The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead.
Parallel Translations
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The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead.
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And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.
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And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Judges 4:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 5:3 O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
- Leviticus 26:23-25 “ ‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- Judges 2:11 The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.
- Judges 2:19-20 But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways. Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel; and he said, “Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice,
- Judges 3:7 The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
- Judges 3:12 The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.
- Judges 6:1 The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, so Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
- Judges 10:6 The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him.
- Psalms 106:43-45 He rescued them many times, but they were rebellious in their counsel, and were brought low in their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their distress, when he heard their cry. He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- Nehemiah 9:23-30 You also multiplied their children as the stars of the sky, and brought them into the land concerning which you said to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it. “So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased. They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness. “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hands of their adversaries. But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hands of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies, and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear. Yet many years you put up with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, added, or continued to do evil.
Hebrew, added, or continued to do evil.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jdg 4:1 And the children of Israel again did…
Jdg 4:1 And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.
Ver. 1. And the children of Israel again did evil.] After fourscore years of peace and rest. {Jdg 3:30} The sedentary life is most subject to diseases: standing waters soon putrify. It is hard and happy not to grow worse with liberty.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here is, I. Israel backsliding from God: They again…
Here is, I. Israel backsliding from God: They again did evil in his sight, forsook his service, and worshipped idols; for this was the sin which now most easily beset them, Jdg 4:1. See in this, 1. The strange strength of corruption, which hurries men into sin notwithstanding the most frequent experience of its fatal consequences. The bent to backslide is with great difficulty restrained. 2. The common ill effects of a long peace. The land had rest eighty years, which should have confirmed them in their religion; but, on the contrary, it made them secure and wanton, and indulgent of those lusts which the worship of the false gods was calculated for the gratification of. Thus the prosperity of fools destroys them. Jeshurun waxeth fat and kicketh. 3. The great loss which a people sustains by the death of good governors. The did evil, because Ehud was dead. So it may be read. He kept a strict eye upon them, restrained and punished every thing that looked towards idolatry, and kept them close to God's service. But, when he was gone, they revolted, fearing him more than God.
II. Israel oppressed by their enemies. When they forsook God, he forsook them; and then they became an easy prey to every spoiler. They alienated themselves from God as if he were none of theirs; and then God alienated them as none of his. Those that threw themselves out of God's service threw themselves out of his protection. What has my beloved to do in my house when she has thus played the harlot? Jer 11:15. He sold them into the hand of Jabin, Jdg 4:2. This Jabin reigned in Hazor, as another of the same name, and perhaps his ancestor, had done before him, whom Joshua routed and slew, and burnt his city, Jos 11:1, Jos 11:10. But it seems, in process of time, the city was rebuilt, the power regained, the loss retrieved, and, by degrees, the king of Hazor becomes able to tyrannize over Israel, who by sin had lost all their advantage against the Canaanites. This servitude was longer than either of the former, and much more grievous. Jabin, and his general Sisera, did mightily oppress Israel. That which aggravated the oppression was, 1. That this enemy was nearer to them than any of the former, in their borders, in their bowels, and by this means had the more opportunity to do them a mischief. 2. That they were the natives of the country, who bore an implacable enmity to them, for invading and dispossessing them, and when they had them in their power would be so much the more cruel and mischievous towards them in revenge of the old quarrel. 3. That these Canaanites had formerly been conquered and subdued by Israel, were of old sentenced to be their servants (Gen 9:25), and might now have been under their feet, and utterly incapable of giving them any disturbance, if their own slothfulness, cowardice, and unbelief, had not suffered them thus to get head. To be oppressed by those whom their fathers had conquered, and whom they themselves had foolishly spared, could not but be very grievous.
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III. Israel returning to their God: They cried unto the Lord, when distress drove them to him, and they saw no other way of relief. Those that slight God in their prosperity will find themselves under a necessity of seeking him when they are in trouble.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the children of Israel again did evil in…
And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Which was the fruit and effect of the long rest and peace they enjoyed; and which is often the case of a people favoured with peace, plenty, and prosperity, who are apt to abuse their mercies, and forget God, the author and giver of them; and the principal evil, though not expressed, was idolatry, worshipping Baalim, the gods of the nations about them; though it is highly probable they were guilty of other sins, which they indulged in the times of their peace and prosperity:
when Ehud was dead; Shamgar is not mentioned, because his time of judging Israel was short, and the people were not reformed in his time, but fell into sin as soon as Ehud was dead, and continued. Some choose to render the words, "for Ehud was dead" (t), who had been, the instrument of reforming them, and of preserving them from idolatry, but he being dead, they fell into it again; and the particle "vau" is often to be taken in this sense, of which Noldius (u) gives many instances.
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(t) "enim, vel quia Ehud", Bonfrerius; so Patrick. (u) Concord. Ebr. part. p. 285, 295.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Israel revolting from God is oppressed by Jabin, ver.…
Israel revolting from God is oppressed by Jabin, ver. 1-3. Deborah concerts their deliverance with Barak, ver. 4-9. Barak takes the field and conquers, ver. 10-16. Sisera flies and is killed, ver. 17-21. Barak sees him, and Israel is delivered, ver. 22-24.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The Israelites again rebel against God, and they are…
CHAPTER IV
The Israelites again rebel against God, and they are delivered
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into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, 1, 2.
They cry unto God, and he raises up Deborah and Barak to deliver
then, 3-10.
Some account of Heber the Kenite, 11.
Barak attacks Sisera, captain of Jabin's army, at the river
Kishon, and gives him a total overthrow, 12-16.
Sisera leaves his chariot, and flies away on foot; enters the
tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, by whom he is slain, while
secreting himself in her apartment, 17-24.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. When Ehud was dead.] Why not when Shamgar was dead? Does this not intimate that Shamgar was not reckoned in the number of the judges?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Aod. Samgar is passed over, either because he was…
Aod. Samgar is passed over, either because he was only a private man, who performed a feat of valour like Jahel, (chap. v. 6.; Salien) or because his government was so short and limited. Hence we need not wonder that he could not put a stop to the ravages of the Chanaanites, nor to the disorders of the people.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain The Servitude To Jabin, King Of Canaan. Deborah, The…
THIRD SECTION.
The Servitude To Jabin, King Of Canaan. Deborah, The Female Judge Of Fiery Spirit, And Barak, The Military Hero.
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Ehud being dead, Israel falls back into evil-doing, and is given up to the tyranny of Jabin, king of Canaan. Deborah, the Prophetess, summons Barak to undertake the work of deliverance
Jdg_4:1-11
1And the children [sons] of Israel again did [continued to do] evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah;] when [and] Ehud was dead. 2And the Lord [Jehovah] sold them [gave them up] into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan that reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles 3[Harosheth-Hagojim]. And the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah]; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children [sons] of Israel. 4And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth,1 she judged Israel at that time. 5And she dwelt [sat2] under the palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim: and the children [sons] of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the Lord [Jehovah the] God of Israel commanded [thee], saying. Go, and draw toward mount Tabor,3 and take with thee ten thousand men of the children [sons] of Naphtali, and of the children [sons] of Zebulun? 7And I will draw unto thee, to the river [brook] Kishon, Sisera the captain of Jabin’s army, with4 his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand? 8And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. 9And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding [but] the journey that thou takest [the expedition on which thou goest] shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord [Jehovah] shall sell [give up] Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh. 10And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet:5 and Deborah went up with him. 11Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children [sons] of Hobab the father- [brother-] in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim [near Elon-Zaanannim], which is by Kedesh.6
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_4:4—אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת: Dr. Cassel, taking the second of these words as an appellative, renders,—ein Weibsen Feuergeist, a woman of fiery spirit, cf. his remarks below. The possibility of this rendering cannot be denied; but it is at least equally probable that the ordinary view which regards Lapidoth as a proper noun is correct. Bachmann points out that the succession of statements in this passage is exactly the same as in “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,” “Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum,” “Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel,” etc. These instances create a presumption that in this case too the second statement after the name will be one of family relationship, which in the absence of positive proof the mere grammatical possibility of another view does not suffice to countervail. The feminine ending of Lapidoth creates as little difficulty as it does in Naboth, and other instances of the same sort. Of Lapidoth we have no knowledge whatever. The mention here made of him does not necessarily imply that he was still living. Cf. Rth_4:10; 1Sa_27:3; etc.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_4:5.—יוֹשֶׁבֶת: Bachmann also translates “sat” (sass), although he interprets “dwelt;” cf. Jdg_10:1; Jos_2:15; 2Ki_22:14. “As according to the last of these passages the prophetess Huldah had her dwelling (יוֹשֶׁבֶתוְהִיא) in the second district of Jerusalem, so the prophetess Deborah had her dwelling (וְהִיא יוֹשֶׁבֶת) under the Palm of Deborah.”—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_4:6.—וּמָשַׁכְתָּ בְּהַר תָּבוֹר: Dr. Cassel,—Ziehe auf den Berg Tabor, proceed to Mount Tabor. So many others. For בּ with a verb of motion, cf. Psa_24:3. But inasmuch as משַׁךְ recurs immediately in Jdg_4:7, and is there transitive, Bachmann proposes to take it so here: go, draw sc. an army, to thyself or together, on Mount Tabor. Cf the Vulgate.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_4:7.—וְאֶת־רִכְבּוֹ: properly, “and (not, with) his chariots,” etc., although Cassel also has mit. אֵת is the sign of the accusative, not the preposition, as appears from the fact that it has the copula “and” before it.—Tr.]
[5 Jdg_4:10.—בְּרַגְלָיו: if the subject of וַיַּעַל be Barak, as the E. V. and Dr. Cassel take it, בְּרַגְלָיו can hardly mean anything else than “on foot,” as Dr. Cassel renders it; cf. Jdg_4:15. But the true construction—true, because regular and leaving nothing to be supplied—is that which De Wette adopts: “and there went up, בְּרַגְלָיו, ten thousand men.” In this construction, which harmonizes perfectly with the context, בְּרַגְלָיו evidently means “at his feet,” i. e. as De Wette renders, “after him.”—Tr.]
[6 Jdg_4:11.—Dr. Cassel’s translation adheres strictly to the order of the original: “And Heber, the Kenite, had severed himself from Kain, the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent near Elon-Zaanannim, by Kedesh. On the rendering “brother-in-law,” instead of “father-in-law,” cf. Keil, on Exo_2:18; Smith’s Bibl. Dict. s. v. Hobab.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_4:1. And Ehud was dead: i.e. For Ehud was no more. That the eighty years of rest were also the years of Ehud’s government is not indeed expressly stated, but seems nevertheless to be indicated in this verse. For “rest” is always coincident with “obedience towards God;” and obedience is maintained in Israel through the personal influence of the Judge. When he dies, the weakness of the people manifests itself anew. Hence, when we read that the people “continued to do evil, and Ehud was dead,” this language must be understood to connect the cessation of rest with the death of Ehud. Shamgar—no mention being made of him here—must have performed his exploit some time during the eighty years. The standing expression וַיֹּסִיפוּ, “and they continued,” is to be regarded as noting the continuance of that fickleness which obtains among the people when not led by a person of divine enthusiasm. They always enter afresh on courses whose inevitable issues they might long since have learned to know. The new generation learns nothing from the history of the past. “They continued,” is, therefore, really equivalent to “they began anew.”
Jdg_4:2-3. And Jehovah gave them up into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, etc. Joshua already had been obliged to sustain a violent contest with a Jabin, king of Hazor. He commanded a confederation of tribes, whose frontier reached as far south as Dor (Tantûra) on the coast, and the plains below the Sea of Tiberias. The battle of Jabin with Joshua took place at the waters of Merom (Lake Huleh); and from that fact alone Josephus inferred that “Hazor lay above (ὑπεροεῖται) this sea.” But its position was by no means so close to the lake as Robinson (Bibl. Res., iii. 365) wishes to locate it, which is altogether impossible The course of Joshua makes it clear that it lay on the road from Lake Merom to Zidon. For in order to capture Hazor, Joshua turned back (וַיָּשָׁב, Jos_11:10) from the pursuit. It appears from our passage, and also from Jos_19:37 that it must have been situated not very far from Kedesh, but in such a direction that from it the movements of Israel toward Tabor, on the line of Naphtali and Zebulon, could not be readily observed or hindered: that is to say, to the west of Kedesh. That its position cannot be determined by the similarity of modern names alone, is shown by the experience of Robinson, who successively rejected a Hazîreh, a Tell Hazûr, and el-Hazûry (for which Ritter had decided). For a capital of such importance as Hazor here and elsewhere appears to be, an elevated situation, commanding the lowlands (מֶלֶךְ־כְּנַעַן), must be assumed. It must have been a fortress supported by rich and fertile fields. These conditions are met by Tibnîn, as is evident from Robinson’s extended description of it (ii. 451 ff.; iii. 57 ff.). The similarity of name is not wanting; for the Crusaders must have had some reason for calling it Toronum. William of Tyre (Hist. lib. xi. 5; in Gesta Dei Francorum, p. 798) described the place as adorned with vineyards and trees, the land fertile and adapted for cultivation. It lies midway between Tyre and Paneas, and is of immense importance for the control of the country. Robinson has justly remarked, that a fortress must have been on this spot long before the time of the Crusaders; nor does it raise any great difficulty that William of Tyre reckoned it to the tribe of Asher, on whose borders, at all events, it lay.7—The Jabin, king of Hazor, of our passage, evidently cherished the design of regaining, in some favorable hour of Israelitish supineness, the territory taken from his ancestors by Joshua. With this object in view, his general-in-chief, Sisera, kept the languishing nation under discipline at another point. The name of Sisera’s residence was Harosheth Hagojim. It may perhaps be possible to fix this hitherto wholly unknown place also. The power of the present Jabin must have extended as far as that of the earlier one (i.e. to Tantûra and the region south of the Sea of Tiberias); since otherwise the battle with Barak would not have been fought at the Kishon. Moreover, Naphtali, Zebulun, and Issachar were all interested in the war against him (Jdg_5:15). This being the case, it is certainly probable that Sisera’s residence was in this southern part of Jabin’s dominions. Sisera was commander of an army dreaded chiefly for its nine hundred iron chariots. But these were of consequence only on level ground. That is the reason why, Jos_17:16 such prominence is given to the fact that just those Canaanites who lived in the plains of Beth-shean (Beisân) and Jezreel, through which latter the Kishon flowed, had iron chariots. The name itself of Harosheth Hagojim suffices to suggest its connection with iron chariots. Harosheth (Heb. Charosheth) is the place where iron was worked (charash, the smith). It is only natural to look for it in the plains just named. But the residence of Sisera is called Harosheth Hagojim, the Harosheth of the Gojim. By Gojim we must understand a race different not only from Israel, but also from the Canaanite, Aram, Edom, Moab, etc. The Targum translates Harosheth Hagojim by fortress or city of the Gojim (כְּרַכֵּי עַמְמַיָא), and thus refers us to Gelil Hagojim (Isa. 8:23 [E. V. Isa_9:1]), which is translated in the same way (כְּרַכֵּי stands often for עִיר, city). The prophet in the passage referred to, locates this Gelil of the Gojim on this side of the Jordan, in the neighborhood of the Lake of Tiberias. It is clearly erroneous to make this Galilœa Gentium cover the whole district of Galilee; for that included Zebulun, Naphtali, and the shore of Lake Tiberias, which the prophet mentions separately. If it be proper to interpret the passage geographically, Gelil Hagojim must lie south of Lake Tiberias, where subsequently Galilee began. Joshua himself also conquered a king of the Gojim in “גִּלְגָּל” (Jos_12:23). From the position given to this king in the catalogue, no geographical inference can be drawn, since the enumeration is made without any regard to the situation of localities. The passage becomes clear only when גִּלְגָּל is taken as גָּלִיל, making Joshua victorious over the king of the Gojim in Gelil. Now, it cannot escape notice that among the kings conquered by Joshua, no king of Beth-shean is found, although in Jos_17:16 this place appears so important, and its territory must have been conquered, and although the cities in the plain of Jezreel are named. The conjecture, therefore, is plausible that Beth-shean is represented by the king of the Gojim. Beth-shean was the starting-point of the later Galilee (cf. Lightfoot, Opera, i. 216, etc.); it was the city of iron chariots; its population was always of a mixed character (Canaanites, Gojim, Jews, Jdg_1:27; Chulin, 6 b). From the date of the first Greek notices of it (in the Septuagint, Josephus, etc.; cf. Ritter, xv. 432 [Gage’s Transl. ii. 335]), it appears under the name Scythopolis, city of the Scythians. On the question how this name originated, we are not to enter here. Thus much is certain, that it is not unsuitable to take the term Scythians as equivalent to Gojim; especially when we compare Gen_14:1, where Tidal, king of the Gojim, is named in connection with Elam, Shinar, and Ellasar. Although our historical data are not sufficient to raise these probabilities to certainties, several considerations suggested by the narrative are of some weight. If Harosheth Hagojim is to be looked for in the vicinity of Beth-shean, the whole geography of the war becomes quite plain. Jabin and Sisera then occupy the decisive points at the extremities of the kingdom. The southern army of Sisera is the most oppressive to Israel, and its dislodgement is the main object. Barak is not to attack Hazor, for that is surrounded and supported by hostile populations, which it is impracticable as yet to drive out. Deborah’s plan is to annihilate the tyrannical power, where it has established itself in the heart of Israel. Tabor is the central point, where Naphtali and Zebulun can conveniently assemble. A straight line from Kedesh to that mount, runs through the territories of both. Sisera must fight or allow himself to be cut off. His overthrow is Israel’s freedom. His army is Jabin’s only hold on those regions. Hence, Sisera’s flight from the Kishon is northward, in order to reach Hazor. On the way, not far from either Hazor or Kedesh, his fate overtakes him.8
Jdg_4:4. And Deborah a prophetic woman,אִשָּׁה נְביאָה. According to Num_11:25, the prophetic gift has its source in the “Spirit of Jehovah.” Its office answers to its origin: it preaches God and speaks his praises. Cause and effect testify of each other. Every one, whether man or woman, may prophecy, on whom the “Spirit of Jehovah” comes. The prophetic state is a divine ecstasy, a high poetic enthusiasm (ἐνθουσιάζειν, from θεός), under the influence of which the praises of God are spoken. On this account, the prophet resembled at times the Greek μάντις (from μαίνομαι); compare especially Jer_29:26 (קםֵם ;משֻׁבָּע וּמִחְנַכֵּא, connected with nabi, in the same chapter, Jdg_4:8, is actually rendered μάντις by the LXX.). In itself, however, both as to derivation and meaning, naba, niba, is to be compared with ἔπειν. The prophet utters the ἔπος, in which the Spirit of Jehovah manifests itself; he declares the greatness and glory of God. He is a spokesman of God and for Him. Hence Aaron could be called the nabi of Moses (Exo_7:1). He was the ready organ of the spirit which resided in Moses. Doubtless, in the highest sense, Moses was himself the nabi With him, God spake mouth to mouth, not in visions and dreams and enigmas (Num_12:6-8); not, that is, as He announced himself to Aaron and Miriam. Miriam was the first prophetess who praised God in ecstatic strains of poetry, with timbrels and dances, before all the people (Exo_15:20). It has been asked (cf. my treatise Ueber Prophetinnen und Zauberinnen im Weimar, Jahrbuch für Deutsche Sprache, vol. iv.), how it comes about that prophetic women constitute a “significant feature” of the old German heathenism only, whereas Jewish and Christian views assigned the gift of prophecy to men. The contrast certainly exists; it rests in the main upon the general difference between the heathen and the Scriptural view of the universe. The subjective nature of woman is more akin to the subjective character of heathenism. So much the higher must Deborah be placed. She was not, like Miriam, the sister of such men as Moses and Aaron. The objective spirit of her God alone elevates her above her people, above heroes before and after her. Not only the ecstasy of enthusiasm, but the calm wisdom of that Spirit which informs the law, dwells in her. Of no Judge until Samuel is it expressly said that he was a “prophet.” Of none until him can it be said, that he was possessed of the popular authority needful for the office of Judge, even before the decisive deed of his life. The position of Deborah in Israel is therefore a twofold testimony. The less commonly women were called to the office she exercised, the more manifest is the weakness of those who should have been the organs of divine impulses. That she, a woman, became the centre of the people, proves the relaxation of spiritual and manly energy. But on the other hand, the undying might of divine truth, as delivered by Moses, comes brilliantly to view. History shows many instances, where in times of distress, when men despaired, women aroused and saved their nation; but in all such cases there must be an unextinguished spark of the old fire in the people themselves. Israel, formerly encouraged by the great exploit of a left-handed man, is now quickened by the glowing word of a noble woman.
The name Deborah does not occur here for the first time. It was also borne by the nurse of Rebecca, who was buried near Bethel (Gen_35:8). Many find the name peculiarly appropriate for the prophetess. Its proper meaning is, “bee”; and in Hellenic oracles also bees play an important part (cf. Paus. ix. 40, etc.). This honor they enjoyed, however, only in consequence of the erroneous derivation of the name melitta from melos, a song. In like manner, Deborah (דְּבֹרָה), the bee, is not connected with dabar (דָּבַר), to speak; nor does it properly mean the “march of the bees” (Gesenius); neither is it “buzzing” (Fürst); but, as melitta from meli, honey, so Deborah is to be derived from debash (ךְּבַשׁ), which also means honey, the interchange of r and s being very common (honor, honos, etc.). Deborah is a female name akin in meaning to the German Emma,9—and does not necessarily imply any reference to the prophetic office in the case of our Deborah any more than in that of Rebecca’s nurse.
A woman of a fiery spirit,אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת. The majority of expositors, ancient as well as modern, regard Lapidoth as the name of Deborah’s husband. Yet it was felt by many that there was something peculiar in the words. If the ordinary interpretation were the true one, it would be natural to look also for a statement of the tribe to which the husband belonged. In accordance with the style of the ancients, the designation would have been at least once repeated (at Jdg_5:1). To make it seem quite natural for Deborah always to appear without her husband, it had to be assumed that he was already dead. To avoid this, some old Jewish expositors assert that Barak was her husband,—Barak and Lappid being of kindred signification, namely, “lightning” and “flame.” But in all this no attention is paid to the uncommonness of the phenomenon presented in the person of a woman such as Deborah. What a burning spirit must hers have been, to have attained to such distinction in Israel! It was in perfect keeping with the poetical cast of the language of the age, that the people should seek to indicate the characteristic which gave her her power over them, by calling her אֵשֶׁת לַפִּירוֹת. If a capable woman was called אֵשֶׁת הַיִל, from הַיִל, strength (Pro_31:10),—and a contentious woman, אֵשֶׁתמִדְוָנִים (Pro_21:19); and if in אֵשֶׁת כְּםִילנּת (foolish woman, Pro_9:13), we are not to regard kesiluth as a proper name, it must also be allowed that אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת may be rendered “woman of the torch-glow,” especially when we consider what a fire-bearing, life-kindling personage she was. It is a fact, moreover, that lappid (torch) occurs almost as often in figurative as in literal language. The salvation of Jerusalem shines “like a torch” (Isa_62:1). “Out of his mouth torches go forth” (Job_41:11 (19)). The appearance of the heroes of Israel is “like torches” (Nah_2:5 (4)). The angel who appeared to Daniel had “eyes like torches of fire” (Dan_10:6). “The word of Elias,” says Sirach (Sir_48:1), “burned like a torch.” Concerning Phinehas, the priest, the Midrash says, that “when the Holy Ghost filled him, his countenance glowed like torches” (Jalkut, Judges, § 40).
The spirit of Deborah was like a torch for Israel, kindling their languid hearts. It was the power of her prophetic breath which fell on the people. This is the secret of her influence and victory. The moral energy which was at work is traced to its source even in the grammatical form of the word which describes it—לַכִּידוֹת, not לַפִיךִים,10 albeit that the former, like כּםילוּת occurs but once.
She judged Israel. Inasmuch as in the gift of prophecy she had the Spirit of God, she was able to judge. Notwithstanding her rapt and flaming spirit, she was no fanatic. She judged the thronging people according to the principles of the law. The wisdom of this “wise woman” was the wisdom revealed by God in his law. She deals in no mysterious and awful terrors. The מִשְׁפָּם (judgment), for which Israel came to Deborah, was clear—did not consist in dark sayings, like the verses of the Pythia, though these also were called θέμιστες, θέμιτες (statutes, מִשְׁפָּטים; cf. Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Theologie, p. 183). The comparison with the Sphinx, instituted by Bochart (Phaleg, p. 471), was not fortunate; not even according to the notions of the grammarian Socrates, who represented the Sphinx as a native soothsayer, who occasioned much harm because the Thebans did not understand her statutes (cf. Jaep, Die griechische Sphinx, p. 15).
Jdg_4:5. She sat under the palm-tree of Deborah. Under the palm still known to the narrator as that of Deborah (cf. “Luther’s oak,” in Thüringia). It is impossible to see why C. Bötticher (Ueber den Baumkultus der Hellenen, p. 523) should speak of “Deborah-palms.” She sat under a large palm, public and free, accessible to all; not like the German Velleda, who, according to Tacitus, sat in a tower, and to whom no one was admitted, in order to increase the veneration in which she was held. The palm was the common symbol of all Canaan; it adorned the coins of both the Phœnicians (Movers, ii. 1, 7) and the Jews.11 From these coins, carried far and wide by sailors—and not, as is generally assumed, from the appearance of the coast when approached from sea, which showed many other things besides palm-trees,—arose the custom of calling those who brought them Phœnicians (φοῖνιξ, the palm). The symbolism of the palm, which the ancients admired in Delos, was based on ideas which were unknown to Israel. It referred to the birth of Apollo, not to divination.
Between ha-Ramah and Beth-el, on Mount Ephraim.12 Beth-el lay on the border between Ephraim and Benjamin; so likewise Ataroth (Jos_16:2). Robinson discovered an Atâra in that region (Bibl. Res., i. 575). Not far from it, he came to a place, called er-Râm, lying on a high hill, which he regarded as the Ramah in Benjamin (Jdg_19:13), while Ritter (xvi. 537, 538 [Gage’s Transl. iv. 230]), identifies it with the Ramah of our passage. Both conjectures are tenable, since neither interferes with the statement that Deborah sat between Beth-el and Ramah, on Mount Ephraim,—on the border, of course, like Bethel itself (cf. בָּהָר, Jos_16:1).
Jdg_4:6-7. And she sent and called Barak out of Kedesh-naphtali. That which especially comes to view here, is the moral unity in which the tribes still continued to be bound together. Deborah, though resident in the south of Ephraim, had her eyes fixed on the tyranny which pressed especially on the tribes of the north. While of the priests at Shiloh none speak, she nevertheless cannot rest while Israel is in bondage. But she turns to the tribes most immediately concerned. Kedesh, to the northwest of Lake Huleh, has been identified in modern times, still bearing its old name. It is situated upon a rather high ridge, in a splendid region (Rob. iii. 366 ff.). There, in Naphtali, lived Barak (“lightning,” like Barcas), the man fixed on by Deborah to become the liberator of his people. The names of his father and native place are carefully given, here, and again at Jdg_5:1. The power of Deborah’s influence shows itself in the fact that Barak, though living so far north, readily answers her summons to the border of Benjamin. At the same time, Barak’s obedience to the call of the prophetess, is in itself good evidence, that he is the called deliverer of Israel. But she not only calls him, not only incites him to the conflict; she also gives him the plan of battle which he must follow.
Go, and gradually draw toward Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun. (לֵךְ וּמַשַׁכְתָּ בְּהַר תָּבוֹר וְלָקַחְתָּ עמְּךָ) The word מָשַׁךְ always conveys the idea of drawing, whether that which is drawn be the bow, the furrow, or the prolonged sounds of a musical instrument; tropically, it is also used of the long line of an army, advancing along the plain. Its meaning here, where the object which Barak is to draw is put in another clause, “וְלָקַתְתָּ עִמְךָ עֲשֶׂרֶת,” is made plain by the analogous passage, Exo_12:21. There Moses says, מִשְׁכוּ וּקְתוּ לָכֶם צֹאן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיכֶם; and the sense is evidently that the families are to sacrifice the passover one after another (משֶׁכוּ), each in its turn killing its own lamb. The same successive method is here enjoined by Deborah. Barak is to gather ten thousand men toward mount Tabor, one after another, in small squads. This interpretation of the word is strengthened by the obvious necessity of the case. The tyrant must hear nothing of the rising, until the hosts are assembled; but how can their movements be concealed, unless they move in small companies? For the same reason they are to assemble, not at Kedesh, but at a central point, readily accessible to the several tribes. Mount Tabor (Jebel Tor), southwest of the Sea of Tiberias, is the most isolated point of Galilee, rising in the form of a cone above the plain, and visible at a great distance, though its height is only 1755 (according to Schubert, 1748) Par. feet.13 Barak, however, is not to remain in his position on the mountain. If Sisera’s tyranny is to be broken, its forces must be defeated in the plain; for there the iron chariots of the enemy have their field of action. Hence, Deborah adds that Sisera will collect his army at the brook Kishon, in the plain of Jezreel. “And I”—she speaks in the “Spirit of Jehovah”—“will draw him unto thee, and deliver him into thine hand.”
Jdg_4:8. And Barak said. Barak has no doubt as to the truth of her words, nor does he fear the enemy; but yet he will go only if Deborah go with him, not without her. Her presence legitimatizes the undertaking as divine. It shows the tribes he summons, that he seeks no interest of his own—that it is she who summons them. He wishes to stand forth as the executor merely of the command which comes through her. The attempt to draw a parallel between Deborah and Jeanne d’Arc, though it readily suggests itself, will only teach us to estimate the more clearly the peculiar character of the Jewish prophetess. The latter does not herself draw the sword, for then she would not have needed Barak. Joan, like Deborah, spoke pregnant words of truth, as when, on being told that “God could conquer without soldiers,” she simply replied, “the soldiers will fight, and then God will give victory;” but she fought only against the enemies of her country, not the enemies of her faith and spiritual life. It was a romantic faith in the right and truth of an earthly sceptre, for which the poor maiden fell: the voice which called Deborah to victory was the voice of the Universal Sovereign. No trace of sentimentalism, like that of Dunois, can be discovered in Barak; nevertheless, he voluntarily retires behind the authority of a woman, because God animates and inspires her.
Jdg_4:9-10. She said: the expedition on which thou goest, shall not be for thine honour; for Jehovah will give Sisera into the hand of a woman. The victory will be ascribed, not to Barak, but to Deborah. It will be said, “a woman conquered Sisera.” This is the first and obvious meaning of the words;14 by the deed of Jael they were fulfilled in yet another sense. The honor of hewing down Sisera did not fall to Barak. Nevertheless, Barak insists on his condition. He will have the conflict sanctified by her presence. Something similar appears in Greek tradition: with reference to a battle in the Messenian war it is said (Paus. iv. 16), that “the soldiers fought bravely, because their Seers were present.”
And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh. For the sake of the great national cause, she leaves her peaceful palm; and by her readiness to share in every danger, evidences the truth of her announcements. Kedesh, Barak’s home, is the place from which directions are to be issued to the adjacent tribes. Thither she accompanies him; and thence he sends out his call to arms. Some authority for this purpose, he must have had long before: it is now supported by the sanction of the prophetess. When it is said, that he “called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh,” it is evident that only the leaders are intended. It cannot be supposed that the troops, in whole or in part, were first marched up to Kedesh, and then back again, southward, to Tabor. In Kedesh, he imparts the plan to the heads of families. Led by these, the troops collect, descending on all sides from their mountains, like the Swiss against Austria, and proceed towards Tabor—“on foot” (בְּרַגְלָיו), for they have neither chariots nor cavalry. Their numbers constantly augment, till they arrive on Tabor,—Barak and Deborah always at their head.
Jdg_4:11. And Heber, the Kenite, had severed himself from Kain, the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses. We read above that the tribe of the Kenite, the father-in-law of Moses, decamped from Jericho with the tribe of Judah (Jdg_1:16), and, while the latter carried on the war of conquest, settled in Arad. From there the family of Heber has separated itself. While one part of the tribe has sought a new home for itself below, in the extreme south of Judah, the other encamps high up, in the territory of Naphtali. It is as if the touching attachment of this people to Israel still kept them located at the extremities of the Israelitish encampment, in order, as of old, to show them the way. Above, Jdg_1:16 they are called “sons of the Kenite, the father-in-law of Moses”; here, “Kain (cf. Num_24:22), the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses.” Ancient expositions15 have been the occasion of unnecessary confusion as to Jethro’s name. הָתן means to contract affinity by marriage; and, just as in German Schwäher (father-in-law) and Schwager (brother-in-law) are at bottom one, so the Hebrew חוֹהֵן may stand for both father-in-law and brother-in-law. The father-in-law of Moses was Jethro; as priest, he was called Reuel (רְעוּאֵל). He did not accompany Israel, but after his visit to Moses, went back to his own land (Exo_18:27). His son Hobab, however (Num_10:29), had remained with Israel; and when he also would return home, Moses entreated him to abide with them, that he might be for eyes to them on the way, and promised him a share in whatever good might be in store for Israel. The proposal was accepted, and the promise was kept. In the north and south of Canaan, the Kenites had their seats. They are here designated “sons of Hobab,” because it was from him, the ancient guide of Israel, that they derived their position in the land. Heber’s tent was in the vicinity of Kedesh, near Elon Zaanannim,16 mentioned also at Jos_19:33, as a place on the border of Naphtali. The name may have originated from the sojourn of the Kenites; a supposition which becomes necessary, if with an eye to Isa_33:20; Isa_33:17 it be interpreted to mean the “oak of the wandering tent.”18
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Compare the reflections at the end of the next section.
[Bishop Hall: It is no wonder if they, who, ere four-score days after the law delivered, fell to idolatry alone; now, after four-score years since the law restored, fell to idolatry among the Canaanites. Peace could in a shorter time work looseness in any people. And if forty years after Othniel’s deliverance they relapsed, what marvel is it, that in twice forty years after Ehud they thus miscarried?—The same: Deborah had been no prophetess, if she durst have sent in her own name: her message is from Him that sent herself. “Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded?” Barak’s answer is faithful, though conditional; and doth not so much intend a refusal to go without her, as a necessary bond of her presence with him. Who can blame him, that he would have a prophetess in his company? If the man had not been as holy as valiant, he would not have wished such society.—The same: To prescribe that to others, whieh we draw back from doing ourselves, is an argument of hollowness and falsity. Barak shall see that Deborah doth not offer him that cup whereof she dares not begin: without regard of her sex, she marches with him to Mount Tabor, and rejoices to be seen of the ten thousand of Israel.—Hengstenberg (Genuineness of the Pentateuch, ii. 101): To grant succor through a woman was calculated to raise heavenwards the thoughts of men, which are so prone to cleave to the earth. If the honor was due to God alone, they would be more disposed to show their gratitude by sincere conversion. That Barak was obliged to lean on Deborah, depended on the same law by which Gideon was chosen to be the deliverer of Israel from the Midianites, though his family was the meanest in Manasseh, and himself the youngest in his father’s house; that law by which Gideon was divinely directed to take only three hundred men from the whole assembled host; the women Deborah and Jael stand in the same category with the ox-goad of Shamgar. In all ages God is pleased to choose for his service the in considerable and the despised.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg_4:4—אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת: Dr. Cassel, taking the second of these words as an appellative, renders,—ein Weibsen Feuergeist, a woman of fiery spirit, cf. his remarks below. The possibility of this rendering cannot be denied; but it is at least equally probable that the ordinary view which regards Lapidoth as a proper noun is correct. Bachmann points out that the succession of statements in this passage is exactly the same as in “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,” “Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum,” “Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel,” etc. These instances create a presumption that in this case too the second statement after the name will be one of family relationship, which in the absence of positive proof the mere grammatical possibility of another view does not suffice to countervail. The feminine ending of Lapidoth creates as little difficulty as it does in Naboth, and other instances of the same sort. Of Lapidoth we have no knowledge whatever. The mention here made of him does not necessarily imply that he was still living. Cf. Rth_4:10; 1Sa_27:3; etc.—Tr.]
[2][Jdg_4:5.—יוֹשֶׁבֶת: Bachmann also translates “sat” (sass), although he interprets “dwelt;” cf. Jdg_10:1; Jos_2:15; 2Ki_22:14. “As according to the last of these passages the prophetess Huldah had her dwelling (יוֹשֶׁבֶתוְהִיא) in the second district of Jerusalem, so the prophetess Deborah had her dwelling (וְהִיא יוֹשֶׁבֶת) under the Palm of Deborah.”—Tr.]
[3][Jdg_4:6.—וּמָשַׁכְתָּ בְּהַר תָּבוֹר: Dr. Cassel,—Ziehe auf den Berg Tabor, proceed to Mount Tabor. So many others. For בּ with a verb of motion, cf. Psa_24:3. But inasmuch as משַׁךְ recurs immediately in Jdg_4:7, and is there transitive, Bachmann proposes to take it so here: go, draw sc. an army, to thyself or together, on Mount Tabor. Cf the Vulgate.—Tr.]
[4][Jdg_4:7.—וְאֶת־רִכְבּוֹ: properly, “and (not, with) his chariots,” etc., although Cassel also has mit. אֵת is the sign of the accusative, not the preposition, as appears from the fact that it has the copula “and” before it.—Tr.]
[5][Jdg_4:10.—בְּרַגְלָיו: if the subject of וַיַּעַל be Barak, as the E. V. and Dr. Cassel take it, בְּרַגְלָיו can hardly mean anything else than “on foot,” as Dr. Cassel renders it; cf. Jdg_4:15. But the true construction—true, because regular and leaving nothing to be supplied—is that which De Wette adopts: “and there went up, בְּרַגְלָיו, ten thousand men.” In this construction, which harmonizes perfectly with the context, בְּרַגְלָיו evidently means “at his feet,” i. e. as De Wette renders, “after him.”—Tr.]
[6][Jdg_4:11.—Dr. Cassel’s translation adheres strictly to the order of the original: “And Heber, the Kenite, had severed himself from Kain, the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent near Elon-Zaanannim, by Kedesh. On the rendering “brother-in-law,” instead of “father-in-law,” cf. Keil, on Exo_2:18; Smith’s Bibl. Dict. s. v. Hobab.—Tr.]
[7][Bachmann identifies “Hazor with Hŭzzûr or Hazîreh, two hours W. of Bint Jebeil, in the heart of Northern Galiee, on an acclivity with extensive ruins and a sepulchral vault of great antiquity,” cf. Rob. iii. 62. He remarks that for Tibnîn nothing speaks except its importance from a military point of view, which of itself is not sufficient evidence. “The similarity of the mediæval name Toronum (= Hazor?) is wholly illusory.”—Tr.]
[8][To our author’s identification of Harosheth ha-Gojim with Beth-shean, Bachmann objects that the latter city is known by its usual name to the writer of Judges; cf. Jdg_1:27. He is “inclined to adopt the view of Thomson, The Land and the Book, Judges 29, who finds Harosheth in Harthîeh, a hill or mound at the southeastern corner of the Plain of Akka, close behind the hills that divide this plain from that of Jezreel, on the north side of the Kishon, yet so near the foot of Carmel as only to leave a passage for the river. This mound is covered with the remains of old ramparts and buildings.”—Tr.]
[9][From the same root with emsig, industrious, and meise, emmet, ant.—Tr.]
[10][That is, apparently, the energy proceeds from a woman, and therefore the word which figuratively characterizes it, has, by a sort of attraction, a feminine, rot masculine plural given it.—Tr.]
[11][Stanley (Jewish Church, i. 352): “On the coins of the Roman Empire, Judæa is represented as a woman seated under a palm-tree, captive and weeping. It is the contrast of that figure which will best place before us the character and call of Deborah. It is the same Judæan palm under whose shadow she sits, but not with downcast eyes, and folded hands, and extinguished hopes; with all the fire of faith and energy, eager for the battle, confident of the victory.”—Tr.]
[12]The rendering of the Targum here is quite remarkable: “And she sat in the city, in Ataroth Deborah.”
[13]Cf. Ritter, xv. 393 [Gage’s Transl. ii. 311; also Rob. ii. 351 ff.]
[14][This is the first and obvious meaning of the words, and it is very strange that Bachmann should pronounce this interpretation, from which but for Jael no one would ever have dreamed of departing, impossible.—Tr.]
[15]In giving Jethro seven names, homiletical applications were followed. Thus, Hobab was taken as a surname of Jethro, “because he was dear to God.” (Jalkut, Judges, n. 38.)
[16]To pitch one’s tent “in the vicinity” of a place, is expressed by עַד: so here, עַד אֵלוֹן; so Gen_38:1, עַד־אִישׁ עֲדֻלָּמִי.
[17][Where, according to De Wette’s translation, Jerusalem is spoken of as a “Zelt das nicht wandert”—a tent that does not wander.—Tr.]
[18]The reading δρυὸς πλεονεκτούντων, found in some Greek versions, expounds צַעֲנַנִּים as if it came from בָּצַע; while the ἀναπαυομένων of other versions giver it the sense of שַׁאֲנָן, which is so rendered, Jer_48:11
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain JABIN’S OPPRESSION, AND THE DELIVERANCE BY DEBORAH AND BARAK,…
JABIN’S OPPRESSION, AND THE DELIVERANCE BY DEBORAH AND BARAK, Jdg_4:1-24.
The historical narrative contained in this chapter, and the triumphal song that follows, inform us of the most fearful oppression and the most remarkable triumph of the age of the Judges.
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1. Again did evil… when Ehud was dead — A clear intimation that as long as Ehud lived his influence kept the people from idolatry, as well as that his strong arm had delivered them from the power of their enemies.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. again did that which was evil] The compiler’s…
1. again did that which was evil] The compiler’s formula; see Jdg_2:11; Jdg_2:14 n.
when Ehud was dead] According to Rd the Israelites remained faithful so long as the judge was alive to keep them in check. The verse is a continuation of Jdg_3:30, Shamgar (Jdg_3:31) being passed over.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Again did evil in the sight of the…
(1) Again did evil in the sight of the Lord.—“They turned their backs, and fell away like their forefathers, starting aside like a broken bow” (Psa_78:57); see Jdg_3:12.
When Ehud was dead.—See Jdg_3:31.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-22. The variety of God"s instruments.
Vers. 1-22. The variety of God"s instruments.
The weakness of God"s instruments. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of God"s providential dealings with his people, whether under the Old or New Testament dispensations, than the great variety of instruments by which he carries out his designs. And amidst this variety a marked feature often is the weakness in themselves of those instruments by which the greatest results are accomplished. "God," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, "hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound, the things which are mighty,... that no flesh should glory in his presence". (1Co_1:27-29) "We have this treasure," he says again, "in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of. (2Co_4:7) THESE TWO FEATURES OF VARIETY IN THE CHOICE OF INSTRUMENTS, AND OF THE WEAKNESS OFTTIMES OF THE INSTRUMENTS THEMSELVES, RUN THROUGH THE BIBLE. To look only at the deliverances in the Book of Judges, Othniel the Kenite, a stranger and a foreigner; Ehud, the lefthanded Benjamite; Shamgar, the son of Anath. armed with an ox-goad; Barak, the timid, hesitating Naphtalite; Gideon, one of the least of a poor family of Manasseh, threshing his wheat secretly for fear of the Midianites, and then rushing upon the Midianite camp with his 300 followers, armed with lamps and pitchers and trumpets; Jephthah, the wild outcast Gileadite; and Samson, the man of supernatural strength, with his impulsive actions and his unrestrained passions, what an infinite variety do they display of character, of circumstance, and of resource. And so the manna in the wilderness, the drying up of the waters of the Red Sea, the flight of quails, the falling of the walls of Jericho at the blast of the trumpet, the ministry of Samuel, the character and kingdom of David, the grand episode of Elijah the Tishbite, the deliverance of Hezekiah from the army of Sennacherib, the succession of the prophets, the great figure of Daniel, and the countless other incidents and personages which stand out in the pages of Holy Scripture, how largely do they exemplify the manifold resources of the power of God, working out his ends with unerring wisdom and unfailing certainty. The present chapter supplies another striking example. Here we see the Israelites in extreme distress: their independence gone; a great heathen power overshadowing and oppressing them by military violence; all means of resistance at an end; their princes slaves; their warriors cowed; their leaders dispersed. But their time of deliverance was come. And who were they that should break that iron yoke, and let the oppressed go free? who were they before whose might the heathen hosts should melt away, the iron chariots be burnt with fire, and the invincible chieftain be laid low in death? Two women! One known only for her prophetic speech and her skill in civil judgment; the other an alien, belonging to a weak and broken tribe of foreigners. The one, filled with the spirit of God, awakens the sleeping spirit of a captain and 10, 000 of her countrymen, and urges them to battle and to victory; the other, alone and unaided, with her single hand slays the leader of unnumbered hosts. The people are set free from their oppressors, and have rest for forty years. The lesson then which this chapter impresses upon us, in addition to those which it teaches in common with the preceding, is the variety and the strangeness of the methods of God"s deliverances, and especially THAT GOD"S STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN HUMAN WEAKNESS. He ordains strength in the hands of weak women, as well as out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. "Fear not, thou worm Jacob; I will help thee, saith the Lord," is an exhortation which under every possible circumstance is made easy to comply with by the recollection of these wonderful acts of God.
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HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR. Vers. 1-11. Temporary influences and a permanent tendency.
In this section are presented several influences, such as affect the life of man in every age the personal influence of Ehud, the material or physical influence of Sisera, and the spiritual influence of Deborah. In judging of conduct we must take into account all the circumstances that are brought to bear upon a person or a nation. The penalties inflicted will then appear reasonable or otherwise.
I THE PERMANENT TENDENCY TO EVIL. When Ehud was dead" should be for Ehud was dead." The eighty years of "rest" which the land enjoyed, and during the whole or most of which Ehud had ruled, now came to an end. But not causelessly. The "children of Israel again did (continued to do) evil in the sight of the Lord." The interval of comparative piety is over, and the under-current of distrust and idolatry again resumes its influence. The spiritual fidelity of Israel is an occasional thing; the apostasy is the result of a permanent tendency, often checked, but ever recovering its sway. "The imagination of man"s heart is evil from his youth". (Gen_8:21) "And God saw that.., every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". (Gen_6:5) Israel is described as "a people that provoketh me to anger continually", (Isa_65:3) etc. The best of men have been the first to confess their inherent depravity. At a religious meeting held in Florence, when the lowest and vilest of the city were present, the question was asked, "Is there one here who is not a sinner?" Only one man dared to say in bravado, "I am not!" but he was speedily silenced by the jeers and condemnation of the audience. The duty and wisdom of all is, therefore, not to question the existence of this tendency, but to guard against it. Unbelief is "the sin that doth so easily beset us". (Heb_12:1) Nor are we only the passive subjects of improving influences in the providence of God and the order of the world. We are to be "fellow-workers with God," "to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for (or because) it is God that worketh in us," etc. (Php_2:12) In dealing with our fellow-men or ourselves we must ever reckon upon this, the force of inborn corruption.
II TEMPORARY MORAL INFLUENCES. That these have such weight at one time or another is a strong proof that salvation is not from within, neither, on the other hand, can it be wholly from without. We see here
1. How much is involved sometimes in a personal influence. Ehud, by the moral ascendancy he had acquired, is for the time the bulwark of his people"s faith. Such power is a precious gift. In measure like this it is the possession of the few. But every one has some moral influence, either for good or evil. "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself". (Rom_14:7) It ought to be our care so to behave that our influence shall be increasingly for righteousness. But there are limits and imperfections in this. Although "the memory of the just smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust," it is present influence with most of us that is most vividly impressive and practically effective. Still we can never gauge the extent of our influence. In God"s hands it may be multiplied indefinitely. In Christ we see the most glorious instance of personal, spiritual ascendancy. And his power shall never fail.
2. The moral effect of a material advantage, The presence of Sisera in "Harosheth of the Gentiles Harethieh, a hill or mound at the south-eastern corner of the plain of Acca, close behind the hills that divide this plain from that of Jezreel, on the north side of the Kishon, yet so near the foot of Carmel as only to leave a passage for the river" (Thomson, "The Land and the Book," Jud 29) with "nine hundred chariots of iron" overawed the Israelites; (cf. Jud_1:19) and "twenty years he mightily oppressed" them. This force powerfully affected their imagination, and rendered them all but helpless. They forgot that God is able to break the chariots in pieces, and to make all their massive strength a disadvantage and a difficulty, as when the Egyptians laboured heavily in the Red Sea sand and waves; that the spirit that animates an army is greater than weapons or fortifications. But this cowardice of Israel just corresponds with the fear that so often unmans Christians of to-day, when confronted with great names, popular prejudices, and the shows and forces of the world. Nothing is easier than to over-estimate opposition of this sort. We have to learn in strenuous contest that "greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world". (1Jn_4:4)
3. Spiritual power vindicating itself amid external weakness. Amidst the universal decay of religion there are ever a few who "have not bowed the knee unto Baal." God never entirely deserts even his unfaithful ones. Some are left from whom the new era may take a beginning.
(1) Jehovah does not leave his people without a witness. As at other times of national misfortune a judge is raised up, "Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time." Her authority is recognised, for "the children of Israel came up to her for judgment." A certain negative and secular respect is accorded to her. Divine ideas have no active power Over the lives of the people; but Divine officials and institutions are still acknowledged in the general government and social life of Israel. She herself, however, is evidently full of the Spirit of Jehovah, and magnifies her office. The singularity of a woman exercising judicial functions has a powerful effect upon the national mind. Even the leading men and mighty soldiers obey her.
(2) This witness is an instance of Strength in weakness. The witness is only a woman. A sign this of the decay of the heroic spirit. But she initiates a bold and warlike policy. Evidently rising above the weakness of her sex, like Joan of Arc, she is determined to break the spell of the "nine hundred chariots of iron." The moral power she has obtained is seen in the obedience of Barak to her call and her instructions, the general answer of the nation to her summons, and the refusal of Barak to go against the enemy unless she accompanied them. So in the Messenian war ("Paus." 4:16) "the soldiers fought bravely because their seers were present." We are not to understand Barak"s insistency as cowardliness or perversity, but as a further tribute to the presence of God in his servant. The Ironsides fought bravely when they went into battle from praise and prayer. As the exigency is great, so the instrument of restoration is most insignificant and humiliating. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Israel again did evil . . . the Lord…
Jdg_4:1-3
Israel again did evil . . . the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin.
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Reappearance of vanquished foes
Their ancient foe, whom they had conquered, rose gradually from his prostration. He rebuilt his castle; he repossessed the lands; he multiplied his armies. At length he defied and mightily oppressed the chosen people. How has this history been re-enacted a thousand times in the experience both of individual believers and of Christian Churches! How many there are who answer to the description (1Pe_2:20). The Canaanite was slain, but he reappears and resumes his ancient tyranny. Exploded errors revive. Slain heresies live again, and triumph on the very spot where they received what was deemed their death-blow. The subjugation and prostration of the Church may not be as complete as was the twenty years slavery of Israel under the second Jabin, yet is not the fortress of Hazor being rebuilt in this land? Are not the furnaces of Harosheth being rekindled? And are not the Papal workmen busy fabricating chariots of iron wherewith anew to scour the plains which valiant Protestants of old won in the name of the Lord and of His truth? (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Judges 4
THE SIBYL OF MOUNT EPHRAIM
Judges 4
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THERE arises now in Israel a prophetess, one of those rare women whose souls burn with enthusiasm and holy purpose when the hearts of men are abject and despondent; and to Deborah it is given to make a nation hear her call. Of prophetesses the world has seen but few; generally the woman has her work of teaching and administering justice in the name of God within a domestic circle and finds all her energy needed there. But queens have reigned with firm nerve and clear sagacity in many a land, and now and again a womans voice has struck the deep note which has roused a nation to its duty. Such in the old Hebrew days was Deborah, wife of Lappidoth.
It was a time of miserable thraldom in Israel when she became aware of her destiny and began the sacred enterprise of her life. From Hazor in the north near the waters of Merom Israel was ruled by Jabin, king of the Canaanites - not the first of the name, for Joshua had before defeated one Jabin king of Hazor, and slain him. During the peace that followed Ehuds triumph over Moab the Hebrews, busy with worldly affairs, failed to estimate a danger which year by year became more definite and pressing-the rise of the ancient strongholds of Canaan and their chiefs to new activity and power. Little by little the cities Joshua destroyed were rebuilt, refortified and made centres of warlike preparation. The old inhabitants of the land recovered spirit, while Israel lapsed into foolish confidence. At Harosheth of the Gentiles, under the shadow of Carmel, near the mouth of the Kishon, armourers were busy forging weapons and building chariots of iron. The Hebrews did not know what was going on, or missed the purpose that should have thrust itself on their nonce. Then came the sudden rush of the chariots and the onset of the Canaanite troops, fierce, irresistible. Israel was subdued and bowed to a yoke all the more galling that it was a people they had conquered and perhaps despised that now rode over them. In the north at least the Hebrews were kept in servitude for twenty years, suffered to remain in the land but compelled to pay heavy tribute, many of them, it is likely, enslaved or allowed but a nominal independence. Deborahs song vividly describes the condition of things in her country. Shamgar had made a clearance on the Philistine border and kept his footing as a leader, but elsewhere the land was so swept by Canaanite spoilers that the highways were unused and Hebrew travellers kept to the tortuous and difficult by paths down in the glens or among the mountains. There was war in all the gates, but in Israelite dwellings neither shield nor spear. Defenceless and crushed the people lay crying to gods that could not save, turning ever to new gods in strange despair, the national state far worse than when Cushans army held the land or when Eglon ruled from the City of Palm Trees.
Born before this time of oppression Deborah spent her childhood and youth in some village of Issachar, her home a rude hut covered with brushwood and clay, like those which are still seen by travellers. Her parents, we must believe, had more religious feeling than was common among Hebrews of the time. They would speak to her of the name and law of Jehovah, and she, we doubt not, loved to hear. But with the exception of brief oral traditions fitfully repeated and an example of reverence for sacred times and duties, a mere girl would have no advantages. Even if her father was chief of a village her lot would be hard and monotonous, as she aided in the work of the household and went morning and evening to fetch water from the spring or tended a few sheep on the hillside. While she was yet young the Canaanite oppression began, and she with others felt the tyranny and the shame. The soldiers of Jabin came and lived at free quarters among the villagers, wasting their property. The crops were perhaps assessed, as they are at the present day in Syria, before they were reaped, and sometimes half or even more would be swept away by the remorseless collector of tribute. The people turned thriftless and sullen. They had nothing to gain by exerting themselves when the soldiers and the tax gatherer were ready to exact so much the more, leaving them still in poverty. Now and again there might be a riot. Maddened by insults and extortion the men of the village would make a stand. But without weapons, without a leader, what could they effect? The Canaanite troops were upon them; some were killed, others carried away, and things became worse than before.
There was not much prospect at such a time for a Hebrew maiden whose lot it seemed to be, while yet scarcely out of her childhood, to be married like the rest and sink into a household drudge, toiling for a husband who in his turn laboured for the oppressor. But there was a way then, as there is always a way for the high spirited to save life from bareness and desolation; and Deborah found her path. Her soul went forth to her people, and their sad state moved her to something more than a womans grief and rebellion. As years went by the traditions of the past revealed their meaning to her, deeper and larger thoughts came, a beginning of hope for the tribes so downcast and weary. Once they had swept victoriously through the land and smitten that very fortress which again overshadowed all the north. It was in the name of Jehovah and by His help that Israel then triumphed. Clearly the need was for a new covenant with Him; the people must repent and return to the Lord. Did Deborah put this before her parents, her husband? Doubtless they agreed with her, but could see no way of action, no opportunity for such as they. As she spoke more and more eagerly, as she ventured to urge the men of her village to bestir themselves, perhaps a few were moved, but the rest heard carelessly or derided her. We can imagine Deborah in that time of trial growing up into tall and striking womanhood, watching with indignation many a scene in which her people showed a craven fear or joined slavishly in heathen revels. As she spoke and saw her words burn the hearts of some to whom they were spoken, the sense of power and duty came. In vain she looked for a prophet, a leader, a man of Jehovah to rekindle a flame in the nations heart. A flame! It was in her own soul, she might wake it in other souls; Jehovah helping her, she would.
But when in her native tribe the brave woman began to urge with prophetic eloquence the return to God and to preach a holy war her time of peril came. Issachar lay completely under the survey of Jabins officers, overawed by his chariots. And one who would deliver a servile people had need to fear treachery. Issachar was "a strong ass couching down between the sheepfolds he had bowed his shoulder to bear" and become "a servant under task work." As her purpose matured she had to seek a place of safety and influence, and passing southward she found it in some retired spot among the hills between Bethel and Ramah, some nook of that valley which, beginning near Ai, curves eastward and narrows at Geba to a rocky gorge with precipices eight hundred feet high, -the Valley of Achor, of which Hosea long afterwards said that it should be a door of hope. Here, under a palm tree, the landmark of her tent, she began to prophesy and judge and grow to spiritual power among the tribes. It was a new thing in Israel for a woman to speak in the name of God. Her utterances had no doubt something of a sibyllic strain, and the deep or wild notes of her voice pleading for Jehovah or raised in passionate warning against idolatry touched the finest chords of the Hebrew soul. In her rapture she saw the Holy One coming in majesty from the southern desert where Horeb reared its sacred peak; or again, looking into the future, foretold His exaltation in proud triumph over the gods of Canaan, His people free once more, their land purged of every heathen taint. So gradually her place of abode became a rendezvous of the tribes, a seat of justice, a shrine of reviving hope. Those who longed for righteous administration came to her; those who were hearers of Jehovah gathered about her. Gaining wisdom she was able to represent to a rude age the majesty as well as the purity of Divine law, to establish order as well as to communicate enthusiasm. The people felt that sagacity like hers and a spirit so sanguine and fearless must be the gift of Jehovah; it was the inspiration of the Almighty that gave her understanding.
Deborahs prophetical utterances are not to be tried by the standard of the Isaiah age. So tested some of her judgments might fail, some of her visions lose their charm. She had no clear outlook to those great principles which the later prophets more or less fully proclaimed. Her education and circumstances and her intellectual power determined the degree in which she could receive Divine illumination. One woman before her is honoured with the name of prophetess, Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, who led the refrain of the song of triumph at the Red Sea. Miriams gift appears limited to the gratitude and ecstasy of one day of deliverance; and when afterwards, on the strength of her share in the enthusiasm of the Exodus, she ventured along with Aaron to claim equality with Moses, a terrible rebuke checked her presumption. Comparing Miriam and Deborah, we find as great an advance from the one to the other as from Deborah to Amos or Hosea. But this only shows that the inspiration of one mind, intense and ample for that mind, may come far short of the inspiration of another. God does not give every prophet the same insight as Moses, for the rare and splendid genius of Moses was capable of an illumination which very few in any following age have been able to receive. Even as among the Apostles of Christ St. Peter shows occasionally a lapse from the highest Christian judgment for which St. Paul has to take him to task, and yet does not cease to be inspired, so Deborah is not to be denied the Divine gift though her song is coloured by an all too human exultation over a fallen enemy.
It is simply impossible to account for this new beginning in Israels history without a heavenly impulse; and through Deborah unquestionably that impulse came. Others were turning to God, but she broke the dark spell which held the tribes and taught them afresh how to believe and pray. Under her palm tree there were solemn searchings of heart, and when the head men of the clans gathered there, travelling across the mountains of Ephraim or up the wadies from the fords of Jordan, it was first to humble themselves for the sin of idolatry, and then to undertake with sacred oaths and vows the serious work which fell to them in Israels time of need. Not all came to that solemn rendezvous. When is such a gathering completely representative? Of Judah and Simeon we hear nothing. Perhaps they had their own troubles with the wandering tribes of the desert; perhaps they did not suffer as the others from Canaanite tyranny and therefore kept aloof. Reuben on the other side Jordan wavered, Manasseh made no sign of sympathy; Asher, held in check by the fortress of Hazor and the garrison of Harosheth, chose the safe part of inaction. Dan was busy trying to establish a maritime trade. But Ephraim and Benjamin, Zebulun and Naphtali were forward in the revival, and proudly the record is made on behalf of her native tribe, "the princes of Issachar were with Deborah." Months passed; the movement grew steadily, there was a stirring among the dry bones, a resurrection of hope and purpose.
And with all the care used this could not be hid from the Canaanites. For doubtless in not a few Israelite homes heathen wives and half-heathen children would be apt to spy and betray. It goes hardly with men if they have bound themselves by any tie to those who will not only fail in sympathy when religion makes demands, but will do their utmost to thwart serious ambitions and resolves. A man is terribly compromised who has pledged himself to a woman of earthly mind, ruled by idolatries of time and sense. He has undertaken duties to her which a quickened sense of Divine law will make him feel the more; she has her claim upon his life, and there is nothing to wonder at if she insists upon her view, to his spiritual disadvantage and peril. In the time of national quickening and renewed, thoughtfulness many a Hebrew discovered the folly of which he had been guilty in joining hands with women who were on the side of the Baalim and resented any sacrifice made for Jehovah. Here we find the explanation of much lukewarmness, indifference to the great enterprises of the church and withholding of service by those who make some profession of being on the Lords side. The entanglements of domestic relationship have far more to do with failure in religious duty than is commonly supposed.
Amid difficulty and discouragement enough, with slender resources, the hope of Israel resting upon her, Deborahs heart did not fail nor her head for affairs. When the critical point was reached of requiring a general for the war. she had already fixed upon the man. At Kadesh-Naphtali, almost in sight of Jabins fortress, on a hill overlooking the waters of Merom, ninety miles to the north, dwelt Barak the son of Abin-oaha. The neighbourhood of the Canaanite capital and daily evidence of its growing power made Barak ready for any enterprise which had in it good promise of success, and he had better qualifications than mere resentment against injustice and eager hatred of the Canaanite oppression. Already known in Zebulun and Naphtali as a man of bold temper and sagacity, he was in a position to gather an army corps out of those tribes-the main strength of the force on which Deborah relied for the approaching struggle. Better still, he was a fearer of God. To Kadesh-Naphtali the prophetess sent for the chosen leader of the troops of Israel, addressing to him the call of Jehovah: "Hath not the Lord commanded thee saying, Go and draw towards Mount Tabor"-that is, bring by detachments quietly from the different cities towards Mount Tabor-"ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun?" The rendezvous of Siseras host was Harosheth of the Gentiles, in the defile at the western extremity of the valley of Megiddo, where Kishon breaks through to the plain of Acre. Tabor overlooked from the northeast the same wide strath which was to be the field where the chariots and the multitude should be delivered into Baraks hand.
Not doubting the word of God, Barak sees a difficulty. For himself he has no prophetic gift; he is ready to fight, but this is to be a sacred war. From the very first he would have the men gather with the clear understanding that it is for religion as much as for freedom they are taking arms; and how may this be secured? Only if Deborah will go with him through the country proclaiming the Divine summons and promise of victory. He is very decided on the point. "If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, I will not go." Deborah agrees, though she would fain have left this matter entirely to men. She warns him that the expedition will not be to his honour, since Jehovah will give Sisera into the hand of a woman. Against her will she takes part in the military preparations. There is no need to find in Deborahs words a prophecy of the deed of Jael. It is a grossly untrue taunt that the murder of Sisera is the central point of the whole narrative. When Deborah says, "The Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman," the reference plainly is, as Josephus makes it, to the position into which Deborah herself was forced as the chief person in the campaign. With great wisdom and the truest courage she would have limited her own sphere. With equal wisdom and equal courage Barak understood how the zeal of the people was to be maintained. There was a friendly contest, and in the end the right way was found, for unquestionably Deborah was the genius of the movement. Together they went to Kedesh, - not Kadesh-Naphtali in the far north, but Kedesh on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, some twelve miles from Tabor. From that as a centre, journeying by secluded ways through the northern districts, often perhaps by night, Deborah and Barak went together rousing the enthusiasm of the people, until the shores of the lake and the valleys running down to it were quietly occupied by thousands of armed men.
The clans are at length gathered; the whole force marches from Kedesh to the foot of Tabor to give battle. And now Sisera, fully equipped, moves out of Harosheth along the course of the Kishon, marching well beneath the ridge of Carmel, his chariots thundering in the van. Near Taanach he orders his front to be formed to the north, crosses the Kishon and advances on the Hebrews, who by this time are visible beyond the slope of Moreh. The tremendous moment has come. "Up," cries Deborah, "for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand. Is not the Lord gone out before thee?" She has waited till the troops of Sisera are entangled among the streams which here, from various directions, converge to the river Kishon, now swollen with rain and difficult to cross. Barak, the Lightning Chief, leads his men impetuously down into the plain, keeping near the shoulder of Moreh where the ground is not broken by the streams; and with the fall of evening he begins the attack. The chariots have crossed the Kishon but are still struggling in the swamps and marshes. They are assailed with vehemence and forced back, and in the waning light all is confusion. The Kishon sweeps away many of the Canaanite host, the rest make a stand by Taanach and further on by the waters of Megiddo. The Hebrews find a higher ford, and following the south bank of the river are upon the foe again. It is a November night and meteors are flashing through the sky. They are an omen of evil to the disheartened, half-defeated army. Do not the stars in their courses fight against Sisera? The rout becomes complete; Barak pursues the scattered force towards Harosheth, and at the ford near the city there is terrible loss. Only the fragments of a ruined army find shelter within the gates.
Meanwhile Sisera, a coward at heart, more familiar with the parade ground than fit for the stern necessities of war, leaves his chariot and abandons his men to their fate, his own safety all his care. Seeking that, it is not to Harosheth he turns. He takes his way across Gilboa toward the very region which Barak has left. On a little plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee, near Kedesh, there is a settlement of Kenites whom Sisera thinks he can trust. Like a hunted animal he presses on over ridge and through defile till he reaches the black tents and receives from Jael the treacherous welcome, "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not." The pitiful tragedy follows. The coward meets at the hand of a woman the death from which he has fled. Jael gives him fermented milk to drink which, exhausted as he is, sends him into a deep sleep. Then, as he lies helpless, she smites the tent pin through his temples.
In her song Deborah describes and glories over the execution of her countrys enemy. "Blessed among women shall Jael, the wife of Heber be; with the hammer she smote Sisera; at her feet he curled up, he fell." Exulting in every circumstance of the tragedy, she adds a description of Siseras mother and her ladies expecting his return as a victor laden with spoil, and listening eagerly for the wheels of that chariot which never again should roll through the streets of Harosheth. As to the whole of this passage, our estimate of Deborahs knowledge and spiritual insight does not require us to regard her praise and her judgment as absolute. She rejoices in a deed which has crowned the great victory over the master of nine hundred chariots, the terror of Israel; she glories in the courage of another woman, who single handed finished that tyrants career; she does not make God responsible for the deed. Let the outburst of her enthusiastic relief stand as the expression of intense feeling, the rebound from fear and anxiety of the patriotic heart. We need not weight ourselves with the suspicion that the prophetess reckoned Jaels deed the outcome of a Divine thought. No, but we may believe this of Jael, that she is on the side of Israel, her sympathy so far repressed by the league of her people with Jabin, yet prompting her to use every opportunity of serving the Hebrew cause. It is clear that if the Kenite treaty had meant very much and Jael had felt herself bound by it, her tent would have been an asylum for the fugitive. But she is against the enemies of Israel; her heart is with the people of Jehovah in the battle and she is watching eagerly for signs of the victory she desires them to win. Unexpected, startling, the sign appears in the fleeing captain of Jabins host, alone, looking wildly for shelter. "Turn in, my lord; turn in." Will he enter? Will he hide himself in a womans tent? Then to her will be committed vengeance. It will be an omen that the hour of Siseras fate has come. Hospitality itself must yield; she will break even that sacred law to do stern justice on a coward, a tyrant, and an enemy of God.
A line of thought like this is entirely in harmony with the Arab character. The moral ideas of the desert are rigorous, and contempt rapidly becomes cruel. A tent woman has few elements of judgment, and, the balance turning, her conclusion will be quick, remorseless. Jael is no blameless heroine, neither is she a demon. Deborah, who understands her, reads clearly the rapid thoughts, the swift decision, the unscrupulous act and sees, behind all, the purpose of serving Israel. Her praise of Jael is therefore with knowledge; but she herself would not have done the thing she praises. All possible explanations made, it remains a murder, a wild, savage thing for a woman to do, and we may ask whether among the tents of Zaanannim Jael was not looked on from that day as a woman stained and shadowed, -one who had been treacherous to a guest.
Not here can the moral be found that the end justifies the means, or that we may do evil with good intent; which never was a Bible doctrine and never can be. On the contrary, we find it written clear that the end does not justify the means. Sisera must live on and do the worst he may rather than any soul should be soiled with treachery or any hand defiled by murder. There are human vermin, human scorpions and vipers. Is Christian society to regard them, to care for them? The answer is that Providence regards them and cares for them. They are human after all, men whom God has made, for whom there are yet hopes, who are no worse than others would be if Divine grace did not guard and deliver. Rightly does Christian society affirm that a human being in peril, in suffering, in any extremity common to men is to be succoured as a man, without inquiry whether he is good or vile. What then of justice and mans administration of justice? This, that they demand a sacred calm, elevation above the levels of personal feeling, mortal passion, and ignorance. Law is to be of no private, sudden, unconsidered administration. Only in the most solemn and orderly way is the trial of the worst malefactor to be gone about, sentence passed, justice executed. To have reached this understanding of law with regard to all accused and suspected persons and all evildoers is one of the great gains of the Christian period. We need not look for anything like the ideal of justice in the age of the judges; deeds were done then and zealously and honestly praised which we must condemn. They were meant to bring about good, but the sum of human violence was increased by them and more work made for the moral reformer of after times. And going back to Jaels deed, we see that it gave Israel little more than vengeance. In point of fact the crushing defeat of the army left Sisera powerless, discredited, open to the displeasure of his master. He could have done Israel no more harm.
One point remains. Emphatically are we reminded that life continually brings us to sudden moments in which we must act without time for careful reflection, the spirit of our past flashing out in some quick deed or word of fate. Siseras past drove him in panic over the hills to Zaananhim. Jaels past came with her to the door of the tent; and the two as they looked at each other in that tragic moment were at once, without warning, in crisis for which every thought and passion of years had made a way. Here the self-pampering of a vain man had its issue. Here the woman, undisciplined, impetuous, catching sight of the means to do a deed, moves to the fatal stroke like one possessed. It is the sort of thing we often call madness, and yet such insanity is but the expression of what men and women choose to be capable of. The casual allowance of an impulse here, a craving there, seems to mean little until the occasion comes when their accumulated force is sharply or terribly revealed. The laxity of the past thus declares itself; and on the other hand there is often a gathering of good to a moment of revelation. The soul that has for long years fortified itself in pious courage, in patient well doing, in high and noble thought, leaps one day, to its own surprise, to the height of generous daring or heroic truth. We determine the issue of crises which we cannot foresee.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain THE SAD HISTORY OF SIN CONTINUED.—Jdg_4:1-11
THE SAD HISTORY OF SIN CONTINUED.—Jdg_4:1-11
CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_4:1. And the children of Israel again did evil, etc.] They “continued to do evil.” After all the solemn and affecting dealing God had had with them, no practical lessons were learned. They are as stubborn as ever in resisting Jehovah and going after idols. There is a causal connection supposed between the death of Ehud and the renewed rebellion of the people against their God. When the hand that held it back is removed, the needle of the heart turns to the old pole of idol-worship. This implies that Ehud, while he lived, was a power in the land, and had long been successful in stemming the torrent of evil, If so, this is very unlike the character of a man who could commit an atrocious murder, as so many commentators suppose he did on Eglon. Shamgar is not mentioned, because his date was subsequent to this. Also, he did not deliver from a long subjugation of the land by an enemy, when the people had been for a series of years in bondage. Rather, his work was to turn back the first wave of oppression, and prevent it happening at all. Though a new generation had sprung up, the identity of the people as a whole is still assumed; and so it ever is.
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Jdg_4:2. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, etc.] He gave them up helplessly into his power, leaving him to do with them as if they were his own property (see Notes on Jdg_3:8). Considerably more than a century and a half before this period, we hear of another Jabin, king of Hazor, whom Joshua defeated, destroyed all his people, and burnt his city with fire (see Jos_11:1; Jos_11:8-11). But the name Jabin was probably the hereditary and official title of the kings of Hazor. It means “the discerning,” or “the wise—the intelligent” (Speaker’s Com.). “Hazor” means fort, or castle, The Hebrew word means anything enclosed; but in the kindred Semitic languages, the root means to wall round—to besiege. It was a common name. In our own language, the name Chester is similarly common, as in Gloucester, Leicester, Cirencester, etc. Its position seems to have been near the Lake Merom, and was within the territory assigned to the tribe of Napthali, though there is great difference of opinion as to its precise site. It was a strong fortress both by nature and art, and standing as it did on a hill surrounded by a plain, it was specially suitable as a stronghold for a people whose main reliance was upon horses and chariots. Hazor had now been rebuilt, and become again the head of the northern Canaanitish nations. The other cities had also long recovered their old strength. But Hazor was the chief city in northern Palestine. Jabin appears to have been hoping that some happy accident would one day put it in his power to win back the territories of which his predecessors had been dispossessed by Joshua. Sisera (“meditation”) was his commander-in-chief—a name long a great terror to Israel (1Sa_12:9; Psa_83:9).[1]
[1] The name Sisera occurs among the Nethinim, or servants of the temple, who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Ezr_2:53); also in Neh_7:54-55, it is associated with the name Harsha, as if connected with Harosheth.
“Harosheth of the nations” (Jos_12:23). This word nations has been taken to mean a collection of peoples of various nationalities fused into one state, as the kingdom of Mercia was in early English history. “Harosheth” signifies arsenal or workmanship—cutting and carving, whether in stone or wood (Exo_31:5), and so might be applied to the place where such works are carried on. The conjecture is, that this being a great timber district, rich in cedars and fir trees, and near Great Zidon (Jos_11:8), Jabin kept a large number of oppressed Israelites at work in hewing and preparing it at Harosheth for transport to Zidon; and that these wood cutters, armed with axes and hatchets, formed the soldiers of Barak’s army.
Jdg_4:3. Cried unto the Lord, etc.] (See Notes on Jdg_3:9), comp. Jos_17:16. The chariots of iron were a very formidable arm of fighting in those days. Mightily] or with crushing force (1Sa_2:16). The same as tyrannically. The word לָחַץ is the same with that used in Exo_3:9, meaning oppressed cruelly. Their task work in hewing timber was like that of their ancestors in making bricks.
Jdg_4:4. Deborah, a prophetess, judged Israel, etc.] Deborah, a prophetic woman. She was a prophetess, like Miriam (Exo_15:20), Huldah (2Ki_22:14). This character which she had was the reason for her taking the lead in this emergency. The prophetic state was more than a Divine ecstasy, a high poetic enthusiasm under the influence of which the praises of God are spoken (Cassel). It was a being made the organ of communicating the Divine will to men—a spokesman for God. She was commissioned to act both as judge and as prophetess. The name Deborah signifies “a bee;” and she is described as a burning woman—“the wife or a woman of Lapidoth,” torches—a woman of a torch-like spirit. She was a person of fire-bearing character and intense enthusiasm. Some say she was the wife of Barak, which signifies lightning. [Edersheim.] “She was a honey bee to her friends, but a stinging bee to her enemies.” [Fausset.]
Jdg_4:5. She dwelt under the palm-tree of Deborah, etc.] She sat in judgment (Psa_9:4) under the Deborah palm—so called because Rebekah’s nurse was here buried (Gen_35:8) in Mount Ephraim, between Ramah and Bethel. Ramah was built on a round hill, five miles east of Gibeon; and a little to the north of it, in the deep hot valley between Ramah and Bethel, was the palm-tree of Deborah. The ordinary place for giving judgment was the gate (Rth_4:1-2), but this retired spot was suitable to the unsettled times.
Jdg_4:6. Barak, the son of Abinoam, of Kedesh-Naphtali.] Barak signifies lightning, an appropriate name for a warrior; and there was more in names in those days than there is now. Some call him the Boanerges of the Old Testament; but that is too much, for it required not a little rousing to bring him up to the high mark of the character known by that name. Kedesh was a Levitical city of refuge assigned to the Gershon division. It stood on a high ridge jutting out from the hills, at the western edge of Lake Huleh, the marshy basin through which the Jordan passes into the sea of Merom. It was in Naphtali (Jos_19:37). The Lord God of Israel.] The name of the God who made a covenant with Abraham and his Seed, and who brought up Israel with high hand out of Egypt. Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, etc.] Draw מְשַׁבְתָּ. This is rendered very differently by commentators. Some—Approach to. But the preposition is in or upon. Others—Draw out or prolong. As sound of trumpet would do, when the people were summoned to come forward to Mount Tabor, just as the people were required to meet Ehud at Mount Ephraim. Others make it—draw out, or extend, the military force to be employed. Others regard it as a command to enlist or draft all the willing among the people, or persuade the people by attractive methods. Keil renders it—proceed one after another in a long-drawn train (Jdg_20:37; Exo_12:21)—referring to the captain, and the warriors drawing after him. This is near it. But Lias expresses it better—“Draw out upon Mount Tabor.” We understand that Mount Tabor was the point of rendezvous toward which Barak was to lead his troops gradually, until Jehovah had led Sisera with his host to the brook Kishon. Yet more precisely the meaning seems to be—draw in small detachments, one after another, men willing to fight for their country, until 10,000 are assembled, as rapidly as can be done, when all Israel is scattered, and as secretly as can be done, that Sisera may not prevent their assembling. Draw to Tabor, not to Kedesh, for that town is too near Hazor, and besides the mountain named is a better centre for a rendezvous, being considerably farther south. Mount Tabor]—now called Jebel et Tur—rises on the east from the plain of Esdraelon, where Sisera’s chariots would be assembled, and was a convenient rallying point for all in Napthali and Zebulon on the north, and for Issachar and Manasseh on the south. It stands by itself on the plain, a truncated cone of limestone, with flat top, an area of a quarter of a mile in length, and half that in breadth. Round the circumference are the ruins of a thick wall of masonry, and there are the foundations of private dwellings within. The height is estimated from 1000 to 3000 feet, and it requires an hour to ascend it. The sides to the very top are covered with verdure and clumps of trees, oaks, olives, and sycamores, with many plants and flowers. It overtops all the neighbouring hills (Jer_46:18), and commands a magnificent view of Northern Palestine, especially to the west. It may have been the Mount of Transfiguration, as the reasoning to the contrary consists quite as much of strong assertion as of clear evidence.
Jdg_4:7. And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon, Sisera, etc.] Speaking in the Spirit she says, I will draw—meaning God will draw Sisera to Kishon. This word signifies bent like a bow, and is so called from its winding course. It was a sort of winter torrent [Lias] like Kedron (Joh_18:1). It is perennial for eight miles, fed from sources along the whole plain of Jezreel. It takes its rise near Mounts Tabor and Gilboa. Though dry in summer, a rushing stream pours down in it in winter. In the valley on both sides of this river, or brook, called the plain of Jezreel, the greatest battles have been fought for the possession of Palestine, from time immemorial down to recent times. Thither God was now drawing Sisera and his host as “the sheaves into the floor, that the daughter of Zion might arise and thresh” (Mic_4:12-13). This was typical of the drawing of the forces of Antichrist to their place of doom (Rev_16:14; Rev_16:16; Rev_19:19-20). God draws His people to their salvation (Jdg_4:6; Joh_6:44) and the ungodly to their destruction (1Ki_22:19-23).
Jdg_4:8. If thou wilt go with me then I will go, etc.] These words spoken to a woman are not very like a Boanerges. Barak’s faith was manifestly weak, like Gideon (Jdg_6:15; Jdg_6:36), and Moses (Exo_4:10; Exo_4:13), and Peter (Mat_14:30-31), showing that the best of men are but men at the best. God’s command and promise ought to have been enough (Jdg_4:6-7). Yet God has not left His name out of the list of faith, any more than that of Samson (Heb_11:32-34). To show that God has regard to faith, even when it is only like a grain of mustard seed. Yet we must not underrate Barak. He did not look on Deborah so much as a woman, as on one who had the Spirit of God. And this, be it man or woman, meant an all-conquering strength. It did however look a little like the superstitious feeling of the Israelites, when they thought themselves safer by taking the ark into the field, than by simply trusting in the promise of help assured by their God on their obedience (1Sa_4:3-5). Some class Barak as an illustration of the phrase, “out of weakness made strong” (Heb_11:34). He needed some visible presence to strengthen his faith in the invisible power. We too often need something of sight to help our weak faith—the touch of our Father’s hand in the dark, to show that He is with us. But God had compassion on his imperfect faith, and accepted him, seeing “the root of the matter was in him.” Ten thousand men, and these undisciplined, was after all but a feeble wand to be used against a mighty host like that commanded by Sisera. It was like “the worm Jacob employed to thresh the mountains.” But all the battles of God’s cause are battles of faith—not however to the exclusion of the use of rational means, within the limits prescribed by God’s Providence. Trapp says, the soldiers’ motto should be, Neque timidè, neque temerè.
Jdg_4:9. Into the hand of a woman.] This was Jael, though Barak might suppose it was Deborah herself. The honour was certainly denied to Barak. Deborah appears to have been a remarkable character, full of the true fire of enthusiasm, and just the very person to stir the embers of a dying faith among the people. It is wonderful sometimes how a whole nation will instinctively follow a single bold flashing spirit, with resolute purpose, and mind fully made up, pursuing what seems to it the Divine path of duty. Her influence arose not from her social status, though that was considerable, if we are to believe the Chaldee paraphrast, who tells us that she possessed palm-trees in Jericho, parks (or paradises) in Ramah, and productive olives in the vailey, a house of irrigation in Bethel and white dust in the king’s mount. But her peerless distinction was that the Spirit of the Lord spake by her. The people believed that she was the organ of Divine communications. Hence her power to lift the whole nation from a state of languid despondency to the elevation of the assurance of hope, by the nature of the communications which she made. A bright face, kindled up with intelligence, from which doubt has fled, where resolution, zeal, and ardour reign, where the spirit triumphs over the flesh, and where man seems transformed into an angel of the Lord, could not fail to inspire men as with life from the dead. And so from the moment that Deborah announces the Divine purpose to emancipate the people, and Barak accepts of the office of leader, all things flow naturally and rapidly on to success.
Jdg_4:10. Barak called Zebulon and Naphtali to Kedesh.] These were the tribes that chiefly furnished the supplies of troops (Jdg_4:6), though not exclusively. Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh, and Issachar sent valuable help (Jdg_5:14-15). And some other tribes are spoken of reprovingly, if not upbraidingly, because they failed to show their practical sympathy (Jdg_5:16-17). For this oppression affected the whole land, and that most grievously, though the northern parts in a greater degree. To Kedesh the prophetess accompanies Barak. Notwithstanding the distance in the extreme north, and the dangers of travelling in such times, she hesitates not for a moment. When God’s work has to be done, all other considerations must give way. She herself acts on the firm belief of her own words, and wherever she goes she becomes a revival power. The leaders of the people, or heads of households, assemble to Barak in his home at Kedesh. Not the whole people. But those leaders would receive their instructions from Deborah and Barak together, and then return to their respective circles to collect their people. Fired with the idea that the hour of deliverance was come, the men of Israel collect, descending on all sides from their mountains like the Swiss against the Austrians, and proceed to Mount Tabor, Barak going before, and ten thousand following in his train; or as some render it on foot, implying that they were all infantry, and neither chariots nor cavalry.
Jdg_4:11. Now Heber the Kenite … had severed himself, etc.] The interesting notices given of this family (the Kenites) arise first from their connection with Moses, and afterwards from the principal branch of them casting in their lot with the people of God. The father was “Reuel,” or “Raguel” (Exo_2:18; Num_10:29), the priest of Midian (Exo_2:16; also Jdg_18:1; some say the word means prince). “Jethro” was still another name which he had, as in Exodus 18 passim. [Some would prefer to say that Renel was the father, and Jethro and Hobab were the two sons—in this case translating the word chotheen to mean brother-in-law in Exodus 18, for in such a case Jethro would be the brother of Zipporah, and therefore brother-in-law to Moses. But we prefer to regard all the three names, Reuel, Raguel, and Jethro, as simply different names for the same person.] Hobab was his son, and therefore brother-in-law to Moses. Thus the word ought to be rendered here. Moses seems to have been successful in making Jethro a decided fearer of the God of Israel (see Exo_18:8-11). And when he got the opportunity he used his most earnest entreaties with Hobab, his brother-in-law. Though at first unsuccessful (Num_10:29-30, etc.), he would appear in the end to have won him fairly over. For we find in Jdg_1:16 allusion made to the family name among the children of Israel—the children of the Kenite, who seemed at first to have settled in the city of palm trees, finding it not suitable apparently for their flocks, they went up to the wilderness, or open pasture lands of the tribe of Judah. And now here again is another change. From some cause there was a split among the descendants of Hobab, and Heber, an influential member of the circle, left the others in Judah, and found his way north as far as Kedesh. Whether it was that the Kenites were degenerating into idol-worship like the Israelites generally, among whom they dwelt, and that Heber was a fast worshipper of the God of Israel, we cannot tell for certain. But the separation was permanent. He still lived in tents; the desert life was not forgotten, and the spot he chose for his rest was the oak forest of Zaanannim, near Kedesh.
MAIN HOMILETICS.—Jdg_4:1-11
FRESH PROVOCATION; RENEWED BONDAGE; RESORT ANEW TO PRAYER; DELIVERANCE AGAIN PROVIDED
It ought never to be forgotten by the thoughtful readers of this Book that one leading purpose in view is to put the human heart fairly to the test. Under the most favourable circumstances, it is left to itself to decide whether, without any driving or special pressure of any kind, it would be disposed of itself to choose the service of the only living and true God, and keep vows of fidelity to Him which it had solemnly made. There is no Joshua nor Moses now alive to guide this people. They are left purposely without any man in the position of having to decide for them. Their decision must be entirely their own, and it must be made in such a way as to be a fair index of the state of their hearts. The experiment goes on throughout the whole Book, and though it is continued for upwards of 400 years, it is one long continued series of failures to keep their allegiance to their God. At the close, it might be written down, fully tried and found wanting. This Book of Judges is of far higher use than ordinary histories. It is a sacred history—the history of men as before God, and under very special moral and spiritual dealing. It is the history of the Church of God, or of the cause of God in the world, so that sins committed have a deeper aggravation, afflictions sent have a deeper and more significant meaning, and deliverances accomplished have a more sacred character. But first of all, the object is to bring out men’s characters before God, and that we should specially keep in view as we proceed to gather up the instruction of chapter 4.
I. Fresh provocation. “They did (the) evil again in the sight of the Lord,” etc. This comes in like a melancholy dirge from the tombs, indicating the hopeless condition of those who are “dead in trespasses and sins.” We hear it as a moan from captives that are helplessly bound. “Ichabod” is indelibly marked both at the top and bottom of the page, and all through. “The plague of the heart” continues. “The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint,” etc. The leprosy is in the blood. (See on Jdg_3:7; Jdg_3:12.) “When Ehud was dead,” rather, and Ehud was dead. Not that their apostasy broke out immediately after he had died; but when it did break out, there was no Ehud to stem the torrent.
How brief is the notice given of the people’s sin! A single line suffices for that—two verses tell the story of their suffering which lasted for twenty years, and with the weight of a tyrant’s rod all the time. But the whole chapter, or twenty-one verses are occupied with the account of the Divine deliverance. Why is this? Is it
(1) Because man’s work is so bad that it will not bear to be repeated, or dwelt upon, and the sooner it is forgotten the better, or is it
(2) Because God in mercy to His people would say as little about their backslidings as possible. Faithfully He points out that there is something decidedly wrong, but He has no pleasure in dwelling upon it. His “charity thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity.” The statement is made to justify Him in sending His judgments, not to gratify any possible delight He could take in spreading out their sins before His face. Or is it
(3) Because the simple fact that they had cast off their God, without any amplification of details, was quite enough to kindle the Divine anger, and lead to deplorable results—whatever the reason may be, the fact is patent throughout this book, that the sins of the people are told in a line or two, while the story of God’s mercy in delivering them from the consequences of their sins goes down all over the page.
Their sinning against God afresh after so much chastisement shows:—
1. The ineradicable nature of sin. No number of stripes seems to have any effect in curing this terrible evil. Though it has been burned into them that “the way of transgressors is hard,” so soon as they are left to themselves they again begin to transgress. Sin is like some of those strong chemical liquids, of which when a drop falls on the cloth, it is impossible with ever so much washing to take out the stain. “Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet is thine iniquity marked before Me, saith the Lord God. This people had unmistakable evidence of the fearful calamities that must accompany or come in the track of sin. Two black clouds had already darkened their sky, the bursting of which it might have been supposed would never have been forgotten. Either of these tempests, but for the interposition of the Divine mercy, out of ordinary course, might have blotted them out of existence as a nation, or reduced them to the level of a second Egyptian bondage. They were placed entirely at the mercy of those whose tenderest mercies are cruel. They had experience of the cold, hard fact; that “the worst enemy of man is man.” And yet we find them here running down the hill to ruin as before. There is no change in the stubborn tendency to go astray from God. Though they have already tumbled twice over the precipice and been dashed among the rocks, through their obstinately taking the wrong course, being saved only by the outstretching of the gracious hand of their God, they yet, after all, now rush on blindfolded in the old track. Well might the prophet of many tears exclaim, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots,” etc.
2. The special force of evil in an easily-besetting sin. Idolatry was, for the Israelite, an easily-besetting sin, mainly for two reasons:
(1) Because of the strong native tendency of the human heart to go away from God, and give its love and allegiance to other objects, which also must, in some sense, be gods; for the human heart cannot want a god of some kind; and
(2) Because the stream of custom over the whole world was always flowing in that direction. It was a kind of spiritual aneurism in the system, an evil tumour which draws into it the arterial blood, we might say, the very life-blood, defying all art or skill of man to effect a cure. It seems as if the whole strength of corruption in a man’s nature were gathered up in his easily besetting sin, so that to do battle with it is to assail the very fortress of depravity and not merely an outpost. The whole garrison of evil in the heart fights at this point. The word used in the original is very forcible (Heb_12:1)—εὺπερίστατον—the sin which well surrounds us—i.e., easily, or strongly surrounds, which besets or encircles us like the folds of a serpent, a veritable boa-constrictor, that which encircles and holds us fast, which keeps us as prisoners. All sin does so, more or less, but none grasps so tight as that to which we are peculiarly prone or liable, whether constitutionally, from long indulgence, or strong temptations. Victory over an easily besetting sin means victory over the whole strength of evil in the heart.
3. A specific for the cure of sin must be something out of ordinary course. Nothing within the limits of ordinary motives will effectually turn a man aside from his idols, and permanently stem all the outflow of evil from the bitter spring. The strength of the passion, or evil tendency of the nature, always overmasters the force of reason. “I see the good; I follow the evil,” is the candid confession even of the heathen heart. While the Christian, conscious far more clearly of the strength of evil within him, cries out, “O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” etc. The headstrong tendency of sin in the heart has all the force of an ungovernable passion, or of a blind infatuation. Happy is the man who is candid enough to admit the cancerous nature of his heart malady, and who with that conviction applies in good earnest to the One Physician who is able to effect a cure. “Create in me a clean heart” is the only prayer that will do; and Psalms 51 throughout is the best prescription to meet the case.
The whole history of ancient Israel, especially as recorded in this Book of Judges, is a luminous commentary on the truth and force of the paragraph in Rom_7:14-25. The law of God presents duty clearly; men’s hearts and consciences assent to its excellence, but, notwithstanding of this, the evil principles in the heart remain in full force, and there is still a persistence in going astray from God. The mere strength of reason for the performance of a certain duty, or the avoidance of a certain sin, will not take away the disobedient spirit of the unrenewed heart. “The law in my members—in my flesh, the unsanctified nature—brings me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members,” i.e. to itself. That law of sin is always in operation, and can only be counteracted and fairly overcome by the fixed and permanent operation in the soul of another law—“the law of the spirit of life by Christ Jesus.” [See Hodge on Romans 7 throughout.] One thing is abundantly proved by every page of this book—that the authoritative declaration that a thing must not be done, does not destroy the inclination to do it. It follows that if sin is to be effectually cured in the heart and life, a man must be “created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works.” (See Eze_36:25-27; Eph_4:23; 2Co_5:17.) [See other remarks on Jdg_3:7; Jdg_3:12.]
II. Bondage renewed (Jdg_4:2-3).—“The Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, etc.—twenty years he mightily oppressed them.”
1. The calamity did not come unsent. It was not “a chance that happened to them.” They first sold themselves to do wickedly before the Lord, and in due time He sold them into the hands of the spoiler. Their long season of prosperity instead of confirming them in their attachment to their own God, only led them to forget Him and to walk after their own wicked ways, from which they had never been really weaned. “The prosperity of fools destroyeth them.” Henry remarks, “they alienated themselves from God, as if they were none of His; and then God on His part alienated them as none of His. They that throw themselves out of God’s service, throw themselves out of God’s protection. What has my beloved to do in my house, when she has thus played the harlot?”
Men are slow to regard their afflictions in life—their disappointments, their hard lot, their bitter experiences, and their dark skies, as having anything to do with the ungodly life they lead—their practical forgetfulness of God, and setting aside His law as the rule of life. It seems not to occur to them that the God before whom they lead their life, is greatly offended with this neglect of His claims and despising of His commandments, as if a creature would dare to assert that it was not His property, and owed Him no allegiance and even no attention. For this practical forgetting of God, and neglect of their duties to Him, He sends one arrow of adversity after another to awaken their attention to His voice. But they are slow to understand. They “hear not the rod” neither do they know Him who appointed it. (Jer_8:7). God said of His ancient people “they are sottish children (thick headed) and they have no understanding.” Even when God dealt in great mercy with them, “taking them by the arms, they knew not that He healed them.” Christ says of foolish Jerusalem, “thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”
No affliction comes unsent. There is indeed no audible voice telling in articulate tones, why this and the other bitter dispensation of God’s providence is appointed. Also, some time generally elapses between the commission of sin and the sorrow which comes after it, just as some time elapses between the moment when we see a gun fired at a considerable distance from us, before we hear the report of the firing. God is not quick to use the rod, for He takes no pleasure in the work of inflicting punishment. This men mistake to mean, that there is no causal connection between their sin and their misery. Yet not more certain is the law by which a man reaps of the same kind that he sows, than is the arrangement by which misery in some form will either accompany or flow from sin. It is fundamental to say “The wages of sin is death.” God, however, does not tell it with articulate voice. Everything in His dealings with us must go by faith. Hence He acts. Just as Jesus did not answer John’s question directly, but bade His disciples go and tell him what things they had seen Him do, so God acts in a certain way in His providence, and bids us look on and consider—“Whoso is wise and observeth these things, he shall understand”—the meaning and purport of God’s providence in dealing with sinners and sin.
2. Sin brings sorrow. The character of God as Moral Governor of the world requires this: To sin. He is irreconcilably opposed; and towards those who commit it, His frown must, in the events of His Providence, be sooner or later manifested. Well is it for a man who has been leading an ungodly life, if God should show His frown now, while yet his course of sin may be arrested, and his guilt taken away, ere it be too late. For there is such a thing as being allowed to sleep in sin till the hour for repentance has passed, and there is no possibility of escaping the terrible condemnation of the finally impenitent. Sorrows sent now, though severe and even rigorous in character, may, if improved as warning bells, lead us to lay hold of the great refuge from eternal sorrows (1Co_11:32).
These Israelites found that the “pleasures of sin” soon turned to gall and wormwood. “What better were they,” says Bp. Hall, “to have killed Eglon, king of Moab, if the idolatry of Moab was now killing them? The sin of Moab was a worse tyrant than Eglon. Israel is for every market. They sold themselves to idolatry; God sells them to the Canaanites. It is no marvel they become slaves, if they will be idolaters. After their longest peace they have now their sorest bondage. The longer the reckoning is deferred, the greater is the amount.”
3. The Divine mercy is seen in severely chastising but not destroying. God might have said: “Thy bruise is incurable, thy wound is very grievous. I will, therefore, give thee as fuel for the burning, and raise up to myself another people, true to Me in heart, and that will better show forth my praise.” He had already twice delivered them from the terrible consequences of their apostasies, and said, “Behold thou art made whole. Go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.” And now their sin was greatly more aggravated than before. “The waters which were at first to the ankles, were now to the loins.” And there seemed to be no appearance of any abatement. Might we not expect that the voice would come forth from “the Judge of all the earth” saying, I will utterly destroy, and make a full end of a people so incorrigible and rebellious? Men are disposed to act thus in similar circumstances. They are impatient, and would cut the knot, when they cannot easily untie it. They will not stand parleying long with perverse natures, but tell them flatly you must comply with the terms, or be shut out from our fellowship for ever. “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?” So of Shimei. “Let me, I pray thee, smite thine enemy with the spear to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time.” So of king Saul. “When Herod saw that he was mocked of the wise men, he was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem.” Thus it ever is with the wrath of men when excited; it goes forth to an extreme result (2Sa_3:9; 1Sa_25:22; Jer_40:15, etc., etc.)
But when God is provoked to anger by the sins of His people, how different His tone! “I will correct; but I will not destroy. I will correct in measure;—not without limit. I will not leave thee unpunished, but I will not make a full end.” The stripes are never given at random, but according to rule, and a careful account is kept both of their number, and their severity—not a stroke too many, and no suffering inflicted beyond what the person is able to bear. Even when God goes so far as to give His people “tears to drink in great measure like water,” it is still in measure (Psa_80:5; Jer_46:28).
God was now greatly provoked with the repeated and high handed sins of His people, and for twenty long years He gave them into the hands of a relentless and revengeful enemy, who might in one fourth part of that time have destroyed Israel utterly as Israel of old time destroyed the Canaanites. But their God would not allow it, though no doubt it was in the hearts of these Canaanites to make the attempt. But their lives were made bitter with hard bondage in being set to act as hewers of wood, and do all sorts of drudgery work. They also had the sting in their hearts, that all this oppression was exercised by outcasts and aliens, who were trampled on by their fathers, as the refuse of the earth—a people not fit to live.
The truth always comes out, that however severely they were punished, they were never made a full end of. He watches over them in the furnace, and allows not the fire to consume them. “When they walk through the fire they are not burned, neither does the flame kindle on them.” When His own image is seen in the heated metal, instantly He abstracts it from the fire. He is jealous lest His people should receive one stroke of the rod too many (Zec_1:14-15), and is angry with those who would dare to go one step beyond their commission (Isa_40:2). (See Psa_89:33-34; Jer_4:27; Jer_5:10; Jer_5:18; Jer_30:11; Amo_9:9; Jer_33:24-26.)
[Remarks on the character of God’s judgment, their severity, the spirit in which they are inflicted, and the ends to be gained on pp. 114–119.]
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS.—Jdg_4:1-3
TRUE RELIGION REQUIRES AN UNDIVIDED HEART
When a man professes solemnly and with tears that he deeply regrets having committed some error of conduct, on which those who have to do with him agree to pass over his offence and to continue friendship as before—and when after a time, during which he enjoys peace and prosperity, he again commits the same error and that more deeply than before, and even repeats this process several times of sinning and confessing, we begin to question his sincerity and to believe that his heart was not in his confession of wrong-doing, and his purpose of amendment, but that he was merely resorting to shifts to get quit of a difficulty. Thus we naturally judge of these Israelites:
“For though their words were good, their heart
With Him was not sincere;
Unstedfast and perfidious
They in His cov’nant were.”
In all true religion there must be an undivided heart. “We naturally love an easy Christianity. We dislike collisions, and we fear extremes. When the world presents its claims alongside those of Christ, we are in danger of halting between two opinions. Such an attitude is full of peril. Nothing is more offensive to Christ than lukewarmness in His service.
“We must serve Christ with all our hearts, if we are to serve Him at all. No reserve or compromise, or half-heartedness, is for a moment to be allowed. Our mind must be made up. ‘The eye must be single.’ One master-motive—the love of Christ. One mighty aim—to glorify God in the Gospel of His Son. All other objects and aims must give way before this. Its language is ‘this one thing I do!’ Such were the hearts of Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Paul—of Luther and Latimer. Though they erred in some things they had this peculiarity—they had single hearts—they were men of one thing. Such a man does good by wholesale. He is like a lighthouse in the midst of a dark world. He reflects light on hundreds of whom he knows nothing. His Master is seen in every department of his behaviour. And he might appropriate to himself the language: ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ All see the bias of His character, and are obliged to confess that his religion is a real and influential thing. Without this decision a man has no true comfort in his religion; he has as much as to make him miserable, by allowing two opposite camps to have a place in his heart. But with it, he has a joy and peace, to which others never attain. His face is toward the sun, and his heart is seldom cold.
“We must not be satisfied with religious reformation without heart conversion. To lay aside open sin is nothing unless grace reigns in our hearts. The formal trappings will not do without the power of practical godliness experienced in the inner man.”
[Ryle.]
TO BEGIN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE EASIER THAN TO GO ON
While the sun shone brightly on the faces of the vast multitude whom Joshua addressed for the last time, and all nature seemed in cheerful mood; while, too, all the Divine words of the sacred past were now changed into the living facts of the present, and they could read as matter of history that which was at first hard to believe even as Divine Prophecy—it was easy to subscribe with the hand and to say, “This God shall be our God for ever and ever!” No cross was in sight. No voice was heard breaking the stillness of that lovely morning, with the faithful words, “If a man will come after Me let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” But when a little time passes on, and the clouds gather, and the winds begin to moan, and the weather becomes foul, what a melting away of resolutions so chivalrously made! “From that time many went back, and walked no more with Jesus.”
It is not the beginning but the continuing of the religious profession that is the true grace. “If ye continue in my word,” says the Saviour, “then are ye my disciples indeed.” Many, under the influence of temporary excitement, enrol themselves as Christians without considering what they are doing. To begin the religious life is comparatively easy. Mixed motives aid us. The love of novelty, the praise of well-meaning professors around us, the secret self-satisfaction of feeling “how good I am,” and the general excitement attending a new position. Lifted up by the wave the man begins the race, lays aside some bad habits, takes up some good ones, has many comfortable frames and feelings, and gets on swimmingly for a time.
But when the newness of the position is past and gone, when the freshness of his feelings is rubbed off and lost, when the world and the devil begin to pull hard at him, when the weakness of his own heart begins to appear—then it is that he finds out the real difficulties of Christianity. Then he finds that to begin is one thing, and to go on is another. Yes. “Patient continuance in well-doing” is the only sure evidence of grace. It is not he that runs fast at first, or runs furiously, but he that keeps up his speed, who runs so as to obtain. By all means make much of conversion. But let us not be too sure that it is conversion, till Time has set its seal upon it.
Time and wear test metals and prove whether they are solid or plated. So Time and Wear are the surest tests of a man’s religion. Where there is spiritual life there will be continuance and steady perseverance. It is the man who goes on as well as begins that is the disciple indeed (Joh_6:67-69; Luk_22:28; 1Jn_2:19; Heb_3:6). [Ryle.]
WHY SHOULD SIN BE SO INVETERATE IN THE HUMAN HEARTS
Dr. Howat, in illustrating a similar sentiment says, “It is the great law of contraries. ‘The corruption of the best is the worst,’ says the Roman proverb. There is nothing so beautiful as a woman’s love; there is nothing so terrible as a woman’s hatred. Athaliah, to gratify her own ambition, ‘destroys all the seed royal.’ The daughter of Herodias solicits the Baptist’s head.—Jezebel vows to take Elijah’s life.—The pretended mother proposes to slay the living child.” The finer a nature is under its natural conditions it becomes proportionally worse than another nature when it is perverted. If it has a capacity for rising higher in its normal state, it must also have a capacity for sinking lower in its abnormal state. The men of finest gifts and finest sensibilities, when they do sink into the depths of wickedness generally become more abandoned and desperate than the common wicked. For this reason the fallen angelic spirits are more fearful embodiments of all manner of evil than fallen men. Physically speaking too, bodies which have the finest texture, such as the human body, when they do become corrupt, are more loathsome than other bodies. All over the rule holds.
Man’s highest faculty is that by which he is capable of knowing God, loving God, admiring and adoring His wonderful perfections, and enjoying His divine fellowship. But the power to rise so high infers his capacity for sinking down to a proportionate depth. And what measure of depth can correspond fitly with the all but measureless height to which it is possible for him to attain. But this capacity for going down to an indefinate depth when his nature is perverted is really the measure of his corruption or depravity. It is like a pit of unfathomed depth. Or speaking of it more literally, the degeneracy is in proportion to the greatness of man’s nature—as a rational and immortal being, formed after the image of God. Man’s capacity of loving God in his upright state is equalled by the deep and inveterate dislike to God, which he has in his perverted state. Hence, the inveteracy of sin in his fallen nature.
The ancient ring. “A man, wishing to find a handsome ring, went into a jeweller’s shop, in Paris, and there had presented to him a very ancient gold ring which seemed to be very superior, and on its inside were two little lion’s claws. With this he played for some time, but did not purchase it. Scarcely had he reached home when, first his hand, then his side, then his whole body became numb and without feeling, as if he had had a stroke of the palsy. It grew worse and worse, till a physician was called, and he was thought to be dying. ‘You must somehow have taken poison,’ said the physician. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not.’ At last he remembered this ring. On examination it was discovered that he had been playing with what used to be called a death-ring, and which was often employed in the wicked Italian States three or four hundred years ago. When one man hated another and desired to kill him he would present him with one of these rings. In the inside was a drop of deadly poison, and a very small hole out of which it would not make its way except it was squeezed. When the poor man was wearing it, the murderer would come and shake his hand violently; the lion’s claw would give his finger a little scratch, and in a few hours he was a dead man.”
“For four hundred years this ring had kept its poison, and at the end was strong enough almost to kill the man who had accidentally scratched his finger with the claw. It required great skill and the strongest medicines to save him. So is it with sin. Our first father had such a ring put into his hand by the Tempter, and by the unhappy squeezing of the claws he died of it. The same ring has been handed down to his posterity from the days of the Expulsion from Paradise till now; and for well nigh 6,000 years it is still a fatal ring to all who touch it.” [Bib. Treas.]
The inveteracy of sin is illustrated by the manner in which the plague of leprosy showed itself in its workings, both in the human body and even in human dwellings. When the plague got into the walls of a building, there was no way of getting it cleansed but by taking down the walls to the foundations. “When N. Phocas had built a strong wall about his palace for his own security, in the night time he heard a voice crying to him, O Emperor! though thou build thy wall as high as the clouds, yet if sin be within, it will overthrow all.”
Sin is also a quicksand. It not only penetrates to the very core internally, but externally it swallows up without power of rescue.
“On certain parts of the coast, especially in Scotland, difficulty is experienced in walking—the shore is like pitch, to which the soles of the feet cling. The coast appears to be dry, but the footprint when the foot is lifted, becomes filled with water. There is no appearance of danger, but suddenly the traveller sinks. He looks at his feet, and the sand covers them. He wishes to turn back, but his efforts only make him sink more deeply. With terror he perceives that he is in a quicksand. He throws down his burden, but it is too late. He finds he is slowly being buried alive! The sand reaches to his waist—to his chest—to his neck—now only his face is visible. He cries, but alas! none hear. At last the sand fills his mouth, and all is silent—his eyes, and the curtain is drawn. He is swallowed up. So of the man who persists inveterately in a course of sin.” [Anon.]
THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN
“The wages that sin bargains with the sinner are life, pleasure, and profit; but the wages it pays him with are death, torment, and destruction. He that would understand the falsehood and deceit of sin thoroughly, must compare its promises with its payments.” [South.]
“The approaches of sin are like the conduct of Jael—‘It brings forth butter in a lordly dish.’ It bids high for the soul. But when it has fascinated and lulled the victim, the nail and the hammer are behind.” [Cecil.]
“Sin has always two aspects—that which she assumes before the deed is done, and that which she puts on after having ensnared her dupe, and hung her fetters on his soul. How musical in the ear of Judas was the jingle of the thirty pieces of silver, while the bribe was dangling in the purse of the treasurer of the chief priests and scribes! Yet, how dull was its ring, as he dashed them down upon the table in his agony, after their lustre had been tarnished by the tinge of harmless blood! How fair was the enchantress when she came with her promises; yet how hard and haggard were her mocking features when the mask had fallen and the real face was seen! It is always so. There is many a deadly poison which is pleasant to the taste—many a fatal lullaby which is charming to the ear—many a Dead Sea apple which is tempting to the eye—many a cruel hand which is as soft as velvet. Sin is a siren while she tempts, but an ugly, raw-boned hag when she has her prey within her toils. Those tresses which appear so comely may change to snakes to sting the hand which smooths them; those dovelike, winsome eyes that swim so wantonly shall flash like basilisks upon you, if you are captivated by their blandishments.
“In the Halls of the Inquisition there was a beautiful statue of a virgin. The painter’s tenderest strokes had been used to give loveliness to the face, and the sculptor’s utmost skill had been enlisted to add charm to charm in the rounded moulding of form and limb. The white arms were undraped, and extended wide as though to embrace; the eye and lip, and whole attitude, were full of winning invitation, and the professing penitent was led into this fair presence, and commanded to advance and embrace the figure. As soon as he drew near, the fair white arms encircled him, not with the caress of love, but with the vice-like clutch of vengeance, and the bosom opened and lips expanded, and a hundred gleaming knives shot from the virgin figure, transfixing the victim with a hundred scarlet stabs. The parted lips pushed forth a barbed tongue, and showed fanged teeth to acerate and tear. In short, the beauty was transformed into a beast, the fairy form became an armoury of poignards, whose every charm concealed a dagger, and whose every grace was death.
“So it is with sin. Decking her bed with roses, she merges her poison-breath amidst their fragrance, and lulls her silly victim with a counterfeit repose. Oh rest not on her pillow, for a serpent coils beneath it! Wander not amidst her bowers, for wasps are honeying amidst her blossoms and leaving their stings in the core of all her fruits. Recline not upon the sunny knolls, for volcanic lava lurks under the moss, and the fire of hell lights up her transient heaven. ‘My son! when sinners entice thee, consent thou not.’ ” [Mursell.]
Allurements of sin. “There is a tree called the Judas tree. The blossoms appear before the leaves, and they are of brilliant crimson. The flaming beauty of the flowers attracts innumerable insects; and the wandering bee is drawn to it to gather honey. But every bee that alights upon the blossoms imbibes a fatal opiate, and drops dead from among the crimson flowers to the earth. Beneath this enticing tree the earth is strewed with the victims of its fatal fascinations. That fatal plant that attracts only to destroy is a vivid emblem of the deceitfulness and deadliness of sin. For the poison of sin’s bewitching flowers, there is but one remedy. It is found “in the leaves of the ‘tree of life’ that groweth on Mount Calvary.” [Cuyler.]
Avoid the beginnings of sin. “Those who would not fall into the river must not approach too near the banks. He who crushes the egg need not fear the flight of the bird. He who would not drink of the wine of wrath, must not touch the cup of pleasure. He who would not hear the passing-bell of eternal death, should not finger the rope of sin. The man who carries gunpowder cannot stand too far from the fire. If we go with sin one mile, it will compel us to go twain. It swells like Elijah’s cloud, from the size of a man’s hand till it covers the whole sky.” [Secker.]
MAIN HOMILETICS.—Jdg_4:3
III. Resort anew to Prayer. “The children of Israel cried unto the Lord,” etc., under their oppression.
This they had done twice before when similarly situated—in the time of the Syrian invasion from the North East, and again when crushed under the heel of the Moabitish king. It indicates two things:
(1.) The whole land became a scene of prayer. From every corner streams of supplication went up from penitent hearts to Him that was able to save. It was no longer confined to the few Israelites indeed, who were accustomed at all times to call on God, and whom God regarded as his “remembrancers,” in times of peace as well as in the evil days; but the whole nation were on their knees.
(2.) The cry was importunate. The extreme pressure of the calamity made it so. To a large extent, doubtless, the motives were defective, yet God is pleased sometimes to hear an earnest cry and grant the deliverance asked where there is only the appearance of genuine prayer. Such is the compassion of His nature. It is, however, only temporal blessings that are so given. Spiritual gifts are reserved for those exclusively who become His children. Where there is faith along with it, importunity is sure to prevail in the long run. But the chief feature to which the God of Israel would have regard in the present case would be the call of His own children, who could hold Him by the girdle of His faithfulness, and who would take no denial. Here we see:
I. The gates of prayer still open. After so long a time, God’s ear is still open. Long and grievously had the people sinned. In the face of warning and remonstrance, while the trumpet of reconciliation was blowing, and Mercy kept pleading and imploring, by every argument she could devise, they sinned. By three long epochs of rebellion against their covenant God, was the page of their history darkened. “Forty years had their God suffered their manners in the wilderness,” and now for four times forty more, when settled in the land of their inheritance, had He continued to bear with their frowardness, while not improved, but tending to become worse than before. How could it be expected that His ear would be open to their prayer as at first? Had no Divine jealousy been awakened in the Divine bosom? Were such persistent profanation of the Divine name, and such incorrigible perversity of nature to be always allowed to happen, without producing any change on the privilege of prayer? Might we not fear that Jehovah would now turn to them the back of His throne and allow the arm of His justice to work unimpeded by the voice of mercy? After this people had for 160 years turned a deaf ear to the voice of their God, it was surely natural to expect that He would act as One who had “forgotten to be gracious, and in anger had shut up His tender mercies?” Would he not now say: “When ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you, and when ye make many prayers I will not hear—your hands are full of sins.” Yet His ear is still open, and mainly for two reasons:—
1. God’s long-suffering. From first to last He retains His great name which He made known to Moses. “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” An old writer says: “God’s most wonderful attribute is His patience.” Though deeply offended with every individual act of sin, He can wait a thousand years before inflicting the punishment due, should the claims of righteousness permit. He is the King Eternal; and His patience is not to be measured by a man’s standard. Were it to be so estimated, this people had long ere now been swept off the face of the earth. But His own account of Himself is: “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger and destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not man. I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
He is far above the irritation and fretfulness of a creature nature. His Majestic Being is not liable to be ruffled by any storms of rebellion that may arise under His throne. With all His supreme hatred to sin, He ever retains absolute self-command. There is no ill-considered haste (as often happens with man), in closing up the channels of mercy on account of extreme provocation given. “The Lord is slow to anger” (Nah_1:3), literally, of wide nostrils אֶרֶךְ אַפּיִמ. When the nostrils are narrow, the anger that burns in the bosom has little room to escape, so that there is great agitation in the frame. But when the nostrils are wide, the heaving of the bosom is relieved, and there is free outlet. There is no agitation or heaving of the nature when the anger comes forth. There is great anger, yet absolute self-possession. There is vehement anger, yet no hasty expression of it. In Jdg_4:2 it is said, “The Lord is בִעַל חֵמָה a master of anger,” as if He could command the possession of it to any extent; and yet He retains perfect composure. So differently must we think of God from the thoughts we have of man. His anger is never wrongly directed, nor breaks loose from control, as blind passion does in the case of man.
It is added, “He is great in power.” He not only has power over all the creatures, but has power also over Himself. He shows this in being guided not by mere feeling, but by holy principles in the expression of His anger, by righteousness, truth, and faithfulness as well as mercy and compassion (Num_14:18). Our God is “the God of patience.” (Rom_15:5). “He waits to be gracious,” and so keeps the gate of mercy open all the day of life long. His patience is the silence of His justice, and the tender whispering of His mercy.
2. Provision is made for keeping the gates open. The way of approach to God is called “a living way”; a way which must always continue open, on account of what has been done both to get it opened, and to keep it open. It is a way that cannot be blocked up. It is like a fountain that always keeps flowing. Everything in the gospel is of a living character. It speaks of a “living hope” (or “lively”), one that will never wither; “living bread,” such as never becomes moulded, and gives life to him that partakes of it; “living water” and “living fountains of water,” always fresh and refreshing; and “living stones,” stones possessing the strange property of life, without losing the properties of solidity, strength, and durability. And the way of access is a “living way.” How is it so?
(1.) The propitiating blood is always efficacious. The Lamb in the midst of the throne always appears “as it had been slain,” i.e. as if newly slain. The blood seems fresh to this day, as if in the act of trickling from the wound. It never coagulates or becomes vitiated, but is always warm and full of virtue, as when it first flowed from the vein. There is “no remembrance any more of the sins” that are confessed over this sacrifice. “We are sanctified by the offering of the person of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb_9:26.) His blood is “a fountain opened for sin,” without any stone on the mouth of it, and it flows perennially.
(2) The great Intercessor lives to keep it open. It cannot be that any work of a Divine person should be merely temporary. For His own honour and for the Father’s honour, He lives to see that His great work should have everlasting results. “Our great High Priest is passed into the heavens—let us therefore come boldly unto the throne.” “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” “This man continueth ever.” Seen by the seer of Patmos in His exalted and permanent state, in the heavenly world, He was “clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle,” i.e. the robe of blue, the distinctive official robe of the high priest, showing that in heaven He was still at work, and always could continue to be at work in His priestly character keeping the way of access open. He also had on “the curious girdle of the ephod,” which was virtually the working coat of the priestly office.
(3.) God’s names imply that the gates are always open. He is addressed as—“Thou that hearest prayer,” as if that were His perpetual attitude toward man. He is often called “the God of Jacob,” and He often takes this name to Himself, because of the delight He takes in those who have much of the spirit of prayer. Still more emphatic is the corresponding name—“the God of Israel”—the God of the man who, in prayer, “as a prince, had power with God and prevailed.” It is also recorded, “I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain.” It is implied also in the name, “the God of peace,” which implies that He is accessible to men. Or, more emphatically still, He is said to be “God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,” etc. This is His fixed attitude throughout New Testament times.
(4.) His seat implies it. It is a “throne of grace.” Anciently it was called a “mercy-seat,” because blood was sprinkled upon it, and justice, however stern, was satisfied, so that Mercy could freely flow forth. And now through all time, “He slumbers not.” A suppliant never can come and find the gate shut.
(5.) His standing promises regarding prayer imply it. “His ears are open to the cry of the righteous.” “He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him.” “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee.” “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass.” “And all the promises of God are in Christ, yea, and in Him, Amen.”
(6.) His readiness to hear every class of suppliants implies it. Even the ruthless persecutor of God’s church (Act_9:11); the bloody Manasseh (2Ch_33:12-13); the destitute, and the groaning prisoner (Psa_102:17; Psa_102:20); those who accept the punishment of their iniquity (Lev_26:41-42); the broken hearted penitent (Psa_51:17); the penitent thief (Luk_23:42-43); and many others.
(7.) His constant attitude of expectancy that men will pray to Him. “When thou prayest, be not as the hypocrites,” implying that they are expected to pray without being told to do so. Mar_11:24; Joh_14:13-14; Joh_15:7; Jer_29:12-13; Jer_31:18, etc.; Isa_65:24; Isa_58:9; Eph_3:20.
“The doors of the church are thrown open but once a week, and the communion table is but occasionally spread; but the pages of the Bible are always open, and the gates of prayer, like those of heaven, are never shut. Prayer is like a private postern, through which by night as well as by day, we have the privilege of access to the palace and the presence of the King. Prayer is the first door that is open to us, and it is the last that is shut. When a man is tossing on his death-bed and cannot read his Bible; when even he is unable to give assent to the promises that we pour into his ear, he still can offer up some petitions to the throne of grace. Mark those moving lips! behold he prayeth! and his spirit flies heavenward on the wings of prayer.” [Guthrie.]
II. The baseness of praying to God only in adversity. While the sun of peace shone, these Israelites gave themselves to the worship of idols, and indulged themselves in their sins. They refused to walk with God and cast His laws behind their backs. But when the storm now arises, and the waves of trouble threaten to overwhelm them, immediately they return confessing their error. It is indeed right to pray and confess sin under all circumstances. But what should we think of a friend that never paid us a visit except when he had got into difficulties and came merely to borrow. To pray to God only in emergencies, after we have tried other refuges all round and found them false, and we go to Him as a last resort because we cannot do better—this is most base, and might well fill a man with shame and confusion of face. “The servile man plies his prayers, as sailors do their pumps, only in a storm, or when fearful of sinking.” [Secker.]
The proper rule of the christian life is to keep up intercourse with God at all times. David says, “I have set the Lord always before me; He is at my right hand. Evening, morning, and at noon will I pray and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.” How diligent and proficient he was in closet duties and exercises these perennially interesting Psalms testify. The result was, he was not “greatly moved” even when the mountain billows passed over him. Cornelius “prayed to God always.” In due time an abundant answer was given. Daniel at the height of power knelt before his God three times a day, and could be calm under the stern trial through which he had to pass. Job was careful to keep up intercourse with God in his family-circle in the day of prosperity, and so stood prepared for the day of adversity. Read the first paragraph of Job I. with the last paragraph, and see how “the prudent man forseeth the evil and hideth himself.”
The condition of heathen families is described as that of those who “do not call on God’s name.” God complains of His own Israel that they restrained prayer before Him. Isa_43:22; Psa_81:10-11; Hos_5:4, with Jdg_4:15; Jdg_6:1-3. Not till He slew them did they return and inquire after God. Psa_78:34. But when trouble was removed, “they turned back and tempted God,” comp. Deu_32:15. Here Jehovah complains that notwithstanding God’s goodness to them in settling them in the land, “they forsook the Lord God of their fathers and served other gods.” Only when a mountain wave overwhelmed them did they think of coming back to their God.
Beecher says, “How poor is prayer when men are driven to it by the whip, and they resort to it only when they feel the lash of trouble on their back! What would you think of a son that never went home to his father, except when he was in debt, and had the sheriff at his heels, and wanted help; but the moment that he obtained relief forgot that father again, and had no further intercourse with him till he was again in trouble?”
III. Prayer specially suitable to times of great distress. Though it was base to come to God only in great emergencies, it was natural and most proper that Israel should come to Him as their refuge in the day of great calamity. For “to whom should a people go but to their God?” The whole Book of Psalms is the record of seeking God in distress, with the invariable happy result of doing so. Many special examples of the wisdom of such a course occur throughout Scripture—1Sa_30:6; Gen_32:7; Gen_32:9-12; Gen_32:24-30; Exo_17:11-12; Exo_32:10-14; Jos_7:6-9; Jdg_15:18-19; Isa_38:1-5; Daniel 9; Jas_5:13; Psa_50:15; Psa_130:1; Mat_8:25; Mat_17:14-15; Jon_1:6; Joh_11:3; Joh_11:21-22; Act_6:4; Act_12:12; Rom_12:12; Eph_6:18 (in the evil day); Jdg_3:13-14; Col_4:2-3; 2Th_3:1-2; Heb_4:16 (time of need); 1Pe_5:7.
Gethsemane teaches us profound lessons on this subject, both by precept and example; and it is by following the Master’s example in “offering up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that is able to save,” that we may expect to fight our way successfully to the crown of glory. It is through prayer that all great deliverances come now. Thus Joshua gained every battle; thus Joseph rose from the pit of Dothan and the dungeons of Egypt to the position of being ruler over all the land of Egypt; thus Hezekiah turned the tide of battle to the gate, when encompassed with formidable hosts; thus Elijah proved more than a match for the King of Israel with the whole nation at his back; thus Jacob changed the heart of his brother Esau, and earned an undying fame; thus Samson “out of weakness became strong,” and slew more of the enemy at his death than he had done during his life; thus Jonah escaped from the most hopeless prison into which a living man was ever cast; thus Paul and Silas awakened the slumbering arm of Omnipotence, and the solid walls of their prison shook, while the barred and bolted gates became loose in a moment, as flax at the touch of fire; thus, too, did the Apostles gain all their victories against the enemies of the Church in the early years of her ever-memorable history.
“Sinking times are praying times with the Lord’s people. Peter neglected prayer when starting on his perilous journey, but when he began to sink his danger made him a suppliant, and his cry, though late, was not too late. In our hours of bodily pain and mental anguish, we find ourselves as naturally driven to prayer as the wreck is driven upon the shore by the waves. The fox hies to its hole for protection; the bird flies to the wood for shelter; and so the tried believer hastens to the mercy-seat for safety. Heaven’s great harbour of refuge is All Prayer; thousands of weather-beaten vessels have found a haven there, and the moment a storm comes on, it is wise for us to make for it with all sail.” [Spurgeon.]
IV. Great trials lead to greater earnestness in prayer. It was when these Israelites came into deep waters that they found the practical value of the privilege of prayer; it was then too that they began in good earnest to pray. The more crushing the calamity that befel them, and the deeper sense they had of their own insufficiency to cope with it, the more eager was their application to the divine footstool, and the more fast was the hold they took of the divine promises. It is when “deep calls unto deep” that prayer becomes a cry. Langour is exchanged for ardour, and the soul pants with desire for the blessing needed. Lukewarmness disappears, and all the force of the instinct of self-preservation is thrown into the cry for relief. Its language is, “My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.” There is a pouring out of the heart before God. The heart is enlarged. Prayer is no longer a bondage but a blessed relief. An old writer remarks, “As music upon the water sounds farther and more harmoniously than upon the land, so do prayers joined with tears.”
Would Jacob have wrestled so hard but for the great pressure put upon him by the approach of the revengeful Esau? Would Abraham have carried on the argument so skilfully on behalf of doomed Sodom but for the fact that he knew the ministers of wrath were already on their way, and were on the point of pouring out their vials? Would David have been so excellent a pattern of the manner in which closet duties should be performed, had he not been so often cast into the furnace when seven times heated? He who has sounded the lowest depths of sorrow can take the firmest grasp of the girdle of the Divine faithfulness. And he who has been most heavily overloaded with a weight of care and anxiety is likely to become most skilful in the use of the weapon—all-prayer. Thus does God bring good out of evil, and make great trials “yield in the end the peaceable fruits of righteousness.”
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS.—Jdg_4:3
THE EXCELLENCE OF PRAYER
Prayer and an open Bible are the greatest of all Christian privileges. They constitute the means by which all others are enjoyed. It is through these that the devout believing soul transacts all its business of communion with God. Through the one we make known all our thoughts, wishes and feelings to our God; and through the other God speaks to us, revealing His mind and will. Prayer, of which only we now speak, is also a highly elevating and purifying exercise. “It is, in one choice handful, Heaven!” For the work of Heaven is praise, arising from answered prayer. It is the soul in audience with its God, heaving sighs at the footstool which shall become songs on the throne. From no exercise can greater soul-profit be reaped when it is well performed. It is fitting therefore that now, when the subject is before us formally, it should be carefully considered.
I. Prayer specially glorifying to God.
It is so for two reasons:—
1. It ascribes to God the glory of His perfections. Prayer does this by its very attitude, and as offered in the name of Christ, whatever the special matter of the petitions presented may be, or whatever confessions are made.
(1.) It assumes His sovereignty—that He is the Great Supreme, before whom every knee shall bow, “of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things,”—the Maker of all, the Possessor of all, and the Worshipped of all. The great Roman said, “I will be Cæsar or no one.” Prayer assumes that if God is to be acknowledged as God, He must be held as Sovereign in His own universe—that the first duty of the creature should be to adore and obey its Creator, and that all the blessings which God confers on his creatures are bestowed of His own good pleasure.
(2.) It ascribes to Him all-sufficiency—that He possesses boundless riches of blessings. The suppliant feels himself but a tiny insect at the door of the Divine all sufficiency, just as an ant might be supposed to lie at the door of a large storehouse, but could only take a single grain of wheat from the vast abundance.
(3.) It ascribes boundless benevolence—that He is so kind, as of His own goodness to open His hand and supply the wants of every living thing. It supposes that He finds the greatest pleasure in making His creatures happy by showering His gifts upon them, through Jesus Christ, the appointed channel.
(4.) It assumes His faithfulness and truth—that He cannot violate His word, but will remain true to His promises in all circumstances and times.
(5.) It supposes Him to be omnipresent—so that from any spot on earth, or in the vast creation, prayer might rise up before Him.
(6.) It also ascribes omniscience—that He can hear the thoughts and musings of the heart, equally with the utterances of the voice.
(7.) And omnipotence—that He can do all that is asked without fail—no proper wish but He can gratify; no want but He can supply; no danger but He can remove; no fear but He can dissipate; no enemy but He can subdue—that “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”
(8.) Also unchangeableness—that however often we approach, and however changing the circumstances, He is always the same in character—a rock amid a sea of change—that the “strength of Israel will not lie.”
All this is assumed by every right-hearted petitioner that comes before the Divine footstool, and thus prayer is reckoned to be most honouring to God.
2. In prayer the creature takes its right place before God—and so God is greatly honoured. It is weakness laying hold of strength—the child of yesterday, throwing itself into the arms of the Everlasting Father—the thing made, bowing itself before Him that made it. It is the empty cistern placing itself at the fountain-head. It is the homage of felt subjection rendered to acknowledged supremacy. Prayer offered through Christ as the appointed way of approach to God is the soul coming to the throne of God’s holiness on His own terms laid down for receiving the guilty and undeserving.
Prayer is often the exercise in which the soul passes out of darkness into light, or when it first draws the breath of spiritual life. It marks the moment when the soul becomes “dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ the Lord.” Thus does prayer on all sides greatly honour God.
But all is not prayer that is called prayer. When prayer is a mere formality, it is not counted. Though Saul of Tarsus prayed for years with devout regularity as a Pharisee, none of his exercises were listened to till he began to pray as a penitent. On the same principle, most prayers of most people are never counted prayers at all. A man who had been taught to pray when he was three years’ old, and was converted in his old age, used to say: “I am the old man who said his prayers for seventy years, and yet all the time never prayed at all.” It is of the greatest importance to know what kind of offerings will be acceptable to God. There is a holy skill in the conducting of this exercise which all who really wish to draw down blessings from above, must set themselves to learn. There is an art in prayer, and the art mainly is to be, above all things natural.
Luther understood this art when he adopted the motto—“bene precasse est bene studuisse.” When most pressed with gigantic toils, he said: “I have so much to do that I cannot get on without three hours a day of praying.”
General Havelock rose at four, if the hour for marching was six, rather than lose the precious privilege of communion with God before setting out.
Sir Matthew Hale says: “If I omit praying and reading God’s Word in the morning, nothing goes well all day.”
Dr. Payson, when a student, said: “Since I began to beg God’s blessing on my studies, I have done more in one week than in a whole year before.” These men knew the art of acceptable prayer.
II. Acceptable Prayer.
All true prayer to God will be answered sooner or later in some form. There is not a single case of refusal on record. Such a case as that of Moses is only an apparent exception. (Deu_3:25-26). He got more than an equivalent. “The Lord buried him,” and after death he opened his eyes on the heavenly Canaan! “Everyone that asketh receiveth.” No man ever yet perished at mercy’s gate. No petition sincerely offered in the name of Jesus ever fell to the ground. Look at the long list of applicants who came to Jesus “in the days of His flesh.” None were put away. It is not doubtful whether we shall be answered, if we pray in the required spirit—humbly, penitently, believingly. But we must leave God to take His own time and His own way of giving the answer.
Were there only a possibility of success, such is the urgency of our case as sin-burdened and helpless, that we might well implore our God importunately to answer us. The four lepers at the gate of Samaria acted on a mere peradventure (2Ki_7:3-5), yet were successful. Esther was not sure of the king’s favour, yet she went in to the royal presence. Jonah’s companions in the ship could only say “call on thy God if so be that God will think on us.” The heathen deities were supposed often to spurn their suppliants away instead of hearing them. Yet not the less earnestly did they come again with the cry, “O Baal, hear us!” But we have the sure word of Him who is “the Amen—Faithful and True.” (Mat_21:22.) What an encouragement to ask, seek, knock until it be opened to us!
Acceptable prayer must be:—
1. Personal—the exercise of the man himself. His own heart must be engaged in it, though there should be a thousand present. Without this there might be “dew on the ground” all round about, but our “fleece” would be dry. It will not do to have others praying for us; we must also pray for ourselves. We must also often pray alone; for we have sinned alone, must die alone, and will be judged alone. We should have our own secret place for meeting with God—our “fig tree,” like Nathanael; our “house-top,” like Peter; the open “field,” like Isaac; the “plain,” like Ezekiel; the “river-side,” like Daniel; or even the “dungeon,” like Jeremiah; “the depths,” like David; down “at the bottom of the mountains,” like Jonah; or like the Master Himself, “the desert place or the mountain side.”
2. Simple and sincere. (a) Not artificial, not mechanical. What a drudgery is such prayer! The mere pronouncing of words for a certain length of time, along with the bending of the knee, is by many reckoned a respectful offering up of prayer. And yet it is scarcely better than the conduct of the Thibetan, who puts his written prayers into a cylinder, which revolves on a handle, and which he twirls by the aid of a ball and chain, each revolution counting for an offering of the enclosed petition. Sometimes the cylinder is attached to running water, and thus “praying without ceasing” is carried on by water-power. We pity the poor Buddhist, who ties his prayers to a bamboo stick and waves them many times before his idol god, each oscillation being a repetition of the prayer; or, we pity the Tavist, in China who writes out a statement of his case on paper, with a request accompanying it, and then entrusts it to the priest who burns it, and determines for the suppliant whether his case will be considered favourably by the god or not. Yet what better is the position of the man who repeats formally the words of prayer, without having in his heart anything of the spirit of the exercise? Better indeed than the mere formalist was the case of the man who wished sincerely to pray, but, being entirely ignorant of how to proceed, went every morning before the Lord, and repeated the letters of the alphabet saying, “and now, O good God, put these letters together into words, to make such sense as may be most to thy glory and my good.”
(b) real. The talk of the little child has nothing in it of the grace of speech or beauty of language, and yet it is more pleasing to the father’s ear than the sweetest music, or the most mellifluous phraseology. So it is with the hearer of prayer, who, “before all temples made with hands, prefers the upright heart and true.” It is said of Him, “thou desireth truth in the inward parts.” The great art in praying is to be artless. Eloquence or any straining for effect is a blemish, and a detraction from the acceptability of prayer. The more natural and true, the nearer to success. Our interjections may be prayers. Our sighing may be praying. The bursting forth of our real feelings or wishes, however simple the clothing. A grief or a care, or a genuine wish, expressed by a penitent, humble heart, trusting in the Saviour’s advocacy, and relying on the Divine promises is the kind of offering which God desires.
3. Reverent. He whom the Father always hears teaches us to approach Him with these words on our lips—“Our Father who art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy Name!” “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints, and to be had in reverence of all that are about Him.” South says, “we are to keep our distance from God in our very approaches to Him.” We approach to an Infinite Majesty; One who fills heaven and earth, before whom the seraphim cry aloud, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty!” We come as dust and ashes, confessing we are vile, and rebels against the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” Therefore our spirit ought to be that of the publican (Luk_18:13), or that of Elijah, when “he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees” (1Ki_18:42), or that of Abraham when he said, “Behold, I have now taken upon me to speak unto the Lord;” “O, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak” (Gen_18:27-32); or that even of the seraphim, each of whom with two of his wings covered his face, as being ashamed, though a seraph, to stand uncovered before so much excellence; with other two wings he covered his feet, lest even a seraph’s foot should pollute ground so holy; and with his remaining two wings he stood ready to fly swiftly as the lightning, at the lightest whisper that comes from the throne. The holiest of creatures are the most full of godly fear, and have their places nearest the throne.
4. Believing. This exercise is the very least we can give to God as a foundation of intercourse with Him—to trust Him in all that He does, and believe Him in all that He says. But on that footing a great deal may be done—the whole business of the soul’s salvation may be transacted. If we but believe all He has told us about Christ as a Saviour, and trust His character as revealed in Christ, what a mighty impression it must make on the heart. We shall have “boldness at the throne”—the boldness of the little child that climbs his father’s knee, and throws his arms around his neck.
“Prayer is the key of heaven, and faith is the hand that turns it. Faith is to prayer as the feather is to the arrow; faith feathers the arrow of prayer, and makes it fly swifter and pierce the throne of grace. Prayer that is faithless is fruitless” (Mar_11:24). [Watson.]
Many pray to God for pardon and peace, for hope and spiritual joy, as if they did not believe that God were listening to their words, or as if they thought He grudged to give them such things. The promises made to believe in prayer are most explicit (Mat_21:22; Joh_14:13-14; Mar_9:23; Jas_1:5-6; Jer_29:12-13; Joh_15:7; Joh_16:24; 1Jn_5:14-15).
5. With the use of all the arguments. When an advocate undertakes to plead a cause, he looks at the case on all sides, and, not content with one argument or two, he carefully treasures up every plea he can devise, so that by any means he may bring off his case successfully. And when we come before God we are directed “to take with us words”—both our own words suitable for expressing our needs and desires, and also such words as God has supplied us with as arguments, in order to plead with Him. We are like Job, though not in his self-justifying spirit to “order our cause before God, and fill our mouth with arguments.” We are not to be content with always quoting the same passages of Scripture—those with which we are most familiar—but to turn over the whole Bible in every part, and make use of all its promises and gracious statements, each in turn. God wishes us to honour every part of His word on the one hand, and on the other He delights to see us gathering up all the pleas with which He has furnished us, so as to make the most of our case. He loves us to reason with Him, “Come, let us reason together.” “Produce your cause with the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.” “Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s controversy, for the Lord hath a controversy with His people.” And especially is it said, “Put me in remembrance, let us plead together, declare thou, that thou mayst be justified.” This is a direct call to make use of all the promises or examples, or gracious statements that we find anywhere within the limit of the blessed volume, which contains the revelation of God’s will, and to hold Him by the girdle of His faithfulness, saying, “We will not let thee go, except thou bless us.” The mightier anyone is in the word, the mightier will he be in prayer.
6. Fervent. The blessings of God’s hand are so valuable, we are in such necessity to have them, and there are such strong reasons for our losing no time to secure them, that a state of fervour is the natural frame for us always to cultivate. Also God is much more disposed to answer an earnest wish than a feeble wish, for the former puts a higher estimate on His blessings than the other. Hence the power of Elijah’s prayers (Jas_5:16-18).
“Cold prayer is no more prayer than painted fire is fire. Fervency is to prayer what fire was to the spices in the censer; it makes it ascend to heaven as a sweet perfume. Prayer without fervency is no prayer; it is speaking, not praying: lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of a man is a man. Fervent prayer, like a petard set against heaven’s gates makes them fly open. Christ prayed with strong cries.” [Watson].
“One great extremity is approaching death. What can then support us? Prayer—Fervent, earnest, wrestling prayer. With our blessed Lord, prayer was a refuge from the storm; almost every word He uttered during that tremendous scene was prayer—the most earnest, the most urgent; repeated, continued proceeding from the recesses of the soul; private, solitary; prayer for deliverance, for strength, above all for resignation.” [Paley.]
“A small vessel with smart gales will sail faster than a large ship with small winds. When prayer mounts on the wing of fervour to God, then answers come down like lightning from God.” [Seeker.]
“The arrow, though well pointed and feathered, is of little use unless pulled to the head by a strong hand.” [Pilkington.]
Prayer if only dribbled forth from careless lips falls at our feet. It is the strength of fervour which sends it to heaven, and makes it pierce the clouds. It is not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they be; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they be; nor their music, how sweet the voice may be; nor their logic, how argumentative they may be; nor their method, how orderly they may be: nor even their divinity, how good their doctrine may be—which God values. But fervency of spirit “availeth much.” (Jas_5:16.) [Bp. Hall.]
“It is like the rope in the belfry. Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give but an occasional pluck at the rope; but he who wins heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his might.” [Spurgeon.]
7. Daily and without ceasing.
Beecher says, “Let the day have a blessed baptism by giving your first waking thoughts into the bosom of God. The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
Spurgeon says, “Keep on pulling the bell in the belfry, and though the bell is so high up that you cannot hear it ring, depend upon it it can be heard in the tower of heaven, and is ringing before the throne of God, who will give you answers of peace according to your faith.”
Trapp says, “A good Christian is daily either praying or praising, or both. He drives a constant trade betwixt earth and heaven.”
Henry says, “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”
Guthrie says, “It is as impossible for the soul to live and thrive without daily prayer as for the body to do so without daily food. Our graces are like plants that need daily watering; watches that need daily winding; lamps that need daily filling; bodies that need daily feeding.”
Talmage says, “A good day begins with God; a wise merchant would no more think of going to business without communion with Christ than of going to the store without coat, hat, or shoes. I had a poor watch and used to set it every morning in order to make a guess from it about the time of day. Our souls are poor timepieces, utterly out of order. Every morning we need to set them by the Sun of Righteousness.”
Gurnall says, “He who closes his eyes at night without prayer lies down before his bed is made. He is like a foolish captain in a garrison who betakes himself to rest before he has set the watch for the city’s safeguard. God is His people’s keeper; but can he expect to be kept by Him, who chargeth not Divine Providence with his keeping? The angels pitch their tents round the saints’ dwellings, but as the drum calls the watch together, so God expects that by humble prayer we beg of Him their ministry and attendance.”
Gurnall adds (in 1Th_5:17), service and prayer are the warp and woof of the Christian life, of which every part of it is composed. Both are in the groundwork of the stuff. Prayer at stated seasons is good and necessary; but a proper Christian will find it impossible to confine his prayers to stated seasons. He will discover that—
“Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
The Christian’s native air,”
and that to attempt to carry on the spiritual life without more prayer than a short recital in the morning and the same on retiring to rest is equally absurd with a man opening his casement morning and evening and inhaling the fresh air for a few minutes, and then saying to himself that amount of breathing will suffice for the rest of the day. We must always be in the spirit of prayer, and so “pray without ceasing.”
Salter put it, “The bird is not always on the wing, but is ready to fly at any moment.”
8. Importunate. No Christian should in any case despond, because for a time he is not heard. The rule laid down for all by the Master Himself is, that “men should always pray and not faint.” Nay, we must go further. Since our privilege is so great in having a living advocate on high—a Great High Priestwithin the veil, we ought to “come boldly to the throne of grace,” as those who are assured of being heard. We are to throw an earnestness into our prayers like that of Jacob (Gen_32:26,)—to “pray with groanings or desires that are too great for expression.” When we can put our finger on a promise, and go to God with a “Thou saidst,” our course is to persevere importunately, for God cannot deny Himself, and we are sure of success if we hold on.
“Our prayers are our bills of exchange, and they are allowed in heaven, when they come from trustful and earnest hearts; but if we be broken in our religion and bankrupts of grace, God will protest our bills; He will not be won with our prayers. [Adams.]
How often have I seen a little child throw its arms round its father’s neck, and win by kisses and importunities what had been refused? Is God less pitiful than we? [Guthrie.]
9. Submissive. Everything we receive from the throne of grace is a favour—an undeserved gift, and therefore all that we ask should be asked in submission to the will of the Great Giver. The tone of every right prayer should be, “Not my will but thine be done!” Besides, it would be presumptuous in us to be supposed to dictate to God what He should give us. It is not for us on any account to prescribe to Him. We dare not suppose that He will bestow His gifts according to our caprice or ill-considered wishes, but according to what he judges to be wise and good. Farther, it might often be the case that the prayers which we offer up, and those of the blessed Advocate might conflict, so that He might be asking one thing for us at the throne while we might be asking another.
“Many times Jesus and His people pull against one another in prayer. You bend your knee and say, “Father, I will that thy saints be with me where I am.” Christ says, “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” Thus the disciple is at cross-purposes with his Lord. The beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you too. Now, which pleader shall win the day? If the king himself should step from his throne and put it to you, “Here are two supplicants praying in opposition to one another; which shall be answered?” Surely you would say, “Well, whatever it costs me, Jesus, not my will, but thine be done!” [Spurgeon.]
10. Watchful. He that prays and watches not, is like him that sows a field with precious seed, but leaves the gate open for hogs to come in and root it up; or him that takes great pains to get money, but no care to lay it up safely when he hath it.” [Gurnall.]
We ought to watch our prayers to see what success we have at the throne. “Children shoot arrows on purpose to loose them, and never so much as look where they light; but men when they shoot, aim at the mark, and go after the arrow, to see how near it falls. So wicked carnal men when they have said, not made their prayers to Almighty God, it is but opus operatum, they have no more regard of them; but God’s children, when they on bended knee dart out their prayers, eye them up into heaven, observe how God entertains them, and wait for a happy return, at His good will and pleasure.” [Wilkinson.]
We are to add watchfulness and thanksgiving together. “Prayer and thanks are like the double motion of the lungs; the air that is sucked in by prayer, is breathed forth again by thanks.”
“Let your requests be made known with thanksgiving. As God hath an open hand to give, so He hath an open eye to see who comes to His door, and to discern between the thankful beggar and the unthankful.” [Gurnall.]
11. In the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is said to “help our infirmities.” and to “make intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” He is called “the Spirit of grace and of supplications” (Zec_12:10). We are said to “pray in the Holy Ghost” (Jud_1:20). We “pray with all prayer and supplication” only by the help of “the Spirit” (Eph_6:18).
“We must implore the help of God’s Spirit to fix our minds, and make them intent and serious in prayer. The ship without a pilot rather floats than sails. That our thoughts do not float up and down in prayer, we need the Blessed Spirit to be our pilot to steer us. A shaking hand may as well write a line steadily, as we can keep our hearts fixed in prayer without the Spirit of God.” [Watson.]
“As the sails of a ship carry it into the harbour, so prayer carries us to the throne and the bosom of God. But as the sails cannot of themselves speed the progress of a vessel unless filled with a favourable breeze, so the Holy Spirit must breathe on our hearts, or our prayers will be motionless and lifeless.” [Toplady.]
There is need of a spiritual frame inprayer. Our offering must be “inspirit and truth.” The arrow which is shot from a loose cord drops powerless to the ground; but from the tightly drawn bow-string it springs forward, soars upward and reaches the object to which it is directed. So it is not the loose utterance of attempted prayer that is effectual, but the strong earnestness of the heart sending its pointed petitions to heaven, that reaches the Divine ear, and obtains the desired blessing.” [Bowden.]
We must take delight in our prayers, and in order to do this must have the Spirit resting on us. “Delight is the marrow of religion. It makes the melody, without which prayer would be but a harsh sound. God accepts the heart’s offering when it is a gift given, not forced. Joy is the tuning of the soul. We are first to ‘Rejoice evermore,’ then ‘Pray without ceasing.’ Dullness is not suitable to the excellence of the things we pray for. Gospel blessings are a feast. Manna from heaven is not to be sought for with a dumpish heart. With joy we must draw the water out of the wells of salvation. Faith is the bucket, but joy and love are the hands that move it. They are the Aaron and Hur that hold up the hands of Moses.” [Charnock.]
Men never weary of the shining of the sun; so a man who is taught of the Spirit will never weary of spiritual exercises. “The Spirit dwells in us,” and does not depart. Hence there is provision for being always in a devout frame.
“When thou art wrestling like Jacob and art nearly thrown down, ask the Holy Spirit to nerve thine arm. The Holy Spirit is the chariot wheel of prayer. Prayer may be the chariot the desire may draw it forth; but the Spirit is the very wheel whereby it moveth.” [Spurgeon.]
III. Advantages of Prayer. Prayer is of such extensive advantage to the Christian, that it may be said to be an envelope for the whole Christian life. Swinnock says, “As every sacrifice was to be seasoned with salt, so every undertaking and affliction must be sanctified with prayer. It shows the excellence of gold that it is laid upon silver itself, and so it speaks the excellency of prayer, that not only natural but even religious actions are overlaid with it. We pray not only before we eat and drink, but also before we feed on the bread of the word and the bread in the sacrament. Prayer is needed to get a blessing on every providence and every ordinance; it is also needed to make our callings successful. Prayer secures the fort-royal of the heart; it is the porter that keeps the door of the lips; it is the strong hilt which defendeth the hands; it perfumes every relation in life; helps us to profit by every condition; is the chemist that turns all into gold; and is the master workman, who being out of the way, the whole trade stands still, or goeth backward. What the key is to the watch, that prayer is to religion, it winds it up, and sets it going.”
The advantages of prayer are incalculable.
1. It is always good for the soul to be in the presence of its God. “The mind wants steadying and setting right many times a day. It is like a compass placed on a ricketty table; the least stir of the table makes the needle swing round and point untrue. It must settle till it points aright. Stand awhile in the presence of Jesus, in the attitude of prayer, and the thing that worries you will soon drop as a sediment to the bottom, and the soul shall be no longer turbid.” [Goulburn.]
As the earth moves round the sun, exposing every part of its surface in turn to receive his enlightening beams, and be warmed by his genial rays, so by the habit of having recourse to God in prayer in all our states and moods of mind, we are blessed with His charming presence in all our mental experiences however varied. Amid all the dark phases of Providential dealings, we ever turn round to receive afresh the light of the Divine countenance and say, “Truly this light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Like Moses in the cleft of the rock we are strengthened by a mere glimpse of the Divine countenance (Psa_42:5; Psalms 50 a; 150).
Trench says, “If we would measure in some sort the gains of this communion with God, think how much we gain by intercourse with good and holy men, and then conclude from the less to the greater. What ennobling influences does it exercise on the character to live in habitual fellowship with the excellent of the earth, whose conversation is in heaven, and whose tone of mind is always lofty and pure! Unconsciously we catch something of their spirit, and feel that we inhale an atmosphere of health. But how incomparably mightier the reactive influence for good, when we continually enjoy the presence of Him who is highest, purest, and best—in whom all perfections meet, and from whom all true nobleness proceeds!”
Newman adds, “Prayer has a natural effect in spiritualising the soul. A man is not what he was before—gradually he imbibes a new set of ideas, and becomes imbued with fresh principles. He is as one coming from king’s courts with a grace, delicacy, dignity, and propriety—a justness of thought and taste, a clearness and firmness of principle, all his own. As speech is the organ of human society, so is prayer the instrument of Divine fellowship and Divine training.”
Beecher’s conception is, “Prayer is chiefly translation or transfiguration. It was worth more to Peter, James, and John to stand for an hour and see the spirits drawn through the heaven, and talk with Christ, whose face shone as the sun, than if the three tabernacles which they craved had been built of diamonds and rubies on the mountain-tops. It is what we get by the soul that makes us rich.”
2. Prayer is the appointed channel for receiving spiritual blessings. “Ask and ye shall receive.” “Open thy mouth and I will fill it.” “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” We must seek if we are to find. It is the hungry soul that is filled with good things. “Prayer is the vessel by which the good man is continually trading with the Holy Land; he sendeth it out fraught with precious graces—faith hope, desire, love, godly sorrow, and it cometh home many times richly laden with peace, joy and increase of faith.”
The very heathens seemed to feel instinctively that prayer was the natural way of receiving blessing from their God. Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, never addressed an audience without first praying to the gods. Cornelius Scipio, the great Roman General, when he assumed the toga, never undertook any affair of importance without having passed some time alone in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. “The best and noblest action,” says Plato, “which a virtuous man can perform, and that which will most promote his success in life, is to live by vows and prayers, in continual intercourse with the gods; nay, all who would act with due consideration, ought, before beginning any undertaking, great or small, to invoke the Deity.”
3. The warrant is to expect much. “Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive that your joy may be full.” (Joh_16:23-24; Joh_14:13-14; Joh_15:7; Joh_15:16.) The terms are “anything”—“whatsoever ye ask.”—“what ye will,” “in everything let your request be made known to God.” When Elisha in God’s name called on the king of Israel to shoot the arrows of deliverance of the Lord’s people from their enemies, the Syrians, the timid monarch smote thrice on the ground and stayed. The prophet was angry that so important a moment should have been half lost by the want of largeness of heart on the part of the king (2Ki_13:15; 2Ki_13:19.) Yet this is what most of us are always doing—making mistakes as to how far the measure of the Divine goodness will reach. We hold out a trembling hand, and feel a palpitating heart, when we pray to our God. We feel we deserve nothing, and therefore we ask little, as if our own worthiness were the ground of our asking. If so, we should ask nothing at all, for we have no ground of that kind to stand on. Our natures are so selfish and so carnal that we cannot appreciate that riches of Divine goodness which is set before us in Christ, and so we ask timidly.
The good Philip Henry, after praying for two of his children who were dangerously ill, said, “If the Lord will be pleased to grant this my request, I will not say as the beggars do at our door, ‘I will never ask anything of you again.’ On the contrary, ‘Thou shalt hear oftener from me than ever; and I will love thee better as long as I shall live.’ ” It is said of Alexander the Great that on one occasion he gave permission to one of his favourites with his accustomed generosity to ask of him any gift he pleased. The person so favoured immediately named a large sum of money. The bystanders expected that a frown would instantly overspread the royal countenance. But in place of that the monarch smiled, and gave orders that it should be done as he desired. “That friend, he said, honours me by the largeness of the amount which he asks.” In a certain poem, a man is represented as timidly venturing into God’s presence with a little draft, and God inquires why he did not ask a larger sum, knowing that He delighted to satisfy the longing soul, and would not send the hungry soul empty away. As He said of Jeremiah, so He says still, “Call unto me, and I will shew thee great and mighty things.”
The Armenian Christians, along with many gross fancies, yet believed in the great power of prayer. St. Basil, from his great sanctity, was credited with having an almost resistless power of prayer, so that he not only delivered souls from purgatory, but even lost angels from the abyss of hell. On the sixth day of the creation, when the lost angels fell from heaven through that opening which we call, “The Milky Way,” one unlucky angel, who took no part in the rebellion, yet got entangled in the crowd, and fell with the rebels; nor was this unfortunate spirit restored until long afterwards. St. Basil, coming to understand his condition, made his case the subject of earnest pleadings, and at last was successful in effecting his rescue. His condition meantime, for about 5000 years, must have been very uncomfortable, like that of Klopstock’s repentant demon in the Messiah.
“Man’s plea to man is that he never more
Will beg, and that he never begged before;
Man’s plea to God is, that he did obtain
A former suit, and therefore sues again.
How good a God we serve, that when we sue,
Makes His old gifts the examples of His new!”
4. Prayer is for the spiritual health of the soul. Prayer is the soul spreading its sails to catch the heavenly breeze which is to make it hasten on its voyage on the homeward bound course more rapidly. In prayer, Paul first draws the breath of spiritual life, and in prayer, Stephen breathes his spirit at the point of death into the arms of the Saviour. The praying Christian is the receiving Christian, and so becomes the prosperous Christian.
“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day;
For what are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,
Both for themselves and those who call them friend
For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
The good man will seek God’s face for evermore. He will call upon Him as long as he lives. (Psa_105:4; Psa_116:2.) It is His atmosphere which he breathes, without breathing which he must die. It is the ambient air that goes all round about him, in which he lives and moves and has his being. “There is a class of animals, neither fish nor sea-fowl, called the cetaceous, that inhabit the deep. It is their home; they never leave it for the shore; yet though swimming beneath its waves and sounding its darkest depths, they have ever and anon to rise to the surface that they may breathe the air. Without this they could not live. And similarly is it with the Christian. It is by ever and anon ascending to God, rising through prayer into a purer and loftier region for supplies of Divine grace, that he can preserve his spiritual health. Prevent these animals from rising to the surface, and they die for want of air; and prevent the Christian from rising to God in prayer, and he dies in like manner.” [Guthrie.]
“As the tender dew that falls in the silent night makes the grass and herbs, and flowers to furnish and grow more abundantly than great showers of rain that fall in the day, so secret prayer will more abundantly cause the sweet herbs of grace and holiness to grow and flourish in the soul, than all those more open, public, and visible duties of religion, which too, too often are mingled and mixed with the sun and wind of pride and hypocrisy.” [Brooks.]
The root that produces the beautiful and flourishing tree, with all its spreading branches, verdant leaves, and refreshing fruit—that which gains for it sap, life, vigour and fruitfulness, is all unseen; and the farther and deeper the roots spread beneath, the more the tree expands above. So the man who would flourish as a Christian, and bring forth the fruits of holiness must strike his roots wider and deeper in private prayer. Even the priests of Buddha teach that if men pray to Buddha, and do not become Buddha, it is because the mouth prays and not the mind.”
“Prayer purifies: it is a self-preached sermon.”
5. It reveals the true state of the heart. The barometer makes us acquainted with the actual state of the atmosphere; it takes cognisance of the slightest variation, and by its elevation or depression gives indication of every change at any given time. So the Christian has an index within him of the elevation or depression of his spirituality of mind, namely his spirit of devotion. As is the love for communion with God in prayer and meditation, so is the Christian life in the man.
“You may see the son of a prince one day in richer and more glorious apparel than on another day, but you will never find him in sordid, ragged, and beggarly clothes; he still is clad as becomes a king’s son. And the Christian you may sometimes see come forth with more enlargement of affections in prayer and all his graces in high exercise, but you will never find him with his robe of grace altogether laid aside. The true saint will distinguish his birth by his everyday course, he will not altogether neglect spiritual duties. It is the brand of a hypocrite to have his devotion come by fits, and like a drift of snow to lie thick in one place and none in another—to seem to vie with the angels for zeal at one time, and live like an atheist for weeks after.” [Gurnall.]
The exercise of prayer is so free of all difficulty, that it requires nothing but a proper state of heart to make it the easiest of duties. By every right-hearted person it ought to be hailed instinctively as the means of enriching the soul with marvellously little trouble. We are not required to ascend to heaven, nor take any long journey on earth; we have not to go through a long course of penitential service, to weep tears of blood, or to subject the body to stripes, lacerations and agonies; nor have we to grind in the prison-house for long years of hard servitude. We have but to come to God as a Father in the name of Christ, to tell Him in the spirit of little children all that is in our hearts, to express deep sorrow for our sins, and supplicate pardon and spiritual liberty for Christ’s sake, to plead His promises and pour out our whole hearts for such blessings as He declares Himself ready to bestow—and we shall find the gate of mercy open—the spiritual heavens open, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ willing to pour down blessings till there be not room to receive.
“Every time,” says Faber, “is suitable for the duty, every place and posture. Talent is not needed; nor eloquence, nor dignity of rank. Thoughts are needed; actions too can pray, and sufferings can. There need be no ceremonies, and there are no rubrics to keep. The essence of the duty is the child at the Father’s knee, penitent and trustful, earnest words and a still more wistful face.”
6. It leads to the fulfilment of the Divine promises. Prayer is the key that opens the gate of Heaven’s treasure-house. It is the child knocking at his father’s door for food and drink. In such a case there is nothing more agreeable to the father’s feelings than to open his hand and supply the wants of the suppliant. But in addition to natural willingness, there is in the case of all prayer offered in the name of Christ, all the encouragement which can be given by promises made, explicitly and decidedly by Him who cannot lie. Hence when the tree of the promise is shaken by the hand of prayer, we are assured that precious fruits more or less will fall into our hands. It has been said that “words in prayer are but as powder; faith is the kindled match, and the promise is the bullet that doeth the execution, while fervency gives great force to the discharge.” He is an imprudent soldier who leaves the work of fitting his bullets to the bore of his pieces till he comes into the field; so he is an unwise petitioner at God’s throne who does not provide promises suitable to his case, before he appears to present his request. Daniel and Jacob, and David with other wrestlers, seem all to have had their mouths filled with arguments, and especially with the promises of God, every time they visited the throne of grace.
What a power belongs to prayer when it is carried on with a skilful pleading of the Divine promises! The most honoured list of names in the sacred Book itself is distinguished by nothing more prominently than by the spirit of prayer, from Abraham and Jacob downward to Daniel and Nehemiah in the Old Testament, and from Zacharias and Elizabeth, down to the well-beloved Gaius and the praying ones in the seven churches of Asia Minor, in the New Testament. All the successes gained in the planting of the Christian church in Judea, Samaria, and over so vast a territory of heathendom in the Apostles’ days, and those of their successors, as well as in every age of the thrilling history of time, were due to prayer. A praying church always moved the hand that controlled the storms, and could make all events work together for her good. But for prayer, the worst of the persecutors had not become the chief among the apostles, and one of the most profligate of youths had not been raised up to lay the foundation of the church’s sacred system of faith, and to shine as a star of the first magnitude in one of the darkest nights of her strange history. The mighty Luthers were what they were because of their prayers. The prayers of defenceless Knox were more feared by the persecuting Queen, than an army of ten thousand men. Whitefield and Wesley gave another and fresher colour to the religion of England by means of their prayers. Through the prayers of Finney, Edwards, and many others, what a beneficial influence was brought to bear in the formation of the religious character of the young giant nation of the Western world! And how many individual great men, who have been burning and shining lights in their day, were converted in answer to fervent and united prayer! And still it is this same power which has done so much to bless the church and the world in the past, to which we are to look for bright days, and glorious triumphs for the future. It has been the motto in the past, and still will be in the days to come. “Prayer and pains can do any thing.”
7. It cultivates a spirit of dependence on God. No posture is more humble than that of prayer; none more impresses on the creature a sense of his own emptiness, or on the sinner a sense of his own unworthiness. Gratitude is also taught, and hope, notwithstanding of our guilt. But especially the feeling of dependence on a mightier arm than our own, and a heart truer in love is deeply impressed on all who bend the knee at the Divine footstool.
8. It strengthens for great duties and for severe trials. It is after being long on the Mount with God that the face shines with an unearthly brilliancy like that of Moses, and the hands become strong to fight against any odds, as in the case of Joshua, of Elijah, or of David. Through prayer, the weak learn to become as David, and David becomes as an angel of the Lord. Through prayer, we make peace with the powers of the world to come, we conquer death, obtain an Advocate and propitiation in judgment, and acceptance and a verdict of “Well-done,” from the Great Judge at last. The whole sky of the future becomes cleared, every cloud is dispelled, and a transporting vision of life and glory through the long vista of our immortality is assured without fail to those who place their trust in the Saviour.
These great and awful fears respecting our eternal state being removed, the dangers and trials of time lose all their really formidable aspect (Rom_8:18). Deliverance from the greater trials includes deliverance from the less. Prayer is indeed the wall that surrounds the Christian, wherever his lot is cast in this world of distance and of darkness. No evil can befal him, no plague can come nigh, but instantly, swifter even than the working of the telegraphic wire, he can communicate with the Supreme Governor over all things, and darkness shall become light, weakness shall become strength, and trouble shall be changed into peace.
The believer has a claim in prayer. “All the promises in the Bible are so many bills of exchange drawn by God the Father in Heaven upon His Son Jesus Christ, and payable to every pious bearer—to everyone that comes to the mercy-seat, and offers the promise or bill for acceptance, and pleads in the way of obedient faith and prayer. Jesus the High Treasurer of Heaven knows every letter of His Father’s handwriting, and can never be imposed upon by any forged note. He will ever honour His Father’s bills; He accepts them all. It is for His Father’s honour that His bills never fail of acceptance and payment.” [Beaumont.]
Prayer elevates as well as strengthens. “Constantine the Great was one day looking at some statues of noted persons who were represented standing. ‘I shall have mine taken kneeling,’ said he, ‘for that is how I have risen to eminence.’ Thus it is with the Christian; if he would obtain any real eminence in the Christian life, he must be often kneeling in prayer to God.”
It is a mistake to suppose that good men will get anything they choose to ask for. God will not give what is hurtful, what would feed vanity or pride, or worldliness. He will not give the fish they ask, when it would turn out a serpent. He gives the bitter now, that the sweet may come by and bye.
IV. Hindrances to prayer.
1. An unsuitable frame of mind.
This may arise from various causes:—
(1.) Place may have to do with it. Where there is bustle or excitement it is hard to give that close attention and profound homage of the heart which is essential in transacting business with our God. When Peter wished to do the work of penitence, “he went out.” In the court-room, and in the midst of enemies, he could not pour out the feeling of a full heart without molestation. The Master has said, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.” We read of some who prayed on “the house-to”—which among the Jews was one of the best places of retirement. We hear also of other spots used for the sacred purpose of prayer—“the little chamber” (2Ki_4:10); “the upper room” (Act_1:13); “the inner chamber” (1Ki_20:30; 1Ki_22:25). But any place which is private, or free of that which may distract the attention, is suitable. “The desert place, the mountain side, or in the presence of the disciple,” were the places chosen by Jesus himself. Nicodemus chose the friendly shelter of “the fig-tree.” Ezekiel “went forth into the plain.” (Eze_3:22). Jeremiah prayed in “the dungeon.” David, “in the wilderness depths.” Jonah, from “the bottom of the mountains.” Daniel, from a chosen “chamber in his own house, with the windows open towards Jerusalem.”
Wherever the soul may find composure, and be free of all disturbing influences, there is suitableness of place. A man cannot concentrate his thoughts amid a gabble of tongues, or where a multitude of intruders come in to divide the attention.
(2.) Irritation of feeling may have to do with it. Where anger or wrath, or other passions are excited, and a man’s spirit becomes ruffled, heavenly work like that of prayer cannot go on. The Spirit of God has for His emblem “the dove.” He flies from the abodes of strife and clamour, of envyings, hatred, and variance. Elisha’s spirit was roused to a high pitch of righteous anger at the presence of the idolatrous King of Israel, Ahab’s wicked son, when he came to him for aid merely out of courtesy to Jehoshaphat, King of Judah. So great was his perturbation of spirit (2Ki_3:13-14), that he felt himself in an unsuitable frame for the Spirit of God to rest upon him; and be sought the soothing influence of music to bring down his mind to that calm and placid temper which was necessary to fit him for being also a suitable medium for receiving the Divine afflatus (Jdg_4:15). When the soul is tranquil, like the canvas before the painter, it is ready to receive whatever may be depicted thereupon. “The still and quiet soul is like a ship that lies quiet in the harbour; you may take in what goods you please. But it is very difficult to put cargo on board ship in a rough sea. So the soul must lie quiet under God’s hand, in order to get into it much of God, of Christ, or of the spirit of prayer. [Brooks].
Jeremy Taylor says, “Prayer is the issue of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness; to pray with a discomposed spirit is like retiring into a battle to meditate. Anger prevents prayer rising up in a right line to God. He compares the case to the lark rising from its bed of grass, soaring upwards, singing as it rises, and hoping soon to get above the clouds; but the poor bird is beaten back by the loud sighings of an eastern wind, its motions become irregular, and it descends more at every breath of the tempest, than it can recover by the frequent balancing of its wings. At last the little creature is forced to sit down and pant, and to wait till the storm is over; then it rises joyfully and sings as if it had learned music from an angel, and passes through the air to regions out of sight. So the good man must wait till his spirit is free of all ruffle, is calm as the brow of Jesus and smooth like the heart of God. Then shall it ascend to heaven upon the wings of the holy Dove, and return like the useful bee, laden with a blessing, and with the dew of heaven.”
(3.) Want of sympathy with the exercise. How often is the devotional spirit lacking! The heart feels dull and leaden in its frame when the call comes to address the throne of grace. Yet if the heart be cold, prayer is a more likely means to warm it than to omit prayer. We must come to the fire before we get warm. As Baxter remarks, “God’s Spirit is more likely to help you in duty, than in the neglect of it.” But cold prayers are a sacrifice without fire. The true method is to cultivate spirituality of mind as a rule—to “walk in the Spirit,” i.e., to be habitually spiritually-minded—
“When prayer delights the least then learn to say,
Soul, now is greatest need that thou shouldst pray.
Oh, come, warm sun, and ripen my late fruits.
Pierce, genial showers, down to my parched roots.”
We must by all means get into the spirit of prayer, for without delight in it, prayer will make a harsh sound. “Delight is the marrow of religion.” “With joy we are to draw water out of the wells of salvation.” To refer to a sentiment already quoted, “Faith is the bucket, but joy and love are the hands that move it. God does not value that man’s service who accounts not His service a privilege and a pleasure.” “The arrow which is shot from the bow with a loose cord drops powerless to the ground.” It is not the vapid utterance of a dull leaden heart that has power with God and prevails, but the strong Jacob-like cry which will take no denial till the blessing come.
(4.) Wandering thoughts. These must be called in, and the whole attention given to the subject in hand. The petitioner must be able to say, “My heart is fixed; O God, unto Thee will I sing, and unto Thee will I pray.” All other things must retire, and be shut out while the soul is in audience with its God. Never should the thoughts be more collected. Newton, who complained occasionally of wandering thoughts, said of his case, “I compare myself to the case of a man on his knees before the king pleading for some great favour; in the midst of his petitioning, he sees a butterfly fluttering before him, he immediately breaks off, and runs to catch the butterfly. Such a man is thought mad; and alas! my thoughts prove, that I am not free from spiritual insanity.”
2. Want of premeditation. We ought to have a definite object to pray for. “Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God.” Where there is no well-defined object to be gained present to the thoughts, there can be no sincere wish for it in the heart, and therefore no real prayer. It is so great a privilege to be allowed to come at any time, and at all times, to the Fountain-head of blessing, with the assurance of acceptance, that one should always make sure of not returning empty-handed; but to do that there must be definiteness of object, and earnestness of manner. We must consider.
“Meditation is prayer’s handmaid to wait on it, both before and after the performance. It is as the plough before the sower to prepare the heart for the duty of prayer, and the harrow to cover the seed when it has been sown. As the hopper feeds the mill with grist, so does meditation supply the heart with matter for prayer. Before the tradesman goes to the fair, he looks over his shop that be may know what commodity he most lacks. So, ere we engage in prayer, we should be careful to ascertain the graces and mercies we most need. Also our heart is like a watch that is soon run down, and needs constant winding up. It is an instrument put easily out of tune. Meditation tunes the instrument, and sets it for the harmony of prayer. One great reason why our prayers want success is, that we do not meditate before them. We should be able to say with David, “Give ear to my word, O Lord; consider my meditation.” [Gurnall.]
God calls for our best and our utmost. We are to bring the choicest of the flock for an offering, and not to present a lame unconcocted, wandering discourse to God, when we might, with consideration, give something more accurate and exact. When a Roman gentleman invited Augustus Cæsar to supper, and provided him with a mean entertainment, Cæsar very properly took him up with the question, “Friend, how came you and I to be so familiar?” God will reject the sons of presumption and impertinance with disdain, and since they take no time for the making of their prayers, He will take long time before granting them.” [South.]
“We often ramble in our prayers and get nothing, because, in fact, we desire nothing. We only chatter about a number of things, but the desires of the heart do not fix on any one thing. Imagine an archer shooting with his bow, and not knowing where the mark is. How could he succeed? Conceive a ship putting out to sea, without the captain having any idea in what direction he should steer! How foolish! Or suppose a man goes to the market to make purchases, but he has not thought beforehand what things he needs. So is it both unwise and irreverent to go into the presence of God, without being able to answer the question, “What is thy petition, and what is thy request, and it shall be done unto thee.” [Spurgeon.]
3. Sin wilfully cherished in the heart. In order to make thorough work of the religious services of his day, especially in regard to prayer, James, in his epistle, frequently calls on his readers:—“Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” Only thus could they expect that God would draw nigh to them when they drew nigh to Him. Jeremiah also reproves the people of his day for “dissembling in their hearts.” when they asked him to pray unto God for them, and therefore their prayers should be heard in judgment, and not in mercy (Jer_42:20-22). (See Psa_66:18; Isa_59:1-2; Isa_1:15-16, etc.; Jas_4:3; Job_27:8-9). We do not read that Elijah offered a single prayer for the return of the much needed showers of heaven to refresh the parched land until the people had publicly and unanimously repented of their sin of forsaking their own God and going after the worship of idols. But the moment they ceased to practise this sin, we find him at once on his knees, imploring with earnest wrestlings the reopening of the windows of heaven to refresh the burnt up fields and valleys of Israel. (1Ki_18:42.) For three years and a half he ceased to pray for the land, while the people cherished their sin unrepented; now, he loses not an hour! To sin while we pray, is as if, while a house was on fire, we were to throw water on it with the one hand, and to cast fuel or oil upon it with the other. The fire will not be quenched. Unrepented sin, like a partition wall, prevents our prayers ascending before God. Guilt on the conscience is a great hindrance to prayer.
4. Cares and anxieties. These prevent the calm and firm exercise of faith, and so hinder prayer. Hence Php_4:6-7. It is not all at once that most people can compose their minds to a praying frame. When the sea has been agitated all day with the wind, it does not become calm and placid the very moment that a lull comes on. So a man’s mind, which has been full of cares all the day over, will still for a time feel in the midst of bustle, after he retires to his chamber. Gurnall remarks, that “it is hard to converse with the world all day, and then shake it off at night, in order to enjoy privacy with God. The world does by the Christian, as the little child by the mother. If it cannot keep the mother from going out, then it will cry to be taken with her. If the world cannot keep us from going to religious duties, then it will cry to be taken along with us, and there will be much ado to part between it and the affections.” If our prayers would ascend like a pillar of incense from the altar, there must be a holy calm on the spirit, and the boisterous winds of inordinate cares about the world must be laid.
5. Praying without the Spirit. “The Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be altered” (Jud_1:20; Rom_8:15; Gal_4:6; Eph_2:18; Eph_6:18). He is called “the Spirit of supplication” (Zec_12:10). All spiritual strength is from Him (Eph_3:16).
“We need the help of God’s Spirit to fix our minds, and make them intent and serious in prayer. The ship without a pilot rather floats than sails. That our thoughts do not float up and down in prayer, we need the blessed Spirit to be our pilot to steer us. A shaking hand may as well write a line steadily, as we can keep our hearts fixed in prayer without the Spirit of God.” [Watson.]
“As the sails of a ship carry it into the harbour, so prayer carries us to the throne and bosom of God. But as the sails cannot of themselves speed the progress of a vessel unless filled with a favorable breeze, so the Holy Spirit must breathe on our hearts, or our prayers will be motionless and lifeless.” [Toplady.]
“There must be life in the soul before there can be life in the duty. All the rugs in the store will not fetch a dead man to warmth; nor will any arguments, though most moving in themselves, make thee pray fervently while thy soul lies in a dead state. Go first to Christ, that through His Spirit thou mayest have life; and, having life, there is then some hope to chafe thee into some heat. Prayers offered without the Spirit are but smoke before God, offensive to His pure eyes, instead of incense and a sweet savour.” [Gurnall.]
V. Suitable subjects of prayer.
1. The widest range is allowed. The statute-book gives this liberty. The God who began by giving us His Son will now stop nowhere. So far as disposition to give is concerned, there cannot now be any holding back. In giving His Son, He has pitched the scale of benevolence so high that nothing can remain ungiven. If we only devote ourselves to Christ, and keep constantly to Him as our portion, we may “ask what we will and it shall be done.” Christ refuses nothing to thorough friends. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,” etc. “If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it.” We come as children to a father, and what good thing will the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ deny to children whom He loves so well—who are all so dear to Him through the sprinkled blood! Also we come to a “throne of grace”—not a throne of justice—of power or majesty—high and lifted up, where we could use only stuttering and stammering speech—but a throne before which sin is forgiven—a throne of grace, to which we are called to “come boldly.”
Hence the language so worthy of Him who is “rich in mercy,”—“ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find,” etc. etc. “Buy, without price!”—“let your soul delight itself in fatness!”—“ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
Our expectations cannot rise too high—to meet all our needs, desires, longings and aspirations; to have fears dissipated, sins pardoned, and peace with God established; to get deliverance from dangers, help under burdens, light in darkness, strength in weakness, and comfort in sorrow; all that can bless the soul for the present, and spread the bow of hope for it in the future. “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.” “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
Southey puts in the foreground four subjects for prayer:—
Four things which are not in thy treasury,
I lay before thee, Lord, with this petition;
My nothingness, my wants,
My sins, and my contrition.
2. Nothing is too little to ask from God. Nothing is too little for Him to attend to. He provides the bee with its food; the gnat and the moth are fed from His hand; He cares for the worm, the insect, and the animalcule. Nothing which it seemed good for Him to create is beneath His care.
Nor is anything too small for us to ask. Any want, however small, we may name before Him if its supply would be to us a relief. Any desire, however trifling it may seem to others, we may express before Him, if to grant it would be to us a material good. That may be of consequence to a boy which would be trivial to his father. That may be a godsend to one weak in the faith, which is regarded as mere puerility or simplicity by one well established. Little and great, indeed, are relative terms. It depends on the scale by which we measure. What is life and death to us, is very small before God. Nay, all His creatures with all their interests, as compared with Himself, are “less than nothing and vanity.” And all are before Him at the same level of insignificance, so that if He should attend to the wants of the mightiest angel around His throne, He may also be expected to attend to the necessities of the meanest of us all.
Things which are distressing to us seem to Him no more than the breaking of a toy to a child; yet as the father of that child does not judge of the importance of the event by the aspect it bears to him, but regards it entirely as it affects the child, and begins to soothe the distress of the little one, and tenderly wipe away his tears, so does God act as our Heavenly Father when an event may happen which proves very afflictive to the feelings of any of His children. He does not sit above the clouds as the heathen thought their gods sat, wrapped in the selfishness of His superiority, and despising the littleness of the creatures that crawl below. “He knoweth our frame.” “He understandeth our thoughts.” “He tells the number of the stars. He also healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.” And there is nothing which is a source of pain or uneasiness, of doubt or difficulty, of grief or anguish to any of His children, which He is not only willing to hear, but is desirous that they should tell Him.
3. All that He has promised we may ask. Here every step is sure. God cannot take back His own word; He cannot fail to fulfil it. “Heaven and earth may pass away, His word shall not.” “The strength of Israel will not lie.” But one thing must always be kept in view, it is only through Christ as Mediator that any promise can be answered consistently with God’s holy and righteous character. Every promise we plead in His name we can plead with the greatest confidence. “In Him all the promises of God are yea, and in Him, Amen, to the glory of God.”
To plead God’s faithfulness to His own word is the mightiest of all the arguments we can use at the throne of grace. “My faithfulness will I establish in the heavens”—in the most conspicuous and public manner, because it is so essential to the glory of His name. Even when His people prove treacherous, and violate their engagements to Him, though He may severely chastise them, He still declares: “I will not suffer my faithfulness to fail; my covenant I will not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips.” The secret of Jacob’s mighty power with God lay entirely in the short utterance: “Thou saidst.” The precious promise made at Bethel, Jacob had kept in his breast as a treasure too rich to be parted with. For the long period of 20 years he kept that treasure locked up in his bosom, as a thing not to be given for gold nor any amount of precious silver. God loved him for it; and, in His Providence, brought round an occasion to bring to light the excellent character of the man who sets a high value on His promises. When that occasion arrived, Jacob showed the fast hold he had of the girdle of the Divine faithfulness, when he would take no denial, because it was for God’s own honour that His word should not fail. And as he so highly honoured God, God also greatly honoured him, by giving him “exceeding abundantly above all that he asked or thought.” This, too, was the secret of Moses’ power in prayer, when he wrought so mightily that God said to him: “Let me alone.”—implying that if Moses went on pleading God’s promises, as he was doing, God must comply with his request. Joshua’s argument was similar: “What wilt Thou do unto Thy great Name?” And Abraham’s case is parallel: “Wilt Thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?.” (Gen_32:12, with Gen_4:26; Exo_32:10; Jos_7:9; Gen_18:23). They are called “Sure mercies” (2Sa_23:5; Isa_55:3).
Our duty then is to go to the promises daily and fill our mouths with arguments to be pled at the Divine footstool, according to the directions given: “Take with you words and turn to the Lord.” “Put me in remembrance; let us plead together,” etc. “Come, let us reason together.”
“God’s promises are prizes in the hand of God to stimulate the soul’s activities—more glorious than laurel wreaths, or the trumpeting of fame, or principalities and thrones. They are yielded by God only to an application of faculties, at the least, as intense and ardent as is put forth in pursuit of human ambition. God doth not cheapen His promises down to a glance at them with the eye, or a mouthing of them with the tongue; but he requireth of those who would have them an admiration equal to that of lovers, an estimation equal to that of royal diadems, and a pursuit equal to that of Olympic prizes.” [Irving].
4. All such blessings as God has already given. This opens out another ground of pleading equally good with direct promises. Everything that God does is a promise in deed that He will do the same thing again in the same circumstances. For He is absolutely consistent with Himself, in all ages, and under all circumstances. He always shows that He is the same God; that He is “without variableness, or the shadow of turning.” His rules in dealing with men never change. What He laid down as rules in the days of Abraham He lays down still, as the footing on which He acts in His intercourse with men. The circumstances may be widely different, and there may be expected a corresponding change in the manner of applying the rules. But there is no departure from the rules themselves in their substance and tenor. In that respect they are identically the same now as they were then, however different in aspect and in the manner of application they may seem. A few thousand years make not the slightest alteration on the character and government of the eternal and immutable Jehovah! It is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that is our God, though with the grand addition to His name—the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. But, though it was not then revealed, He was in reality the God of the gospel to the fathers, in His gracious dealings with them and the promises He made to them, the same as He is to believing men still. And we, on the other hand, are warranted to plead all His gracious acts done to them, and all the great and precious promises made to them, as equally done and made to us, and arguments for the same things being done and made again and again, in our blessed experience as we may have need of them.
Moses pled thus when he supplicated God to “pardon the people—as He had forgiven them from Egypt until now.” (Num_14:19). It is said, “He remembers His word to a thousand generations.” (Psa_105:8). Which implies that the same word lives down all that time, and will be equally serviceable to any of the generations, as it was to the first. We have also the statement, “Thy memorial endureth throughout all generations.” What God does in one age is a lesson for every age that follows, that He will show Himself the same God in the same or similar circumstances.
Can we point to special seasons in our personal history, when we had exceptionally severe trials to pass through, when the waters came in unto our soul, and our feet did sink in the mire; when friends stood aloof, and no man cared for our soul; when we cried to our covenant God “out of the depths,” and He inclined His ear to our cry; when He brought us up out of the horrible pit and miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock and established our goings,”—then, no better argument could we use for all time to come, in the midst of great trials, than to call to remembrance those seasons and God’s gracious dealings in connection with them, and go to the throne, with a Jacob-like confidence, and remind our Unchangeable Rock—“Lord, thou didst so much for me in the past; wilt thou not do again as thou hast already done? Would it not be like thyself so to act? Would it not be unworthy of thee to even to seem to be different now from what thou wast then? Show that thou dost ‘rest in thy love,’ and that thou wilt ‘continue thy loving kindness to them that know thee.’ ” Such must ever prove a successful ground on which to supplicate blessings at the throne of grace.
5. All that we know to be agreeable to His will. There may be many things that are of the nature of blessings of the Divine hand, that are not specially particularised in the Divine promises—especially those that relate to the details of daily life, and the lot of individual men. The promises are generally made to those who possess a certain character—the meek, the humble, those that fear, love, and obey God, the righteous, etc. This not only shows that “God is no respecter of persons,” that He respects only characters, but also sets every man on inquiring whether he, for his part, possesses such features of character as are described in these promises. This is often a puzzling problem to solve, and it is often a great relief to get the auxiliary principle brought in, that all that is really agreeable to God’s will must be held as suitable subject of prayer. Nay, we have a distinct intimation on the subject made, “If we ask anything according to His will He heareth us.”
“No one thinks of praying that the sun may rise in the west instead of the east. Not because it is impossible with God, but long experience proves to us that it is not His will. No one thinks of praying that one who has just breathed his last may wake up to life once more; and for the same reason. Nor does anyone deem it right to pray that those who have advanced to extreme old age should be granted a new lease of life, and blush again into youth, and the blooms of early promise. When we see clearly what is the will of God, we feel we must submit to it without seeking to go against it.” [Roberts.]
A faithful, prolonged, and intelligent study of the Word of God, where God reveals His character and will, is necessary in order both to be able to plead the promises aptly and skilfully, and also to judge accurately of what things would be agreeable to the Divine will. To pray that we may be at peace with God through the acceptance of Christ as our personal Saviour, that all our sins, however numerous and great, may be forgiven and forgotten, that we may get the victory over any evil principle or passion in the heart, that God may truly become our Father and God, that, in fact, we may individually come to have a share in all the spiritual blessings that are enjoyed by those who accept of Christ as their Saviour—we know to be agreeable to God’s will, though our names are not given in the Bible. From God’s nature we know it, for “He is love.” Also from express general statements we know it. “He will have all men to be saved,” etc. “He willeth not that any should perish.” A multitude of texts prove it.
6. The best gifts we may most freely ask. To ask temporal blessings is allowable. Yet they occupy a greatly inferior place in the scale to those which are spiritual. There is but one petition, in the model prayer taught us by the Saviour, for temporal good things, but five references made to those which relate to spiritual blessings. The Saviour also expressly requires us to put the blessings of the kingdom in the foreground. “Seek first the kingdom of God,” etc. It is also to be noticed that while temporal blessings are recognised as a suitable subject for prayer, the promise extends only to a very moderate degree of those blessings—“Daily bread,” “bread and water” (Isa_33:16); “food and raiment” (1Ti_6:8); “to eat, drink, and be clothed” (Mat_6:31-32); “to be fed” (Psa_37:3). Manna only was given as wilderness provision, which was esteemed “light food” (Num_11:6; Num_21:5). The prayer of Agur is recorded as an example for us to copy, who, while wishing to be kept above poverty, does not covet riches (Pro_30:8-9). Solomon’s choice is specially commended, who when left free to ask any good thing he might desire, put his finger on wisdom as better than rubies. God both gave him a wise and understanding heart, and added riches and honour (1Ki_3:9-13). Mary was specially approved of by her Lord in improving the occasion of His presence in her house by “sitting at His feet and listening to His word,” rather than by busying herself with efforts to prepare Him a sumptuous table (Luk_10:38-42). Spiritual blessings are always to be greatly preferred to temporal, in our prayers. The latter, indeed, are only tolerated, or recognised as proper in their place, never to be coveted as a portion; while the latter are set forward as the great matter of prayer (Psa_4:6; Psa_16:3; Psa_16:5-6; Pro_8:10-11; 1Co_12:31; Joh_6:27; Psa_17:13-14; Hab_3:17-18).
The choice of Peter is recorded to his everlasting honour (Joh_6:68); and the choice of Moses (Heb_11:25-26) has upon it the seal of an approving heaven. We must hold it to be wrong to pray for riches as such, not only because these as a rule become more or less of a temptation and a snare (1Ti_6:9-10), but because they are unsuitable as a portion for the soul, and their acquisition is discouraged in scripture. Should God confer upon us riches as well as spiritual blessings, they are to be regarded as merely added to the latter, which constitute the real gifts. And they are to be understood as not absolutely ours, but only given to us in stewardship. So David judged when he said, “Of Thine own have we given Thee” (1Ch_29:14; 1Ch_29:16). For the supply of necessary wants, for the means of giving to everyone his due, or helping on the Lord’s work, or for a proper competency for one’s self and family circle, we may and ought to pray (1Ti_5:8; Rom_13:8). What is necessary is promised (Psa_34:9-10; Psa_34:22; Psa_37:3).
7. All that would be for God’s glory and for our good. Many miscellaneous subjects are ever coming up in daily life, in regard to which it will be felt more or less difficult to decide, whether they should be made matter of prayer to God or not. But there can be no doubt it is right, to bring every thing which we feel to be a difficulty to the throne of grace, and ask Divine direction (Jas_1:5). Also, every thing which we feel to be a corroding care, or a burden of anxiety, we must refer to our God (Php_4:6). But many things which are not expressly promised must be asked only in submission to the Divine will, and under the condition—As far as it may be for God’s glory and for our good.
It is right to pray for recovery from sickness, whether in regard to ourselves, or in regard to any object near and dear to us, but God may have appointed the sickness to be unto death, and the great Intercessor on High, may be expressing it as His will before the throne, that the afflicted member of His body may be taken home to Himself to behold His glory. Therefore we should pray in submission to the Divine will. If some rough wind of adversity blows over us, and we find our fair prospects suddenly blighted, with cruel “Disappointment standing before us as our only Comforter.” For a return of former prosperity we may supplicate, both as to the measure and manner, but only as it may seem meet to our Father in heaven. For the success of this or that project we have devised we may pray, or for the obtaining of some eligible situation in life, or for general success in business, and a comfortable through bearing in life, but always in the tone of saying—If it be for God’s glory and for my good. Both of the one and the other of those things, God Himself must be the judge. For we are utterly incompetent to determine what is for God’s glory, and even as to our own good, we oftentimes ask a stone for bread in our ignorance, or we ask a serpent for a fish. And were God to answer our prayers, it would not prove a blessing but rather a curse. But our Heavenly Father’s knowledge of what is best for us to have is always perfect, and His character is such that He never can decide otherwise than for our highest good, if we will only let Him have His own way.
VI. Answers to Prayer.
1. True prayer is certain to be answered. If prayer is both so gloryfying to God, and so beneficial to ourselves, then it must be accepted. The form in which the answer is to be given may differ more or less in every different case, but that God will hear all genuine prayer and put it to our account is certain. He has given His word for it six times over in one sentence (Mat_7:7-8). Cuyler says, “Answered prayers cover the field of Providential history as flowers cover western prairies.” The whole Book of Psalms is a testimony to what God has done in answering prayer. It is not a doubtful matter whether we shall be listened to and answered in some manner when we pray aright. There are no exceptions in point of fact, whatever may seem to be the case to the petitioner himself. Though the heavens do not open, though no audible voice is heard, though no sign is given, it is as certain as any fixed law of nature that humble, penitent, believing prayer—the prayer of the “heart of flesh,” is treasured up before God, and shall, without fail, be attended to in God’s time and way. Not a single believing prayer is ever lost. The passage above quoted proves it. All the experience of God’s people prove it. All the promises in the Bible on the subject of prayer prove it.
2. The answer is often delayed.
“Answering prayer does not always stand next door to petition; yet prayers are not forgotten by the faithful God. Even when we have forgotten them He remembers them. I stand in the rooms of my office, and wish to communicate with an official in the fifth story. I blow a whistle and talk through the tube. I know the message has got up there and that he has heard it. Yet I do not see him and he does not answer me back. I ask him to send down some papers, and after waiting for some time he answers me. So when we send up our prayer to God in heaven, we know He is there and knows about it. It is not for us to fret and worry about it, but leave the case in His hand, for He will do what is right ere long.” [Beecher.]
“We shall have harvest after all, says the believer, in Gen_8:22, though the rains should fall and the prices rise, though the barometer should be low and the winds threaten to destroy the crop. And this we may safely say of the fruits of devout and earnest prayer. The answer may be long in coming, but in due time it will come. The seed often lies buried in the ground for months; but what is dormant is not dead. True prayers are not lost, they only bide their time, God’s ‘set time.’ And when that time comes round, he who has sown in tears shall reap in joy. The God who puts His people’s tears into His bottle will certainly not forget their prayers.” [Guthrie.]
Many reasons may cause delay:—In general, any want in the right spirit of prayer, or, where that spirit exists, God may wait to convince us that we have no claim to the blessing, that it comes as a pure favour, and is given without being deserved; or, He may wait, because it becomes the majesty of His nature as God to proceed slowly and with deliberation in all His doings. Also, because one step of blessing is a precedent and a pledge of other steps. Also, because the present may not be the best time to give an answer. Or, because if the answer were given at once it might lead to presumption, and we might suppose we could command God’s blessings at our own pleasure, and to try our faith in His character and word is always part of the reason for this waiting.
Gurnall says, “Prayers are not long on their journey to heaven, but long in coming back with a full answer. There is often a long and sharp winter between the time of sowing and that of reaping. Christ, at this day in heaven, hath not a full answer to some of those prayers which He put up on earth, for He is said to “expect till His enemies be made His footstool.” The father reads his son’s letter which has come from a distance; he likes his request, his heart closeth with it, and he resolves to grant it; but he takes his own time to send his despatch. Princes have their books or records wherein they put down the names of those whom they deem worthy of their favour, but they may stand for years without any honour being conferred. The name of Mordecai stood in Ahasuerus’ book somewhile before his honour was given, and God records the names of His saints and their prayers in a degenerate age, but the reward is not given till the end come” (Mal_3:16-18).
3. We ought to look for an answer. To offer prayer to God, and not to follow it up by expecting an answer, is a certain indication either of insincerity in our petitions, or of unbelief as to God’s promise to answer them. “Where the treasure is, there the heart will be.” If the blessing sought be esteemed a treasure, the heart will certainly go out after it till it be gained. What shall we think of a subject, who has got the privilege of coming into the royal presence to present a petition, which he professes to regard as of the utmost importance to his interests? He offers his petition with becoming gravity of manner, but the moment he is done with the duty of presenting it, he turns his back on his sovereign, and walks out of the audience-chamber without waiting or caring to hear whether any reply be made or not! What is this but to mock royalty, and abuse the privilege of access to the fountain-head of power. Yet thus do we act towards God when we do not look after our prayers.
“To pray and not watch what becomes of our prayers is a great folly, and implies no little guilt. It is to take the name of God in vain, and trifle with an ordinance that is holy and sacred. It is like little children who knock at the door of some great house, and run away before it is opened, for their own amusement. When thou hast been with God, expect good to come from God, either at the moment, or some time after, or both. Enter His presence with the purpose, ‘I will direct my prayer to thee, and will look up.’ Your prayer will certainly receive no more attention from God if it is no longer attended to by you. If you do not believe, why pray? And if you do believe, why not expect? By not expecting you again renounce your confidence.” [Gurnall.]
“People say, ‘What a wonderful thing that God should hear George Müller’s prayers!’ Truly, we are come to a strange pass when we think it wonderful that God is true! It is indeed wonderful that God should make so many promises to us, but not wonderful that He should fulfil His word.” [Spurgeon.]
We should not only look for an answer, but wait patiently for it, and pray again and yet again until the answer come. If the thing asked is promised by God, or is agreeable to His will, let us only persevere in looking for an answer. Elijah looked out seven times for the little cloud before it came; so should we look if it were seventy times seven rather than cease looking and expecting an answer. David went through the exercise of devotion before God with the greatest care. First he began with “meditations;” then followed petitions, humble, believing, fervent; next came “looking up;” and lastly came treasuring up in his book of remembrance. This is to do the business of prayer in a business manner. When we are asked to pray, we are bidden to “knock,” which implies more than one call at the gate. And if we are not heard at once, let us knock, again and yet again for we know we are at the right gate. Should there be no sound of any one approaching to open the gate we must continue to knock, for at last some one shall appear, and our waiting and anxious expectation shall not have been in vain.
4. Trust God for the time and manner of giving the answer. The circumstances are so numerous and so varied which must be considered in order to give a wise and even a kind answer, that our narrow minds are not competent duly to weigh them and come to a well-balanced judgment in the matter. It is therefore not the least proof of God’s loving kindness and faithful care in watching over us that He should take the decision as to the time and manner of answering our prayers into His own hands. For He is not only thoroughly trustworthy, but He cannot in any case be misinformed, or make mistake on the one hand, and on the other hand it is His very nature to be just, compassionate, righteous, merciful and true, so that our interests are absolutely safe in His hands. He not only “will give grace and glory, but He cannot withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly.” His heart will not allow Him to do less. “They that seek Him shall not want any good thing.” His nature forbids Him to give less. Truly “blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.”
As to the manner of the answer: God may give directly what is asked, or may give something better in its place, or may give support meantime while it is delayed, or may make the denial of it the means of an excellent discipline to the soul which is often the most profitable of all.
MAIN HOMILETICS.—Jdg_4:4; Jdg_4:11
IV. Deliverance again provided.
We must here call attention to the statement formerly made (p. 190), that while the fact of sin is told in a single sentence in this chapter, the story of the deliverance from its consequences is spread over the whole chapter. The Bible is a book written to give an account of one grand Redemption, and many smaller redemptions, which are emblems of the greater. Its spirit is not to depict elaborately the dark features of fallen human nature, and show how fully the race deserve to be destroyed; but rather to show how man has brought ruin on himself, and needs a great redemption. The final end kept in view is not destruction, but salvation. Hence at the opening of the Book, the account of man’s falling into sin, his loss of the favour and the image of God; his expulsion from the society of the holy; and his exposure to all manner of evils from his falling under the Divine frown—all this is given in a single chapter (Genesis 3). Whereas the whole Bible otherwise is taken up with an account of the working out of the scheme of man’s redemption. It is so easy to destroy; it is so difficult to restore. God delights so much to save; He is so loathe to consign to destruction.
Corresponding with this, it ought to be noted, that while the sins and black-slidings of God’s people, in this book of Judges, are faithfully narrated, and a true exhibition of their character is given, so that no one can mistake what is their own personal desert, the eye is yet not allowed to rest long on a delineation of details of their wickedness, but full scope is given to the pen of the sacred writer when it is employed to describe the interposition of Divine mercy, Almighty power, and marvellous wisdom, in the accomplishment of their deliverance. The glory of God manifested in the repeated redemption of an exceedingly sinful people, from the consequences of their sins, is the spirit of this book of Judges.
In noticing the account of the deliverance here narrated, we find:—
1. God was the author of this deliverance. The thought arose with Him. The nation had become so sunk, not only in ungodliness, but in all that was noble and manly, that no one was found of sufficient force of character to attempt to act the part of a liberator. As on all other occasions, God Himself originated the means of deliverance for His people. Though He had already three times delivered them (if we count Jdg_3:31, as one), from national ruin, while now for at least 160 years they had provoked Him to anger with their idolatrous tendencies, yet, full of pity, He rises up for their help, exclaiming, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel?” It was for the glory of His own great name in the world that He should preserve their existence as a nation. They owed their existence to a gracious purpose which God was to fulfil through their instrumentality; but should their name as a nation be blotted out, that purpose must fail of accomplishment. Another nation might have been created to supply their place; but still it would have been said that God’s original purpose in bringing this people into existence had failed. And it must not be whispered in heaven above or on the earth beneath that any plan of the Divine Wisdom and Love had proved abortive. Hence we find this people always spared in some manner, that no shadow might rest on Jehovah’s name. “For mine own name’s sake will I defer mine anger.” (Isa_48:9-11.) Besides, the history of this people stood as a whole. Only a part of it had yet run. A glorious display of the divine perfection had already been made in connection with that history, much more of which had yet to run. It was of the highest consequence therefore for the glory of the Divine name that this people, notwithstanding the heinous character of their sins, should be preserved, and that it should be seen how radically different was the character of their God from the dumb idols of the heathen around them. To show forth anew God’s glory was the great purpose to be gained in the deliverance now to be effected.
That the idea of a hostile movement against Sisera was of God himself, appears from the statement in Jdg_4:6, where Deborah speaks as one commissioned by Jehovah to be an organ for the communication of His will to men. All the directions, also, as to what should be done, who were to do it, and how it was to be done, were given by God through the prophetess. His honour and glory were the ends to be gained; His hand, therefore, must be seen in all. Not only in the general scheme of Providence, but also in the history of every individual nation, and individual man it is true, that “of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.”
2. The hopeless character of Israel’s prospects. Not only had truth fallen in the streets, but its form was scarcely anywhere seen in the land. Only a few glimmering lights appeared like torches, while darkness was in all the dwellings of Israel. Not only the race of heroes, but that of the men of God had died out. No prophet seemed to be at work from North to South; and the sole possessor of the heavenly gift in all Israel was a woman whom God had chosen. All had become craven hearted, abject and weak. The nation had lost its manhood, and had again become a herd of slaves. They were now learning in their miserable plight, what an “evil and bitter thing it was for them to have forsaken the Lord their God;” for now, He, their Rock, had sold them—their God had shut them up. There was no sword nor spear in Israel. There was no leader. There were no resources. There was no courage. There was no rallying point. Everything forbade the possibility of anything being done. On all sides there was prostration. It was the doing of sin; which is ever the reproach of any people. If an army could be raised in Israel, how could it make head against the nine hundred chariots of iron of the enemy; which, in all the ages of antiquity, were reckoned an irresistible force? There was also the large general army of the enemy to be reckoned with; there was their renowned captain, who was a host in himself; and there was the demoralised condition of the whole people of Israel.
Who should come to the help of the Lord against the mighty in such an evil day? “Jehovah looked and there was none to help; He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation.” “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” It is part of His wonder-working wisdom to turn the wickedness of man into the means of praising Him. The weakness to which his people had been reduced through their wickedness furnished the occasion for a more illustrious display of His glory as their Saviour God, than could have been made in an ordinary condition of things.
3. Suitable instruments are found when required to do God’s work. Yet though the energies of the nation were paralysed, and the mainspring of its activities was broken; though its princes had become as harts fleeing before the pursuer, and all its men of heroism had disappeared from the land; though the Joshuas and Calebs, and Othniels were no longer to be found, while the people had become fewer in number, spent their days in terror, and were thoroughly crushed in spirit—within a few days, perhaps within one short week, when God was raised up by the voice of their penitence and their prayers, agents were found to take the lead to set a machinery in motion, and carry out a plan suitable to meet the emergency that had arisen. Man in such a case fails to find the fitting materials. God is at no loss. Jesus knew in a moment where to find the fish, which had a piece of money in its mouth, that was needed to meet a just claim which had occurred in the ordinary relations of life; and now though the land of Israel was stripped bare of resources as the barren wilderness, God knew at once where instruments were to be found suitable for carrying out His purpose. All hearts are in His hand, and all events are at His disposal. No time is needed to institute a search for the fit persons. In a moment He points with the finger to the persons whom He shall employ to execute His will.
To our thinking the individuals thus singled out may seem to be in several respects most unqualified to occupy the position to which God calls them. Yet thereby are they all the better qualified for bringing praise and honour to the Divine arm and the Divine wisdom, in the successful issue of the means employed. “God chooses the foolish things to confound the wise, and weak things to overcome things that are mighty; yea the base things, and such as are despised, He employs to bring to nothing things that are—that no flesh should glory in His presence.” Who could have supposed that two women would have been put in the foreground to meet this most serious juncture in Israel’s history—the one to act as the head, and the other as the hand, in vanquishing and even in annihilating the formidable power that had ground Israel to the dust for twenty years! Had a Joshua been raised up to act as leader, then the glory might have been ascribed to the great captain that led Israel’s armies. But when a Deborah and a Jael are employed to do the work, then is it all the more conspicuous, that the hand of the Lord had brought about the result.
In congregations of Christian people there may sometimes be few persons, or almost none who have the gifts to act as leaders, by whom the Church’s work may be carried on. In communities, sometimes scarcely a man can be found to come to the front, who possesses education, tact, firmness, or natural ability sufficient to act the part of a public leader. In a great religious crisis when the interests of Christ’s truth, or the spiritual welfare of thousands, may be alarmingly at stake, few or none may appear possessing all the qualifications to take the helm, and conduct the vessel safely away from the breakers and bring it into port. But in such a case the course is clear. Let “the Lord’s remembrancers” put the case into the hands of Him who can “make the weak become as David,” and who now wrought with the Deborahs and the Baraks as mightily, as He did with the Samsons and the Jephthahs. No matter what may be the instruments employed, if the Lord’s hand is at work, the Church will always be able to say, “We lack nothing.”
4. Fit means must be employed along with Divine power. God never despises the use of means in bringing about certain results, because it is the arrangement He Himself has established through all nature, that certain means should be employed to produce certain effects. When Jesus opened the eyes of the blind man, “He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, with which He anointed his eyes.” Not that the spittle had any efficacy, but He would show His regard to the use of some means, rather than work without means at all; and that He could make use of any means, however unlikely, to serve His purpose successfully. So now, though God could have easily overthrown Sisera and his army by miracle, by pestilence, by an earthquake, by the lightnings of heaven, by paralysing the muscular power of every soldier in the enemy’s camp, or in many other ways, yet he chooses to employ natural means for the purpose. He gives orders that an army be raised, and appoints a suitable leader. He requires that army to engage in battle with the enemy, and gives the assurance that, through their instrumentality, He will overthrow Sisera, and utterly destroy his host.
The army was limited by God to 10,000 men, lest, as in Gideon’s case, if a larger number had been chosen, Israel might have said, “Mine own hand hath saved me.” It was extremely inadequate when looked at in the light of the terrible opposition it had to meet. The number of Sisera’s army is not given; but judging by the whole account given it seems to have been an overwhelming force. The proposition might be similar to the force of Israel in the days of Ahab, as compared with the huge host of Benhadad—“like two little flocks of kids, while the Syrians filled the country.” As the men of this small army came chiefly from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, it is supposed that, as Hazor, Jabin’s royal city, lies in the territory of the former of these tribes, and as it is likely that it was at Hazor, or near it, where the chariots of iron were made, Barak’s army was largely made up of the smiths or workers in iron, his vassals who actually made these chariots of iron, or along with these the woodcutters, armed with their axes and hatchets, who were employed in large numbers in that great timber-growing district. If so, what a retribution on the head of the oppressor! Another supposition is, that as in Elijah’s day, the number of these who had not bowed the knee to Baal was 7000, so in the days before Deborah arose, the number of this class in Northern Israel was 10,000—a supposition not so fanciful as at first might seem, for the battle was fought on religious grounds. “They came to the help of the Lord against the mighty,” and “they jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.” The glory of the God of Israel was the chief thing concerned in the fighting of this battle, and that, every man who was there, or who stayed away, seemed to understand.
Here then was an army of fearers of the God of Jacob, who had not gone after other gods, men whose religious principles were put to the test, and they nobly stood the test. Can we wonder if God Himself should go forth before them, if He should “teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight,” and if, thus succoured, the stout hearted should be spoiled before them, and none of the men of might should find their hands.
5. A strong faith and its reward. This we find in Deborah. She was the centre of interest, and the spring of all active movement throughout this interesting episode of history. All Israel looked to her for counsel. She was the nation’s oracle. We hear nothing of high priest or seer in this degenerate day—only Deborah. She was prophet, priest, and king. Without her Barak was nothing, and could do nothing. She was the one hope of Israel. That star put out, the whole sky would have been hopelessly dark. But for this one woman, the history of this sorrowful period would have been far more dismal still. Through her the turning-point was made to a happier and brighter era.
All this she was because of her faith. She had indeed the gift of prophecy, and performed the function of a judge, for she was appealed to in that capacity from all parts of the land. But that which determined her character was her faith in the God of Israel. She believed in His name; in His character; in His covenant with His people; and in His promises. She believed that the God of Jacob was with Jacob’s seed, that “the Strength of Israel would not lie,” that God would not forsake His people, but would in due time return and send relief to them under their manifold sorrows.
This faith, though that only of a single individual, was most refreshing in times when all things looked so dull and dreary. It revived the drooping spirits of the nation. If there was but one rose in the desert, its sweet perfume seemed to be wafted to every home in the land. When a man thought of Deborah he thanked God and took courage. This was most honouring to God—to see faith burning so strong in one bosom when it seemed to be so sickly and languishing everywhere else. When she announced the message of her God to Barak, she spoke with the utmost certainty of success. No faltering of tone, and no hesitation of manner. Doubt and fear were cast to the winds, while every word was spoken and every step was taken in the assurance of victory.
And what is the reward of such faith in a degenerate time? Every step succeeds of the directions which she gave. Barak’s scruples are overcome; the 10,000 men assemble at Mount Tabor; Sisera’s army are drawn together to the River Kishon; Jehovah specially interposes on behalf of Israel, and the enemy are destroyed beyond remedy. The praises of the God of Israel are again sung, and the fear of His name spreads abroad to every land. Another bright chapter is added to the history of Israel, and Deborah’s name shall be known as that of a “mother in Israel” to all generations. How many in after years would rise up to call her blessed! Her name is immortalised as a “savior” of the Church of God in an evil day, and that name shall shine as a star in the firmament through every age to the end of time. Nor shall it be lost sight of when the stream is swallowed up in the shoreless ocean beyond. For, from the wreck of time all God’s jewels shall be carefully gathered, and made up in a glorious wreath to adorn the Redeemer’s head through everlasting ages. Nothing that has been done for the church of God shall be forgotten. All who have been “faithful unto death shall receive the crown of life.”
6. A weak faith and its chastisement. Barak looked on the same picture as Deborah did, but (at first) with very different eyes. He started back when he saw what seemed to be hobgoblins, satyrs, dragons, and all manner of hideous spectres; while she exulted at the thought that “the angel of the covenant” encamped round about His people, covering them with His feathers, and giving them all needful shelter under His protecting wing. Weak faith saw in the near foreground the dark thunder-cloud, surcharged with the elements of ruin, and hanging ready to burst over the homes of the once beloved, but now deserted people. Strong faith saw a mighty wind sent out from the Lord, dispersing the murky clouds, clearing the whole sky of danger, and opening out a period of glorious sunshine to succeed the period of gloom and sorrow. Weak faith saw the billows too mighty for the little skiff they carried on their bosom, and fearing it might founder at any moment, began to call for aid. Strong faith saw that skiff under the care of Him who walks on the waters, and commands every wave by a word, who controls every breath of wind, and has pledged Himself to bring all safe in due time to land. Weak Barak-like faith sees the enemy stretching out his lines in deadly array, believes in the faintest possibility of its own success, and the high probability of crushing defeat with its frightful consequences. Strong faith says: “Who are these uncircumcised that they should defy the armies of the living God? These Canaanites “are men and not God, and their chariot horses flesh and not spirit.” “Far more are with us than all that are against us.” Once more weak faith says: We have no might against this great company that come against us, we are as grasshoppers before them, while they are a vast multitude, well-disciplined by the best of generals, and highly accoutred in arms. Strong faith says: “Though they compass us about as bees, they shall be quenched as the fire of thorns, for in the name of the Lord we will destroy them.” It sees the finger of Omnipotence about to be put forth, and victory sure, swift, and overwhelming over the foe secured for the Church of God.
Barak’s faith, though at first weak, was genuine. It seemed to be in part the weakness of surprise. He was taken aback, when told that he was chosen to occupy the perilous and difficult position of being captain over God’s people; and he felt his insufficiency for the duties of the situation. But weak faith is yet true faith; as a drop of water is water as well as the ocean, or a spark of fire is fire as well as a large flame. The little finger lives the same life that the hand or foot does. A little grace may be true grace, as the filings of gold are as good gold (though little of it) as a whole wedge. Though the pearl of faith be small it shines with great beauty in God’s eye; it is a ray of His own excellence. As yet Barak could only say: “Lord I believe! help thou mine unbelief!” If he were helped by Deborah, he was prepared to undertake the arduous duty. That indicated true faith. He knew that the Lord was with the prophetess, but he did not as yet feel that the Lord was in any special sense with himself. Had he shown a firm faith and at once said, without any hesitation: Here am I! Send me! Very likely the next sentence we should have read would have been: “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” This is the first chastisement of his weak faith—the lack of the double portion of the Divine Spirit. That he had the Spirit was manifest, but it was not given in such large degree apparently, as in the case of some others of the judges.
His faith seems to have grown stronger every hour while Deborah was with him; and at last we see him boldly taking the initiative in going forth to encounter the mighty host of Sisera in battle array. And because, when the time came, he rose with the occasion, and performed the great feat of that day by faith and not by sight, therefore his name finds a place in the honourable list of the men of faith. Thus in the end his faith obtained a great reward, though the crowning laurels were denied to it, because it staggered at the beginning. While Sisera lived the enemy lived. His destruction was the putting an end to the oppression of the people of God, and the signal for their immediate emancipation. This honour was withheld from Barak and conferred on a woman. And thus more especially was his weak faith chastised. Zacharias was struck dumb for his unbelief; and Moses had the scar of Meribah left on him till the last. But the blessed thing is to have true faith at all. Even when small as the acorn it is able to move mountains of difficulty. And if only living, however small, it will grow. Under proper cultivation it may become powerful as the cedar, and be able to use the noble language, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.”
7. God’s ordering the battle, a presage of victory. The thought of having a battle at all was God’s own. It was the natural way of getting out of the hands of the oppressor. Though war in itself is a thing to be deprecated, it sometimes becomes a necessity; and as a matter of fact. God sometimes takes that way of punishing the oppressor. It was so now. In Jdg_4:6 we are told that the God of Israel gave the command to raise an army and go out to battle against the Canaanites. This command was the first step. The second lay in appointing Barak to be the leader of the army of Israel; as is implied in the same charge. Another step commanded was to make the number of combatants as few or as many as 10,000. Still another step was that God Himself would draw forth Sisera to engage in battle, with his full force assembled. And lastly, a promise is added, “I will deliver the enemy into thine hand.”
The Lord is a rock; His work is perfect. When He begins, He carries through. If He stir up a spirit of prayer in a man for some special blessing, the pouring out of that spirit is itself evidence enough that He means to bestow the blessing. Or if with the finger of Providence He points out the steps of some course of duty we are to take, the fact of our being Divinely directed is sufficient proof that God will bless us with success, if we faithfully walk in the path of duty of His appointment. There is such a thing as reading the leadings of Providence, an attainment at which one may expect to arrive, by carefully and prayerfully watching the course of God’s dealings for a period of time. When we can make out that God is pointing out some work for us to do, and we set about doing it, we may count on success, for He does not go back in His purpose. Besides, in anything which He calls us to do, He always promises His presence and help in the doing of it. When He called Joshua, He promised—“I will be with thee, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” “He sendeth none a warfare on their own charges.” In the present case Barak had strong ground to conclude that God was with him, from the many specific directions given to him, all of which implied that God had a plan to be carried out, and therefore He would certainly be with the agent whom He employed to carry it out. He also knew that Deborah, who gave him his instructions, was well accredited as the messenger of God, so that what she said had the Divine seal upon it, and was authorised by God. All this was sufficient to form a foundation for a strong faith. In the great majority of cases there is evidence furnished for cherishing a strong faith, were there only a disposition to do so. But in how many cases is that disposition a-wanting!
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Jael appears to us as a hateful murderess; our…
Jdg 4:21
Jael appears to us as a hateful murderess; our feeling towards her is one of horror and indignation. Yet in the Bible she is extolled as amongst the noblest of heroes. The question is, what vindication can be offered for her conduct? If Jael received Sisera into her tent with the intention of murdering him, she must be left to the execrations of posterity.
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But there are plain and straightforward reasons from which to infer that Jael had no design of killing Sisera; that she acted therefore with perfect honesty, and not with atrocious duplicity, when she offered him shelter. The action was too perilous; it required too much of more than masculine hardihood, or rather ferocity, even if there had been the strongest inducements; whereas there appears to have been no inducement at all, but rather the reverse, and we add to this, that since you have only the silence of Jael when she was asked by Sisera to tell a lie in his cause, the probability is that she had a reverence for truth; and if so she must have meant what she said when she gave the invitation and the promise, "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not."
II. What were the motives which instigated Jael in putting to death her slumbering guest? We reckon it a satisfactory explanation of her conduct and one which removes every difficulty, that she was led by a Divine impulse or in obedience to a Divine command, to take away Sisera’s life. It is true we are not told, as in the case of Abraham, that God commanded the action, but we are told that God approved the action. And since the action in itself, independent of His command, would have been a flagrant offence, we necessarily infer that what He approved He also directed.
III. There is a third question which suggests itself here. Granting that Jael acted on a Divine command, how could it be consistent with the character of God to issue such a command? Since murder is a crime which is expressly forbidden, with what propriety could He enjoin its perpetration? The answer is, that no one would have felt surprised had Sisera perished in battle. He was the oppressor of the Lord’s people; what marvel, then, that he should be overtaken by vengeance?
Jael was but the executioner directed by God to slay a condemned criminal, and can we charge her with blood-guiltiness because she did not refuse to obey that direction. She had a hard task to perform, one demanding faith and dependence on God, but she performed it without flinching, and she deserves our admiration as a mighty heroine.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1677.
References: Jdg 4:22.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 337. Jdg 4:23.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xv., p. 51. 4-5.—Parker, vol. v., p. 348. 5—Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vii., p. 133; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 38; M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 173.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Subdivision 3. (Jdg 4:1-24; Jdg 5:1-31.)
Subdivision 3. (Jdg 4:1-24; Jdg 5:1-31.)
The Canaanite revival: the spirit of gain.
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1. The third subdivision is the history of a great Canaanite revival, in which appear once more a Jabin and a Hazor, the reproduction of the leader and city of the old northern confederacy against Joshua of one hundred and thirty years before. Some have even attempted to identify these two kings, and to make Barak a contemporary of Joshua himself -an attempt which even Farrar (Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible) regards with no disfavor. But on the contrary the very pith of the lesson lies in this being a
revival, with which the numerical place perfectly corresponds. It is the only section in which we find Israel’s sin in sparing and allying themselves with the nations under ban from God, bringing forth its perfect fruit. It thus should have an exceptional importance.
How easy is such springing up again from a root not destroyed, we have been already reminded of in the case of Hormah and of Luz. The application in spiritual experience is most easy and abundant. The failure of Christian vigor permits once more the old besetments to appear again; and the new sins are but the old ones, though perhaps indeed with a certain disguise. The old character displays itself. The "Israel" of awhile ago is now again "Jacob." Indeed, deeper than all differences, and surely to be found amid all disguises, there is a moral unity in sin. "We have turned every one to his own way," shows at once both the unity and the diversity.
That it is Jabin, of all the Canaanite kings, that we find thus revived, must, of course, have its significance also. The revival of the Canaanite would naturally be shown in one who is, in some sense at least, the typical Canaanite. Nothing can be in Scripture which does not speak to the ear that is open. Jabin, too, is emphatically here, not merely, as in the book of Joshua, "king of Hazor," but, over and over again, "king of Canaan." The meaning of these names we already know. Jabin means "discerning"; Hazor, "enclosure." As the enemy of the people of God, it is the wisdom of the world with which we have here to do -a wisdom which reigns in its own "enclosure," shut up, as is the constant fashion, in cliques and parties and philosophies, by which it elevates itself over what is outside its boundary. The spirit of it is easily manifest as that of self: self-interest, self-assertion, self-satisfaction, the true "trader" or Canaanite spirit, that of gain. The inroad of this into the Church was early indeed. "All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ," was said, in the apostle’s days, of those at Rome. (Php 2:21.) Of the Ephesian elders it was prophesied, "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." (Act 20:30.) But already at Corinth the sects and parties produced by such attempts were being formed, as we know, and the true people of God were becoming subject to Jabin’s rule; and this has developed much more widely since, even until the Church of God has been broken up into various denominations, to the dishonor of the One Name which is upon us all. This, then, is the true Canaanite revival shadowed here.
The captain of Jabin’s host is Sisera, whose name means, according to Gesenius, "battle-array"; and who dwells in Harosheth ("carving, cutting, artificers’ work") of the nations. Such names should not be difficult to read in such a connection. The strife of sects, the odium theologicum, is notorious; and how the sects themselves are thus maintained needs no insisting on. Sisera is still captain of the host. The very truths of God’s word are often arrayed against one another, and, allied with errors of greater or less gravity, become but the battle-cries of partisans. And when we realize whom the Canaanite leaders represent -"the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places" -how serious becomes the aspect of evil here! The assault of Satan is most of all against the truth, the power of which he recognizes well enough, and which he can no more easily prevail against than by dividing it, so to speak, against itself, and allying it with some deceit of his own devising. Thus what is of God is prejudiced in the eyes of His people by the associations in which they find it; while, on the other hand, many, seeing it to be truth, are put off their guard as to these, and receive along with it some deadly error. How, for instance, has the truth of the Lord’s coming been mixed up with the abominations of materialism, the denial of eternal punishment, and many another thing, until the very one whose heart would welcome it, if otherwise presented, looks upon it as a synonym for heresy of this kind! How important, therefore, here is God’s word to Jeremiah, "If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth." (Jer 15:19.) But, in general, how little are we able to find the truth in the creed of another! in another sense than the true, what one sees in the Shulamite is indeed "but the company of two armies." On both sides the truth suffers, while it is made the power and preservative principle of error itself, which, if simply that, would soon find at the hands of every Christian its merited judgment.
Yet it is the truth that must come in for deliverance here, as is quite plain; and Deborah the prophetess stands, according to the meaning of her name, for the "Word" itself, prophetic as in its office it truly is, the word of God which brings the soul into the presence of Him before whom all the secrets of the heart are laid bare, and with whom we have to do. But for this the Word must be, as Deborah was, united to another. She is the wife of Lapidoth, which means "burning torches," and reminds us of the Pentecostal tongues of fire, the manifest type of the Spirit in His utterance among men. Deborah judges Israel under the palm-tree of Deborah, the palm-tree being the well-known symbol of the righteous, fruit, as this character is, of such judgment by the Word, "between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim," -an "exalted" Christ in heaven, and the "house of God" on earth.
There is fullness of meaning in such a picture: for here are the two things that give us the standard for self-judgment. Everything as to our position before God is implied in Christ’s own position as exalted now. In the house of God we have implied the descent and indwelling of the Spirit, with the holiness that becomes that house. It is in view of these wondrous truths that the word. of God addresses itself now to the people of God, to maintain in them that practical righteousness of which the palm-tree speaks. Certainly here is no hap-hazard association of thought.
While in all the book of Judges the necessity of self-judgment is shown in order to deliverance, this, then, is now especially emphasized in Deborah, as is plain. As there is on the one side manifest a peculiar power of the enemy in the Canaanite uprising, so there is on the other a dwelling on that which is, above all things, necessary to take one out of his hand, the lowly, self-judged spirit of him who "trembleth at the Word."
We have now the captain on the side of Israel: "she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-Naphtali." Barak means "lightning," -light (and God is light) revealed in judgment. To bring God in is the exposure and overthrow of error. The day of manifestation is the day of judgment, when all falsehood expires forever, and no self-deception is any longer possible. Barak is "the son of Abinoam," that is, "father of pleasantness": for the destruction of error is that that which is pleasant may remain, the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Love rejoices in this overthrow; and although where His creatures are in question, judgment is "His strange work," yet here also our comfort it is to know that, in its sternest and dreadest forms, the Lamb will execute it. Barak is still and ever the son of Abinoam.
Deborah calls Barak out of Kedesh-Naphtali, the "sanctuary of the struggler," which we have seen to speak of rest in self-abasement, and, as a city of refuge, of the work of Christ. Here is in fact that from which deliverance springs, and the condition also in which it can be made good to us.
Naphtali and Zebulon are the tribes used of God in the conflict, as their land is that in which the oppressor’s power is found. What these speak of we already know. The enfeeblement of Zebulon, (the dwelling in that which is our own in the relationship which God has given us to Himself,) is a manifest result of the revival of that seeking of our own things which is, as we have seen, what is indicated by this Canaanite revival. It is no less true that Zebulon must have been enfeebled first, before Jabin could have got foothold there at all. These things are indeed an admonition for us. But Hazor itself is significantly in the territory of Naphtali, the struggler and the overcomer, being but the perversion of the true Naphtali spirit. How many are involved in the sectarian strife of tongues, supposing all the while that they are doing the Lord service! While, on the other hand, it is plain that Naphtali is thus prostrate where Jabin reigns. These things might be expanded largely and applied to the condition of things in the midst of which we are today; but we have not space for it. Those who desire to do so can without much difficulty trace them out: "the knowledge of the Holy is understanding."
Purpose of heart is required to be with Barak, who therefore is bidden to "draw toward Mount Tabor" -the "mount of purpose." It is here that one finds elevation to view the battlefield, and a place of strength against the adversary. Here God draws Sisera to the stream Kishon which is to sweep his host away. Sisera himself is reserved to fall by the hand of the woman. We shall look at all that is connected with this in the next section.
2. The conflict at once begins. The free and independent movement of the Spirit of God at once awakens alarm in the enemy, and Sisera summons all his forces together against Israel; but the battle is the Lord’s, and the issue never doubtful. The host is discomfited and annihilated; and Sisera flees away by himself to the tent of Jael.
A second woman now becomes prominent in the story. From the Kenites, whom we have seen making their "nest" in Judah, one man had separated himself with his family, and traveling north as far as the portion of Naphtali, had pitched his tent by Elon-zaanannim, "the oak of ladings," which is by Kedesh. We must put these things together in order to read them aright. Realizing the character of these Kenites, as we have traced it in the first chapter, we cannot but take it as a sign for good in Heber that he has separated himself from them. His name, however, "companion, fellow," or else like Hebron, "company, fellowship," would intimate that separation, as shown in him, is not to be taken as in the spirit of independency, but the opposite. Typically, at least, we may find in him another Abraham, whose break with his kindred naturally is in order to walk with God. Accordingly we find him in the territory of Naphtali, the overcomer, and at the "oak of ladings," the place of strength acquired in daily taking up the burdens of the day (see ante, page 152); in close connection, also, with Kedesh.
Heber’s wife is Jael, which, while it is the word for "wild goat," means, literally, the "climber" -"one who mounts, or ascends." The women of Scripture (as in Sarah, Hagar, etc.) often stand, as another has remarked, for fruitful principles embraced by the men who represent the individual state. Here Jael, as the "seeking things above," is in beautiful connection with Heber’s stranger-ship and communion both. Nor need we wonder to find the tent-pin an effective weapon in her hands. Is it not a heart in heaven that destroys the spirit of sectarian strife, with that which secures the pilgrim’s tent? Such things do not seem hard to translate into the spiritual; there is a self-consistency in the whole meaning as so given which ought to secure for it respectful consideration. Even the peace between the house of Heber and Jabin, and Jael’s deception of Sisera, seem quite capable of consistent rendering; and may connect together thus, as in the history: for so, for the moment, through mere incompetency to understand the attitude of the Jaels and Hebers, peace may be kept on the side of the Church’s bitterest oppressors toward those who are deemed but harmless and unpractical visionaries, with no weapon of power beyond a tent-pin, which in the end, however, breaks the peace, as did Jael’s.
3. And now we come to the song, which, from the mouth of the prophetess, gives us the divine judgment, the manifestation of the spiritual condition as seen of God, and of God Himself in the whole matter. Those who feel it needful to apologize for the sentiments which it expresses, as well as those who view it simply as an interesting fragment of antique poetry, a relic of rough and barbarous days, forget surely the prophetic character ascribed to Deborah, as also the large place given to this song of hers in so brief a record. The place given in an inspired writing is an exact measure of the importance attaching.
(1) The song divides naturally into three parts, the first of which goes back to the beginning, to show the origin of the whole matter -a lesson, not for Israel alone, but for kings and counsellors amid the nations round, to ascribe glory to Jehovah even for the humbling of His people, as now for their deliverance.
(a) Certainly His power had been known when in the midst of Israel He came forth from Edom. Edom is specially noticed, because it was thence that the people emerged at the end of the wilderness career, to threaten the nations with their might -a might that was not their own: for the earth quaked, and the heavens dropped at the presence of Jehovah, Israel’s God. Sinai, before this, had done so, where Israel had come into covenant with Him; and there the secret of their strength and the conditions of its continuance had been declared. Now, awakened afresh to the blessedness of obedience, they had devoted themselves to their Saviour-God; and He who had declared Himself as "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin," had interfered and delivered them.
(b) They had been brought low because of their departure from Him. They had chosen new gods, and thus war was in their gates: the land was stripped and desolate, the inhabitants, pent up within the walls of their cities, dared not venture forth into the open country, and travelers went to their destination by unused and circuitous paths. Up to the very gates swept the tide of war, for Israel was defenceless and unarmed.
And this was in the days of Shamgar, the deliverer of the south, whose victory had not shamed others into faith. It was in the days of Jael, by whom, though but a woman, God had now once more delivered them. It lasted until Deborah herself rose up to be a mother to those who had forsaken their Father-God. How pitifully low had this great people fallen!
(c) With return of heart comes return of blessing. Bless Jehovah now, for peace is in the land. The spoil of their enemies is being divided where in quietness they draw water for refreshment, none making afraid. The people come down to the gates, and the open villages are once more everywhere; they celebrate once more the righteous acts of Jehovah, their covenant-God.
All this, while picturesquely told, is simplicity itself; and while here in an Israelitish garb, is subsequently what in the history of Christendom has been many times repeated. The cause of Israel’s desolation is never far to seek, for the Lord their God is a sun and a shield, and with Him no power could prevail against them. We, too, while we may lose ourselves among various second causes if we undertake as philosophers to trace an evil condition to its origin, may reach, without any doubt, its first great cause, if we will but be honest and confess the truth before God. In Ephesus, the first of the seven churches, the Lord Himself puts before them (and before us) the root of all bad fruit that ever grew: "Thou hast left thy first love." Yet they had zeal, and works, and what not; but His word to them is only, "Repent." And, alas, Christendom will not repent: it abides under the doom, "I will come unto thee, and take away thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent."
There were partial returns, however, in Israel, in which God graciously met and encouraged, as He could, such a return. These are types for us, not, indeed, historically fulfilled, as in the churches of Revelation, but enfolding principles which illumine the history, and are of perpetual application all the way through. How striking is the picture here of such a state of things as the endless strife of sects induces! The highways ceasing, the peaceful travelers having to walk through devious ways; no possibility of dwelling anywhere save behind a wall of defence; the mass of true Israel left without weapons; and those who would draw water from the wells of salvation exposed to the attacks of the ready archers! Well might we celebrate deliverance from all this! But such deliverances have been but few and partial.
(2) We have now the conflict, and the various relation of the tribes to it: for Israel is no longer one. But a remnant of the noble come down to take part in the deliverance; and those that are noted here seem to include all that from first to last enter into the struggle: for in the first battle at Tabor only Zebulon and Naphtali follow Barak, and are thus specially distinguished in the song itself (verse 18). But many take no part at all. Reuben makes great resolutions, and then wavers. Gilead allows the intervention of Jordan to be sufficient excuse. Dan is otherwise occupied, and stays in his ships. Asher, without occupation, tarries at the sea-coast, All these varieties of indifference are easy to be understood. Among those that, sooner or later, do take part the distinction is not so easy; and for the present at least it must be left.
Next we have the actual conflict and overthrow of the enemy. Heaven and earth unite against the oppressors of the people of God. The stars from their courses fought against them above; the Kishon swept them away with its stream below. The mighty ones showed themselves such by the stamping of their frightened horses. Such is the strength of those that are with God: the mightier the foes, the mightier only is the overthrow.
(3) We have now, most suitably filling the third place, a directly announced divine oracle. It is twofold -the one part in solemn contrast with the other. The curse upon Meroz -"[built] of cedars" -is an awful warning for those who in the day of needed help against the enemy withhold their help. As if to cut off the excuse so readily made for indifference, it is distinctly declared to be Jehovah who requires help: certainly not on His own account; that could hardly be supposed; but yet He looks for real and active sympathy and putting one’s hand to work in what His heart is. The name of the city at least suggests the hindrances to this, of which the world is full -pride, luxury, all that makes the world look stable, and the things of God thus to be unreal because unseen -which refuses to accept His judgment. "Built of cedar" may well remind us how "Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria say in pride and in strength of heart, The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." (Isa 9:9-10.) Of such God says in Malachi, "They may build, but I will throw down."
In contrast with the curse upon Meroz, we have next the blessing upon Jael, in which the iron warrior is seen in utter collapse at the feet of a woman. Meroz had failed in the plain path of duty; but Jael, who might have been excused, forgets her womanhood and her alien birth, forgets the ordinary claims of hospitality and the pity accorded to distress, and strikes for the Lord and for His people. There are times when the voice of nature must not be listened to, as when Levi "knew not his own kindred." On the other side, the unwomanly woman’s voice that follows with the anticipation of the victory that was not to be, and of the spoil that was never to be handled, shows the degradation of nature in a soul away from God, and the tyranny under which Israel lay prostrate. After all, in behalf of nature itself was Jael’s blow struck: that which is for God is no less for the creature, because God Himself cannot but be, in all the reality of what He is, for him whom He has made for Himself. The cause of God is the cause of all.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Deborah and Barak
Deborah and Barak
This deliverance is described a second time in the early poem in Judges 5 (see on Jdg_5:1). No other narrative describes more clearly the religious gathering of the clans, and the prowess of the hardy mountaineers when united. The plain of Esdraelon (see Intro. § 5) is one of the famous battle-fields of history. It drives like a wedge from the coast within 10m. of the Jordan; but it is dominated by hills on all sides, and is almost closed by them at its western end. In Judges 5 all the tribes are mentioned either as uniting or refusing to appear, save Judah and Simeon. Subsequently we hear no more of such united efforts.
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1-3. Oppression by Jabin.
2. Jabin] In Jos_11:1-3; Jabin is defeated by Joshua at the waters of Merom, near the head of the Jordan valley, and Hazor is burned. In Judges 5 Jabin is not mentioned, and Sisera is apparently regarded as king. Hazor] from Jos_19:36, probably near Kadesh-naphtali. Harosheth of the Gentiles] or 'foreigners' is thus distinguished from Hebrew Harosheth. Site doubtful; probably not far from Megiddo, or at the W. end of the plain.
3. Chariots] They would be well-nigh irresistible on the plain. The Israelites, living in the hills, had none until Solomon's time.
4-24. Defeat and Death of Sisera.
4. Judged] not in the technical sense used in this book, but of the deciding of disputes (Jdg_4:5).
5. Mount Ephraim] see on Jdg_3:27. Deborah's own tribe would seem to have been Issachar (Jdg_5:15). Dwelt] RV 'sat,' as judge, to decide cases. Deborah] 'bee.'
6. Barak] 'lightning': cp. the Carthaginian name Hamilcar Barca. Kedesh-naphtali] i.e. Kadesh (i.e. the shrine) of Naphtali; now Kades, 4 m. from the upper end of the waters of Merom. Mount Tabor] 1,843 ft. high: it commands the plain of Esdraelon from the NE. Ten thousand men] cp. Jdg_3:10, Jdg_3:14, Jdg_3:29; Jdg_5:8, etc. In this chapter only the two tribes Naphtali and Zebulun are mentioned: in Judges 5 as many as six gather to Barak's standard. Naphtali and Zebulun, bordering on the plain, are the most concerned.
9. Sell] cp. Jdg_2:14; Jdg_3:8; Jdg_4:2. A woman] i.e. Jael.
10. Went up] to Tabor. The flat summit of this conical hill made an excellent position from which the Israelites could charge down to the plain.
11. The Kenites] cp. Jdg_1:16. Father in law] is correct, not (as RV) 'brother in law.' The modern traveller Porter noticed the black tents of nomads near Kedesh. Plain] RV'oak'; evidently a prominent tree on the N. of the edge of the plain of Esdraelon.
13. Kishon] This river rises in the high ground to the SE. of the plain, and flows right through it in a northwesterly direction. From Tabor on the NE. the Israelites would dash down and drive the Canaanites back upon its banks: in rainy weather the whole plain would be further intersected by the Kishon's tributaries. In 1799, after the battle of Mt. Tabor, numbers of fugitive Turks were swept away by the torrent and drowned.
15. Fled away] northward to Kedesh, while Barak's host hurries westwards.
18. Mantle] RV 'rug,' or perhaps 'tent-curtain.'
19. Bottle of milk] i.e. a lamb- or goat-skin. chapter Jdg_5:25 adds 'butter.' Jdg_5:26 seems (though not certainly) to imply that Sisera is killed as he stands drinking.
21. The nail or tent-pin was of wood: to drive it into the ground when camping was the women's work. On the morality of the act see on Jdg_5:24.
22. If Barak came up immediately, he must have left the main body of the pursuers almost as they left the battle-field.
24. The Israelites now proceed to do on a small soale what, after the victories of Joshua, they had refused to do on a large one.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 3. Third Declension: Under Jabin, Deborah, and Barak
3. Third Declension: Under Jabin, Deborah, and Barak
CHAPTER 4
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1. Sold into the hand of Jabin (Jdg 4:1-2)
2. The cry of the children of Israel (Jdg 4:3)
3. Deborah and Barak (Jdg 4:4-11)
4. The conflict and Jael’s deed (Jdg 4:12-24)
Ehud the mighty instrument of Jehovah had died, and again the children of Israel lapsed into evil. Then the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, King of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor. His captain was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. A powerful oppressor he was, for this King had nine hundred chariots of iron and oppressed Israel twenty years. About one hundred and thirty years before Joshua had overcome Jabin, King of Hazor. “He took Hazor and smote the King thereof with the sword, for Hazor before him was the head of all these kingdoms.” All were slain and Hazor was burnt with fire. And now the Lord sold them into his hand. This Jabin is a successor of the one whom Joshua had killed. Hazor had been built again out of its ruins. We see, so to speak, a resurrection of an old enemy. It is significant too that this declension and captivity under Jabin is the third one. As mentioned in annotations on Genesis the number three stands everywhere in the Word for revival and resurrection. The former enemy enslaves Israel once more. How often has this been the case in the history of the church, and how true it is today. Satan knows how to revive old errors and evils and use them to bring God’s people into captivity. And is it not so in our individual experience? Some sin which overpowered us was through the grace and strength of Christ and of His Spirit mastered, and its power broken. But can that same sin not be revived? Is it forever gone? If there is neglect of prayer, no childlike dependence in true humility, no watchfulness, it will, like Jabin, return and domineer over us in even greater power than before. Jabin means “discerning”--”understanding.” This city Hazor, where he dwelt, means “enclosure.” This Jabin represents human intellect, the understanding of the natural man, which is corrupt and opposed to God and to His revelation. It is the wisdom of the world. Jabin is in his own “enclosure,” which rejects and excludes what God has given. The Christian believer is called upon to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. “Casting down imaginations (reasonings), and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2Co 10:5). Man’s own thoughts, his natural understanding, must be completely subjected to God’s Word. How much of this spirit of exaltation against the knowledge of God is about us and in the professing church! Higher criticism belongs here. All the errors in doctrine, affecting always the Person of our Lord, are the results of putting the thoughts of man above the Word of God. Then in connection with this we must think of the sects and parties, the works of the flesh, that is the natural man and his reasonings, which have divided the body of Christ. These divisions are “the enclosures” of Jabin.
“As the enemy of the people of God, it is the wisdom of the world with which we have here to do--a wisdom which reigns in its own ‘enclosure,’ shut up, as is the constant fashion, in cliques and parties and philosophies, by which it elevates itself over what is outside its boundary. The spirit of it is easily manifest as that of self: self-interest, self-assertion, self-satisfaction, the true ‘trader’ or Canaanite spirit, that of gain. The inroad of this into the Church was early indeed. ‘All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ,’ was said, in the apostle’s days, of those at Rome (Php 2:21). Of the Ephesian elders it was prophesied, ‘Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them’ (Act 20:30). But already at Corinth the sects and parties produced by such attempts were being formed, as we know, and the true people of God were becoming subject to Jabin’s rule; and this has developed much more widely since, even until the Church of God has been broken up into various denominations, to the dishonor of the One Name which is upon us all” (F.W. Grant).
Then once more the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. Jabin’s mighty oppression and the humiliation connected with it had become so great that they turned to the Lord. How beautiful it is to see throughout these declensions, that the Lord seemed just to wait for this one thing, His people to cry to Him. As soon as they cried He answered. He is the same today. How willing and ready He is to break all the chains of His people and save them from the hands of all their enemies! True revivals always started in deep humiliation, in self-judgment, in prayer. But alas! the state of such, who have departed from the faith, who are the willing captives of Satan, who love this present evil age and who do not cry to the Lord! The Lord brought deliverance through a woman, Deborah, the prophetess. The weaker vessel is now summoned to judge. The name Deborah means “the Word.” It is the Word and the Word of God alone which can deliver from the wisdom of this world and from error and sin. But Deborah is married. She is the wife of Lapidoth. Lapidoth means “firebrands.” He is typical of the Holy Spirit. The Word, and the Spirit in the Word give the victory and deliver. And Deborah did not dwell in an “enclosure.” She dwelt under the palm tree between Ramah and Bethel. The palm tree typifies the spiritual prosperity of the believer. This we enjoy if we let the Word in the power of the Spirit judge us. Then we have our Ramah (heights) the blessed knowledge of our standing in Christ and Bethel (House of God) our fellowship with Him. That is where our palm tree, our spiritual blessing lies.
Deborah sent for Barak. Barak means “lightning.” Here we have judgment indicated. The Word calls for judgment and judgment will surely come, as it was executed through Barak upon Jabin and his host.
And so this age ends with the lightning flash of judgment, when the bundled up tares will be burned with fire. All the wisdom of this world, higher criticism, Christian Science, falsely so-called, and every other form of evil will then pass away. All error will end forever with the coming of our Lord. But there is a second woman mentioned in this chapter, Jael the wife of Heber. She slew Sisera, the wicked captain of Jabin, with the tent pin. Her deed is specially celebrated in song.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Prophetess Deborah Calls Barak
The Prophetess Deborah Calls Barak
v. 1. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, literally, "they added, or continued to do, wickedness," when Ehud was dead; for he had kept down the spirit of idolatry and maintained a successful defensive position against all enemies.
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v. 2. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor, evidently a very important city-state; for its king had stood at the head of a strong league of northern tribes in the time of Joshua, Jos 11:1 to Jos 10:11, and the city had been rebuilt after its destruction by Israel; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles, undoubtedly located in one of the valleys of Galilee, as Northern Canaan was later called. Jabin’s scheme of keeping Israel in subjection by exerting pressure from two different points was apparently very successful, and the outlook seemed to favor his plan of regaining possession of the entire territory taken from his ancestors by Joshua.
v. 3. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel, making them feel the full weight and power of his might.
v. 4. And Deborah, a prophetess, one possessing the prophetic gift from the Spirit of Jehovah, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time, exercising the functions of the supreme court in deciding difficult cases and thus being an acknowledged leader in the nation.
v. 5. And she dwelt under the palm-tree of Deborah, which received its name from that fact, between Ramah and Bethel, in the territory of Benjamin, in Mount Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. Deborah was a woman of fiery spirit, as the exact translation shows; she was like a torch for Israel, kindling their languid hearts, a capable and energetic woman, but no fanatic.
v. 6. And she sent and called Barak, the son of Abinoam, out of Kedeshnaphtali, a city in the extreme north of the later Galilee, and not far from Razor, and said unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, southwest of the Sea of Galilee and north of the Plain of Esdraelon, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun? The plan of assembling, as suggested by the Lord through the mouth of the prophetess, was that of drawing the men from the two tribes down to Tabor gradually, in small squads, the movement thus escaping the notice of the oppressors.
v. 7. And I, the Lord further says, will draw unto thee, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand. It was a clear command, with a definite promise.
v. 8. And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. Although Barak had no doubt concerning the truth of Deborah’s words, he did not yet feel the divine enthusiasm for the battle, being conscious of his own inability to carry out the command of the Lord alone.
v. 9. And she said, I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest, the expedition upon which he was now entering, shall not be for thine honor, Barak would not be hailed as the conqueror of Jabin and Sisera; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman, namely, Jael, as the continuation of the story shows; for Deborah was speaking as a prophetess. And Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh. It makes no difference to the Lord whether the men and the instruments at hand are strong or weak, He is able to carry out His will as He chooses.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 See how you translated this man's name in Judges…
Ehud
See how you translated this man's name in Judges 3:15.
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what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
The sight of Yahweh represents Yahweh's judgment or evaluation. See how you translated this in Judges 2:11. AT: "what was evil in Yahweh's judgment" or "what Yahweh considered to be evil" (See: Metaphor)
Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan
Here "hand" refers to Jabin's power over Israel. Yahweh's decision to give Jabin power over them is spoken of as if Yahweh had sold them to Jabin. AT: "Yahweh allowed them to be defeated by the power of Jabin king of Canaan" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
Jabin ... Sisera
These are the names of men (See: How to Translate Names)
Hazor ... Harosheth Haggoyim
These are the names of cities or places (See: How to Translate Names)
nine hundred iron chariots
"900 iron chariots" (See: Numbers)
twenty years
"20 years"
translationWords
die
Israel
disobey
Yahweh
evil
hand
power
king
Canaan
reign
commander
Gentile
call
chariot
oppress
year
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.