A text of five words, and four of them one and the same, is found in the
fifth chapter and twelfth verse of Judges: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake,
awake!”
It seems that the men of Israel had lost their courage. Trampled into the
dust by their oppressors, the cowards had not spirit to rise.
Their vineyards destroyed, their women dishonored, their children slain,
the land was dying for a leader worthy of the cause.
A holy woman by the name of Deborah saw the desolation, and, putting her
trust in the Lord, sounded the battle-cry, and by the help of General
Barak launched into the plain ten thousand armed men.
The Canaanites, of course, came out with a larger force. They came out
against Israel with nine hundred iron chariots, each of these iron
chariots having attached to the sides of it long and sharp scythes, so
that when these engines of war were driven down to battle, each one of
the nine hundred was ready to cut two great swaths of death.
But, when God gives a mission to a woman, He also gives her strength and
grace to execute it.
The nine hundred iron chariots of the Canaanites could not save them.
They fly! They fly--horse and horseman, chariot and charioteer, officers
and troops--in one wild and terrific overthrow. Sisera, their leader,
is so frightened in the conflict that he can not wait until his team
turns around. He leaps from the chariot and starts, full run, for the
mountains.
Then this epic of the text was composed to celebrate the grand womanly
triumph: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake!”