40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Judges 5:1-31 (Episode 202)

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

A song is sung by Deborah to cement what God has done in the history of Israel. Why does this song and others have an address to the enemies? Why is God's interaction with creation so personal? Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Houston City Event Las Vegas City Event Great Freedom Conference in Germany Freedom Conference in Stockholm Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, hit that events page. Chad, we got city events coming up quick here, man. We're going to be hanging out soon down in Houston. Yeah, like, I don't know, two, three weeks. Where are we at?

Yeah, the 22nd of February, we will be down there. Chad will be there. I'll be there hanging out with Loso and Scott Keith and Gretchen Ronovic and Matt Popovitz. It's going to be a good time. We're going to be talking about what happens when people encounter Jesus. So, man, if you're in Texas, really just anywhere in Texas,

I know it's a big state, but I mean, if you're really anywhere, especially in the southern part of Texas, the southern half of Texas, you've got to come over to Houston and hang out with Chad and I. You've got to do it. So you can go over there, go to the event page, click on it, all the information's there. All you do is sign up and then show up. That's it. But maybe you don't live there and you're somewhere in the Las Vegas area. We'll be there March 21st. Registration for that is also open, and we'd love to see you there at that event. Also, Europe, we're going to be there.

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All right, Chad, where are we at in this book of Judges? We have a little poetry today. We're in Judges Chapter 5, which is the poetic parallel to the prose account that we just covered this past time in Judges Chapter 4. So we heard about Deborah and Barack and that very feisty and dangerous lady named Jael. So we heard all about the story last time, and now we're going to hear the musical that's based upon that particular story. So it's it's a it's a really interesting chapter for a number of reasons, probably the most, at least for me, from my perspective, one of the most fascinating aspects of the story is just how closely just thematically it parallels the song at the sea that the Israelites sang after they after they crossed the Red Sea and the Egyptians were destroyed.

So it's one of these, I pointed out a couple of times last episode, how there were parallels between the Exodus account and what happened with the defeat of Sisera in chapter four. So we'll hit on a couple of those as well when we get into chapter five. And if we finish that, which I think we will, we'll jump into a long section of Judges. The next major section is all about Gideon and his call, his exploits, and as we'll see at the end, his gradual sinking into idolatry, which is the kind of the bleak way that his story ends. And then following up with that, his son Abimelech. So once we get to Judges 6, we've got a big section that we'll address with regard to Gideon. But anyway, before we get there, we'll cover Judges chapter 5. I mentioned last time, this really doesn't affect us as English readers, but if anybody listening out there knows Hebrew and has read a little bit of Judges chapter 5 in the Hebrew, you know that it's pretty rough. just because this is it's kind of like you know uh if you take a class you're in high school or

you're in college and you read Shakespeare or you read something in old English well it's a little bit tough right I mean you can kind of you know you get the gist of the story but there's a lot of words you got to look up there's a lot of kind of arcane language uh some words you know some words you don't know well it's kind of like that with with Judges chapter 5 this is a very very old style of hebrew i read recently that like 70 percent of of the poem has translation challenges we'll call them because there's words that we we uh we call it a hop ox which means they only occur once in the whole bible i mean you only have a word occurring once a hebrew or greek word only occurring once it's it's it's a challenge sometimes to to make sure that you're understanding

it and translating it correctly. So there's some of that in there. So the only way that you'll probably notice this if you're just reading in English is if you happen to be in a Bible study and somebody's reading out of the NIV, another person's reading out of the ESV, somebody else is reading out of the New American Standard, and you'll come across some verses where these translations just don't line up all that well. Well, it's really not the translator's fault, probably doing the best they can because there's just some there's some challenging Hebrew behind this this particular poem so that is a is kind of a just a preface we'll jump right in so this way it begins it says that Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day saying so we know this

is a song because it it calls it that right away this isn't just poetry but this was actually meant to be sung, as were many sections of the Old Testament. And even though it says this is the song of Deborah and Barak, it's kind of a nod to Barak. But he really, as we read in the last chapter, he doesn't really get much credit because he acted somewhat hesitantly and cowardly. In fact, Deborah even tells him, the honor is not going to go to you, the honor is going to go to a woman. And that was ambiguous at first, but when we get to the end of the story, we realize, ah, this woman was actually Jael. She's the one, the tent peg, the tent peg lady. So this is really, this is traditionally called Deborah's song, and rightly so.

In fact, in verse 7, she even speaks in the first person. So, I, Deborah, arose. I arose a mother in Israel. And, you know, this kind of fits with her being the author of this song, fits with her, with her vocation. As we learned in chapter four, she is a prophetess and prophets very often. You read Isaiah, you read Jeremiah, read the minor prophets. Almost everything is recorded for us in poetry. so it would kind of make sense that this early prophetess would actually turn her her understanding of what happened from from a prophetic perspective into not just poetry but into actually poetry

which was which was sung yeah it's interesting that you know you don't have like a ton of examples of you know prophetesses um we don't know how exactly how common this was but uh but we have couple of examples and where we do have examples it seems that uh busting out some songs is something that they will do right yeah this seems like a very common thing that this is uh one of the things they do they will like prophetically place like something like this so this is a a victory of the lord and they will like they will place this into song so that the people have it forever right right you know and not just prophetesses but uh you know you think of hannah beginning of first Samuel of course uh she sings that song of thanksgiving more than just

thanksgiving I mean it's a very theological song um giving thanks to God for the birth of her of her child which is Samuel and then you you fast forward to to Mary who's kind of the New Testament counterpart to Hannah and of course she sings her song the the Magnificat so yeah I mean it's uh It is seemingly expected in many of these cases for women who are put forward either as leaders or as examples to take what they experienced, their hopes, their fears, their thanksgiving, and to translate that into song. And the beautiful thing about that is, as you alluded, that this becomes not just something you read, but it becomes part of kind of the culture and the heritage of the people, right? I mean, there's a lot of things that we don't remember from history unless they're put into a song. You know, you have a lot of historical events that have been translated into something which people sing, or at least into poetry, like the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. and so you remember it because it becomes something you memorize

or you recite or you sing. Yeah, this is sort of a lost thing now because we have so many ways of documenting things and all that kind of stuff. But literally, this was the surest way to keep something alive for a long time was to put in a song. And this went on for a very, very long time. I mean, if you've ever seen the movie Braveheart,

that movie is based on a character that exists in song this is how this works like that's all that that's it like he's like was he real they don't even know they're like i think so maybe probably like there seemed it seems to be there was other people that were real like robert the bruce and that kind of stuff generations later they made this movie and like they wanted to enshrine this thing in song and so all the scottish people know this song about this guy um and they have his his story in a song and that's just one example but that was the case for all kinds of things that like that people take and they say these are we're gonna we're gonna put our history into melody and into music and and then we're gonna pass it down for generations and that that stuff

was it was an effective way to do it for a very very long time braveheart by the way probably the best movie ever made dude i i just in my not so humble opinion just the other day my wife says to me as i say something about braveheart she's like yeah you know i've never seen braveheart felt like i'd made a huge mistake like i've done something wrong not by marrying her but just that how is like we've been married for quite a while now how is this how is this even possible how is as possible like we're coming up like 13 years of marriage and that made me think has it been 13 years since i've seen braveheart like i am due yeah yeah you need to watch that at least once every couple years yeah all right i'm failing over here i know man yeah you get your act together i

know it's not like i know the song so i can't remind myself of his great deeds that way i don't know it you're just gonna watch the movie okay well let's get into it uh starts out with uh a blessing of of the lord which is basically anytime you bless the lord that's just that's a that's a hebrew way of giving thanks to to god and and implicitly acknowledging him as the source of blessings for you so that the leaders led in israel that the people volunteered bless the lord it's like it already we're we're going to hear uh one of the major themes of this of this song that when it became necessary for the israelites to to jump into the battle that there were that there were people who volunteered they willingly gave themselves to battle now a corresponding

flip side of that is that there were some who did not and we're going to talk we're going to hear about those when we get to verses 14 15 and 16 that not all of the tribes actually leapt to their feet and ran to the battle for Israel. So there's this kind of minor note of dissonance that's between the various tribes. So some volunteered, some did not. And then verse three, I love this. Anytime that the Psalms do this or any song actually does this, I think it's sort of humorous. It says, hear, O kings, give ear, O rulers. I to the Lord, I will sing. So the song is addressing kings rulers presumably of the non-israelite uh people groups so and you hear this a lot in the psalms right uh these address to the nations to the goyim to the

gentiles well this is a this is kind of a common poetic uh approach where you will address your enemies in a song that you're singing and it's it's sort of a sort of a taunting sort of way like give ear oh kings uh you're going to get destroyed to give ear oh rulers you're going to be you're going to be trampled by the host of israel that that kind of language and i was thinking and as i was looking over this this morning i was thinking that you know we we still do this one of the uh one of my favorite hymns is uh is on baptism it's uh god's own child i gladly say it. It's written by an 18th century poet named Erdman Neumeister. But anyway, it's all about baptism. Beautiful tune, beautiful text, God's own child, I gladly say it. But listen to

just the beginning of three of the stanzas. So stanza two starts out this way, sin disturbed my soul no longer. I am baptized into Christ. And then verse three, Satan, hear this proclamation, I am baptized into Christ. And then finally, the fourth, death, you cannot in my gladness. I am baptized into Christ. So three of those stanzas are addressing enemies, addressing death, addressing sin, addressing Satan. And it's in sort of a taunting sort of way.

Well, scripturally, too, these are the three great enemies, right? Sin, death, and the devil. Yeah. Yeah, the three great enemies and people like Sisera that we heard about in this last chapter, the enemy of Israel, or really any of the enemies of Israel, they are nothing but icons of those three great enemies.

In fact, it's quite fitting, I think, that this particular enemy is destroyed. Sisera is destroyed. How? Well, not by getting shot through with an arrow or stabbed with a spear or anything like that. Some terrible leg wound, he bleeds out. No, he's actually killed

with something being driven through his head which as i think i mentioned this last time fits with that pretty broad biblical theme of the enemies of god either having their heads crushed or cut off or something like that all of which goes back to genesis 3 15 where the arch enemy satan will have his head crushed so those who are doing his bidding whether they're a sisera or whether they're a pharaoh or whether they're goliath or whoever they might be they become emblems of of the enemy of the true enemy sin death and the devil because they're they're doing his bidding and attacking attacking the people of god so anyway it starts out this way uh then goes on i will sing praise to the lord the god of israel and then it has this real graphic

depiction of God marching through the land to come to the aid of his people. It says, Lord, when you went out from Seir, which is south, the south country, when you marched from the field of Edom, Edom being again south, what happened? The earth quaked, the heavens dripped, even the clouds dripped water, the mountains quaked at the presence of the Lord, this Sinai at the presence of the lord the god of israel so you you have this you have this imagery or he pictures like when god shows up to rescue him like all of creation goes crazy so you have you have thundering you have lightning you have hail you have uh you have torrential rain you have mountains that are trembling all it's like creation is just i the way i pictured is like there's this giant walking

through the land and everything is quivering everything is shaking even the heavens themselves so that's kind of this image of god heading from the south marching through the land and as he goes along the heavens reacting and the earth is reacting and he's coming because he's coming to rescue rescue his people yeah and you see you see this play out and and obviously all rescuing of israel and all this stuff is all you know it all finds its its its consumption in the in the work of christ and you see in the work of christ and the actual work of dying and rising you do see this as a dramatic effect on the earth you have darkness and earthquakes and you know uh all this sort of stuff going on at the death i mean the resurrection is the is similar um where you have

you have the earth itself this is why i mean you have even uh the the bible is interesting how it talks about creation almost as a person right that it like groans and it cries out it responds in certain ways yeah it's interesting so in in this in this song and in lots of songs you have the earth yeah god using creation to bring about his his will and his judgment or his rescue but also it's sort of god interacts with creation in a in a far more personal way than we then you would think he might yeah yeah and there's either a couple of messages there that are that are embedded in that and one is that god isn't just like a lot of the gods of ancient near east he wasn't geographically restricted i mean most most gods they kind

of respected the boundaries you know so it was the god of edom or the god of midian or the god of egypt whatever they pretty much stayed where their people were at not god and he's like coming from seer he's marching through edom because he's of course in the uh in the israelite uh mind he's he's the only god uh so he owns all the he owns all the earth so all creation reacts to him not just that particular part of the world namely israel and then secondly that you know all creation is involved in the the saving the saving work of christ this goes back to what you were talking about earlier that all creation is redeemed by christ that's why there's going to be a new creation new heavens and a new earth and uh so yeah i mean of course christ dies to redeem

us but the implication of that is much broader just as sin infected the world and led to the world being messed up in so many different ways creation being messed up in so many different ways so through the redeeming work of christ creation will be perfected will be recreated so that just as it went south so also god is going to raise it raise it back up okay so moving on verse six uh takes us back actually to a guy that we heard about in one verse a couple chapters back Shamgar. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anat, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and travelers went by roundabout ways. The peasantry or the villagers ceased. They ceased in Israel until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel. So I think what is being

depicted here is basically that things were bad. So in the days of Shamgar, who was probably almost a contemporary of these folks in jail. The highways were deserted because things were so bad for the Israelites. It was a dangerous place. They weren't safe. They were being attacked. They were being ruled over by foreign powers. And so the villagers ceased. I mean, they were in a position of weakness. They didn't have fortified cities. They just tried to fortify themselves as best they could, but they were living in villages until it says, I, Deborah, arose. I arose a mother in Israel. We'll get to more of that in just a minute because she's inserting herself here because when she comes, things begin to change. She is the one that God

raises up as this prophetess in order to give hope and counsel and guidance to Israel and really to be for them this living image that God is present with them. Of course, that's why when Barak is told to go off to war. He says, nope, not unless you go with me. So she herself becomes the one who is representative of God's word and his will for Israel. She goes on, new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates. So basically Israel created this situation. As we've heard already, and as we'll hear multiple times through the book of Judges, they forsake the way of the Lord. They go after other gods. And when these new gods were chosen, well then, yeah, there was war because God handed them over to their enemies.

But things were so bad, it says, that not a spear or a shield was seen in Israel among 40,000 in Israel. So they didn't even have weapons. That's how bad things had become. Okay, so we have this kind of bleak picture, and we have hope arising with the coming of Deborah. So what's going to happen. She says, my heart goes out to the commanders of Israel, the volunteers among the people. Bless the Lord. So we have, again, this same thing we heard at the beginning of it, that there's these people that come out to fight for Israel. And the next two verses are a little bit difficult. It talks about the people who ride on white donkeys, who sit on rich carpets, who travel the road, sing, she says. Presumably these would be like traders, those who had the money, had the

kind of transportation, these tawny or white donkeys to ride on. Anyway, she calls upon them to sing. And then verse 11, at the sound of those who divide flocks among the watering places, there they shall recount the righteous deeds of the Lord, the righteous deeds for his villagers in israel then the people of the lord went down to the gates verse 11 is probably the hardest verse in this particular poem because there's so much it's just a little bit ambiguous i think what it's talking about is that when the people are gathered at the watering places that's kind of where they talked right that's where everybody was at that was the gathering place so they talk about what what god is doing and what he will do for for the israelites okay so that takes us through

verse 11. We'll pick up at 12. It's a transition to the next part of the song. Awake, awake, Deborah. Awake, awake, sing a song. Arise, Barak, and take away your captives, O son of Abinoam. So here we have this call to awake, to arouse, to get to action, in other words, Deborah and Barak. It says, the survivors came down to the nobles. The people of the Lord came down to me as warriors so this is the this is the poetic description of her gathering gathering the people for war they're gathering around barack who is chosen as the one who's going to lead them and then we have in verses 14 15 16 17 and 18 so 14 through 18 we have a description of, I think there's nine or ten tribes that are mentioned here, some by name, some by

an individual's name that's connected with the tribe. Now, most of these tribes are described as actually coming to the aid of Deborah and Barat. So, we have Ephraim mentioned. We have Benjamin mentioned. We have verse 14 mentions Machir, which is probably the tribe of Manasseh, because that's the tribe that Machir was from, as we hear in Genesis chapter 50. So Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh, Zebulun is also mentioned, Issachar. So all of these tribes, it says they came to Barak, the leader, into the valley. They rushed at his heels. So that's all good. She's praising these tribes for coming to the aid of their brothers in this time of attacks, in the time of attacking God's enemies. But then she shifts, and she talks about the tribes who

weren't involved. One of those was Reuben. So why did you sit among the sheepfolds, among the divisions of Reuben? And she describes great searchings of heart among the tribes of Reuben it's like of course Reuben if you remember from uh Joshua and uh and even from Deuteronomy the the Reubenites and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh they didn't want to cross over they wanted to land on the western side so probably they're like ah things are good with us over here we're just gonna we're gonna we're gonna stick with our sheet folds and we don't want to get involved in your conflicts across the Jordan River so Reuben does not come out looking good but it's the same with gad and then dan who's located close to the ship the the shore stays in

his ships asher also stays there by by the seashore so there's this criticism built into the song of these tribes who didn't do their duty they didn't rise when they were called to to warfare and this is this is pretty characteristic of the days before the monarchy before there was a king he had this kind of loose confederation of the tribes and probably even some of the judges only operated with certain of the certain of the tribes in certain areas he didn't have any kind of cohesion in fact you still had that division uh part of the time during the reign of david at first it was just like his tribe the tribe of judah and then benjamin they were on the side of david it wasn't until later he was actually able to consolidate all of israel see when in

these early days of israel you can't picture them and being like united as in the days of the monarchy there was a it's just a lot of kind of we're doing our thing you do your thing and maybe we'll come to help you maybe we won't and that's what this is reflecting this frustration with some of these tribes for sitting on their hands during this time of conflict instead of actually getting up and coming to the aid of sisera i mean come to the aid of deborah and barack but it kind of make sense of the uh request of the people to have a king because you might you might wonder like why why did israel want a king uh why did they want to be like other nations like they have god like this seems and you know and of course god does say like hey don't worry they're not

rejecting you they're rejecting me that kind of thing but practically you can understand it where they're like we we need like we are all just calling calling our own shots here it'd probably be we've been in and out of captivity we got different we got people at war with us all the time and sometimes people come to help sometimes they don't it'd be better if we just had like one guy calling all the shots for this for this whole thing we would be more powerful that way i mean the united states is probably a decent example imagine if we didn't have a president we just had all the governors deciding well maybe we'll come over there and help you i mean it would just be It'd be crazy.

Yeah, yeah, it would be. It would be. Yeah, and you can see kind of the twofold, one positive and one negative of having a king. Because, I mean, when you have, well, of course, Saul was not a good king. When you have David and Solomon, yeah, you do have a consolidation of the tribes, right? He does unite them. And Solomon does, too. I mean, look at this spectacular wealth and power and the building of the temple, the expansion of the geographical boundaries of Israel.

There were a lot of things, good things, that happened for the Israelites when they had the second and the third king, when they had David and his son Solomon. So there was certainly a positive side to that. Of course, as with any positive side, you have a negative side, too, because Solomon ends up marrying a lot of foreign wives, consolidating his power by marrying the daughters of foreign kings. Well, they bring their religion and their worship of foreign gods into Jerusalem and to build the temple, Solomon and his own palace. He levies these big taxes upon the people. And so by the time his son Rehoboam becomes king, people are like, yeah, we want you to lower our taxes. We're sick of you impoverishing us in order to fund your building projects. And of course, when Rehoboam doesn't do that, you have the split of the kingdom and you're right back where you started.

We have now a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. um so yeah it's it's like one of those you can't win you can't lose when you have a king in israel because you're gonna have some good you're also gonna have some bad yeah yeah but uh the practicality of asking for it makes sense in light of their history oh yeah yeah absolutely absolutely light of like what's happening what's happening right here okay so uh it says verse 19 the kings came and fought they fought then fought the kings of canaan at tanakh near the waters of megiddo this is where this is a description of where the battle happened that we read about in the previous chapter now listen to this this is crazy uh the stars fought from heaven this is

verse 20 from their courses they fought against sisera so we have stars fighting but we're not done. It says, the torrent of Kishon swept them away. The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. So you've got heaven and earth fighting against the enemies of Israel too. So you have this, and we have this image elsewhere too, in the Psalms of heaven fighting against the enemies of Israel. Here it's the stars. And we don't know if this is like poetic hyperbole or if actually something happened uh we've heard about hailstones falling from heaven against the uh enemies of israel so whatever stars fighting from heaven means this is heaven fighting against the enemies of israel and not only that but kishon which was ordinarily a pretty mild stream all of a sudden

it becomes a torrent and it's fighting against the uh the enemies of israel as well so it's like all of creation is conspiring against uh against sisera and against his his armies just like and this is one of those parallels with exodus 15 just like at the red sea you have the waters that are fighting against the egyptians so here you have the waters from kishon that are fighting against the the canaanites i choose to believe that asteroids were shooting out of the sky and blowing up the chariots that's totally what happened yeah they're like the stars are fighting on our side the asteroids are making direct hits on these iron chariots when we when we make the movie that's that's exactly what's gonna happen yeah that's it yeah i might even put a shark nato

in there too out of that out of that torrent stream there's like there's sharks in there right yeah hand it up a little bit okay so uh well it goes on to talk about the the horse's hooves beating the dashing of the of the horse's hooves and then verse 23 uh wraps up this section it says curse morose said the angel of the lord utterly curse its inhabitants because they did not come to the help of the lord to the help of the lord against the warriors now we really don't know where morose is at this is the only time it's ever mentioned the old testament i'm assuming that morose was kind of understood to be symbolic of all those places that didn't come to the help of israel so this curse is pronounced upon them okay so that that that concludes the first 23 verses

now the two last sections are pretty fascinating the first one's about jael they're both about women. The first is about Jael, poetic rendering of her taking out Sisera. And then verse 28 through 31 is very, very unique. It tells the story from the perspective of the mother of Sisera as she waits for her son to return from war. So here's the way the Jael one goes. Most blessed of women is jael the wife of heber the kenite most blessed is she of women in the tent he asked for water and she gave him milk in a magnificent bowl she brought him curds so you remember that part of the story right he goes into the tent he asked for something to drink she brings in milk apparently she brought him some curds too yeah yogurt yeah a little yogurt yeah so and then 26

she reached out her hand for the tent peg and her right hand for the workman's hammer then she struck sister she smashed his head and she shattered and pierced his temple i wish we had this to music it'd be much better music how do you this is like can you imagine singing this on sunday you're like covering the kids ears right don't listen to this part and then the best part is the is the last last verse of this particular part between her feet he bowed he fell he lay between her feet he bowed he fell where he bowed there he fell dead it's the poetry is just amazing it's called something's called stair step poetry but uh yeah it's like the whole you can it's kind of if this was a song you kind of picture it just slowing down you don't like

savor savor the moment of the destruction of the enemy you know when you know a part of i love this is actually in verse 24 where it says basically says when it comes to women living in tents she's the best that's right yeah this is true i mean yeah if you want if you're talking about putting tents and women together she's the best she's the best number one she can drive a tent peg she can set a tent up yeah right yeah you want your tent set up right you could jail that's it she can wheel the hammer okay so sisera's dead obviously now what's gonna happen back at home well uh now we're gonna hear about sisera's mother she looked and lamented the mother of sisera through the lattice why does his chariot delay in coming why do the hoofbeats of his chariots

tarry so yeah sister his mother waiting back at the at the house at the the palace whatever it is looking through the lattice like this just seems mean i mean like there's no sort of like out of the window like she peered the mother of like his mother is like waiting for her son to come home haha he's not coming home like yeah this is very ouch man yeah this is a low blow this is very this is very in your face too uh yeah i think it's i don't even know what the word to be to describe it but uh just it's it's pretty cold it's as far as like poetry goes when you attack somebody's mom yeah you know you know it's cold yeah so she's wondering what's happened where you know why is he delayed and her princesses her wise princesses would answer her indeed she repeats

her words to herself so it's like everybody they're reassuring her and she's trying to reassure herself and here's what they say here's the reason for the delay oh are are they not finding? Are they not dividing the spoil? That's probably why, right? And then it goes on. Literally in the Hebrew, your translation is going to say probably like maiden or young woman or something like that. In Hebrew, it's a womb, two wombs for every warrior. So yeah, you've got these soldiers going to be bringing back uh some women basically the spoils of war um which is barbaric but that's that's the way that that these things would happen um to a womb two wombs a woman two women for every warrior to sisera a spoil of dyed work a spoil of dyed work embroidered dyed work of double

embroidery on the neck of the spoiler that's kind of where like that little conversation ends at that oh that's why they're delayed they're busy gathering up women and the spoils of war and that's why they haven't come back and it kind of it kind of ends it there as far as sister his mother goes of course we know what happened and she's going to find out sin enough and then the the song concludes like this thus let all your enemies perish oh lord but that let those who love him be like the rising of the sun in its might and then one prose verse line that ends this chapter and the land was undisturbed for 40 years yeah that's that had rest that elusive rest that elusive that elusive rest yeah so that is uh kind of uncomfortable for us in many ways i know uh

because we're not used to singing things like that and we're not used to talking like that. Uh, but that is the way that the old Testament very frequently talks about the enemies. And, and I think, I think it is helpful to, uh, to repeat what we said earlier with regard to the enemies that these, you have to think of these people in two different ways. Yes, they were actual people, but they were also as the enemies of Israel, they were the enemies of God.

and they were those who sought to destroy that which god was working in the world all of this is part of the prehistory leading up to god's ultimate work of sending his messiah that's why he has israel that's why he chooses this people so they can bear this promise and any threat to them is also a threat to to that promise and so when they're destroyed this is this is god's way of making sure that those promises are passed down and of course eventually eventually fulfilled there's more to it than that but I think that's important to bear in mind when you

when you either read or sing things like that have you ever sung a song ever I was looking this morning to see if I could find if there was any record of it being used liturgically like historically in the church in some way and I couldn't find anything but I'm sure it's

sung in some way and in some traditions I have never sang it no Yeah Alright well That is it man we are out of time One more chapter down We'll get back into some

Narrative history Yeah we'll get to Mr. Gideon next time Alright guys if you would like to support the podcast You can do so by going over to 1579.org Click on that donate page you can become a contributor Thank you so much to those of you who do that

Chad I will see you next week See you then We'll be right back.