Blogging Bible Study: The Heart of the Matter- Judges, The Song of Deborah

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

In all the book of Judges, there are only three verses that reference 'heart/hearts'...all Strong's H3820 ...and they all occur in chapter 5. Mr. Scofield has labeled this chapter 'The Song of Deborah and Barak', a poetic response to the victory of Israel over the Canaanite army of Jabin, led by one bad dude named Sisera, who was dispatched in a grisly manner by a lady named Jael.

The song praises God for the victory, lauds the leaders who took initiative, berates the tribes that lagged and didn't fight, and recounts the actions of Jael, the woman who dealt the enemy the final blow.

My heart is with Israel's princes, with the willing volunteers among the people.  Praise the LORD!...The princes of Issachar were with Deborah; yes, Issachar was with Barak, rushing after him into the valley.  In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart.  Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks?  In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart.  - Judges 5:9, 15-16 NIV84

I really like the first verse of the song...When the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves -- praise the LORD!  (5:2); that kind of sets the tone for the whole song.  The leaders stepped up and the people followed.

Y'all, that'll preach.  But we are here to talk about hearts.

And the uses for 'heart' are kinda different than what we have looked at before.  The first one indicates that the heart of the psalmist (in this case, Deborah, from v. 7) is with the folks who rose up willingly to fight the battle.  She was interceding for them and proud of them.  They were doing the right thing.

It's a contrast to the use of 'heart' later in the chapter, which is the same phrase repeated:  In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart.  The folks of the tribe of Reuben apparently did not muster to the battle as the passage implies that they stayed around the campfires to mind sheep.  But what DID the 'searching of heart' actually mean here?  That they hemmed and hawed over the call to arms too long and missed it?  That they wanted to go to battle but couldn't convince themselves it was worth the risk? That they dug around in order to find an excuse not to go and decided they had to mind the sheep?  I'm honest, I really don't know what their issue was.  But whatever it was...they were listening to the internal dialogue and did not show up to help Israel defeat their enemies.

And that, too, will preach.  The enemy doesn't have to flat out convince us to choose wrongly; he can just throw us into enough internal conflict that, if we don't recognize what's going on, we spend so much time wrestling over some aspect of the issue that we ultimately take no action.  Which was his actual goal anyway.  Searching one's heart to find and root out sin and disobedience is a good thing; searching one's heart to find an excuse to not turn up when called is a whole 'nuther issue, and I'm as guilty of that as the next person.  

I would even go so far as to posit that searching one's heart to find an 'out' in such a situation is the first step to hardening one's heart to reject such appeals in the future.  And that is definitely a problem.