Chapter 16 - Canaanites Are Defeated - Page 6 of 6 (series: Lessons on Judges)

by John Lowe
(Woodruff, S.C.)

12(Jg. 5.20-22) “They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.”
13(Psalm 83:9, 10) “Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.”
14(Judges 1:16) “And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.” The reference to the Kenite refers to the nomadic people who later settled among the Amalekites. The Kenites are also associated with the Midianites (Ex 18), indicating their constantly nomadic condition. They were related to the Israelites through Moses’ marriage to Zipporah (Ex 2:21). As a rule, they remained in favorable relationship with the Israelites until even as late as the time of David. In Judges 4 the Israelite defender, Jael, is married to Heber the Kenite. The city of palm trees commonly refers to Jericho.
15(2 Kings 10:15) “And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him: and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot.” Jehonadab, according to Jeremiah 35:6, was the founder of the Rechabites, a strict sect known for their simple life. This group of Kenite extraction (I Chr 2:55) was zealous for Jehovah, and Jehu saw in Jehonadab a sympathetic ally. Is thine heart right …? This question means: Are we in agreement?
16(Jg. 4.7) “And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.”
17(1 Co. 12:4) “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” that is, varieties of spiritual endowments peculiar to the several members of the Church: compare "dividing to every man severally" (1Co 12:11).
18(1 Co. 11:3) “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
19(Jg 4.6) “And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?” She sent and called Barak -- by virtue of her official authority as judge.
Kedesh-naphtali -- situated on an eminence, little north of the Sea of Galilee, and so called to distinguish it from another Kedesh in Issachar.
Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded? -- a Hebrew form of making an emphatic communication.
Go and draw toward mount Tabor -- an isolated mountain of Galilee, northeast corner of the Plain of Esdraelon. It was a convenient place of rendezvous, and the enlistment is not to be considered as limited to ten thousand, though a smaller force would have been inadequate.
20ARoutes. The meaning here is “confused,” “thrown into panic.” This is what God did to Pharaoh’s charioteers in the Red Sea (Ex. 14.24), and would later do to the Philistines in Samuel’s day (1 Sam. 12.10).
20(Judges 4:9) “And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.” It is also interesting to note that Deborah did not lead this military reprisal herself, but chose Barak to serve as the commander of the tribe. He was an inhabitant of Kedesh-naphtali, near Hazor. As God’s spokesman, Deborah tells him that he is to take ten thousand men toward mount Tabor, and that God said He would draw unto thee … Sisera … and … deliver him into thine hand. The brave Barak responded that he would not go unless Deborah would go with him! She replied that she would be willing to go; but the battle would not be in his honor, for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. Again, there can be no doubt that this passage is intended to indicate the weakness of male leadership at that time.
21(Judges 5:24-27) “Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.” Blessed above women shall Jael … be recognizes the true heroine of the story. The descriptiveness of the poem makes it clear that she deliberately deceived Sisera into thinking he was in a place of safety, when in reality he had fallen into the hands of his real enemy.
22(Jg. 5.26) “She put her hand to the nail and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.”
23(Jg. 9.54) “Then he called hastily unto the young man his armourbearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died.” During the battle, the enemy dropped a millstone on his head, which undoubtedly fractured Abimelech’s skull. Since death at the hands of a woman was considered to be an utter disgrace for a warrior, he urged his armor-bearer to kill him by thrusting him through with his sword.
24(Jer. 23:29) “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” The omnipresent and omniscient God exposes the prophets for their dreams, which led people into idolatry. Their dreams were chaff compared to God’s word, which is like nutritious wheat, and also like fire and ... a hammer.
25(Jg. 5.31) “So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.”