JU4-8: God, The Master War Strategist, Draws Sisera Into An Inescapable Trap

“Now Hever the Keini had cut himself off from the rest of Kayin, the descendants of Hovav Moshe’s father-in-law; he had pitched his tent near the oak at Tza‘ananim, which is close to Kedesh.”-Judges 4:11

Alrighty, verse 11 gives us an interesting piece of information about an enemy group of people who had allied themselves with Yavin of Hatzor against Israel.

We’re told this enemy group was led by a man called “Hever the Kenite”.

The name the Kenites should sound familiar because this was the clan of Moses’ wife Tzippora.

What’s interesting is that the Kenites were normally for Israel.

However, this particular sub-clan had decided to break away and ally themselves with Israel’s enemies.

Likely an agreement was made that Hever would inform on the movements of Israel and in return his clan would be protected from the Canaanites.

Although the Kenite clan was located in south Judah (in Arad in the Negev),  we see here that Hever had relocated his family all the way up to the north to be near the city of Hatzor.

So his betrayal of Israel was both political and geographical.

Either way it was a stupid decision because we all know what happens when you go against Israel.

God was going to take what Hever meant for evil and turn it all around to accomplish His will.

Onward.

Sisera was informed that Barak was leading his army to Mount Tabor.

And just as Devorah had prophesied, Sisera responded by gathering his men and marching them from an area called the “Forest of the Gentiles” or Harosheth-Ha-Goyim to the Kishon River that ran right along the bottom of Mount Tabor.

Okay, from a military strategy perspective, this was as dumb as dumb could be.

Yet, as I mentioned earlier, the Lord was going to overpower Sisera’s will and draw him into doing something he would normally never do.

In this case, I’m guessing God caused Sisera’s arrogance to get the better of him because of the huge number of iron chariots he possessed.

Remember iron chariots were the most feared weapon in Bible times.

However, as confident as Sisera was, certainly he realized that bringing his huge battalion of iron chariots to muddy ground near a river would render them inoperable.

Yet like I said, his arrogance was causing him to not think properly and Sisera probably assumed the riverbed would be dry because it was summertime.

Either way, God, the master war strategist, was drawing him into a trap that would be inescapable.