Deborah

Once a professor of mine asked me which woman in the Bible was my favorite. It was in front of the class, and I was nervous and the only woman I could think of was Ruth, and so I said her. But in retrospect, Deborah is actually my favorite woman in the Bible (and all of the implications he drew from me liking Ruth were false). I think that she embodies an important role of women--that of calling men to their duties. Her prophesy to him is a reminder of what he'd already been called to do and her accompanying him is a stronger form of calling him to his duty (however, as a result of his reluctance to perform his task, it was finally a woman [Jael] who killed the enemy commander).



We see that, at some level, the power of God to command had been questioned by Barak's negligance in obeying Him. Deborah called Barak to obedience, back into the ordering of society under God. Both Deborah and Barak joined together after their victory in affirming the rule of God over them and their society. In the song we see that A) Deborah is essential to the victory, B) she identifies herself as a "mother in Israel" (this indicates that she sees her actions as uniquely feminine, not as temporarily masculine).



There are four roles that Deborah plays in this passage: judge, prophetess, military leader, and poet/singer/rememberer.



Beside the two chapters in Judges, the only other time the name Deborah is mentioned, it refers to Jacob's wife Rebekah's nurse, who died and was buried in Bethel under an oak tree after Jacob cleaned out the false gods from among his family and buried them under an oak tree near Shechem (this is told in Genesis 35). The oak tree under which Deborah was buried was called "Allonbachuth: that is, The oak of weeping." After Deborah's death, God appeared to Jacob and changed his name. After this, Rebekah died giving birth to Benjamin.



Interestingly, in Judges we see that Deborah the judge dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah on a mountain between Bethel and Ramah. Here we see a redemption by the latter Deborah of the weeping caused by the first Deborah in a way that parallels, on a smaller level, Mary's redemption of Eve.