All About the Name

INTRO

What’s in a name? God is very intentional in the names He gives people. In this lesson, we’ll talk about some interesting situations with some even more interesting characters as we look at the fourth and fifth judges of Israel. We’ll continue to look at Deborah and then meet Gideon. Through Gideon, we’ll look at the mystery of his name . . . “mighty warrior” and “the Lord saves.” Chapter 5 contains the Song of Deborah. I remember a time when God gave me a vision that showed the Lord putting His hand on my mother’s womb and saying that this one was His mighty warrior. The vision wrecked me so much that I began to cry and weep. When I told my dad about my vision, he shared with me about a time in Turkey when a man came and put his hands on my mother’s belly and said that she was carrying a mighty warrior. Growing up, they always referred to me as a mighty warrior. We’re going to talk about people who were born in crazy times of adversity, but God had marked them for such a time as that. Every one of you who are listening to this have been marked by God and called to do something significant in the kingdom.

TEACHING

Judges 5:1: Deborah and Barak celebrated their victory with a song (v. 1). In Exodus we see Miriam and Moses picking up their instruments to sing songs, and King David celebrates when Israel captures back the Ark of the Covenant. Deborah’s name literally means “bee.” God used Deborah as a judge to bring a sting to the enemies of God. Deborah was a poet and prophetess. Barak’s name means “lightning.” Barak is also a Hebrew word for praise. Psalm 34:1 says, “I will barak the Lord at all times; His barak will always be on my lips.” The connotation of the word means to worship and bow down. Psalm 95:6 says, “Come, let us barak; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

Judges 5:2-6: In verse 2, barak is used again: “When the leaders lead in Israel, when the people volunteer, praise (barak) the Lord.” What Deborah and Barak were doing was confirming their names––it was a prophetic act showing that they were living out their names. God used Deborah to lead the troops to sting like a bee and Barak to lead the troops to strike light lightning! They were now praising (barak) the Lord. Barak literally means to bless, to kneel, to bless abundantly, to salute, to thank, to boast in, and to pronounce blessing. In verse 3, a different Hebrew word is used for praise––zamar, which means to make music, to praise in song. Sometimes in church, we say we’ll praise the Lord, and we use that word for all kinds of praise. In Hebrew, there are multiple words for praise. The third judge, Shamgar, is named (v.6).

Judges 5:7-9: Deborah arose as “a mother in Israel” (v. 7). God is raising up godly fathers and mothers to speak into our lives (I Corinthians 4:15-17). Verse 8 records what had happened in Israel––they had done evil in the sight of God, and been put under the rule of Jabin, king of the Canaanites (Judges 4:1-3). Verse 9 is a model of godly leadership. Their hearts were with the people in leadership. It was humble leadership that submitted to one another (Ephesians 5:19-21). Deborah and Barak used this as a teachable moment to the people of what the nation’s response should be to God.

Judges 5:10-11, 21, 31: Another Hebrew word for praise––sinch, which means to consider, muse, sign, speak of, or talk (v.10). Verse 11 uses still another Hebrew word for the concept of praise––dabar, which means to speak, assert, declare, preach, talk, or utter. Deborah’s and Barak’s names were prophetic. The word dabar is from the Hebrew root word debir, meaning to speak, and is getting ridiculously close to sounding like the name Deborah. Deborah is living out her prophetic destiny as a speaker and mother to Israel. Deborah (dabar, debir) is living out the call to “sing a new song.” This is one of the coolest verses ––“March on, my soul, in strength!” (v. 21). The land had peace for 40 years. Deborah and Barak were peace-makers (Matthew 5:9).

Judges 6:1-10: Again, Israel did evil in God’s sight. As the result, God handed them over to Midian for seven years (v. 1). Remember that Moses’ father-in-law was a priest to the Midianites. They were descendants of Abraham’s concubine Keturah. The name Midian means judgment, and God used the Midianites to bring judgment on the Israelites. It got so bad that the Israelites had to hide from Midian attacks in the mountain and caves (vv. 2-5). God allowed the Midianites to bring havoc onto the disobedient Israelites. Because of the attacks, Israel became so poverty-stricken that they cried out to God (vv. 6-7). God sent them an unnamed prophet who reminded them that God had delivered them from Egypt and given them their land (vv. 8-9). There were about 130 years between the death of Joshua and Gideon’s rise, and about 220 years since Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. You can see the progression in these 200+ years as people drifted in and out of the things of God. The prophet reminded them that God had told them not to fear the gods of the Amorites but they had disobeyed Him (v. 10).

Judges 6:11-21: The times were so desperate that the Angel of the Lord found Gideon hiding in the wine vat while he threshed wheat (v. 11). The Angel called him a “mighty warrior” (v. 12). Romans 4:17 says, “God calls forth those things which are not, as though they were.” Gideon responded pitifully in verse 13, accusing God of handing them over to Midian. God completely disregarded Gideon’s concerns and complaints, and just said, “Go!” (v. 14). In the church, God doesn’t really concern Himself with our comfort zone. He wants us to move in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring justice and balance into the world. But Gideon questioned God’s instructions (v. 15). God answered, “I will be with you!” (v. 16). The name Gideon is from the Hebrew word gada, which means to hew down, break off, chop down, or cut into pieces. These words are prophetic of what Gideon would be called to do. Gideon asked for a sign to prove he was hearing from God (vv. 17-18). Doesn’t this seem comical that the Angel of the Lord was kept waiting while Gideon fixed food for him? Yet, in this time of forced famine, this food offering cost Gideon a lot (v. 19). The Angel told Gideon what to do with the prepared food, then touched the tip of his staff to the meat and bread which were consumed by a fire coming up from the rock (vv. 20-21).

Judges 6:22-28: This is an amazing encounter between Gideon and the Lord. In the next couple of verses, God told Gideon to destroy the altar to Baal and the pole of Asherah, and to take a young bull along with a seven-year-old bull from his father (v. 25). The Lord was taking Gideon to a prophetic place in which the sacrifice of the first bull would cut off the curse on his family through his father’s idol worship, and the sacrifice of the second bull would remove the iniquity of the seven years of Midianite torture. Gideon’s father was an avid Baal worshiper, so Gideon “cut down” (just as his name said he would) the Asherah pole, tore up the altar to Baal, and sacrificed the bulls on a new altar he made to the Lord (vv. 27-28).

CLOSING

Your name has so much meaning, and you were born for such a time as this. It’s no mistake––you were born for a purpose. I’m excited about the Baal altars and Asherah poles that you’ll be called to cut down. We need righteous men and women to rise up and balance the death of the sin in the world.