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Permalink Reply by Tammy on November 13, 2015 at 6:26pm

If you begin at the beginning of the chapter, we see ONCE AGAIN, Israel had done evil in the eyes of the Lord so he sold them into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan. The commander of his army was Sisera who lived in Harosheth Hagoyim.

And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because they had been harshly treated for 20 years under Jabin. 

Deborah was a prophetess who was a judge of Israel at this time. She hollered at Barak, son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, to lead the troops against Sisera. Barak said he would go but only if she went with him. She said Fine but he wouldn't get the glory for this victory. The Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman who would be Jael.

Sisera gathered his army and his nine hundred chariots and came from Harosheth to the bank of the Kishon River. Barak, in turn, took his 10,000 men and went out to meet him. Is not the Lord gone out before thee? (vs. 14) is Deborah’s reminder of God’s promise. Judges 5 tells us what happens in this battle. This is an ode of Deborah and her cry of victory & triumph. It is said the river of Kishon swept them away.

The context seems to make it clear that as the two armies engaged in battle, they were caught in a flash flood brought about by a severe rainstorm. The AV translation discomfited does not fully convey the intensity of the Hebrew verb hamam (routed or destroyed). The 10,000 Israelites, who were lightly armed and highly mobile, engaged in the combat with the cavalry and chariots of Sisera which were caught in the sudden flooding of the swollen river to such a degree that the chariots became mired in the mud, and the drivers were forced to flee on foot. The normally dry wadi was now filled with water, immobilizing the chariots, and giving the advantage to the ground troops. It is interesting to note that this same situation was repeated when Napoleon defeated the Turkish army at the Battle of Mount Tabor on April 16, 1799; hundreds of fleeing Turkish troops were swept away and drowned. Thus, the story clearly indicates the direct intervention of God, who inspired the prediction of Deborah and sent the storm just in time to defeat Israel’s enemies. (Edward E. Hindson and Woodrow Michael Kroll, eds., KJV Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 467–468.)

In the battle that followed, the Israelites pursued the fleeing army all the way back to Harosheth and annihilated the entire force. In the meantime, however, Sisera fled away on foot and came to the tent of Heber the Kenite.. It was there that he met Heber’s wife Jael, from whom he sought refuge. She was the woman who would receive the glory for this victory. Verse 17 notes that there was peace between Jabin and Heber at that time, and this made an ideal place for the defeated king’s general to hide himself.

We don't know why Jael turned against him. Maybe she felt she needed to defend the people of God just like we should do today. Instead of protecting him, Jael quickly murdered Sisera in her sleep. She took the stake of the tent & drove it through his temples with a hammer. Needless to say, he died. When Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera, he found that he was already dead and that the honor of his capture had gone to a woman, just as Deborah had prophesied. 

 

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