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:--
Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel,
When the people willingly offered themselves.
Hear, O ye kings!
Give ear, O ye princes!
I, even I, will sing unto the LORD;
I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.
LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir,
When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,
The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,
The clouds also dropped water.
The mountains melted from before the LORD,
Even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath,
In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied,
And the travellers walked through byways.
The inhabitants of the villages ceased,
They ceased in Israel,
Until that I Deborah arose,
That I arose a mother in Israel.
They chose new gods;
Then was war in the gates:
Was there a shield or spear seen
Among forty thousand in Israel?
My heart is toward the governors of Israel,
That offered themselves willingly among the people.
Bless ye the LORD!
Speak,
Ye that ride on white asses,
Ye that sit in judgment,
And walk by the way!
They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the place of
drawing water,
There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD,
Even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in
Israel:
Then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.
Awake, awake, Deborah!
Awake, awake, utter a song!
Arise, Barak!
And lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.
Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the
people:
The LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.
Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek;
After thee, Benjamin, among thy people;
Out of Machir came down governors,
And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.
And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah;
Even Issachar, and also Barak:
He was sent on foot into the valley.
For the divisions of Reuben
There were great thoughts of heart.
Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds,
To hear the bleatings of the flocks?
For the divisions of Reuben
There were great searchings of heart.
Gilead abode beyond Jordan:
And why did Dan remain in ships?
Asher continued on the sea shore,
And abode in his breaches.
Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives
Unto the death in the high places of the field.
The kings came and fought,
Then fought the kings of Canaan
In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo;
They took no gain of money.
They fought from heaven;
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
The river Kishon swept them away,
That ancient river, the river Kishon.
O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.
Then were the horsehoofs broken
By the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones.
Curse ye Meroz! said the angel of the LORD,
Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;
Because they came not to the help of the LORD,
To the help of the LORD against the mighty.
Blessed above women
Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
Blessed shall she be above women in the tent!
He asked water, and she gave him milk;
She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail,
And her right hand to the workmen's hammer;
And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,
When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down:
At her feet he bowed, he fell:
Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
The mother of Sisera looked out at a window,
And cried through the lattice,
Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
Her wise ladies answered her,
Yea, she returned answer to herself,
Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey;
To every man a damsel or two;
To Sisera a prey of divers colors,
A prey of divers colors of needlework on both sides,
Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?
So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD!
But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his
might.
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.
[Illustration]
JEZEBEL.
[Illustration]
Although the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of
Israel, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had
been governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked
the reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry
established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and
walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel
to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more
to provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him." He pursued
the path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married,
and he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind,
by the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry at
once more corrupt and more ensnaring, she did more to complete and seal
the apostasy of Israel than all who had gone before her.
The name of Jezebel has descended to us as one of the most opprobrious
epithets which can be applied to a woman. Little did the haughty queen
who bore it imagine what a reproach and offence it was to become for
future ages, in unknown lands, and among unborn nations.
We think of her always as old, withered, thirsting for blood, and
incapable of the finer sentiments and all the softer emotions of human
kind. There was a time in which she shone as the centre of a splendid
and luxurious court, where minstrels sang to her and poets praised her
and princes flattered her, while statesmen confessed her influence and
cabinets adopted her plans. Fascinating, artful, able, ambitious, and
unprincipled, she may be regarded as chief among many of the most
celebrated of this class of her sex of ancient or modern days.
There have been queens, not of heathen lands and barbarous Asia, but of
refined and christianized Europe, upon whose memories rest quite as dark
shadows as those which cover the character of the Queen of Israel. It is
sad to remember how many of the most atrocious acts which disgrace the
annals of our race are to be traced to the influence of female ambition,
jealousy, hate, or revenge. Larger possessions than that of the vineyard
of Naboth have been obtained by perjury and blood; and few modern courts
could consistently condemn the principles or the policy by which the
monarchs of Israel attempted to consolidate and perpetuate their
dominion. In the estimation of many statesmen and many historians,
greatness has sanctified all the means by which power is either to be
attained or preserved, and the splendour of the court has fully atoned
for all the oppression of the people.
While she was fitted to co-operate with her husband, and ready to
promote his designs and to embrace the policy which had guided the court
of Israel, she soon assumed and ever maintained that influence which the
stronger mind, the more powerful will, ever exerts over the inferior and
weaker. Through all his reign, Ahab ever deferred to her; and while she
goaded him onward in his career of crime, she stimulated and upheld him
by her daring defiance of the commands and threatenings of the prophets
of the Lord. She possessed all the energy, power, and constancy which
ever belongs to minds of a high order, and which fit them for greatness
in virtue or crime--insuring widespread usefulness or leading to
desperate wickedness. She never was turned from her course. She never
faltered, trembled, or hesitated in the pursuit of her object. She
witnessed, unawed and unmoved, miracles of judgment and of mercy. She
saw unpitying a land consumed by drought and a people perishing by
famine; and when the parched earth drank the showers of heaven, while
she rejoiced, she was neither softened nor made penitent by the
blessing.
Ahab could not entirely divest himself of every national characteristic,
or the remembrances and associations of his faith and his people. There
still clung to him some remains of the fear of the "Lord God of his
fathers," some feelings of reverence and awe for the name and worship
of Jehovah. No such compunctions troubled Jezebel. When Elijah visited
Ahab, the impious monarch quailed before him and trembled at the
denunciation of Divine wrath. Jezebel answered his reproofs by scorn and
threats, and her menaces drove the prophet from the altar where he had
triumphed.
Yet her history is replete with sad interest. While it declares the
certain ruin which follows national sins and national corruption, it
displays also much of the wonderful forbearance of Jehovah. As we
retrace his dealings even with the guilty house of Ahab and the apostate
people of Israel, we are reminded of _One_ who, ages after, wept over
Jerusalem. "Oh, if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which
belong to thy peace--but now they are hidden from thine eyes."
During the earlier years of the reign of Ahab, while Jezebel was engaged
with all zeal and activity in proselyting the people of Israel to the
worship of Ashtaroth and Baal, she was constantly resisted by the
prophets sent as messengers from Jehovah. And many miracles of mercy and
of judgment, wrought before her by the power of the Lord God of Israel,
should have convinced her of the truth of His messengers--His
indisputable claim to be the God--the Lord God. She resisted all--not
from the want of evidence or the power of believing, but from the
perverseness of a determined will and a hardened heart. Yet he who
styles himself a God merciful and gracious, long strove with her, though
at last she provoked him to depart and leave her to her chosen way.
The seizure of the vineyard of Naboth seems to have consummated the
iniquity of Jezebel, while it brought all the distinguishing traits of
her character into full light.
Judah was a land of rocky hills and narrow though fertile valleys. The
possessions of Israel were broader and more luxuriant; and in the
beautiful plain of Jezreel the kings of Israel had built their favourite
city of Samaria. In that city, Ahab erected the temple consecrated to
Baal, and there he maintained four hundred and fifty priests for his
service, while the Queen of Israel kept four hundred in the groves
consecrated to Ashtaroth. "But the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite was
hard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria."
The King of Israel desired the vineyard of Naboth, either to enlarge his
grounds or to add to their beauty and variety. Yet, despotic and
unprincipled as he was, the laws of possession were so fixed, the rights
of property so established, that, on the refusal of Naboth to sell his
inheritance, he dared not use violence; and he sank into sullen
despondency.
It has ever been characteristic of wives like Jezebel to maintain their
ascendency by arts and blandishments, and by ministering to every
corrupt propensity of their husbands. With the watchfulness of a devoted
wife, she saw the vexation of her husband.
"Why is thy countenance so sad?"
"And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and
said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please
thee, I will give thee another vineyard for that."
Naboth had said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my
fathers unto thee.
The faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its passing
into the hands of the unholy worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth and being
polluted by their orgies. But Ahab did not give the denial in its full
force. He represents Naboth as simply refusing. "I will not give thee my
vineyard."
We seem to see the actors before us, in the spirited, yet simple
narration, as it proceeds. Ahab, heavy, sullen, morose--with clouded
brow and furrowed cheek. Jezebel, with her flashing eye, her queenly
gait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and
ambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what
utter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency
because he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the
iniquity which would insure the attainment of his desires!
"Dost thou govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be
merry. _I_ will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."
And a darker plot, or one more artfully devised, has seldom been
unravelled among all the iniquitous intrigues of courts and statesmen.
Naboth was doubtless a true worshipper; and for once Jezebel professed
all honour to the laws of Jehovah. He was arraigned and tried by the
laws of Moses--long trampled upon and disused. And all the solemnities
of religion were resorted to, to aid her plans and advance her purpose.
Falsely arraigned, accused, and condemned, Naboth was executed, and his
sons perished with him. The hands of his brethren were imbrued in their
blood. She who managed the plot found other agents to execute her
designs. With impious hypocrisy, she insulted heaven by ordaining a
solemn fast, for God and the king had been blasphemed. These
transactions display the deep depravity of the Queen of Israel, while
they show the influence of her character and example upon her people.
The very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and
law, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction
crime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous
desire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was
corrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to
accomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been
thus arraigned, and perished thus, in later days! This deed awoke the
vengeance of Jehovah. Even as Ahab took possession of his blood-stained
field, the prophet of the Lord met him and denounced the doom of the
perpetrators of the dark crime. All were to perish, and all were to die
deaths of blood and shame. Husband, wife, parents, and children--all, to
the latest generation, were to be cut off--to be rooted out of the earth
as an abominable stock, and to rot in the sight of the heavens. Ahab
humbled himself, as he received the message of the prophet, and showed
an outward reverence: and his doom was so far softened that the
destruction of the family was not immediate: but Jezebel seems still as
bold and unmoved as ever. Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, entered into
alliance with Ahab, and visited his court to witness the splendour and
share the hospitalities of Jezebel; and while both were warring against
Syria, Ahab was slain in battle.
Jezebel doubtless would have scouted the folly of those who saw the
fulfilment of both prophecy and sentence in the dogs licking the blood
from the chariot and the armour, as they were washed in the pool, which
probably was on the lands of Naboth; yet she might have foreseen thus
her certain fate--and as Ahab had died, so she should die. Her doom was
yet deferred. She long survived her husband, and prosperity and such
honours as attend the prosperous were her's. She was the daughter, wife,
and the mother of kings. Her sons ruled Israel. Her daughter sat on the
throne of Judah. She dwelt in royal state at Jezreel, and enjoyed
possessions which had been obtained by revolting crimes. Ahab had died a
bloody death. Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers; the King of Syria
perished by the hands of his servant; and Elijah was taken up to
heaven--but Jezebel still lived.
What were the occupations of her old age? Was she still busy, restless,
and intriguing? Or did the past haunt her with dark remembrances of
shame and crime, and the avenging future cast its shadow over her soul?
Did the stern decree of the prophet ring in her ears, and late remorse
drive her to the dark cruelties of her bloody idolatry, in the idle hope
of expiation? Such an old age could not have been happy. She was left to
fill up the measure of her iniquity, while memory told of past sins, and
conscience whispered of the coming retribution, and the avenging justice
of heaven hung like a dark cloud over her guilty house. Past the season
of pleasure, deprived of the power she had so abused, without the honour
and sacred reverence due to virtuous age, she may have had a foretaste
of her future retribution, though surrounded by all the splendour of
royalty, with trembling and abject slaves ministering to all her wants.