Jim Gallagher

Judges 4:8-9

“And Barak said to her, ‘If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!’ So she said, ‘I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’ Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.”

The conditions in Israel at the time of Deborah and Barak were very difficult. Moral failure, on the part of the people and their leaders, had led to national decline, and in turn to losing much of the freedoms they once enjoyed. After eighteen years of oppression, the people finally began to see that the root cause of their condition was not economic, political or even social, but that they had departed from the ways of God…