(a) Describe how Deborah led her people to victory. (b) Mention three ways by which women today are contributing towards national development.

Answer Details

(a) How Deborah led her people to victory (Judges 4 and 5)

Deborah was a prophetess and the judge of 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 judgement.

At that time the Israelites had been cruelly oppressed for twenty years by Jabin, king of Canaan, whose army commander was Sisera, who had nine hundred chariots of iron. Deborah sent for Barak the son of Abinoam and gave him God's command: "Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor... and I will draw out Sisera to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand."

Barak replied, "If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go." Deborah agreed to go, but told him that because of the way he chose, the glory of the victory would not be his, for the LORD would sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.

Deborah went up with Barak, and ten thousand men followed him to Mount Tabor. When Sisera came out with his chariots, Deborah said, "Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand." The LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots before Barak; the river Kishon swept them away. Sisera fled on foot and came to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. She welcomed him, gave him milk and covered him; but while he slept from exhaustion, she drove a tent peg through his temple and killed him. So God subdued Jabin, and the land had rest for forty years. Deborah and Barak then sang a song of victory praising the LORD.

(b) Three ways women today contribute towards national development

1. Leadership and governance - women serve as political leaders, administrators and public servants, helping to make and implement good policies.
2. Education and the professions - women work as teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professionals, training and serving the nation.
3. Economic and social activity - women engage in trade, farming, entrepreneurship and charitable work, and nurture families and moral values, strengthening the society.