I studied Judges 4 for my weekly quiet time this last week. Technically, I'm finished with it, and I'll proceed onto Judges 5 this next Sabbath. But I'm struggling with an inward sense that my Judges 4 quiet time is somehow incomplete. I feel as if I observed details that are significant, but I can't specify how.
In my reading of Joshua and Judges, I have tried to be sensitive to geography--where are the places that the books mention? Well, geography appears to be significant in two areas:
1. Deborah is in the tribe of Ephraim, which is where she judges cases. But Jabin, king of Hazor, is located way up north, in the tribe of Naphtali. And Deborah sends a message to Barak, saying, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you, 'Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun'" (v 6). Barak is a native of Naphtali, and he is to gather fellow Naphtalites, along with people from the neighboring tribe of Zebulun, to defeat a king whose headquarters are in Naphtali.
Something's significant about this. God calls someone who is in a particular area to deal with a problem that is in his area, yet has an impact on all of Israel. I guess the lesson is that God is practical, or maybe that we should be concerned about what happens in our location. Or perhaps we learn that, sometimes, the main qualification a person may have for a divinely-appointed task is being in the right place.
Another bizarre feature is that Judges 5 presents the Israelite war against Jabin and Sisera as broad-based: all sorts of Israelites participated, not only Zebulun and Naphtali. And Deborah criticizes Reuben, Dan, Gilead, and Asher for not getting involved in the war. Why would she do that, if she told Barak to gather together Naphtali and Zebulun, as Judges 4 narrates?
2. We see Heber, who is a Kenite. The Kenites were the tribe of Hobab/Jethro/Reuel (depending on the tradition), who was Moses' father-in-law. Well, Heber left his fellow Kenites, who were primarily in the South (see I Samuel 27:10; 30:29), to settle in the far North, the Naphtali area. There, he maintained good relations with Jabin, the oppressor of Israel. Still, Heber's wife, Jael, killed Sisera, the commander of Hazor.
Something's significant here. We have dual loyalty. Heber is a friend of Jabin, which is why Sisera feels safe when he enters into Jael's tent. Yet, the Kenites and the Israelites go way back. Jethro gave Moses a lot of help, after all! And so it's not really a surprise that Jael kills Sisera. Was all this part of a divine plan?
Yet, something tells me that Heber was wrong to leave the other Kenites behind. He forsook the people who helped Moses and chose instead to go his own way. Was this right, especially when he found himself hooking up with scum (Jabin)? Of course, then again, it's understandable that he formed some alliance with Jabin. He probably wanted to be left alone, not oppressed like the Israelites.
Maybe Judges 4 is trying to make some point about Heber's departure, or maybe not. It could be including that detail just because there were Kenites in the North and the South, and it wanted to explain how that came to be. But I sense that there's something deeper, something I'm missing.