Judges 5

Chapter five of Judges is a song in celebration of the victory recounted in chapter four. Such victory songs were common in the culture of the ancient world. An example from earlier in the Bible is Miriam's song of victory after God brought the Israelites through the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army. Judges five is the song of Deborah rejoicing in the LORD's victory over his and his people's enemies; at the same time, the song includes both a challenge and a promise for us today.

Judges 4

This exciting passage is important to the development of the overall themes of the book of Judges, including the sovereignty of God, divine judgment of sin, salvation by grace, and the need for a redeemer that is ultimately fulfilled only in the Redeemer Christ. In a less obvious way, this narrative illustrates what it means for human beings to be male and female in the image of God. The strong female characters Deborah and Jael play central roles, not only in the narrative action, but also in the revealing of the nature of relationships between men and women as God created them to be. This sermon focuses primarily on this latter topic, and owes much to Sam Andreades' work in his thought provoking book enGendered.