faith means trust that what God said he would do. This faith impelled her to courageously go with Barak to the site of battle, where it was scariest of all. Her faith allowed her to go alongside the men directly to the scene of battle (v. 10).

And this leads me to my next point here. When a leader has faith, that leader is able to lead by example. Barak’s lack of faith meant he couldn’t lead his men properly by example, instead he needed Deborah to come alongside. What I give Deborah credit for is that she does not tell the Israelites to do something that she is unwilling to do herself.

We all show more respect for someone when we know that they are willing to get down and dirty, to do the hard stuff, instead of just commanding others to do so. A leader who sweats alongside his men will win their undying devotion, instead of one who gives orders from a place of comfort.

This is modeled best by Jesus Christ himself. He told his disciples that they must serve one another, but he did this first by washing their feet. He got down and dirty, as a foretaste of the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus would do for those around him.

4. A leader will encourage those around her

Judges 4:14

“Up!! For this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the Lord go out before you?

Proverbs 18:21 says that there is death and life in the power of the tongue. Your words as a leader carry weight, and the question of your leadership will be how you choose to use those words. Deborah uses her words and authority to encourage the men around her, to rally them and build them up so that they can go and courageously fight the enemy. More importantly, she brings the glory and the focus back to God!

You will discover in life that your tongue has the power to kill a person’s soul or to bring them life. With your tongue you can heap shame, and guilt, and condemnation on a person, or you can preach to them the gospel love of Jesus Christ and bring them into everlasting life. We are called to be people who bring words of life to those around us.

This idea that “sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Bones can heal, but a wounded soul can suffer the consequences of a bad word for years and years to come.

Even in your marriage, a wife has a lot of influence in the words she uses to speak to her husband. Just like in the case of Deborah, a good word can give a man strength to go and to fight bigger battles than he ever thought he could. Your words can give him the confidence to go and take down armies. 

5. A leader uses the intelligence that God gave her

A leader will use the intelligence and brain that God gave her for the benefit of those around her. And I want to demonstrate that by pivoting to another special woman in this story, Jael.

Jael is fascinating because she is the wife of a man who made an alliance with the Canaanite king. Because of this alliance, her allegiance should have been towards the general Sisera and the Canaanite army, and this is why Sisera trusts her in the first place and uses her tent to hide from the Barak and the rest of the army.

However, Jael was a clever girl. A woman with intelligence and foresight. She saw the direction that the battle had gone, and recognized that if God had given the Canaanites into the hands of Israel, this would not bode well for the future of her and her family, considering who they had allied themselves to.

So Jael in her intelligence and wisdom, sees how Sisera has evaded the troops and uses that opportunity to lull him into a sense of comfort, and kills him in her very own tent!

I can’t imagine what Barak must have thought when this woman meets him outside of her tent, and shows her the body of the enemy with a tent peg still in his temple. Jael made sure that the new allegiance of her family was clear for all to see.

The story ends with Israel being able to overtake and destroy Jabin the Caananite king, too. Jael’s calculations had proven correct.

Why do I bring this section up? Because I know and have seen the wisdom, wit, and creativity that God has put in all of his daughters. Not a single daughter of God is left without some skill, or use, or talent, and for some of you that is going to be a special gift of wisdom and intelligence. The question is…what will you use this intelligence for?

My encouragement would be to use it to benefit those around you, to benefit your family, your friends, and not your own glory. I know of intelligent women who could have gone and made a killing in the corporate world, but instead are using it to save lives as doctors in the medical field. Our domains are not limited to just the house and home, God gives both male and female dominion over the earth.

Go and use that big brain of yours for God’s glory, in big ways.

6. A good leader glorifies the Lord 

The story of Deborah, Jael, and Barak ends in beautiful praise. Judges 5 is the record of the song of victory that Deborah wrote for the praise of God himself.

They give credit where credit is due.

If there’s any victory, any redemption, any success, it’s because God has worked it out in your life. Never forget that God is the one who brought it all together. From the unlikeliest of heroes, God worked out his plan of deliverance for the people of Israel in that moment. We are all unlikely heroes, but God uses us all the same. Not for our glory, or our pride, or our vanity, but for HIM!

Soli deo gloria!

Concluding Thoughts

Before I end this newsletter, I do want to make sure I address a few things and make sure they are clarified.

First and foremost, I am not here trying to say that Deborah was the better than any man, nor am I saying that any man was better than Deborah. Galatians 3:8 writes,

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

God has called each and every single one of us to a specific purpose, regardless of our gender. Our gender will help us fulfill that call that God has in our life in ways that are unique to us, but it does not make us better than others or worse than others.

Your walk will not look like the walk of someone else, so don’t waste precious time trying to play the game of comparison. Deborah had no other woman to compare herself to as she walked our her role as prophet and judge, nor is she seen comparing herself to her male predecessors. She walks out the assignment that God had set out for her by keeping single-minded focus on doing what she needed to do with excellence to the glory of God.

Deborah brings her unique femininity to the role God had given to her, and as a result, God allowed the land to rest for forty years of peace under her!

So my question for you today would be, what role and direction has God called you to uniquely serve and work in? What roles of leadership, authority, and responsibility has he placed on you, and are you doing it to the glory of God and to the benefit of those around you?

And last but not least, Jesus has equipped each and every single one of you with the tools you need at hand…the most important one being Holy Spirit dwelling in you. God is at your side!

Footnotes:

*That’s not to say there isn’t any “glory-stealing” in the passage. A woman does take the job of a man, so to speak… but it’s not Deborah. It’s Jael who gets the credit over Barak for the killing of Sisera.