Judges 5:6-8
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?
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Here Deborah describes the distressed state of Israel under the tyranny of Jabin. The country has been in a manner desolate. There was no trade—all commerce ceased, and the highways were unoccupied; no travelling, whereas in times when there was some order and government, the travelers might be safe in the open roads, and robbers were forced to lurk in the by-ways; no, on the contrary, the robbers insulted on the open roads without check. No tillage: the fields must needs be laid waste and unoccupied when the inhabitants of the villages, the country farmers, ceased from their employment. No administration of justice. There was war in the gates where their courts were kept. Neither had they arms nor spirit to help themselves with—not a “shield nor spear seen among forty thousand.”
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): These were the unhappy circumstances Israel was under.
MATTHEW HENRY: She shows what it was that brought all this misery upon them: “They chose new gods.” It was their idolatry that provoked God to give them up thus into the hands of their enemies.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): It will be recollected that national judgments are always the consequence of national sins.
SAMUEL MILLER (1769-1850): How many personal, domestic, ecclesiastical and national sins press heavily upon us as a people, and cry aloud for the judgments of a righteous God! Think of the abounding atheism and various forms of infidelity, the pride, the degrading intemperance, the profanations of the Sabbath, the fraud, the gross impiety, the neglect and contempt of the gospel, and all the numberless forms of enormous moral corruption which even in the most favoured parts of our country prevail in a deplorable degree, and in the less favoured hold a melancholy undisturbed reign. Think of these abounding sins; and think also in how small a degree multitudes even of the professing people of God seem to be awake to the great responsibilities and duties of their high vocation.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): For nations there is a weighing time. National sins demand national punishments. The whole history of God’s dealings with mankind proves that though a nation may go on in wickedness; it may multiply its oppressions; it may abound in bloodshed, tyranny, and war; but an hour of retribution draweth nigh. When it shall have filled up its measure of iniquity, then shall the angel of vengeance execute its doom.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Deborah is called “a mother in Israel,” for the same reason as every deliverer of his country is called the father of it.
MATTHEW HENRY: Thus she became a mother in Israel, a nursing mother, such was the affection she bore to her people, and such the care and pains she took for the public welfare.
C. H. SPURGEON: The moulding of the character of the next generation, remember, begins with the mother’s influence…What is it to serve our own generation? This is a question which ought to interest us all very deeply. We live in the midst of our own generation, and seeing that we are part of it, we should serve it, that the generation in which our children shall live may be better than our own. Though our citizenship is in heaven, yet as we live on earth, we should seek to serve our generation while we pass as pilgrims to the better country.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): The names of mothers of good and bad kings are mentioned in Kings and Chronicles, as partakers in their credit or reproach.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): As they were good or evil, so were their children.
C. H. SPURGEON: David had been taught by his good mother. I know he had a godly mother, for he says, “Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant and the son of Thine handmaid,” Psalm 116:16. He calls his mother, God’s handmaid, which shows that she was one of God’s servants. I have no doubt that she took David on her knee and taught him God’s Word while he was but a child, for he had such a love of it afterwards that he must have had a love of it while he was yet little!―the man never forgets what he learns at his mother’s knee.
WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE (1819-1881): The hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world.
C. H. SPURGEON: Dear Sister, seek to be a mother in Israel, a matron for Jesus Christ.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): My dear sisters, yours is a great work.
CHARLES BRIDGES: “A gracious woman retaineth honour,” as firmly as strong men retain riches,” Proverbs 11:16. She is known, not by her outward beauty, Proverbs 31:30, but by her “inner becoming ornaments,” 1 Timothy 2:9,10; 1 Peter 3:3,4; which remain in full lustre, when external accomplishments have faded away, Proverbs 31:25. She preserves her character unblemished, Ruth 3:11. She wins her children—perhaps her ungodly husband—into the ways of holiness, Proverbs 31:12,28; 1 Peter 3:1,2. Thus Deborah “retained honour” as “a mother in Israel,” the Counsellor and the stay of a sinking people. Esther retained her influence over her heathen husband for the good of her nation, Esther 9:12,13; Esther 9:25.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Wonderfully did God reward Ruth for all her piety—it pleased God to confer on her that which was the great desire of her soul, and to make her a mother in Israel, yea, so greatly did God honour her, that David, the greatest of all the kings of Israel, sprang from her, as the grandson of her child; and the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the Saviour of the world, was lineally descended from her.
C. H. SPURGEON: Happy woman, thus to become a mother in Israel!
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): Yes; but behind all the nobleness, steadfastness, beauty, and tenderness of Ruth, I see inspiring, and sustaining, and maturing it all, the wise, chastened, weaned mind of one who was a mother in Israel and a widow indeed. Naomi showed two Moabite women what a widowed wife and mother had to rest on in Israel; and one, at least, of her daughters-in-law laid the lesson and the example well to heart.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): How useful might be the older female members of the churches, in employing those seasons of communion which are continually occurring with their younger friends—to nourish in their minds the spirit of faith, prayer, and holiness.
CHARLES BRIDGES: And still the gracious woman retaineth honour long after she has mingled with the dust: Sarah the obedient wife, 1 Peter 3:5,6; Hannah the consecrating mother, 1 Samuel 1:28; Lois, Eunice, and “the elect lady,” 2 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 3:15; 2 John 1-4, in the family sphere; Phoebe and her companions in the annals of the Church, Romans 16:2-6; Philippians 4:3; the rich contributor to the temple, Mark 12:42-44; the self-denying lover of her Lord, Mark 14:3-9; Mary in contemplative retirement, Luke 10:39; Dorcas in active usefulness, Acts 9:36—Are not these “good names,” Psalm 112:6, still had in honourable remembrance?
CHARLES SIMEON: Truly “them that honour God, God will honour,” 1 Samuel 2:30; and every one that will serve Him shall receive an abundant “recompense of reward,” Ruth 2:12—and He has fulfilled His Word to all His servants in all ages.
