The Bravery of Women - The Story of Deborah and Jael
and the Cowardice of Barak Deborah’s story is one of those moments in history where you just have to sit back and shake your head at how reluctant people can be to step into what God has already promised them. Israel had been suffering under oppression for twenty years as punishment for their turning against God (yet again!), and crushed beneath the weight of a foreign king’s rule. And it wasn’t just any kind of oppression. It was a brutal, humiliating, unrelenting oppression. King Jabin of Canaan and his military commander, Sisera , weren’t just ruling over the Israelites; they were grinding them into the ground. Sisera’s nine hundred iron chariots made rebellion feel impossible. If you saw one coming, you might as well accept your fate because you weren’t going to outrun or outfight it. Israel, once a people of strength, was now a nation of fear. And yet, despite all their suffering, no one had bravery enough to rise up and fight back. No one had the courage to say, “Enough.”...