The Father Raises Deborah and Barak
Twenty years under Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots ends when Deborah, judging under her palm, summons Barak. He will only go if she goes, so the glory passes to a woman. Our Father routs the chariots, and Jael drives a tent peg through the fleeing Sisera's temple.
4 1Once Ehud was dead, the Israelites again did evil in the eyes of our Father. 2So our Father sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor. His army commander was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3Then the Israelites cried out to our Father, for Sisera had 900 iron chariots and had harshly oppressed them for twenty years. 4Now Deborah, a woman prophet, Lappidoth's wife, was judging Israel at that time. 5She would sit under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Ephraim's hill country, and Israelites came up to her for judgment. 6She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and told him, "Hasn't our Father, the God of Israel, commanded you: Go, march to Mount Tabor and take with you 10,000 men from Naphtali and Zebulun. 7I will draw out Sisera, commander of Jabin's army, to meet you at the Kishon River with his chariots and troops, and hand him over to you."
8Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I'll go; but if you won't go with me, I won't go."
9"I will surely go with you," she said, "but you will get no glory on the road you take, for our Father will give Sisera into the hand of a woman." So Deborah rose and went with Barak to Kedesh. 10Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; 10,000 men went up behind him, and Deborah went with him. 11Heber the Kenite, one of the descendants of Hobab, Moses' father-in-law, had separated from the Kenites and pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, near Kedesh. 12When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13Sisera summoned all his chariots—900 iron chariots—and all his troops, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the Kishon River.
14Deborah said to Barak, "Up! Today our Father hands Sisera over to you. Has our Father not gone out ahead of you?" So Barak charged down Mount Tabor with 10,000 men behind him. 15And our Father routed Sisera, all his chariots and all his army, by the sword before Barak; Sisera left his chariot and fled on foot. 16Barak chased the chariots and army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and Sisera's whole army fell by the sword; not one man survived.
17Meanwhile Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, for Jabin king of Hazor and Heber's house were at peace. 18Jael went out to meet Sisera: "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; don't be afraid." So he turned into her tent, and she covered him with a rug.
19He said, "Please give me a little water; I'm thirsty." She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him again.
20He said to her, "Stand at the tent entrance. If someone comes and asks, 'Is there a man here?' say, 'No.'"
21But Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent peg and hammer, crept up softly, and drove the peg through his temple into the ground while he lay fast asleep and exhausted. So he died. 22Just then Barak came pursuing Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. "Come," she said, "and I'll show you the man you're looking for." He went in with her, and there lay Sisera, dead, the tent peg through his temple. 23On that day our Father subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. 24The hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder on Jabin king of Canaan, until they destroyed him.
