The book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a period of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the birth of Samuel.

It is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations of the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments. It has ever been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and misfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather than to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to dwell upon the periods of peaceful prosperity. Like the records of a court of justice, it presents the criminals and the offences and those implicated, while the thousands of peaceful citizens are never brought to view. The flow of human life is, like that of a mighty river, unmarked during its mild course; but when it bursts its bounds and overflows its channel and spreads a wide destruction, it is watched with interest and its desolating ravages are all recorded.

Of the many women who have attained honour and celebrity amidst the intrigues of courts and cabinets and the revolutions of empires, few have retained the purity and the peculiar virtues of their sex. Deborah seems to have united the sagacity and courage of man to the modest virtues of woman. She appears before us affecting no pomp, assuming no state. The wife of Lapidoth—one known only as the husband of Deborah, but thus known never to be forgotten—she abode with her husband in their own dwelling, under that palm-tree distinguished, when Samuel wrote this book, as "the palm of Deborah," between Ramah, where Rachel died, and Bethel, where Jacob worshipped. "And all the children of Israel came up to her there for judgment."

The people of Israel had departed from God and from the laws of Moses, and for twenty years they had been mightily oppressed by Jabin. During this long period no priest called the people to repentance, no prophet was commissioned to promise them relief.

We may imagine Deborah dwelling among her people, a devout, strong-minded, enlightened woman. She saw their sins, she participated in their trials, and she warned those around her of the evil of departing from Jehovah. She recalled His past acts of judgment and of mercy. She was well acquainted with the laws of Moses, and she recognised in the punishment of the people the fulfilment of prophecy.

The influence of such a woman—a woman instructed in the religion of Jehovah—a woman of faith and of prayer—would be felt, first, in her own family, or in her immediate circle of friends; and then would commence the reformation and the repentance and putting away of past sins and the return to the God of Israel. And as the influence spread, the circle extending, the whole nation would seem to have been affected, and they naturally resorted to one whose wisdom and piety were so well established, when any questions of their law, either civil or religious, were to be settled. Thus the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. They came to her—for her feet abode within her own dwelling. Her influence extended throughout all the borders of her land, but her presence still blest her own house. The prophetess of Israel was still the wife of Lapidoth, and her only authority was that of piety, wisdom and love. A more beautiful instance of a woman's true, legitimate influence cannot be given. Quietly, unostentatiously exercised, it penetrated through the nation and brought them back to Jehovah, and prepared the way for the removal of their yoke.

For many years she was doubtless employed in reclaiming and instructing her people. Through this influence the children of Israel were prepared to assert their liberty; and then Deborah was inspired to call upon "Barak the son of Abinoam," to gather an army, and take his station on Mount Tabor, where the Lord would deliver the enemies of Israel into his hands. She did not propose to attend—certainly not to lead—the army; but, giving her message, her counsel and her prayers, would still abide under the palm-tree and remain with her husband. But the appointed general knew so well the value of her presence in inspiring the people with confidence, and felt so much the need of her prayers, that he refused to go unless she sanctioned the expedition with her attendance. "And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go."

Thus appealed to, the answer was immediate: "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 hands of a woman."

Mount Tabor, chosen for the encamping-place of the army of Barak, still rises like a tall cone in the vast plain of Esdraelon, which, stretching across the land to the sea, has since been the battle-ground of nations. From the wide plain on its lofty summit, Deborah and Barak could look over almost all the land. The view of the hills of Judea, of the sea of Tiberias, and of a country of wide extent, still repays the toil of those who climb to its summit.

But since the days of Deborah and of Barak, Tabor is generally supposed to have witnessed another scene. The Man of grief, who bore our sins and took upon himself our sorrows, climbed its steep ascent with his favoured disciples—And Moses and Elias appeared unto him there, and there "they talked with him." Of what? Not of the battle of Deborah and Barak with Sisera—although they stood where the leaders of Israel had watched the hosts of their enemies encompassing them. It was a converse of high things, not meet for us to know. And there he was transfigured before his wondering disciples, and his "raiment became exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them." And there was a cloud that overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son—hear him. Alas! the Divine command has been ill obeyed. Tabor yet retains the remains of a fortress and preserves the marks of warfare; but no trace of the meeting there of the great lawgiver and reformer of Israel with Him who came both to fulfil and to abolish. No temples have yet been there erected to Him whose mission was far above all who were sent either to announce or prepare for his forthcoming.

From Mount Tabor the leaders and hosts of Israel watched their enemies gathering from afar and encompassing them. With the chariots of iron, so much dreaded by the Israelites, came the archers, and the spearmen, and the multitude that were with them—all assembled to surround and to destroy the allies of Barak.

But when Deborah gave the signal, "Up! for this is the day in the which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hands: is not the Lord gone out before thee?" Barak went from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. The victory was complete—"Jehovah triumphed, His people were free." The hosts of the enemy were vanquished. The river Kishon, that ancient river, swept them away. And the victory was celebrated by a song of most triumphant, yet grateful exultation, in a strain of the loftiest, purest poetry, such as the prophets and psalmists of Israel alone could pour forth:—

One such strain preserved from any other ancient nation would establish their claims to the highest order of poetic genius, and lead to the most industrious and painful research for all that could throw light upon their literature. It comes over the soul now like the full burst of martial music. It stirs the blood and quickens the pulses with its strain of triumph, while it melts us to pity, as it brings before us so graphically, with such exquisite power—yet such slight allusion—the distress and desolation of Israel. It is a finished picture of the age. We see the judges, those that ride on white asses (still reserved for royal stables) that walk by the way; while it gives us a full character of Sisera and the mother who trained him. We see the mother—haughty, proud, avaricious, surrounded by "her wise ladies," who are flatterers rather than counsellors—ready to exult in the rapine and plunder of the army of her son; her natural fears awakened by his delayed return, yet hushed and soothed by the enumeration of the spoil. No feeling of pity softening the love of vengeance,—the desire for the plunder of a conquered people engrossing all.

And in Sisera we see the proud, cruel, licentious spoiler—all the powers of his evil nature called into exercise by success and the long indulgence of every evil passion and gross appetite—arrogant, oppressive and cruel in success; abject, cowardly and overreaching in adversity. We can well imagine the state of an oppressed people ruled by such a man at the head of a licentious soldiery. And harsh as may seem some of the expressions of Deborah, in her joyous outbursts of praise and thanksgiving, they arise from the ineffable miseries, the deep degradation, the oppressive cruelties, to which all the daughters of Israel would have been exposed had he been triumphant; and a mother in Israel might well exult in a deliverance from one whose desolating track was marked by lust and carnage.

We do not love to dwell on the treachery of Jael—we do not feel called upon to justify the act, although Deborah might well rejoice in the deliverance of her people from so stern a foe, so foul an oppression. Sisera appears as abject in the hour of defeat as he had been insolent and arrogant and cruel in the hour of triumph.

After Israel was restored to liberty we hear no more of Deborah; but "the land had rest forty years." She again returns to her own sphere, to the unostentatious, yet all-pervading usefulness of domestic life. No honours, no triumphs, no statues were awarded to her. No monuments seem to have been erected to her memory. The palm-tree was her fitting memorial; delighting the eye, affording shade, shelter and nourishment; asking and securing nought from man, watered by the dew and rain of heaven, and rejoicing in the beams of the sun—still pointing to heaven while sheltering those beneath it.

Jehovah seems to permit such examples to stimulate woman to usefulness and to vindicate their capacity; and thus there ever have been and are still Deborahs—mothers in Israel—those who, dwelling under their own roof, in the seclusion of domestic life, yet send forth an influence which extends far and wide.

The sound, rational piety of such women, and their lives of humble faith, of prayer, and of consistent usefulness, have often awakened a high tone of religious feeling and led to extensive revivals of pure religion.

Without departing from their allotted sphere, without forgetting the delicacy and proprieties demanded from their sex, they have been greatly instrumental in elevating the moral and religious standard of a community by their faithfulness in reproving the erring and reclaiming the backsliding, while by their kindly sympathy and effectual co-operation, they have aided, encouraged, and, by their prudent, judicious counsel, guided—the appointed leaders of Israel.