Judges part 3 Chapter 4-8
Tonight we are continuing on in our study of the book of Judges. Tonight we will look at the Deborah and Gideon from chapter 4 through chapter 8. Lets begin in Chapter 4.
Judges 4:1 When
Ehud was dead, the children of
Once again we see when
the judge Ehud died they children of
Judges 4:5 And she
would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and
Here we see her doing the
work of a Judge the people come to her
with their questions of the law or disputes that need to be settled and she would tell them God
judgment on these matters. She also had message for Barak that God has commanded
him to take his men and go destroy Jabin’s army. But notice Barak
response,
Judges 4:8 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!"
9 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.
Now some might ask why
did he want to bring her along. To me it seems he wanted to bring her along
because he knew that she a judge for God and he it would make him feel more
confident knowing he had a messenger of God with him. Now she
agrees to go. Now there are 2 different views on what she meant when she
says nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey are taking, for the LORD will sell Sisera into
the hand of a woman."
1. Some believe that she
is saying that if you take me you will not receive any glory for this battle
because it will attributed to me.
2. Deborah is simply
prophesying of how the women Jael would kill Sisera the commander of Jabins
army with her own hands. I personally believe this second view is the correct
one and it also the most popular one.
In either case we can
know that God is going to have a hand in this battle are really and truly the
honor should go to him.
Judges 4:10 And
Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; he went up with ten thousand men
under his command, and Deborah went up with him. 11 Now Heber the Kenite, of the children
of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites and
pitched his tent near the terebinth tree at Zaanaim, which is beside
Kedesh. 12 And they reported
to Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to
So Barak gathers up
his men and lead them into battle by the
word of Deborah. Now remember the children of
Notice it was the Lord
who confused this might army and they became like scared rabbits and tried flee
but Barak and his men chased them and destroyed every last one of them except
for their commander Sisera.
Judges 4: 17
However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber
the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the
house of Heber the Kenite. 18
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.
19 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. 20 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.'
" 21 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. 22
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. 23 So on that day God subdued
Jabin king of Canaan in the presence of the children of
Here Sisera thought he
was safe and Jael made him feel safe but then while he was sleeping she ran a
tent stake through his head. Now according to historians the women of that
period usually were the ones that drove
the tents stakes into the ground as the tent was being set up so this would
tells us the she was very skilled at using a hammer and a tent stake. Again
this seems to be what Deborah had in
mind when she said that God would sell Sisera into the hand of a women. As the
text goes we see the children of
Now some people today try
use Deborah to justify women preachers today. However, this cannot be done. First of all this was OT
event and as we know our authority comes from the NT only. Just that alone
would show that you cant use Deborah to justify women preacher today. Second of
all you don’t Deborah preaching to the masses instead the people came to her
for judgment and even in the case with Barak she didn’t she didn’t try to take
the leadership role instead she tried to encourage him to take the lead of his
army and that is exactly what he did. In chapter
The rest of our lesson
will be focused in on our next judge Gideon. Now in chapter 6:1-10 we find out
that the children of Israel turn their back on God again and now they are
oppressed by Midianites for 7 years and in verse 7 they children of Israel cry
out to God and he sends a prophet to them telling them not to worry he would
soon deliver them from their enemy.
Judges 6:11 Now the
Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in
Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon
threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the
Midianites. 12 And the Angel
of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with
you, you mighty man of valor!" 13
Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all
this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers
told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from
Here we see God is going
to use Gideon to save the children of
Judges 6:15 So he
said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save
You sometimes when you
ask a question you may not like the answer. Gideon like who me but I to weak
what can I possible do. There are many us who think like Gideon today. We can
recognize a problem that needs to be
taken care of and we might even complain to others well why isn’t that being
done? Well perhaps if you recognize something needs to be done why don’t you
take care of it instead of relying upon
someone else to do it. Don’t be like Gideon in this particular instance
and just complain about a problem or think that you are to weak to do it instead
realize that God is on your side and that you can do anything that you will put
your mind to and allow to God to help you accomplish it.
In verse 17-24 Gideon
want sign from the angel of the Lord to make sure that the message is true so
goes and brings back meat and bread and the angle of the Lord causes them to be
consumed by fire. He now has his sign and now notice Gideon’s first task.
Judges 6:25 Now it
came to pass the same night that the LORD said to him, "Take your father's
young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal
that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside
it; 26 "and build an
altar to the LORD your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and
take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image
which you shall cut down." 27
So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the LORD had said to
him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too
much to do it by day, he did it by night.
So Gideon follows these
orders and next morning when they found out who did this they said he should be
killed. But Gideon’s fathers eyes had been opened and he said no if someone
wants to plead for Baal let them be put to death or let Baal himself strike my
son dead. I think the great wake up call for them and they realized that if
Baal was a true God he would have
prevented Gideon from tearing down his alter in the first place. They give Gideon
the name Jerubbaal which literally means “let Baal plead”. Now the rest of the
chapter is where Gideon wants another sign to prove that he truly is the one to
save
Judges
You see God didn’t want
these men to think that they were defeating this enemy by their own strength.
So first he weeds out the fearful which took care of 22,000 of these men
leaving 10,000. But God said this is to many so he narrowed down by only
choosing those who took a drink of water from their hand instead of straight
from the stream. This narrowed it down to 300 men. Please keep in mind that
they would battling approximately 135,000 Midianites but this was how God
wanted it so that there would be no doubt that God was the one in control of
this battle.
Judges 7:9 It
happened on the same night that the LORD said to him, "Arise, go down
against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. 10 "But if you are afraid to
go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, 11 "and you shall hear what
they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the
camp." Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the
armed men who were in the camp. 12
Now the Midianites and Amalekites, all the people of the East, were lying in
the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number,
as the sand by the seashore in multitude.
Now really interesting to
me. Notice God tells them if the afraid go down and to your enemies camp and
hear what they have to say. Obviously Gideon was scared because he went down to
the camp but think about what they saw. They seen this huge army with so many
camels they couldn’t even count them. Now think how scary that would be know
their there was just 300 of you. Now God didn’t just send them down there to
see their camp he wanted them to hear what they were saying and what they heard
is what would not make them be afraid.
Judges 7:13 And
when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He
said, "I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread
tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it
fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed." 14 Then his companion answered and
said, "This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of
Joash, a man of
You see even their
enemies knew that God was going to strike them by hand of Gideon and this gave
them Gideon the confidence that he would need to face this huge army. Lets now
read about the battle.
Judges 7:16 Then he
divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet
into every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the
pitchers. 17 And he said to
them, "Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of
the camp you shall do as I do: 18
"When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also
blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, 'The sword of the
LORD and of Gideon!' " 19
So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of
the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the
watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in
their hands. 20 Then the
three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers -- they held the
torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing
-- and they cried, "The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!" 21 And every man stood in his
place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. 22 When the three hundred blew the
trumpets, the LORD set every man's sword against his companion throughout the
whole camp; and the army fled to Beth Acacia, toward Zererah, as far as the
border of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath. 23
And the men of
This a great battle tactic that would confuse their enemy into thinking that there was a huge army surrounding them as they heard all the trumpets and people yelling out the sword of the Lord and Gideon. All of this took place in the middle of the night causing even more confusion. According to verse 22 God used this confusion against them and it says that they killing each other and then those who survived were running for their lives and the Children of Israel pursued them and this pursuit continues on in Chapter 8 and we learn that not one single person of the children of Israel had lost their life. In chapter 8 while they were continuing their battle they asked several places for food and they refused and Gideon told them they would pay for not feeding them and sure enough they did and so ends the battle in verse 21. Now lets see what happens in,
Judges 8:22 Then
the men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us, both you and your son,
and your grandson also; for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian." 23 But Gideon said to them,
"I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the LORD shall
rule over you."
I love Gideon’s answer
here, he lets them know I am not your ruler I am not your king God is and he
will rule over you.
Judges
Here Gideon probably had
good intention but it seems every time something is made from Gold and the like
the children of