Barak, Who Did Not Fully Obey

1The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead. 2Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles. 3The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and he mightily oppressed the children of Israel for twenty years. 4Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, judged Israel at that time. 5She lived under Deborah’s palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said to him, “Hasn’t Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded, ‘Go and lead the way to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun? 7I will draw to you, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand.’” 8Barak 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.” 9She said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the journey that you take won’t be for your honor; for Yahweh will sell Sisera into a woman’s hand.” Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

Reading Judges 4 is like watching Israel’s history unfold on a cinema screen. It is as if God has prepared a flawless screenplay and is directing the whole production, while Deborah and Barak, Sisera and Jael play their parts. As I watched it, it struck me that our lives, too, are something like a film.

The plot runs like this. When Ehud, who had kept Israel safe, died, the children of Israel once again did evil in Yahweh’s sight and sinned against him. Israel was drunk with wine and sunk in idolatry, sexual immorality, and pleasure. With the judge gone and his people sinning again, God used Jabin, who reigned in Hazor in Canaan, as a rod to turn Israel back. The captain of King Jabin’s army at that time was Sisera. He commanded nine hundred chariots of iron, and Israel, unable even to stand and fight, was oppressed for twenty years. Those nine hundred chariots of iron, and Sisera himself, must have filled Israel with terror.

They had betrayed the God who had labored to protect them. Yet once twenty years of oppression had worn them down, they shamelessly began to cry out to him again. God, who had mercy on Israel, heard their cry and raised up the prophetess Deborah as their judge.

As soon as she was called to be judge, Deborah summoned Barak the son of Abinoam to work alongside her and made him commander of the army. She ordered him to take ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun to Mount Tabor and make war on Jabin king of Canaan. Then she gave him courage, telling him not to worry: if only he would lead his troops out to the battlefield, God had promised to deliver Sisera, with his chariots of iron and his soldiers, into his hand. Now all Barak had to do was march out. God would go before him, deal with Sisera as he had protected Israel in the past, and destroy his chariots and his army. With God’s promise to act in hand, Barak had only to lead his men out, and a great victory would be his.

But then something no one expected happened. Barak defied God’s command: he was afraid to go out alone, he said, and would go only if Deborah went with him. God heard Barak insist that he would not go by himself, and he told Deborah to go to the battlefield with him. Since Barak had God’s promise of help, he could have won a great victory even alone; instead he leaned on his own reasoning and judged wrongly.

Deborah told Barak that she would indeed go with him, but because he had not fully obeyed, the great prize would not be his. She went on to say that because he had judged from a human point of view and had chosen to disobey, the prize God had prepared for him would go instead to Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. Barak heard that without obedience there would be no reward, yet to the end he pressed Deborah to march out with him, betraying how little confidence he had in himself. If we mean to disobey, we should not set foot on the battlefield in the first place. But Barak liked the word that promised a great victory, and he knew that with Deborah beside him, victory was certain. Those were his reasons for going to war.

Judges 4:11

11Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.

In the middle of the story of Deborah and Barak, the text suddenly records, almost out of nowhere, that Heber had pitched his tent by the oak in Zaanannim, near Kedesh. God brought Heber to this place because he knew that Barak would not obey the command. Someone was needed to take on the work of killing Sisera in Barak’s place, and God called Heber’s wife Jael, because her everyday faith had made her ready. When we, like Barak, do not take up the charge given to us, God gives that charge to someone else to fulfill. So each of us must fulfill our own calling, and since we never know when God will entrust a task to us, we must live in constant readiness.

On the one hand, Barak believed in God’s sovereign power at work; on the other, his heart was too weak to overcome its fear. That is how the answer he had longed for came to be taken from him by a frail woman. He had heard the word that he would be victorious, but he never imagined that Sisera, with all his strength and unrivaled might, could actually be defeated. It is the same with us when we believe that God works, yet have no confidence that he will work in our own lives.

Canaan, which had ruled Israel for twenty years, was a strong nation; King Jabin was a king of great power; and Sisera was a general who wielded absolute authority. Fear of going to war against such a nation left Barak with no confidence that Jabin would fall or that he himself could kill Sisera. He may even have told himself, in his weakness, that if they did win the battle as Deborah said, he could deal with the commander Sisera when the time came. God meant to help Barak achieve the dream he so longed for, but because he could not trust God to the end, he missed the prize.

Sisera led out his nine hundred chariots of iron and his troops and camped by the river Kishon. The Kishon was usually a dry riverbed, since little rain fell there; it filled and overflowed only in the rainy season. The land around it was a level plain, ideal ground for chariots to mass and maneuver. Judged by the circumstances alone, Sisera’s strategy was shrewd and sound. Seeing Barak arrive with his ten thousand men, he would have scoffed at him.

Yet Sisera had no idea that God was at work alongside Barak. Then, for all his confidence of victory, something happened that he had never foreseen.

Judges 5:21

21The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength.

In 5:21, Deborah and Barak sing that the river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon, and they call on their soul to march on with strength. From this we can tell that God suddenly sent a heavy rain and the Kishon burst its banks. The chariots of iron were swamped and stuck fast in the mud, and the soldiers were carried off by the swollen river. The scene recalls Pharaoh’s soldiers pursuing Israel. When the Egyptian army saw Israel crossing through the divided sea, they followed. God saw it and closed the Red Sea over them, and the Egyptian soldiers, unable to escape, all drowned. The people of Israel had only to hurry across the sea. It was God, who had been protecting them all along, who acted himself and drove back their enemies.

Barak, who had been lying in wait on Mount Tabor, came down the mountain with his ten thousand men when Deborah commanded him to rise. Her command to rise was a call to steady a shrinking spirit and go into battle. As judge, Deborah ordered him to rise up and fight without fear, since God would act, and Barak went down the mountainside toward Sisera. As he descended Mount Tabor, one can imagine the thoughts that crowded into his mind. This was the day of release from twenty years of oppression under Jabin king of Canaan, and his mind was full because he himself stood at the center of that great work of God.

Watching rain he had never expected come down in torrents, he was probably worried what would become of him if, as Deborah had prophesied, he failed to kill the enemy commander himself. People obey the word or disobey it as their interests dictate. But God is sovereign over all; he makes no mistakes and has no regrets. That is why, when his command comes to us, we must obey it, even to the point of seeming foolish. Barak had refused on the strength of human reasoning, but when he saw with his own eyes Sisera’s nine hundred chariots of iron sinking beneath the water and the soldiers thrown into confusion, he must have regretted it.

Deborah and Barak won a great victory and wiped out the enemy. Sadly, though, this was as far as God used Barak. He searched for Sisera, the commander, to make him answer for all the years he had tormented Israel, but Sisera alone was nowhere to be found. At that moment Deborah’s words would have come back to Barak, bringing bitter regret.

Sisera had been sure of victory in the battle with Barak, but he was defeated by God, who was at work behind it all. For twenty years he had not feared God. So he set his chariots of iron and his troops on the best possible ground for battle and boasted that he could wipe Israel out — and then, without warning, the rain came pouring down. Because events had taken a turn he had never anticipated, he would have felt nothing but frustration that it had to rain at this, of all times, rather than any thought that God was at work.

Sisera, who had refused to acknowledge God, watched his chariots of iron go under and, knowing himself beaten, thought of nothing but running for his life.

Judges 4:17

17However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

This is exactly why God had called Heber to this place. He had made Heber pitch his tent within walking distance for a fleeing Sisera, and he had made Heber’s wife Jael ready. Friends, for those who believe in God there are no accidents. Every life is a work that God has planned. We must therefore obey, so that God can make of our lives the work he intends. When we watch a film, at first we may not grasp what the director is trying to say, but as it goes on we begin to nod. In the same way, Heber’s leaving his homeland to pitch his tent in this very spot was God’s way of calling Jael to complete his plan.

When Sisera appeared in a wretched state, Jael met the moment with composure, which tells us she was a thoughtful and wise woman. Sisera had long been on friendly terms with her husband, yet even when he burst in without warning she did not lose her head but helped him, which shows that she was bold as well. Her conduct makes it plain why God chose Jael. Seeing him come alone, without a donkey or a servant, she knew that Sisera had been defeated, and she knew what she now had to do.

Heber was a Kenite, and because the Kenites were kin to Moses’ father-in-law, they lived under Israel’s protection. Yet now Heber is on friendly terms with King Jabin and his commander Sisera, so he had probably turned against Israel. Jael welcomed Sisera when he came to Heber, gave him milk to drink, and laid him down to rest. Here is Sisera, who once held the world at his command, begging a mere woman to say there was no one there if anyone came and asked. How powerless human strength turns out to be! Even one who has ruled the world loses everything in an instant when God judges him. Sisera is no longer the commander who once stood so proud; he is only a weak fugitive depending on a woman.

We cannot know for certain why Jael killed Sisera, a friend of her husband’s. Perhaps she was avenging, on Israel’s behalf, the twenty years in which he had persecuted those who had cared for the Kenites. Or perhaps, since she killed him in his sleep without a moment’s hesitation, she had received a command from God and was waiting for him. Whatever the reason, Jael put Sisera to death on behalf of the people of Israel.

Moments after Jael had killed Sisera, Barak, close on his heels, reached her tent. Meeting him, Jael told him that the man he was searching for so hard was here, and showed him Sisera lying fallen and dead. What must Barak have felt, looking at Sisera slain by a woman’s hand? He had destroyed the whole army of Jabin king of Canaan and come all this way in search of Sisera, and just as Deborah had prophesied, there was no prize for him. The rain that filled the Kishon, the mighty commander Sisera, and Jabin king of Canaan, who had seemed as if he could never fall — God had judged them all, and Barak was likely left feeling that he himself had contributed nothing to this war. So we must never weigh God’s commands from a human standpoint. Just as he gave power to Deborah, God pours out on those who obey the power they need for the work. But to Barak, the might of Jabin king of Canaan loomed large, and he was gripped by the fear that he could never defeat the commander Sisera.

Look at it another way, though, and Barak had probably prayed for countless days. He would have prayed for victory over Canaan, and that he might bring down King Jabin and the commander Sisera and save the people. That he stood at the side of Deborah the judge makes it plain that he was a man full of faith; but perhaps he wanted the answer he himself desired more than the will of God.

But because God is a Father who hears even our breathing, he heard Barak’s prayer and answered it in a way meant to lift him up. He meant to give Barak the miracle of bringing down King Jabin and the joy of victory in killing Sisera, a commander who stood like a great mountain. But Barak did not wholly trust God’s answer. He doubted that such a thing could really happen, and yet he still hoped that God would act. And then, when the answer actually came, he was afraid.

Deborah had told Barak that if he took ten thousand men to Mount Tabor, God would deliver Sisera into his hand; but at the thought that his opponent was Sisera, his confidence suddenly drained away. All he had to do now was obey, yet he did not move from where he stood. The thought of Sisera waiting for him by the dry bed of the Kishon with nine hundred chariots of iron drawn up took all the strength out of him. He may also have told himself that he had only prayed for such a thing to happen, not that he would actually go to war with Sisera himself. He may even have thought that today might be the day he died.

Friends, does Barak not look very much like you? For you, too, believe in God and pray out of habit, yet you never really expect such a thing to happen to you. When God tells you to go, you must act without hesitation. Only by going as he commands will you learn what blessing he has prepared, and what he is already doing ahead of you.

But Barak’s disobedience cost him his reward, and it went to Jael. God had arranged every circumstance for him, yet because he held back, he had to be content with having taken part in the battle. He could have been the hero who set Israel free; instead, all he could do was look at the corpse of Sisera, slain by Jael.

Have you ever received an answer as Barak did? When God promised to answer your prayer as you wished and asked you to fight for him, did you hesitate and spill out all the grace you had been given? Like Barak, who killed every one of Sisera’s soldiers but lost Sisera himself, the man he had wanted to catch, have you ever had great grace taken from you because you did not obey in faith? If so, I hope you will think back to the place where you disobeyed. If you hurry back there now and repent, God, who is rich in love, will work to give you another answer.

So Judges 4, like a film, teaches us many lessons and moves us deeply. It tells us in detail what choices we should make, and it reveals that obeying without hesitation makes a life beautiful. Only those who serve God in ordinary days act at once, and only they can show him their absolute trust. May you never become a Barak who received the answer and yet never enjoyed it. This film was made to show us two things: Barak, who for all his outstanding ability could not make up his mind and so lost the prize, and the wisdom of a woman, weak as she was, who obeyed God’s word without condition. It was because Barak was capable that God and Deborah entrusted him with so large a part. Yet he thought little of himself and could not believe in God’s sovereign power, and in the end he handed the prize to Jael. That is the whole plot.

Israel, which had suffered for twenty years under Jabin king of Canaan, at last gained its freedom by the grace of God. They betrayed him again and again, yet they were the people God had chosen, and because the Messiah had to come through them, he went on protecting them to the end. Now that you have seen Barak, who could not make up his mind, I hope you will not make the same mistake.

But there is one thing you must not misunderstand: Barak was a great man. I am only setting this one episode beside Jael’s to draw a comparison, so it would be wrong to conclude that Barak had no faith.

Hebrews 11:32

32What more shall I say? For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets;

In Hebrews 11:32, the writer of Hebrews asks what more he should say, for the time would fail him if he told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.

1 Samuel 12:11

11Yahweh sent Jerubbaal, Bedan, Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you lived in safety.

In 1 Samuel 12:11, when Samuel gave his farewell address, he listed those who had delivered Israel, and among them appears a man named Bedan, who is taken to be Barak. Barak, then, is a man ranked with David and Samuel, Gideon and Samson. I have preached this word with a heavy heart, because if such a man had obeyed at once when Deborah’s command came, he would have accomplished a far greater work. Looking back over his life, Barak must have regretted this moment more than any other. He would have asked himself why that moment had frightened him so, and resolved never to hesitate again if he were given another chance.

Every one of us has moments when we are afraid and want to run away. But God does not lie and never breaks his promises. Because of that, when his command comes, let us be faithful.

Let us decide in faith and receive the reward God has prepared. God looks at your heart, at whether you will obey or disobey; he is not demanding some sacrifice from you. We receive God’s grace by faith, not by works. When we live believing that God will act, he counts the hours we spend striving to live by faith as works, and he gives his own their reward.

May you always live by a faith that beats the body and brings it into submission, and so be found approved by God.