Deborah judges Israel

She was judging Israel at that time. The only judge of Israel whose call to office is given without apology. Barak — the general — refuses to go to war unless she comes with him.

Judges 4–5 names Deborah as both a prophet and the ruling judge of Israel at a moment of national crisis. She sends for Barak, commands him to muster ten thousand troops, and names the battle plan. Barak answers: "If you go with me, I will go; but if you do not go with me, I will not go." She goes. The victory song of Judges 5 — one of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible — is composed in her voice. No other judge in the book gets a song, and no other judge's authority is presupposed so casually by the text.