Thank you my dear friend for this very interesting question. The best quick response I can provide is as stated in the Morrish Bible Dictionary, where we read of Deborah as follows: “Deborah is a beautiful instance of how, under God, the faith of a single person may be the means of arousing those under deep depression into activity and thence to victory.” The entire account of Deborah is provided in Judges chapters 4 and 5, and it is a very interesting account to be sure! So, what was the situation which prompted Deborah in her actions?  In Judges 4:1 we read: “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.” These were the days after Joshua who had led the children of Israel into the promised land to occupy it and to remove all the enemies by the power and promise of the Lord. But after the deaths of Joshua and the elders who followed who had personally witnessed the mighty works of the LORD, the people of Israel went astray from the teachings of God. You can read the overall background of the situation in the days of the judges in Judges 2:10-16, and a sad story it is! But, as we read there, the LORD raised up judges to deliver the children of Israel after they repented of their wickedness and called upon the name of the LORD.

Now, in Judges 4:2-4 we read that after the death of Ehud: “…the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera…. And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.” As you can see in verse 3, after about 20 years under the heavy hand of Jabin and his general Sisera, the children of Israel finally cried out to the LORD for deliverance, and thus they came to Deborah the prophetess. Now, Sisera had 900 chariots, which in Bible times would have amounted to an armored regiment, and Israel had no comparable force with which to oppose Sisera! What’s more, none of the men of Israel had been willing to trust in God and go up by faith against Sisera’s army, and thus the situation went on for 20 years. Now, Deborah was raised up by the LORD to get things going, given no men were taking the lead. In verses 6-7, we find Deborah telling Barak that he was to gather up a force and go after Sisera and all those chariots; and, she prophesied that the LORD would give him the battle.  But Barak was timid and unwilling to trust the Word of God without Deborah’s actual presence with him in the battle. He could see all those iron chariots, and I believe he was afraid, even with 10,000 men at his command, to go against Sisera and his armored force. We read in verses 8-9: “…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…”  It was a shame for Barak that he did not trust the LORD as Deborah did, and thus the honor of the victory would fall to the woman Jael instead of Barak. Deborah did accompany the unwilling warrior Barak to the battle, and just as the LORD had said, the battle was a great rout of Jabin’s formerly invincible army, (Judges 4:24).

In summary, I believe that what was special about Deborah was her courage and her complete faith in the Word of God. Faith should be true of all born again Christians today for we are told, “the just shall live by faith,” (Romans 1:17). God needed to raise up a woman of faith because no male warrior could be found to take the lead against the enemies of the living God. Since he lacked enough faith to obey the commands of God, given God’s assurance of victory, Barak lost the glory that could have been his when the army of Canaan was routed. Only Sisera was left alive for Jael, another woman, to kill, thus completing the victory. Perhaps a lesson in all of this for Christians today would be that if we fail to act in faith when we know God’s will for us, God might have to raise up someone else to carry out His will, and that to our shame.  (SF)  (598.6)