Can women lead? God has thought so more than once over the centuries, as when Deborah was judge of Israel.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the fourth chapter of the book of Judges (Judges 4:1-7), which describes an invasion of Israel by Canaan, one of its neighboring nations. This took place before the establishment of a monarchy in Israel under first Saul and then, of course, later under David. Indeed, the book of Judges takes its name from the title of the leaders of the day.
They were called judges, but their authority extended beyond the resolution of legal disputes to things that we would consider appropriate to some kind of executive government leadership. The judges continued on for quite some time. Samuel is usually considered to be the last of the ruling judges before the establishment of the monarchy.
So it was to a judge that the people went to put together some kind of response to the invasion from Canaan. The judge they went to was named Deborah.
Now, Deborah knew that she needed some aid. She summoned another man by the name of Barak to lead the army that would resist the invading Canaanites. Barak had an interesting response to that. Deborah assured him that the Lord had told her to tell him that they would be victorious over the invaders. Barak said, “If you go with us, we will be.”
Deborah agreed, but also told him that the final victory over the invading army, and particularly its general Sisera, would be accomplished by somebody else, and that this someone would be a woman. In the end, of course, the Israelites were victorious, and retreating from his defeated army, the general Sisera ended up meeting his death at the hands, yes, of a woman by the name of Jael.
So what are we to make of all this?
The writers of the Old Testament were as far as we can tell entirely men, and they lived in an extremely patriarchal time. Men were expected to be in charge. Women had very limited roles available to them, but at least for some period of Israel’s history, they acknowledged and they learned to their profit that women did, could (and successfully) lead.
Deborah’s song is recorded a little bit later on. Scholars believe that the Song of Deborah is the oldest coherent piece of writing to be found in the Hebrew Bible.
So can women lead in the twenty-first century? There are plenty of people these days who claim that they cannot, that the Scriptures declare that they should not, that because women are different enough from men that their leadership will be of some inferior kind.
Well, it wasn’t inferior under Deborah. It wasn’t inferior when Jael took a tent peg and a hammer into her hand. Those women were as effective as any man and more effective than most.
For far too long, we have lived with a notion that men should lead and women should follow. The time to abandon that notion is long, long past, and attempts to revive it should be resisted, discouraged, squelched.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
