In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned, and travelers kept to the byways. The villagers ceased in Israel; they ceased to be until I arose; I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel. When new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates. Was shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel? My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless the LORD.

-Judges 5:6-9, ESV

Recently, we covered submission and its centrality to our witness to the world.  When dealing with submission in marriage, we noted that male abdication is a major reason why so many women are exhausted and frustrated.  Laziness and passivity in men have forced women to take on burdens and responsibilities God did not create them to bear: “It’s this abdication of leadership, this neglect of the duties and responsibilities of authority, this failure of nerve that lies at the root of our cultural crisis”.[1] We will see how this is part of God’s judgment and examine how we can begin to bring back the good men.

Leaders as God’s Judgment

God’s wrath often comes not as active intervention but a deliberate lack of intervention that allows people to suffer the natural consequences of sin: society decays to the point where good men are scarce, leaving only weak or childish men, wicked men, and strong women as possible leaders.  But since God is the one who raises up and deposes leaders, this is also active wrath:

For behold, the Lord GOD of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply, all support of bread, and all support of water; the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the skillful magician and the expert in charms. And I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow and every one his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable.

-Isaiah 3:1-5, ESV

God promises not only to cause a famine of food and water but a famine of good men such that none can be found to defend the nation, judge the people righteously, rule wisely, give godly counsel, speak God’s truth, or otherwise uphold the hierarchies God created for our good. As a result, only boys will be left to rule—not boys in age but in maturity.  Bad leaders are often childish, lacking the maturity and character required for servant leadership.  They are arrogant, selfish, and self-indulgent.  Many in our day fit that description.  With no good men of strength and virtue to restrain evil, oppression runs rampant.  Any society suffers under this: “Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning! Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” (Ecclesiastes 10:16-17).  While Solomon did pursue pleasure like many bad leaders, he was still a son of nobility who brought blessing.  His son Rehoboam proved to be childish through selfishness and arrogance, bringing about ruin.  Facing such decline, people are desperate for leaders, so they thrust leadership upon anyone with a hint of status or ability (Isaiah 3:6-7).  This is God’s judgment that they have brought upon themselves: “For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD, defying his glorious presence. For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (Isaiah 3:8-9).  We have likewise stumbled and fallen, speaking and acting against God.  We likewise proclaim our sins like Sodom across social media and everywhere from aptly-named “Pride” events to our various golden calves to the murderous anthem “my body, my choice”. Good leaders fight against these things, so God gives a people bad leaders to facilitate their decline. 

Two Types of Women Fill the Void

Isaiah continues: “My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths” (Isaiah 3:12).  We have already discussed rule by infants (childish men), but what of rule by women?  Since comparison is a very common Hebrew literary device, there is a close link between oppression by childish men and rule by women, so both are part of judgment.  This is not to say that women rule poorly like childish men, but that both are in leadership because of the real judgment: the removal of good men.  When good men abdicate, someone must fill the void, so a prevalence of women in leadership is an indictment not on them but on the men whose failure forced them into it.  In a society devoid of masculine leadership, two types of women fill the void.  The first do so out of a desire to rebel against men and usurp the created order (Genesis 3:16).  Today, we would call them feminists, but they have existed throughout history.  Isaiah describes the women in Jerusalem as such:

The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts. 

-Isaiah 3:16-17, ESV

Unlike the women in rural areas who had to work hard to survive, these city-dwellers lived in luxury.  But just like today, their comfortable life was enabled by a system of hard-working people and dependent on the stability of a land at peace.  God promises that war would cause that system to collapse, bringing their lavish lifestyle crashing down.  These strong, independent women would ultimately become desperate: “And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach”” (Isaiah 4:1).  Prior to this, such a woman had risen to power in Judah.  Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, killed her grandsons so that she could rule (2 Kings 11:1-3, 2 Chronicles 22:10-12).  Instead of celebrating “girl power”, the land groaned under the weight of her wicked rule and then rejoiced when she was deposed by the grandson who survived.  This type of woman—the arrogant, loud, man-hating, selfish rebel—can do nothing but hasten a society’s decline.

Fortunately, there is another type of woman who rises to prominence in the absence of good men.  When discussing the wife’s roles, I noted that the Proverbs 31 wife is not docile and dainty but incredibly strong, brave, and capable, enough to intimidate weak men and threaten the fragile egos of tough guys.  This type of feminine strength and courage is just as vital to society as the masculinity of good men, and these women understand that their strength flourishes most under the protection, provision, and guidance of that masculinity.  In a society devoid of good men, these women are strong and independent out of necessity.  I believe many more women fit this description than that of the brazen, man-hating feminists. The latter only appear more prevalent because they are much more vocal.  Instead, the quiet majority does not hate men and is not trying to usurp the created order.  They step up to fill the void because they must, and they do so with the best of intentions and often with great wisdom and skill.  In addition to faithfully carrying out the duties of leadership, they labor to bring back the good men.  Such women are a great blessing and can stall or even reverse a society’s decline.  Scripture gives us a clear example of such a woman.

Deborah and the Renaissance of Good Men

The story of Deborah is often used by egalitarians and feminists alike as the quintessential example of “girl power” in Scripture.  Yet Deborah was not a “boss babe” but a strong woman who took on leadership out of necessity and labored to bring back good men.  In my leadership paper, I noted how God had raised her up and used her mightily, showing that it is not antithetical to Scripture for women to be in corporate or government leadership positions.[2]  But we can easily look at the story of Deborah and think that women occupying such positions is an objective good, but this was the exception not the standard.  We must remember that the historical narratives of Scripture are descriptive rather than prescriptive. The theme of Judges is that Israel lacked a righteous king to lead them and fell into all manner of sin as a result, so Deborah’s situation was less than ideal. She was a strong leader out of necessity, but the manner of her leadership is very informative for all women who may not aspire to leadership but due to the abdication of men find themselves thrust into it.  This began with her rise: “Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment” (Judges 4:4-5). 

Deborah is described first as a prophetess, so as one of the few receiving direct revelation from God at the time, her wisdom was a precious commodity, which naturally put her in the position of judge. She is then described as a wife unlike later widowed prophetesses Huldah (2 Kings 22:14, 2 Chronicles 34:22) and Anna (Luke 2:36).  She was likely older and without the demands of caring for young children, which enabled her to focus on being a mother to the nation. We can conclude that her priorities were God then her family then judging the nation, so she embraced her role in the home and judged the nation within that context and in a way that did not detract from it.  Unsurprising then, we see her supporting and encouraging male leadership.  She did not muster the army herself but summoned Barak and delivered to him God’s command and prophesy.  It was only at Barak’s insistence that she agreed to come with him, cautioning that his cowardice would prevent him from getting glory in the coming victory.  Barak’s obedience to God was contingent on Deborah’s courage, so Barak’s victory would be contingent upon the valiant deeds of another woman.  Deborah then followed Barak as he mustered the army to Mount Tabor.  Then, at Deborah’s prompting, Barak led the army down to face the enemy in the valley while Deborah apparently stayed on the mountain.  As a prophetess representing God to the people, it was fitting for Deborah to stay on the mountain so that as the army entered the valley of the shadow of death for battle, they could lift their eyes to the mountain and be reminded that their help comes from God.  And it was certainly God who brought victory to this outnumbered and outmatched army. 

Fleeing from the battle, the enemy commander Sisera came to the tent of a woman named Jael who dispatched him by driving a tent peg through his skull and into the ground.  This remarkable feat made Jael like Deborah an example of a strong woman.  But before the death blow, Jael was very feminine in her approach.  She showed Sisera extreme hospitality by inviting him in and going above and beyond to care for him.  This allowed his adrenaline from battle to wear off so that feeling safe he could fall asleep.  Only then did she grab the hammer and tent peg.  Like Deborah, she did not seek this role but was ready and capable when it came to her. 

Thus God brought about a great victory, but Deborah’s song of celebration also demonstrates her relief at something else: “That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the LORD!….My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless the LORD” (Judges 5:2,9).  More than a military victory, this was a turning point in which good men stepped up and filled the leadership void that had forced Deborah into her position in the first place.  Deborah describes herself not as a boss babe but as a mother to Israel (Judges 5:7).  Like a mother she nurtered the nation’s leaders, so like a mother she rejoiced when they proved ready to lead on their own.  Therefore, rather than seeing the renaissance of good men as a threat to her power, she was ecstatic.  Her excitement was only tempered by the limited nature of this revival, evident in her lament that several Israelite tribes did not muster for battle but remained in their passivity (Judges 5:15b-17,23).  Still, it doesn’t take all that many good men to make a huge difference.  So she was thrilled to see men taking on the burden of leadership once more and then gladly decreased while they increased.  Deborah and Jael are not mentioned again in Scripture, while Barak is (1 Samuel 12:11, Hebrews 11:32).  In this way, Deborah is an example of a strong woman who stepped into national-level leadership out of necessity, who instead of usurping male leadership led a revival of male leadership.

The Need for Good Leaders

In light of all this, the lack of good men in our day will require some good women to fill leadership positions until enough good men are raised up to take on the burden.  Outside of the home and church, where Scripture forbids women from exercising authority over men (Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Timothy 2:12), it is appropriate for Christian women of character and capability to pursue and hold positions of leadership.[3]  But since the Christian must submit to God’s created order in every aspect of life, there are circumstances when it would be inappropriate for a Christian woman to have authority over a man—namely on the rare occasion when her leadership must be both personal and directive.[4]  Finally, Scripture is clear that a wife’s focus should be on her home, so any pursuit of leadership should not detract from her responsibilities there.  Outside of those caveats, it is appropriate and sometimes necessary for good and capable women to pursue leadership in the workplace and society.  It is then equally appropriate for Christians to support that pursuit in hiring decisions, professional development, voting, and candidate endorsement.  But we must be careful to promote Deborahs rather than Athaliahs in the same way that we must promote Davids and not Rehoboams.  As in all such decisions, we must prioritize elevating to leadership men and women of character and integrity who embrace God’s design of masculinity and femininity, who take responsibility and want to restore that created order to our society.  Only with such leaders can we return to being ruled by wise and godly sons of nobility rather than childish men and rebellious women.  Then we will be able to sing with Deborah, “That the leaders took the lead, bless the LORD!”

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[1] Joe Rigney, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2024: 25.

[2] Don N. Howell, Jr., Servants of the Servant: A Biblical Theology of Leadership, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock: 2003: 49-52.

[3] Vern Sheridan Poythress, “The Church as Family: Why Male Leadership in the Family Requires Male Leadership in the Church” in John Piper and Wayne Grudem ed. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, Wheaton, IL: Crossway: 1991: 320-321; Douglas Moo, “What Does it Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority Over Men?: 1 Timothy 2:11-15” in John Piper and Wayne Grudem ed. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, Wheaton, IL: Crossway: 1991: 234-253.

[4] John Piper, “A Vision of Biblical Complementarity: Manhood and Womanhood Defined” in John Piper and Wayne Grudem ed. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, Wheaton, IL: Crossway: 1991: 59-63.