“She sent for Barak the son of Avino‘am, from Kedesh in Naftali, and said to him: ‘Adonai has given you this order: ‘Go, march to Mount Tavor, and take with you 10,000 men from the people of Naftali and Z’vulun. I will cause Sisra, the commander of Yavin’s army, to encounter you at the Kishon River with his chariots and troops; and I will hand him over to you.’”-Judges 6:6-7
So Devorah has prophesied to Barak and told him to lead 10,000 men from the people of Naftali and Z’vulun to fight against Yavin’s army.
Let’s not overlook the classic “if, then” divine formula being set up here.
In other words, IF man will do as God says, THEN the Lord will respond in favor.
In this case, IF Barak leads 10,000 men to Mount Tabor and is bold in launching an attack at the river Kishon, THEN the Lord will guarantee a stunning victory.
If this isn’t motivation to daily stay in the Lord’s will, I don’t know what is.
However, there’s a lesson even more awesome embedded in the text here.
But you have to dig into the original Hebrew to find it because it’s unfortunately masked by our English translations.
Note the part in verse 6 where it says that God instructs Barak to “march” his men to Mount Tabor.
At least that’s how the Complete Jewish Bible translates it.
The NIV says...”Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor”.
Here’s the thing.
The original Hebrew word here is MASHAK as follows:
מָשַׁךְ
And guess what?
This word does NOT mean “to march” or “to take”.
It means “to draw” as in the sense of influencing a third party to take some sort of action.
The King James actually renders this verse more accurately as follows:
“Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?”
But admittedly, “Go and draw toward mount Tabor” doesn’t make much sense, so I can understand why modern Bible translators changed it the way they did.
However, in so doing that, a really important Scriptural lesson is being hidden from non-Hebrew speaking Bible readers here.
See, when Barak goes up to Mount Tabor to gather up his troops, it’s his courage and bold leadership in obedience to God that’s gonna be the divine spark that causes the weary Israelites who’ve been oppressed by the Canaanites for years to rise up and follow him.
And then in return, the Lord says He will MASHAK or draw the enemy Sisera and his troops to come up and fight, a battle that will end in their destruction at the Kishon River Valley.
A lot of believers hold to the belief that God will never override a man’s free will.
But we can see right here and in many other places in Scripture that’s simply not the case.
Consider how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart causing him to make decisions that led to his destruction.
Or consider how in the end times, the Lord is going to “draw” the gentile armies to come out from their respective countries to come and fight Israel at Armageddon.
Well, we see the very same thing happening here with Sisera and his men being drawn out to do battle with a huge army of Hebrews at Mount Tabor.
Strategically speaking, this is a situation a wise military general would normally avoid even with today’s push button high tech military weapons.
Yet such is the power the Lord possesses.
In order to accomplish His will, the Lord will sometimes override man’s will and cause or influence him to do something that under normal circumstances he would never do.
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