The Song of the Brave Mother

After a judge named Ehud died, the circle started again. God's people forgot the LORD, and this time the trouble came rolling in on iron wheels.

Sisera, the general of King Jabin of Canaan, commanded nine hundred chariots made of iron. (A chariot was a fighting cart pulled by galloping horses. Israel's soldiers mostly walked, so you can guess who won the races.) For twenty years Sisera bullied God's people, until no one dared to travel the roads. At last the people cried out to the LORD.

In the hill country, under a palm tree, sat a woman named Deborah. She was a prophet and Israel's judge, and people brought their quarrels to her tree. One day she sent for a soldier named Barak.

"The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you," she said. "Take ten thousand men up Mount Tabor. God will draw Sisera and his chariots down to the river Kishon, and he will hand them over to you."

Barak thought about those nine hundred chariots. "If you go with me, I'll go," he said. "If you don't, I won't."

"Of course I'll go," said Deborah. "But the honor won't be yours. The LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman."

(Barak probably thought she meant herself. She didn't.)

So Barak and Deborah climbed Tabor with ten thousand men, and Sisera lined up his chariots by the river below.

"Go!" Deborah told Barak. "This is the day! Hasn't the LORD gone ahead of you?"

Down the mountain they charged, and the LORD threw Sisera's army into a panic. Rain poured down, and the river Kishon flooded. Nine hundred iron chariots in a flooded river make a very heavy mess. Wheels sank. Horses slipped. Barak's men chased the army, and every one of Sisera's soldiers was killed.

Only Sisera escaped. He jumped down and ran away on foot, which is not how great generals like to travel.

He ran to the tent of Jael, whose family was at peace with Sisera's king. "Come in, my lord," she said. "Don't be afraid."

"I'm thirsty," Sisera panted. Jael gave him milk and a blanket.

"Stand in the doorway," he said. "If anyone asks whether a man is in here, say no."

Worn out, he fell asleep. Jael picked up a tent peg and a hammer, crept over to him, and drove the peg into his head, and Sisera died. When Barak came by, Jael stepped out. "Come," she said. "I'll show you the man you're looking for."

Then Deborah and Barak sang:

"Hear this, you kings! I will sing to the LORD!
The roads were empty, until I, Deborah, rose up,
a mother for Israel.
Let all who love you, LORD,
be like the sun when it rises in its strength."

And the land rested for forty years.

But forty years run out, and Deborah grew old. A mother's song could not keep her children from wandering off, and it could not keep a single one of them from dying.

Years went by, and God's people waited for the LORD to go ahead of them into a fight no army could win.

Then he came, a man who rode no chariot and ran from no one. He walked straight into death for his people, and they laid him in a tomb with a stone across the door.

Just after sunrise on the third day, women hurried to that tomb, and it was empty. "He is risen!" the angel told them. "He is going ahead of you." Jesus was alive, rising in his strength like the sun.