Winning demoralizing struggles
At Barak’s advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot. Judges 4:15
In an era where with computerized battle tanks that can race across the desert at speeds surpassing 40 mph while accurately engaging the enemy at great distances, the chariot doesn’t seem like much of a threat, but in their day, they were pretty fearsome in the field of battle. Some were adorned with intricate embellishments to show the power and prestige of the rider commonly used in parades, while others were built light and fast to be more effective in battle. Then there were the iron chariots, which despite their names, likely were not made entirely of iron. These chariots were reinforced with iron making them much more fortified and, therefore, resistant to damage. These would be used to breach a hole in the forward line of defense of the enemy so another attack of foot soldiers could follow afterward. The first attack would be used to open the door for repeated future attacks. These chariots must have been quite demoralizing; Sisera had 900 of them.
In verse 3, we find that Sisera had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years because they had begun to do evil in the eyes of the Lord once again. The scriptures specifically mention the Lord’s eyes, reaffirming that the Israelites did nothing for good or evil, which God did not see. But observe how Sisera’s nine hundred chariots fitted with iron were explicitly mentioned. He had many other weapons of war, but the iron chariots and their number were carefully annotated. This was to be his most trusted weapon that he would use against his enemies because of their effectiveness at winning battles both physically and psychologically. To further illustrate this point, the iron chariots were mentioned once again in verse 13.
From this perspective, we see how powerful it is when verse 15 says, “… the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.” God destroyed Sisera’s proven weapons of war that had been effective for decades and routed every weapon at his disposal, including his army. Lastly, iron chariots once represented demoralization and moral defeat for the Israelites, but when Sisera stepped down from his chariot, he also loosed his stronghold of fear over them. Now the tables have turned, as we see in verse 16, “Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera’s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left.” The beautiful part is just as God destroyed the stronghold that Sisera held over the Israelites in their day, he continues to do for us today.
