Who was the judge of Israel, Deborah or Barak?
The story of Deborah and Barak in the book of Judges has caused many hierarchists to assign the God-given work of judge delivering the people of Israel to Barak while denying that God raised up Deborah as a deliverer. By assigning a calling to Barak that scripture never assigns, it appears that the example of Deborah and Barak is a clear example of reading into the text the tradition of men and failing to identify in the text God’s own inspired words which give the calling to Deborah. In the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s (CBMW) Journal article, Barbara K. Mouser writes concerning Barak:
Barak is a weak man who does the will of God when paired with a righteous and wise woman. He does the job of deliverer-judge, makes the roll call of faith, but suffers a loss of glory because of his lack of zeal and obedience.
Barbara Mouser also denies that Deborah is a God-given judge who is raised up by God to deliver Israel:
Deborah is Not a Judge
She is not a judge in the sense that the book of Judges defines a judge; she is not a military deliverer.17 Rather she is a prophetess, and as a prophetess, she commands and exhorts Barak with God’s own words and authority.
The amount of “reading into” the text is astounding in this article. For example, where is Barak said in scripture to be “raised up” by God as a judge? Barak is never called a judge but Deborah is and Judges chapter 2 makes it very clear that all the judges were raised up by God.
Judges 2:16 Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.
The raising up must include all of the judges and in this account of deliverance it is only Deborah that is identified as a judge, not Barak.
Next the CBMW article identifies women as a sign of degeneracy:
Isaiah tells us that the rule of women is a sign of degeneracy, not liberation (Isa 3:12).