Judges 5:19-31.  Remember that Israel had no king at this time so verses 18-19 must be referring to the Canaanite armies and they took no plunder.  That is to say they were not winning.  Why?  Verses 20 and 21 tell us why.  Most references to stars in the Old Testament refer to stars.  And this could be some sort of meteor shower that hits only the Canaanite army.  That would fit with the other disaster of the river flooding.  In a couple of passages stars refer to either humans or angles.  In Joseph’s dream (Genesis 37:9-10) the stars represent his brothers.  In Job 38 God is talking to Job trying to get Job to understand just how powerful He is.   In Job 38:7 He is describing what was going on when He created the universe and talks about the “stars singing together, the sons of God shouting for joy”.  In Job chapters 1 and 2 the term “sons of God” is used for angles.  The verse in chapter 38 is probably a parallel (side by side comparison or contrast), something Hebrew authors liked to do a lot.  So “morning stars” would be parallel with “sons of God”.  Both would be a poetical reference to angles.  Daniel 8:10 may be a similar situation.  So the stars could be angles coming to the battle to fight for Israel.  On the other hand the flood of the river was just that.  In all of these cases though it is clearly God who is controlling the events.

In verses 23 and 24 we see another possible example of a parallel form.  This time the parallel is a contrast.  We do not know anything about Meroz but the writer sees to be drawing a comparison with Jael.  The comparison is of opposites though.  Meroz would have been an Israelite town  in the area of the battle.  It is clear that they were not on board with what God was doing.  It’s not that God needed their help it is more like they weren’t cheering as God did His thing.  These people were fans of the Canaanites, they had been infected with the Canaanite culture and religion.  In contrast to them is Jael.  Jael was the wife of a man named Heber.  He was related to Moses by marriage.  Heber’s ancestor (father, grandfather, or great-grandfather) would have been Moses’ brother in law.  Heber’s family were called Kenites.  It appears that the Kenites were allies of the Israelites.  Except for Heber who had gone his own way and made an alliance with one of the Canaanite kings.  When Sisera, the Canaanite general, began to lose he ran for friendly territory.  He thought he was safe in the tent of Heber’s wife.  Although she was not an Israelite, Jael, acted in faith and in opposition to her husband’s treaty and killed Sisera. Her actions were actions of faith in God.  She was a real contrast in the song to the unfaithful people of Meroz.  In contrast to the people of Meroz who were “utterly cursed”  Jael is called “most blessed” of women.

It doesn’t matter what family you are from, what town you live in, what your family’s political alliances have been, or what gender you are.  What matters is seeing God for who He is and joining His team by faith.  In this story two women are the heroes one an Israelite who was not afraid to speak out for God and the other a non-Israelite who was not afraid to act for God.  What united them was faith.

God help me have faith and act on it.  Thank you for making me a member of your team.  Help me act like it every day.

Judges 5:1-18.  For me this type of reading can be very difficult.  First, as verse 1 points out chapter 5 is going to be a song but of course there is no music written with it.  So it it basically poetry or lyrics.  Second, it was originally written in Hebrew, not English, so certain features of the poetry are going to be lost in the translation like rhyming or alliteration (Sort of the opposite of a rhyme, where words start with the same sound instead of ending with it).  And Hebrew poetry is constructed differently than English poetry anyway.  They put more emphasis on how a poem is laid out then on how it sounds.  Some times ideas are in pairs in a Hebrew poem.  Other times a few ideas are listed and then repeated in reverse order.  In Psalms 119 there are 22 groups of 8 verses.  The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters and the first letter of each verse in each group starts with the same Hebrew letter.  The first letter of each verse in the first group all start with the letter aleph.  In the second group all of the verses start with the letter beth and so on through all 22 letters.

Even though we just read the story as a story in chapter 4 the song contains different details.  And there are a lot of  tribes and places named.  Details that made sense back then but require a lot of work to figure out now.  On top of all of that is the fact that different cultures (like the ancient Hebrews) have different ways of looking at things.  We expect information to be presented in a way that is logical to us but for other cultures the logic can be different.  Having said all of that what about this song.  Well first of all I think it is important that in the first few verses the singer is singing to God and praising the “God of Israel”.  It is also important to see  that the singer looks at God as the God of Israel rather than the god of one particular tribe or another.  In the story version only two tribes are seen participating in the battle, Naphtali and Zebulun.  In the song version, we also see warriors joining in from Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir (Manasseh’s oldest son) and Issachar.  Reuben, Gilead (this is a region of Israel east of the Jordan River.  It was given to Reuben, Gad and a part of the tribe of Manasseh.  In this poetical usage it might refer to Gad or Gad and part of Manasseh.), Dan and Asher apparently refused to join the battle.  Although only part of the tribes participated in this battle verses 11 and 13 are the only place in the book of Judges where the Israelites are referred to as the “people of the Lord”. Some see this as a sort of a pat on the back to those who responded to God’s call through Deborah.  Verse 18 lists the MVP’s of the battle, Naphtali and Zebulun who gave their lives in obedience to God.

A couple of more things to see in this song.  The god’s of the various people groups around Israel were limited to the territories where they were accepted.  That is probably why invading nations like Egypt in yesterday’s comments about Shamgar would add new god’s to their group of accepted gods.  They wanted to be sure and have their bases covered.  In this song we see God coming from Seir and the field of Edom.  These are parallel references to the same area outside of Israel to the South-east.  Sinai is also outside of Israel to the South.  The true god is not limited by geography or popularity.  Also notice that God effects the world around Him in a very real way, rain and earthquakes.  His presence is powerful.  It is also interesting that in the days of Jael (remember she’s the woman who winds up nailing Sisera) and Shamgar the roads were empty, people went the long way around and the peasant villages were quiet.  This reminds me of a time when I was in Junior High School.  I had one friend, Jerry.  One day we were out looking for trouble at a little park by our houses.  We saw some guys in the park and decided to throw rocks at them from the other side of a fence, then run.  The next day we were at the park and those four guys snuck up on us and captured us.  Did I mention that they were older guys?  They were planning on beating us into the ground.  What else do you do with disrespectful Junior High guys?  Jerry remembered that he had a dentist appointment nearby and convinced them that the police would come looking if we didn’t walk to the dentist.  At that point I remembered that I had a dentist appointment too.  What a coincidence.  We all walked to the dentist office and went in, Jerry and I both signed in.  The nurse told Jerry it would be a few minutes but informed me she could not find my appointment.  Imagine!  The guys encourage me to step outside with them but I thought inside might be better.  They went outside.  After Jerry’s appointment (In case you hadn’t caught on I didn’t have one), we looked out side and they were gone.  Just to be safe we walked about three miles around the opposite direction to get home.  Home was only 3 blocks away.  You see we wanted to avoid the bullies.  That is what was going on in Israel.  The streets were deserted, like an old western when the bad guys are coming.  They had to sneak around in their little villages.

When Deborah began to bring God’s message things began to change.  In verse 8 most translations say “they choose new gods”.  The word for god’s here is “elohim”.  In the Bible the word can mean leaders, gods, God (when singular), goddesses, angles, or judges.  In the context of this song and the story it probably means leaders.  So Deborah called out to Barak to go fight.  New leaders were chosen.  The fight was taken to the gates of the Canaanite towns (remember the Israelites lived in villages, unwalled and unprotected, only the Canaanites lived in gated communities).  One little problem though, no weapons.  But wait, remember the beginning of the song “The leaders led in Israel and the volunteers came, Praise God!”.  Now in verse 9 Deborah feels for those same leaders and volunteers but again she says, “Praise God!”  Why, are there no weapons?  But there is verse 11 give the reason for her praise, God will be the one to act and people will remember it.  “Hey remember when we went to fight those guys in their iron charriots?(Judges 4:3)  Yea we didn’t have a single spear.  But then God…….”   Maybe it was the rain and the earthquakes (Judges 5:4-5).

God, I am clearly a sinner throwing rocks, lying about dentist appointments and way, way more.   But you called to me.  Unfortunately, I sat around the flocks too.  But eventually I listened.  Sometimes I still stop; pause.  God, thank you for protecting me all those years, in all those ways.  Thank you for being patient, then and now.  Give me courage to fight whatever battles you have for me to fight.  You have the power, give me the trust and a push too if you would.  Teach me, move me.  Thank you God.