After Ehud died, the Israelites once again went back to their evil ways. The Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was named Sisera. Since they were so powerful, and had oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years; they called out to the Lord for help.
Deborah, a prophetess, was leading and judging Israel at that time. She sent for a man named Barak and told him that the Lord had commanded him to gather 10,000 men from the people of Naphtali and Zebulun, and meet at Mount Tabor.
She said that she would draw out Sisera to meet them by the river with his chariots and troops, and she would deliver them into their hands. Barak said he would go if she went with him.
The two groups met by the river and began battle. But, Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. The entire army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword, and not one of them was left.
Sisera fled to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite because there was peace between them. Jael came out of the tent and told Sisera that she would hide him. She took him into the tent and covered him with a rug.
While he was hiding he fell asleep. Jael took a tent peg and hammer in her hands. She softly went to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went all the way down into the ground and he died.
While Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out and met him. She led him to her tent to show him that the man he was seeking was dead. So on that day, God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel until they destroyed him. The land had rest for forty years.
Then they sang a song of Deborah and Barak to celebrate. To commemorate a national victory with songs was a common practice. The song was probably written by Deborah or a contemporary and is thus one of the oldest poems in the Bible. It highlights some of the central themes of the narrative.
The people again did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. The people of Israel made themselves dens in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops. the Midianites and the people of the East would come up against them.
They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land and leave no sustenance or livestock for Israel. There were so many of them, that both the people and camels could not be counted; and they laid waste to the land. Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and they cried out to the Lord.
The Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel to remind them what the Lord had done for them, but still they disobeyed him. The angel of the Lord came to Gideon and told him that the Lord was with him. He did not believe him because of all the hardships the people were facing.
The Lord told him to go into his might and he would save Israel from Midian. Gideon still did not believe him, for his clan was the weakest in Manasseh, and he was the least in his father’s house. The Lord said that he would be with him, and he would strike the Midianites as one man.
Gideon asked for a sign. He took meat, unleavened bread, and broth and presented it to the Lord and placed it all on a rock. The angel of the Lord reached out the tip of his staff and touched the items. At that, a fire sprang up from the rock and consumed it all. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from sight. Gideon finally believed that he had seen the angel of the Lord and built an altar to the Lord.
That night the Lord commanded Gideon to go down as the Lord’s warrior and tear down the altar to Baal (false god), as Israel had been commanded to do. The men of the town figured out that it was Gideon and told his father to bring him out because he deserved to die. Gideon’s father, Josah, told them that if Baal was a god he could contend for himself.
The Midianites and all the people of the east came together and crossed the Jordan. But the spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon and he blew the trumpet summoning the people to follow him.
Gideon said to God that if he really would save Israel by his hand he needed another sign. He laid out a fleece of wool on the floor and asked there to be dew on it, but not on the ground around it. And it was so.
When he rose early the next morning, he saw that the fleece was wet enough with dew that he wrung out a bowl of water. The ground all around it though was dry.
Then he asked again, hoping God would not be angry with, for another sign. This time he asked for the fleece to be dry and the ground to be wet. God did so that night, and the fleece was dry only, and all over the ground there was dew.
[…] Day 78, Judges 4-6 […]