Judges 4 - Introduction

Chapter 4. Barak and Deborah.

This chapter demonstrates how Israel again sinned and were delivered into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, by whom they were oppressed for twenty years. Excavations at Hazor have resulted in evidence of a Jabin who was king there, although not necessarily this one. Jabin appears to have been a throne name. The chapter goes on to show that Deborah and Barak consulted together about their deliverance, and that Barak, encouraged by Deborah, gathered some forces from the tribal confederacy and fought Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, whom he met, and over whom he obtained victory. Sisera, while fleeing on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, was received into it, and slain by her while asleep in it, which issued in a complete deliverance of the children of Israel.