If You Go With Me

Deborah sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. The woman to whom the Israelites came for judgment now called one man by name. When she spoke to him, she set before him a mountain, a river, and an army he was to gather.

“Surely the LORD, the God of Israel, is commanding you: ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, taking with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera the commander of Jabin’s army, his chariots, and his troops to the River Kishon, and I will deliver him into your hand.’” The command named Sisera himself. Barak was to take his men to Tabor, and the commander with his chariots would be drawn to the Kishon.

The places were fixed before Barak answered. He was to gather ten thousand men from two tribes, leave for the mountain, and face the force that had stood behind twenty years of oppression. Deborah’s words carried a promise with the command: Sisera would be delivered into his hand. Barak had heard both.

His reply returned to the woman standing before him. “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” He did not ask her to change the mountain or the number of men. He made his going depend on hers.

The account gives his condition without explaining what lay behind it. It does not tell us whether he had prepared those words before he came or found them only after hearing her. What he said was plain enough. She had called him to go, and he would go if she went with him.

“I will certainly go with you,” Deborah replied, “but the road you are taking will bring you no honor, because the LORD will be selling Sisera into the hand of a woman.” She agreed to accompany him. With that agreement came another word about the end of the road, and about whose hand would receive the enemy commander.

The woman was not named. Deborah stood there promising to go, but she did not say that the woman would be herself. Barak had asked for her presence and received it. He had also heard that the honor at the end would belong elsewhere.

Then Deborah got up and went with him to Kedesh. The exchange became a journey, and the promise to accompany him became her own departure. The account does not pause over preparations beneath the palm. It follows the two of them to the place from which Barak had been summoned.

At Kedesh, Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together. Ten thousand men followed him, the number Deborah had given in the command. The man who would not go without her was now gathering the men who would go with him. Deborah went with them too.

Her presence is recorded again as the force takes shape. She had said she would certainly go, and there she was among those setting out, with Mount Tabor ahead and Sisera still commanding his chariots. Barak had answered the summons; the men had answered his. Now ten thousand men were on their way toward the place Deborah had named, where their gathering could no longer remain unknown.