On Biblical Warrior Women

These biblical women are not for the faint-hearted:

The Bible is not averse to praising heroes of the faith that many believers today would find to be quite unacceptable. Indeed, many believers today would be quite squeamish about a passage like Judges 4-5 (more on that in a moment). Worse yet, many would be quite concerned to read texts like Exodus 15:3.

The NIV puts it this way: “The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.” Or as the ESV has it: “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.” Too many Christians today would shrink back at the thought that their God is a warrior, a man of war. That is because they have imbibed too much of the surrounding culture, and too little of the biblical word.

But these and other texts are fully to be embraced by those who claim to be God’s people. And since I am now again reading through the book of Judges, it is worth revisiting the stories of two powerful women that God used: Deborah and Jael.

In Judges 4 we read about Deborah and Barak, and how the Canaanite king Jabin was defeated by them. And we find recorded there how Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, ended up being killed by having a peg driven into his head by Jael (verses 17-22). Hmm, pretty hardcore stuff.

What is really interesting is how in the very next chapter we have the Song of Deborah. There she praises God for this tremendous defeat of God’s enemies. Jael was certainly not condemned nor censored for what she had done, but was instead praised big time for her courage in striking down the enemy. As we read in verses 24-27 of chapter 5:

“Most blessed of women be Jael,
    the wife of Heber the Kenite,
    of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked for water and she gave him milk;
    she brought him curds in a noble’s bowl.
She sent her hand to the tent peg
    and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera;
    she crushed his head;
    she shattered and pierced his temple.
Between her feet
    he sank, he fell, he lay still;
between her feet
    he sank, he fell;
where he sank,
    there he fell—dead.”

Hmm, that is my kinda gal. And the final verse of the chapter, verse 31, says this:

“So may all your enemies perish, O Lord!
    But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.”
And the land had rest for forty years.

But again, many of today’s rather woke wonders found in our churches would find this story to be all too much. ‘This is not how God’s people should act! My God would never approve of such activity!’ Well, sorry, but I prefer to stick with what God has said about such things, and not what worldly weaklings think.

Indeed, we should keep this story in mind as we look at today’s events. We are told in Judges 4:1-3 that Jabin and Sisera, had “oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.” Today we have similar situations, including the 47-year reign of terror by the Ayatollah and the Islamists in Iran.

Just days ago the evil thugs ruling Iran were killed by American and Israeli forces. As a result, all around the world Iranians living in exile have been dancing in the streets, singing and celebrating the downfall of this evil regime. They are perfectly right to do so, just as ancient Israel was perfectly right to celebrate the death of Jabin and Sisera.

In her TOTC commentary Mary Evans reminds us of how God looked at the killing of Sisera:

In modern society Jael’s action could be seen as excessively violent, and inappropriate behaviour, particularly for a woman. However, we must beware of introducing questions that would not have been understood in their original context. In general, to kill an enemy in the course of a war would never have been seen as inappropriate. Also in this case as in many others, Scripture does not stereotype roles in the way that both ancient and modern cultures tend to do. The text has no hint of condemnation of Jael for any reason; in fact, quite the reverse. In a phrase reminiscent of Elizabeth’s Spirit-inspired greeting to Mary (Luke 1:42) Jael is considered to be worthy of particular praise.

Love of enemies

But some will ask, ‘What about loving our enemies?’ Sure, not everything Jael and others have done in Old Testament times are what New Testament believers should fully emulate. But the desire to see justice take place and evil resisted – with God’s help – is acceptable. As K. Lawson Younger comments:

“While in the present church age context we are not encouraged to be exactly like Jael, her action nevertheless serves to give hope that justice will ultimately come on the wicked. With all the injustice in the world, some of it meted out on Christians, it is comforting to know that God has made things right in the past and will make them right in the future.”

Dale Ralph Davis is right to put it this way as he discusses Deborah’s song:

Yahweh’s deliverance is meant to be enjoyed, savored, cherished; item by item; detail by detail, blow by blow; from dish to peg to mallet to skull to feet. Someone may think that is being vicious. It is not. It is being pious. Perhaps many of us in the west cannot rejoice when God smashes oppressors because we have never been so oppressed or crushed by tyranny on a significant scale (for which we should thank God). That’s why we frequently fail to appreciate texts like this; we can’t really understand them from our study chairs, from our padded pews, or from our recliners beside our cosy fireplaces. Nevertheless, Deborah clearly votes for Jael, ‘servant of the Lord.’ Naturally, you can disagree. If so, you can claim more refinement but less faith.

Still, some might consider these sorts of biblical characters to be less than desirable. I like what Barry Webb says in response:

There are lots of mavericks in Judges. Ehud was a left-handed assassin. Shamgar was probably a Canaanite. Deborah was a woman. Barak was reluctant. Jael was from a Kenite splinter group. Gideon was fearful. Jephthah was an outcast and gang leader. Samson was a womanizer. In fact, with the exception of Othniel all the judges were mavericks in one way or another. None of them were mainstream in terms of their background or social acceptability. But if those mentioned in Hebrews 11:32 can be taken as representative, all of them, at their best, accomplished great things for God by faith. None of them were too warped or tainted for God to use to save his people. And there are several important lessons for us there.

 

First, something about God. God can and does at times use people with whom we don’t feel entirely comfortable. This is irritating, but we have to be humble enough to accept and respond to such people as our brothers and sisters in Christ and be open to what God has to teach us through them….

 

Second, there is a warning here about absolutizing our Christian culture, including our theological systems, so that what is generally true becomes the whole truth. That would leave us with no capacity to grow and no capacity to deal with exceptions to our norms. Deborah’s leadership as judge and prophet was exceptional, but right in the circumstances. If we were to condemn her for exercising headship as a woman we would be completely out of step with what Judges 4 and 5 are telling us to do. Exceptional circumstances need exceptional solutions, and God reserves to himself the freedom to act in ways that are outside the norm and confound our expectations. Communities that are unable to cope with this eventually become sects, who will always reject mavericks as enemies. The Pharisees are a classic case….

 

Finally, there’s a warning here against confusing godliness with respectability. Deborah may have been respectable even though she broke certain norms. Jael and Shamgar certainly weren’t. Respectability has never been a reliable indicator of which side people are on, in either the Bible or in the history of Christianity. The more respectable the church becomes, the less real, the less salty (Matthew 5:13; Luke 14:34), the less authentically Christian it will be. Jesus was not respectable (Luke 7:34). Nor were his disciples (Mark 2:18; 7:2-5). In the end a church that has no place for mavericks will have no place for Jesus and no place for the gospel.

And Tim Keller looks at this matter in his short commentary. He writes:

It’s noticeable how fierce and bloodthirsty this song is, which raises the broader issue of how often Old Testament texts (especially some of the psalms) seem to speak hatefully of enemies. How can that square with Jesus’ command to love, bless and pray for our enemies (Luke 6:27-28)?

 

Three things are worth saying on this issue. First, God’s triumph over evil, and the fact that one day all people will stand before him and be held to account for their actions, are aspects of the gospel message which we should welcome and rejoice over (though we tremble as we do so, knowing that we will stand there as well, with Jesus alone as our advocate). The New Testament is quite clear that Jesus should be praised for his victory over sin and Satan, and for his final judgment (eg: Revelation 11:15-18).

 

Second, though, coming judgment frees us from needing to see justice done in this life. There will be vindication of those who have acted rightly, and punishment of wrongdoing, beyond this life. We do not need to seek them now: “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19, referencing Deuteronomy 32:35). We are free to get on with going out of our way to bless those who curse us (v 14, 20).

 

How can we know that God is a God who will “repay”? Because, thirdly, we have seen sin judged already, on the cross. The cross is not only the place where we are justified; it is the proof that God does judge and punish sin (Romans 3:25-26). And the resurrection tells us that there will be a judgment for all those whose sin has not been punished in the Lord Jesus’ death; it is the proof that God will judge and punish sin (Acts 17:31).

Good words all. I will continue to affirm Deborah and Jael, and the way in which they served the purposes of God. You should too.

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