JUDGES 5
We could not suppose that such a lovely song as this would be given to us by the inspiration of the Spirit of God without there being important instruction for us in it. It is a song that we need to understand in a special way at the present time. This song is praise to God in a different way from the song of Moses, who celebrated the great actings of God in redemption,
[p. 136] and the fruit of those actings. I trust we have all learned to sing the song of Moses, but in the last days we have to learn to sing the song of Deborah and Barak. I suppose one would hardly be a Christian at all if one could not sing with Moses, but it is only overcomers who can sing with Deborah and Barak. The song of Moses is the common property of all: it is the song of the redeemed; but the song of Deborah and Barak is a song sang in difficult times, a song which celebrates how God comes in for His people, and how He provides what is needed for their deliverance in a very dark day. One is as important as the other.
This is the only song in Judges, and therefore it is of great importance. This particular victory over the king of Canaan is taken up by the Spirit of God as an occasion in which to point out how God would deliver His people at all times right on to the time when the wicked will perish and the righteous shine forth in the kingdom. It is a song celebrating God’s resource in a difficult day. When God intervenes to deliver His people, everyone is tested; that is how we are tested today by the way God comes in to deliver His people from oppression. We are tested as to whether we identify ourselves wholeheartedly with the deliverer or not. If God has brought in a deliverer, my place in the kingdom will depend on whether I identify myself with the deliverer, and am prepared to take my part in the conflict as a good soldier, or whether I evade it. If the latter, I might possibly come under the curse.
All utterances in Scripture have something distinctive. In this song God raises up leaders for His people. It is the celebration of divine leadership. “For that leaders led in Israel, For that the people willingly offered themselves, Bless Jehovah”, verse 2. The state of Israel is sorrowful as described in verse 7: “The leaders ceased in Israel, Ceased until that I Deborah arose, That I arose a mother in Israel”. There was no one in Israel to give a spiritual lead, and it has been like that among the people of God many times.
Verse 12 refers to the mother and leader. The mother is represented in Deborah who brings leadership into evidence, those who can cherish the Israel of God with maternal affection — that is the element that produces leadership. When God raises up leadership He does it in connection with the yearnings of the mother. You must have the mother before the soldier. Before the Lord raised up such distinct leadership as in the [p. 137] beginning of this century, there was the spirit of yearning and maternal affection for the people of God, and God answered it by raising up a spiritual leadership to deliver from all that hinders their enjoyment of the inheritance.
The principle of leadership was first established in the Lord Himself. The Lord is the great Leader, and it is only as persons follow Him that they are competent to lead His people. The Lord never departed from, or shunned the highway; He never went by crooked paths, and He alone is entitled to say “Follow me”. The apostles never tell us to follow them. Paul said, “Imitate me”, but the Lord was the only One to say, “Follow me”.
There is a way through this world, and the Lord went in that way, and He was the great Leader. He went to His own and He said, “I have overcome the world”. His last presentation of Himself to the assembly is as the Overcomer; “even as I also have overcome”, Revelation 3: 21. He is the One to follow. All leadership is found in those that follow Him. All others are patterns, never objects; the Lord alone is the Object.
There is another thing of importance, that is, that if the Lord provides a leader, or leaders, in His goodness for His people, He always provides followers, those that follow the Lord, those that offer themselves willingly. That is the great subject of the song — leaders, and those who offered themselves willingly to be identified in the conflict with the leaders. Meroz did not identify itself, and was cursed. There is a special application. If we are not prepared for conflict it is not much use to read Joshua or Judges; they are books for soldiers, for warriors. If we do not take part in the conflict, we shall not get the spoil. Nothing has been gained in the church of God since the days of the apostles, save through conflict, and God has continually aroused exercises in His people by raising up leaders. It is of no use to say we have no leaders; that challenges the faithfulness of God. How could God tell me to obey my leaders if there are not any! This has been the history of things in the church. There has been a great departure, and God has raised up a spiritual leadership in one or more, and all the overcomers have identified themselves with the leaders. The test of an overcomer is to be able to perceive when God is giving a lead, and to identify himself as a soldier with the spiritual movement of the moment.
Overcomers were the product of Deborah’s ministry. God raised up a prophetic ministry — a prophetess. She carried on the ministry for twenty years. She was an overcomer, for she dwelt under a palm-tree. The result of prophetic ministry is a generation of overcomers. All those who offered themselves willingly are begotten of the prophetic ministry of the moment. An overcomer is begotten by the mind of God made known at a particular moment.
Reuben had great searchings of heart. He was tossed up and down, and ended in doing nothing. He represents a man who goes through a tremendous amount of exercise as to conflict, and great deliberations and debatings, but it ends in his stopping where he was. If he did not come to share in the battle, what is the use of his exercise? One has known people going through seas of exercise which end in their standing in neutrality, and there is no such thing in the wars of God. Neutrality is the base expedient of modern times.
From verse 14 we have a list of those who came up to identify themselves with the leadership of the moment to give their support: Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh (Machir was his son), Zebulon, Issachar, they all came up to help; and then there are those who did not come. It is like a grand review, like the judgment-seat of Christ. Now the battle is over, and the conduct of everyone is being reviewed. These tribes came up to help, and are mentioned with approval. Two tribes in particular get special commendation: Zebulon and Naphtali jeoparded their lives to death in the high places of the field, verse 18. We ought to covet that in every conflict. We all have to face some kind of conflict, and if we identify ourselves with the spiritual leadership of the moment, we may do it as an ordinary soldier, or in an extraordinary way like men who earn the Victoria Cross. The difference is mentioned.
But then there are those who did not come at all. Reuben had resolves of heart, many good resolutions; He goes through great deliberations, but he abides in the sheepfolds. “Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleating of the flocks? In the divisions of Reuben there were great deliberations of heart”, verse 16. Sleepless nights are of no use, if they do not bring you into conflict. The Spirit of God in Deborah and Barak asks the question, Why did not you come? With all your deliberations and resolves you never came; you abode in the sheep-folds. People say sometimes, We will not [p. 139] meddle with conflict; we preach the gospel; we look after the sheep. It is good to look after the sheep, but, if a war is on, that is the important thing at the time.
“Gilead abode beyond Jordan”. That covers Reuben, Gad and part of Manasseh; they abode beyond Jordan. That represents people who have not taken heavenly ground; they have no interest in heavenly conflict, and do not care anything about it; they stay beyond Jordan. Another is Dan, “And Dan, why did he remain in ships?” Dan remained in ships. I believe ships in Scripture represent the commerce of the world. Here is a man who is engrossed in money-making, and he has no time to take up conflict; he remains in his ships. “Asher sat on the sea-shore and abode in his creeks”, he just takes things comfortably. None of those tribes comes up, and they miss the spoil. If we do not come up we do not get the spoil of conflict. If I am in spiritual conflict I have no pleasure in fighting; that is not the end in view. The end in view is to gain something for oneself, something for Israel, and something for the Lord. Verses 10 and 11 show the gain: “Ye that ride on white she-asses, ye that sit on carpets, and ye that walk by the way, consider. Because of the voice of those who divide the spoil, in the midst of the places of drawing water. There they rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, His righteous acts toward his leaders in Israel”. They got some of the spoils of the conflict. Paul says, “All who are in Asia have turned away from me”, and, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age”; he had gone down to ships. As time went on there were those who did not stand by Paul; they wanted easy times. They turned away from him and forsook him, but he gives honourable mention to some who did stand by him.
We must recognise spiritual leadership at any particular moment. If any are exercised and cry to God, God raises up a leader; that is the lesson of Judges. It is a picture of what went on in the church from the first days until now. When they felt they were in a state of departure and that the world was getting the upper hand, they cried to God, and God raised up a spiritual leader. There is a spiritual leading now, but it is not what it was at the time of the Reformation. God raised up Luther and others for spiritual leading in that day, and all overcomers identified themselves with it, but there is a spiritual lead today as certainly as then. When there is a falling off,
[p. 140] God intervenes again, with another form of leadership against the enemy. He does not always work on the same lines. The enemies today are not the same as those the saints had to deal with five hundred years ago. They are the same at the bottom, but methods are different, and we can only meet enemies today as we follow the spiritual leading of today, and identify ourselves with it. If we do not come up, we may get the curse. Meroz gets a bitter curse because he did not come up.
Then the attitude of Meroz seems to be set over against the extraordinary faithfulness of Jael. If one gets a curse, another gets a great commendation. Jael was a woman, and not of Israel. She might seem to be out of it, but her energy of faith brought her into it, and she acted in an extraordinary way against the great enemy of God’s people, and destroyed the enemy’s great general.
Jael established her right by this act of faith. She severed her old link in a moment. She is something like Rahab. There was a time in the history of Rahab when she severed her relations with her own tribe, with Jericho, its king and people. She formed new links with the people of God, and got a distinguished place in Israel. Jael had been identified with the king of Canaan; there was a covenant between them, but the time came when she recognised that Jabin was hostile to the people of God, and she broke her covenant of peace, and cut herself off from her old confederates, and identified herself with the people of God. She established her right to a place in Israel; she broke her league with Jabin.
The song finishes, “So let all thine enemies perish, Jehovah! But let them that love him be as the rising of the sun in its might”. The destruction of Sisera was a kind of foreshadowing of the destruction of all the enemies of God, and everything hostile to the power of His people. All will be destroyed, and the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.