Reading: Judges 4-5, Psalm 71

I’m a big fan of well written epic fiction. My favorite work of fiction by a fair margin is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. As a fairly obsessive youngster, I sought voraciously for more material on the world Tolkien invented. One thing I found was his poetry. Among those my favorite has always been The Lay of the Children of Hurin (contained in The Lays of Beleriand), an absurdly long alliterative work which Tolkien never stopped working on, and that has been published in prose form in recent years as Children of Hurin. As one who has read both the prose and the poetry, I will say that while it is obvious they are the same story, no one would ever say they tell the same tale.

As we saw at the end of yesterday’s story, the people of Israel fall back into disobedience as soon as the judge dies. Today’s story is a very similar narrative, but with some important distinctions, especially in the poetic version of the story which appears in chapter 5. This kind of dual telling of the story is rare in the story the Bible tells- usually it sticks to either narrative or poetry. But here, for whatever reason, two takes of the events in question are preserved for us, and they reveal that the cycle of the judges is already beginning to degrade.

The narrative portion of the story of Deborah and Barak tells the story that the Sunday School attenders among us will remember. Deborah, described here as a prophetess, tells Barak to gather the men of Naphtali and Zebulun and go out to battle the army of Jabin the king of Canaan, who had conquered Israel and was oppressing them. Barak agrees, but only if Deborah comes with him. She says sure, but the glory of the battle will go to a woman instead of Barak. They go out and smite the enemy and their iron chariots, but Sisera, the army commander escapes. He goes to the Kenites, descendants of Moses’ father in law, who had entered the promised land with Israel, with whom Jabin was at peace. He goes in and passes out, and Jael smite him with a tent peg through the head. Rad.

Okay, so here is a nice story about God delivering Israel, and some pretty awesome battle stories to tell. The narrative wraps up with the army of Israel destroying the kingdom of Jabin.

So why the second telling of the story by way of song? Well, there are a few details added to the story in the poetic form, and they are pretty significant. Deborah and Barak make a pretty big deal out of the fact that not all the tribes come out to fight the enemy. Issachar, Naphtali, Zebulun, and Ephraim, and Benjamin get credit for coming out to fight. Reuben, the tribes in Gilead, Dan, and Asshur get called out for not showing up. These aren’t convenient poetic phrases, either. Deborah and Barak are making an accusation against the tribes who could have come and fought against the oppressors, but did not. The song goes on to call down a curse from God on those who did not come and fight the enemies of Israel.

In the stories of Israel do far, there has been very little inter-tribal strife. Now, we have the judges who delivered Israel from an oppressor calling down curses on other tribes for not participating in the defense of the nation. We don’t know what the circumstances were. It has been suggested that perhaps Jabin’s oppression of the people didn’t affect the tribes in Gilead or near the coast, which was why they didn’t come. Others have said that the other tribes were benefiting from the discomfiture of the inland tribes so were unmotivated to fight. Perhaps they were paid off. What we do know is that the relationships between the tribes was starting to get shaky. In the past we pretty much always saw Israel work as one nation. Now we are going to increasingly see fractures in the nation, to the point where the tribes are actively fighting one another, which will finally result in a tribal genocide.

As the story continues, the argument of the author of Judges will become very clear: we have a problem. Ruling ourselves in the promised land isn’t working. Even the judges aren’t good enough. We need more than a judge. In answer to this challenge, tomorrow we will be introduced to the best judge Israel gets in the whole story, and the first attempt to establish something more than a judge. But don’t worry, he’s not really all that great. And just wait until you meet his son.