{"id":55173,"date":"2019-05-08T15:50:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T12:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=55173"},"modified":"2022-11-30T17:01:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T15:01:09","slug":"siseras-powerful-army-defeated-by-baraks-outgunned-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/siseras-powerful-army-defeated-by-baraks-outgunned-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Sisera\u2019s Powerful Army Defeated By Barak\u2019s Outgunned Men"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[392,444,434],"acf":{"old_id":"55173","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"215","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"How do the Davids of history defeat its Goliaths?","content":"

Sometimes, something interrupts the natural, to-be-expected, course of history.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Washington’s starving, out-gunned army survives its privations and defeats the British army.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tiny Israel defeats three armies in six days.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barak\u2019s ten thousand recruits defeat Sisera\u2019s army, despite the latter\u2019s 900 chariots (chariots, we learned in Judges 2, stopped even the tribe of Judah from conquering the valleys).<\/span><\/p>\n

How do the Davids of history defeat its Goliaths?<\/span><\/p>\n

The David-and-Goliath metaphor is particularly apt when discussing Barak’s war, where the Canaanite army relied heavily on its metal gear. Years later, Goliath, too, enhanced his physical advantage with similar trappings: he wore a helmet of brass, greaves of brass, a javelin of brass, and \u2013 you guessed it! \u2013 a coat of mail of brass. He completed the ensemble with an iron spear.<\/span><\/p>\n

David looked at Goliath, and displayed his typical knack for \u201cenlarging the image, seeing perspectives that a more blinkered view cannot imagine.\u201d (David Wolpe, <\/span>David: The Divided Heart<\/span><\/i>. 13.) He realized that trying to beat Goliath on his own heavy-weight terms was a losing proposition. Instead of making a doomed attempt to overpower the giant in hand-to-hand combat, David stunned him – and all present – by felling Goliath from afar with a stone.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Washington employed a similar insight in America\u2019s War of Independence. Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to defeat the superior British army in an all-out battle, he focused on controlling and protecting his army and the countryside instead. When he finally faced the British in the field, explains historian Joseph Ellis in <\/span>American Creation<\/span><\/i>, they were overstretched and exhausted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel chose the opposite strategy in 1967 \u2013 a quick, decisive engagement \u2013 but for a similar reason: it recognized its inability to outwait the Arab countries in a long and drawn-out war and chose to engage on different terms instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like these other disadvantaged armies, Barak pulled the rug from underneath Sisera’s feet by switching the terms of engagement. Instead of trying to amass men or weapons for an all-out war in the valley, Barak – as per Deborah\u2019s instructions – gathered a small group of men and kept them on mount Tabor, out of the chariots\u2019 range. Only when the river flooded Jezreel Valley, swamping it with mud and disabling Sisera’s chariots, did Barak lead his men into the valley. With the Canaanite chariot riders facing a form of hand-to-hand combat they never prepared for, Barak carried the day. <\/span><\/p>\n

But this victory is fleeting: by chapter 6 the Israelites will forget and betray God again, and a new enemy will arise to terrorize Jezreel Valley. In the book of Judges, it is not enough to recognize the best terms of engagement: to succeed over time, the Israelites must first learn to recognize that they owe their victories to God. They must learn to say, like David as he was facing Goliath, \u201cThe LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion\u2026 He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine\u201d (1 Samuel 17:37).<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: <\/span>David and Goliath<\/span><\/em>, Osmar Schindler (c. 1888) \/ wikipedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":55174,"id":55174,"title":"jud4-goliath","filename":"jud4-goliath.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud4-goliath.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/siseras-powerful-army-defeated-by-baraks-outgunned-men\/jud4-goliath\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud4-goliath","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":55173,"date":"2019-05-08 12:50:14","modified":"2019-05-08 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