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Deborah and Barak: If God Be with Us
The prophet Deborah. The title hangs on her like a weight, heavy as a sword at her side. High position and great responsibility carry a price--the price of loneliness. Her mind ranges far back over the years to her first meeting with Barak, the man who tomorrow would be loosed on the enemies of God like an arrow from the bow.
Barak, Yahweh's chosen warrior. He is weary, and no longer young. He has spent his whole life fighting Jabin of Hazor and his fearsome war chief, Sisera. True, the Isrealites occupy the higher ground, but they are so few compared to Sisera's spearheads and chariots of iron. How can God's army defeat Sisera's when even their commander cannot hold firmly to his faith?
From the author of Esther, comes another wonderful story of an old testament female hero. Trudy weaves a wonderful storyline through the short biblical account that makes each character come alive. The reader will experience the lifestyles, traditions, joys, and fears that possibly affected each character, showing their vulnerablities and making them more human. Ultimately teaching us that God worked through people then who were just as fallable as we are today.
Barak, Yahweh's chosen warrior. He is weary, and no longer young. He has spent his whole life fighting Jabin of Hazor and his fearsome war chief, Sisera. True, the Isrealites occupy the higher ground, but they are so few compared to Sisera's spearheads and chariots of iron. How can God's army defeat Sisera's when even their commander cannot hold firmly to his faith?
From the author of Esther, comes another wonderful story of an old testament female hero. Trudy weaves a wonderful storyline through the short biblical account that makes each character come alive. The reader will experience the lifestyles, traditions, joys, and fears that possibly affected each character, showing their vulnerablities and making them more human. Ultimately teaching us that God worked through people then who were just as fallable as we are today.
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 27, 2017
I picked up this book from a free pile with not-very-kind expectations of amusing myself with a throwback to the C-grade creativity and infinite repackaging of sellable storylines that I had learned, with deep dismay, to expect from Christian publishing houses when I was in high school. But I was pleasantly surprised.
The book does have a few problems and the cover design gives a broad hint as to the main one, which is the idea of an ambiguous unrequited lifelong romance between Deborah and Barak. My cynical side felt like it was shoehorned in there to attract the reader's attention at the beginning until the story really gets going, and to sell the book. One of the curiosities in the Biblical account is why Barak felt so dependent on Deborah's presence to go into battle, so I'll concede that the dynamics of their relationship probably had to be explored in some way or another. This particular imagining of a thwarted romance is not without interest, but winds up somehow kind of embarrassing. My only other complaint is that much of the dialogue is stilted.
What I was surprised to find is that the setting is quite alive and must have been meticulously researched. The author does a truly compelling job of illustrating the ancient Near East. What was it like to live a life of such hard work that everyone died of sheer exhaustion by age 50 at the latest? What would it have been like to have to pay exorbitant annual tributes to a foreign power when you were a nation of subsistence farmers reduced to rudimentary tools? How desperate was Israel's effort to rebel against Jabin, the king of Hazor, and his general Sisera? (Jabin feels like a footnote in the overall story of Scripture but what if he was ruling your life? From our cushy perch it looks like Israel was always hopping in and out from under someone's thumb with relative ease since God was controlling the movements and we know the ends to all the stories, but what if we didn't have the view we have?) What might slavery have looked like in such a world, or marriage and having children?
The story suggests answers to all these questions--answers that are deeply thought-provoking by way of the contrast they provide with the concerns of living in a time of historically unimaginable material wealth (also a time after the close of the Scriptural canon). Many modern concerns take on a lighter tint in light of what people lived through in earlier civilizations. I was grateful to the author for drawing attention to this and found the reading altogether more edifying than I expected for that reason. The perspective it drew has lingered in my mind for many months now (this review has been steeping awhile).
Other things I liked: the characters of Barak and Jael, the descriptions of the inner life of multiple characters, and the author's envisioning of how Deborah might have become a prophetess in the first place and how she might have heard from God.
Overall, enjoyable. When I first picked it out of the free pile, I intended to pop it right back in when I was done, but I thought of my daughter poking around our bookshelves a few years down the road, and I've changed my mind. I'd like this to be something she might find, or that I can hand her on a dull afternoon.
The book does have a few problems and the cover design gives a broad hint as to the main one, which is the idea of an ambiguous unrequited lifelong romance between Deborah and Barak. My cynical side felt like it was shoehorned in there to attract the reader's attention at the beginning until the story really gets going, and to sell the book. One of the curiosities in the Biblical account is why Barak felt so dependent on Deborah's presence to go into battle, so I'll concede that the dynamics of their relationship probably had to be explored in some way or another. This particular imagining of a thwarted romance is not without interest, but winds up somehow kind of embarrassing. My only other complaint is that much of the dialogue is stilted.
What I was surprised to find is that the setting is quite alive and must have been meticulously researched. The author does a truly compelling job of illustrating the ancient Near East. What was it like to live a life of such hard work that everyone died of sheer exhaustion by age 50 at the latest? What would it have been like to have to pay exorbitant annual tributes to a foreign power when you were a nation of subsistence farmers reduced to rudimentary tools? How desperate was Israel's effort to rebel against Jabin, the king of Hazor, and his general Sisera? (Jabin feels like a footnote in the overall story of Scripture but what if he was ruling your life? From our cushy perch it looks like Israel was always hopping in and out from under someone's thumb with relative ease since God was controlling the movements and we know the ends to all the stories, but what if we didn't have the view we have?) What might slavery have looked like in such a world, or marriage and having children?
The story suggests answers to all these questions--answers that are deeply thought-provoking by way of the contrast they provide with the concerns of living in a time of historically unimaginable material wealth (also a time after the close of the Scriptural canon). Many modern concerns take on a lighter tint in light of what people lived through in earlier civilizations. I was grateful to the author for drawing attention to this and found the reading altogether more edifying than I expected for that reason. The perspective it drew has lingered in my mind for many months now (this review has been steeping awhile).
Other things I liked: the characters of Barak and Jael, the descriptions of the inner life of multiple characters, and the author's envisioning of how Deborah might have become a prophetess in the first place and how she might have heard from God.
Overall, enjoyable. When I first picked it out of the free pile, I intended to pop it right back in when I was done, but I thought of my daughter poking around our bookshelves a few years down the road, and I've changed my mind. I'd like this to be something she might find, or that I can hand her on a dull afternoon.
April 10, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. I'm glad that the story remained biblical. It was nice seeing a story that isn't often spoken of brought to light. I would recommend reading this book.
March 27, 2020
I only read a few pages then scanned the book. Fictional embellishments of bible stories do not interest me. Scripture references are rare.
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January 24, 2018i think this book is good for 8-12 year olds
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews