Judges 4:9

And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) I will surely go with thee.—Literally-Going, I will go.

Shall not be for thine honour.—Literally, thy pre-eminence (LXX. “proterēma”; Luther, “der Preis “) shall not be on the path which thou enterest.

Of a woman.—To enter into the force of this we must remember the humble and almost down-trodden position of women in the East, so that it could hardly fail to be a humiliation to a great warrior to be told that the chief glory would fall to a woman. He may have supposed that the woman was Deborah herself; but the woman was not the great prophetess, but Jael, the wife of the nomad chief (R. Tanchum, and Jos., Antt. v. 5, § 4). Compare the feeling implied in Judges 9:24.

Benson Commentary

Jdg 4:9. The journey thou takest — Hebrew, the way thou takest, which may mean the course he had resolved upon, not to go without her. Shall not be for thine honour — Though his faith was accepted, yet the weakness of it somewhat eclipsed his glory. The Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman — It is greatly to the honour of a conqueror to take the general of the enemy’s army, or to kill him with his own hand; which, she tells him, should be denied him, as a small punishment for his diffidence and reluctance to comply with her directions; and as he would not go without a woman, so a woman should take away his honour from him.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:4-9 Deborah was a prophetess; one instructed in Divine knowledge by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. She judged Israel as God's mouth to them; correcting abuses, and redressing grievances. By God's direction, she ordered Barak to raise an army, and engage Jabin's forces. Barak insisted much upon her presence. Deborah promised to go with him. She would not send him where she would not go herself. Those who in God's name call others to their duty, should be ready to assist them in it. Barak values the satisfaction of his mind, and the good success of his enterprise, more than mere honour.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Mark the unhesitating faith and courage of Deborah, and the rebuke to Barak's timidity, "the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman" (Jael, Judges 4:22). For a similar use of a weak instrument, that the excellency of the power might be of God, compare the history of Gideon and his 300, David and his sling, Shamgar and his ox-goad, Samson and the jawbone of the ass. (See 1 Corinthians 1:26, 1 Corinthians 1:31.) Barak would probably think the woman must be Deborah. The prophecy was only explained by its fulfillment. Her presence as a prophetess would give a divine sanction to Barak's attempt to raise the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. To Barak himself it would be a pledge of her truth and sincerity. She probably commissioned some chief to raise the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh (Judges 5:14, compare Psalm 80:2), while she went with Barak and mustered Zebulun, Naphtali, and Issachar.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman—This was a prediction which Barak could not understand at the time; but the strain of it conveyed a rebuke of his unmanly fears.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Notwithstanding the journey, Heb. the way, i.e. the course or practice, as the way is taken, Numbers 22:32.

A woman; either,

1. Jael; or rather,

2. Deborah, who being, as it were, the judge and chief commandress of the army, the honour of the victory would be ascribed to her. But for Jael, her fact would have been the same, though Barak had gone into the field without Deborah.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And she said, I will surely go with thee, She made no hesitation about it, but agreed at once to go with him for his encouragement; perceiving some degree of weakness in him, and yet an hearty and sincere inclination to engage in the work proposed, and that this might be no hinderance, she readily assents to it: adding:

notwithstanding the journey thou takest; the way or course he steered, the methods he took in insisting on it that she should go with him:

shall not be for thine honour; as a general of an army, who is commonly solicitous to have the whole glory of an action:

for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman; meaning either herself, for she being judge of Israel, and going along with him, would have the glory of the victory ascribed to her, as usually is to the principal person in the army; and so it would be said in future time, that the Lord delivered Sisera and his army, not into the hand of Barak, but into the hand of Deborah, whereby he would not have all the honour which otherwise he would have, if she went not with him; or else Jael, Heber's wife, is meant, into whose hands Sisera did fall, and by whom he was slain; but this seems to have no connection with Deborah's going or not going with him, it did not depend upon that one way or another; unless it can be thought that thus it was ordered in Providence as a rebuke of his diffidence and weakness, that because he would not go without a woman, Sisera should fall not into his hands, but into the hands of a woman; and if so, this is a clear instance of Deborah's having a spirit of prophecy, and of a prediction of a future contingent event:

and Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh; that is, they went together from the palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim, to Kedesh in Mount Naphtali, in order to raise the ten thousand men that were to fight with Sisera.

Geneva Study Bible

And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. notwithstanding] Lest Barak’s hopes should soar too high, the prophetess foretells that the crowning glory shall not be his but Jael’s. It is doubtful whether any blame of Barak is implied: the words mean simply ‘thou wilt not gain the honours of the expedition.’

And Deborah arose … to Kedesh] From the neighbourhood of Beth-el the journey would take four or five days. But we have seen reason to doubt the existence of Deborah’s home in the S.; these words are perhaps a harmonizing addition; see notes on 5 and 6a.

Judges 4:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Barak replied that he would not go unless she would go with him - certainly not for the reason suggested by Bertheau, viz., that he distrusted the divine promise given to him by Deborah, but because his mistrust of his own strength was such that he felt too weak to carry out the command of God. He wanted divine enthusiasm for the conflict, and this the presence of the prophetess was to infuse into both Barak and the army that was to be gathered round him. Deborah promised to accompany him, but announced to him as the punishment for this want of confidence in the success of his undertaking, that the prize of victory - namely, the defeat of the hostile general - should be taken out of his hand; for Jehovah would sell (i.e., deliver up) Sisera into the hand of a woman, viz., according to Judges 4:17., into the hand of Jael. She then went with him to Kedesh, where Barak summoned together Zebulun and Naphtali, i.e., the fighting men of those tribes, and went up with 10,000 men in his train ("at his feet," i.e., after him, Judges 4:14; cf. Exodus 11:8 and Deuteronomy 11:6) to Tabor ("went up:" the expression is used here to denote the advance of an army against a place). Kedesh, where the army assembled, was higher than Tabor. זעק, Hiphil with acc., to call together (cf. 2 Samuel 20:4-5). Before the engagement with the foe is described, there follows in Judges 4:11 a statement that Heber the Kenite had separated himself from his tribe, the children of Hobab, who led a nomad life in the desert of Judah (Judges 1:16), and had pitched his tents as far as the oak forest at Zaanannim (see at Joshua 19:33) near Kedesh. This is introduced because of its importance in relation to the issue of the conflict which ensued (Judges 4:17 ff). נפרד with Kametz is a participle, which is used in the place of the perfect, to indicate that the separation was a permanent one.