I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 4-6.

    The Canaanite king Jabin was able to oppress the Israelites because of the military ability of his commander Sisera and the technological advantage of his chariots. Reading this story we see that there was one other factor which was key to their success, the lack of leadership among the Israelites. When God sent a message to Barak through Deborah to gather an army and fight against Sisera, Barak was unwilling to do so unless Deborah went with him to battle. We do not know why Barak insisted on Deborah accompanying him, but with her present to bolster his confidence and with God on their side the Israelites won an overwhelming victory. When we look at the battle, Sisera’s key force was his 900 chariots, Barak’s was 10,000 warriors. We do not have a record of how many more warriors Sisera had beside those on the chariots (although I suspect that he had two for each chariot, a driver and a fighter, and that was all he had). Barak maneuvered Sisera into a place where he was able to use his numerical advantage to neutralize the mobility which the chariots gave Sisera. This victory was one which the Israelites could have had at any time during the 20 years which Sisera helped his king oppress them. They just needed a leader to lead them.

    When God called Gideon to take leadership and rescue the Israelites the first thing He called Gideon to do was take spiritual leadership. The situation also illustrates the problem the Israelites had. They had not followed Joshua’s advice that they needed to choose a moral tradition to follow as a people. Some of the Israelites worshiped Baal and Asherah, some worshiped God. Gideon’s first step in leading the Israelites to freedom from their oppressors was to lead them to a renewed commitment to worshiping God. He did this by destroying those things which they were worshiping in place of God. Any of us called to lead God’s people are called to a similar mission. We must identify those things which God’s people are allowing to distract from doing God’s will and destroy them.