2. So they continued to that hardship for twenty years, as not good
enough of themselves to grow wise by their misfortunes. God was willing
also hereby the more to subdue their obstinacy and ingratitude towards
himself: so when at length they were become penitent, and were so wise
as to learn that their calamities arose from their contempt of the laws,
they besought Deborah, a certain prophetess among them, [which name in
the Hebrew tongue signifies a Bee,] to pray to God to take pity on them,
and not to overlook them, now they were ruined by the Canaanites. So God
granted them deliverance, and chose them a general, Barak, one that was
of the tribe of Naphtali. Now Barak, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies
Lightning.
3. So Deborah sent for Barak, and bade him choose out ten thousand young
men to go against the enemy, because God had said that that number was
sufficient, and promised them victory. But when Barak said that he would
not be the general unless she would also go as a general with him, she
had indignation at what he said "Thou, O Barak, deliverest up meanly
that authority which God hath given thee into the hand of a woman, and I
do not reject it!" So they collected ten thousand men, and pitched their
camp at Mount Tabor, where, at the king's command, Sisera met them, and
pitched his camp not far from the enemy; whereupon the Israelites, and
Barak himself, were so affrighted at the multitude of those enemies,
that they were resolved to march off, had not Deborah retained them, and
commanded them to fight the enemy that very day, for that they should
conquer them, and God would be their assistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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