Barak answered her: “If you go with me, I’ll go; but if you won’t go with me, I won’t go.” She replied, “Yes, I will gladly go with you; but the way you are doing it will bring you no glory; because Adonai will hand Sisra over to a woman.”–Judges 4:8-9
Barak receives his divine assignment from Devorah.
But his response is one of skepticism.
He tells her if he’s going to march his men into the dangerous position where they’ll be 1000 feet below their enemies, he wants some reassurance.
So Barak asks Devorah to go with him into the battlefield.
Now this kind of smacks of Moses during his Burning Bush encounter with the Lord.
When the Lord gave Moses his divine assignment, he responded in fear.
Moses was worried about his poor speaking ability and that the Israelites probably wouldn’t listen to him.
However, contrary to Moses, we shouldn’t interpret Barak’s response as cowardice
Barak was a tough warrior and was the farthest thing from a coward.
He just wanted the guarantee of God’s presence and Devorah was that guarantee.
Devorah responds “No problem Jose. But because of your skepticism, understand that the honor and glory for the victory will go to a woman”.
Of course, Barak assumed the woman being talked about was Devorah.
And Barak had no idea Devorah’s prophecy was gonna turn out to be a heckuva lot more literal than he could ever have imagined.
Because it wasn’t that Sisera’s army would be defeated by a woman.
It was that Sisera HIMSELF would be defeated by a woman (quite an embarrassing situation).
And thus at the end of day, the glory for the victory would be taken from Barak and given to a female.
In a male-dominated society this could be quite humiliating.
Which leads us to our takeaway.
Actually, I glean two lessons from this exchange that Barak had with Devorah.
The first one is when God comes to us with a divine mission, don’t expect it to be an easy-peasy walk in the park.
It is going to be challenging and something that stretches us so we have to grow in our faith if we are to accept the assignment.
Second, if we doubt God or are skeptical as Barak was, there will be consequences.
In Barak’s case, those consequences were that the glory for the victory would be going to a woman.
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