Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

Deborah’s commissioning of Barak (4:6–7) suggests that he ought to fulfill a role comparable to Othniel in 3:7–11.23 His response, however, to Deborah’s command from Yahweh with its great assurance of victory24 is hardly the stuff of an Othniel or even an Ehud: “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go” (v. 8). While his motive for expressing his desire for Deborah to accompany him is not indicated in the narrative, some interpreters see this as a sign of cowardice.25 But note what the Old Greek (LXX) adds, “for I [Barak] never know what day the angel of the LORD will give me success.” This seems to suggest that Barak desires Deborah’s presence as a source of oracular inquiry.26 In other words, he wants to guarantee that things will go auspiciously. Block comments that “the request to be accompanied by the prophet [sic] is a plea for the presence of God.”27 It also means, as O’Connell notes, that by conditioning his obedience to Yahweh on Deborah’s willingness to accompany him, “Barak was effectively denying her the authority that Yahweh had conferred upon her as a prophetess (v. 4a).”28 And in this, he was denying Yahweh’s word. Barak is attempting to manipulate the outcome. Deborah’s response that she will go seems to allay the problem of Barak’s hesitation. But then she issues another prophecy: “the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman” (v. 9). The reader has only one woman to suspect as the pos...