Barak son of Abinoam ברק בן אבינועם
“if you go with me I will go, and if you do not go with me I will not go”
For twenty years Jabin king of Canaan, with nine hundred iron chariots, oppressed Israel. Deborah sent for Barak son of Abinoam at Kedesh-naphtali and gave him his orders: take ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun, go to Mount Tabor, and I will draw Sisera with his chariots to you at the brook Kishon.
His answer is quoted verbatim and unsoftened: "if you go with me I will go, and if you do not go with me I will not go." Deborah agreed: I will go with you, but the glory on this road will not be yours, for the LORD will deliver Sisera into the hand of a woman.
The battle was short. The Canaanite army was broken at the Kishon, the torrent swept away the fleeing, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot — to Jael's tent.
The song Deborah and Barak sing together is one of the oldest poetic passages in the Tanakh. It contains a line that explains why Barak hesitated at all: "forty thousand in Israel — was shield or spear to be seen?" There were no weapons. He was marching against nine hundred chariots with men who had no shields.
In the book of Samuel, Barak is named among the deliverers sent by God, alongside Samuel and Gideon.
The years here are computed by adding up the terms given in the book of Judges itself, counting from the death of Joshua; they are not stated as such in the source.
On the timeline
Sources
Tanakh
- Shoftim 4:2–3 — twenty years and nine hundred iron chariots
- Shoftim 4:8–9 — “if you go with me I will go”; the glory will go to a woman
- Shoftim 5:8 — “was shield or spear to be seen?”
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.