Judges 5:28
The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots? The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
The verse belongs to the song of Deborah and Barak celebrating Israel's deliverance from Sisera and Jabin's oppressive rule through Jael's part in the victory and the triumph of Barak and Deborah over Israel's oppressors. It pictures Sisera's mother looking out at the window and crying through the lattice with an anxious heart for her son's return from war, asking why his chariot is so long in coming and why the wheels tarry. The battle at Megiddo to which it belongs stands as an object lesson for the final gathering of the nations at Armageddon, to be studied in connection with the sixth and seventh plagues. Her anxious listening for the delayed chariot wheels becomes the picture of faithful watchfulness and eager longing for Christ's return, showing that those whose hearts love him desire his appearing and wait with faith to welcome him.
Context and Picture
Judges 5:28 belongs to the song of Deborah and Barak in Judges 5, which celebrates Israel's deliverance from Sisera and from Jabin's oppressive rule, including through Jael's part in the victory and through the victory of Barak and Deborah over Israel's oppressors. The song gives God the glory for the deliverance, calls surrounding rulers to hear what He has done and take warning, declares that honor and power belong to God rather than people or idols, recalls God's majesty at Sinai, and recounts Israel's oppression and rescue. Its setting is the battle in which Barak of Naphtali triumphed over the Canaanites, one of the great battles associated with Megiddo, the Old Testament battlefield of conflicts between Israel and God's enemies.
Through that victory of Barak and Deborah the Israelites first gained possession of the strategically important plain of Jezreel, rising among the Galilean hills and vindicating Galilee's honor for intellectual vigor and mental freshness and force. In that battle Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots did not prevent Israel from overcoming him when the people acted in faith, but his chariots fled and Israel was delivered. Sisera himself escaped on foot before Jael killed him, after which Deborah sang of the deliverance.
The verse pictures Sisera's mother looking out at a window and crying through the lattice, peering with an anxious heart and asking why his chariot is so long in coming and why the wheels of his chariots tarry, waiting anxiously for her son's return from war. The Song of Deborah in Judges 5:1-31, including this verse, is among the earliest poetry of Israel and an original composition with both words and music composed to memorialize a great event in the individual and national life of God's chosen people, not copied or borrowed from the surrounding nations.
Prophecy and Doctrine
The battle to which the verse belongs, fought at Megiddo, is an object lesson for the final gathering of the nations at Armageddon and is important to study in connection with the sixth and seventh plagues of Revelation 16. It stands as one of the great Old Testament battlefield conflicts between Israel and God's enemies, in which Barak won victory over the Canaanites. Through that victory of Barak and Deborah the Israelites first gained possession of the strategically important plain of Jezreel.
The chapter to which the verse belongs shows God using women publicly to His glory, with the verse itself picturing Sisera's mother waiting anxiously for his return. It therefore supports that women may bear testimony for Christ, help in His work, and speak publicly in service to God in womanly, Christian ways without usurping authority. As part of Deborah's song, a woman's public proclamation of God's truth and deliverance, the verse shows that the command for women to keep silence in the churches in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 does not forbid such public testimony. That command instead corrects blameworthy disorders of women out of place in assuming authority to teach and rule.
The verse stands in an account of crisis in the Lord's work in which Jael, though tender-hearted and friendly with the enemy, defended God's cause by killing Israel's enemy and was blessed above women in the tent. In the same crisis Zebulun and Naphtali jeoparded their lives unto death in the high places of the field. Others did not discern God's providence and did not give themselves to His work, and received the curse against Meroz for not coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. In crisis, therefore, those who accept the message God sends bring salvation to themselves and to the people, while those who do not believe His testimony bring a curse upon themselves.
Application to Believers
The question about the delayed chariot expresses anxious longing for an absent loved one's return and is taken as the language of longing for Christ's return, showing that those whose hearts love Christ desire to see Him, desire His appearing, pray for His kingdom to come, and regard His appearing as the fulfillment of their deepest hopes. Dislike of hearing about Christ's coming shows that the heart is alienated from Him and reveals alienated affection for Christ. The image of listening for the delayed chariot wheels describes faithful watchfulness and eager expectation of Christ's coming, in which believers wait with faith for the sign that He is near and joyfully welcome Him.
The words supply an expression of eager longing for the Lord's coming and the fulfillment of God's promises that can become an occasion for Satan to tempt people to murmur against God, grow fretful or impatient, or envy others, and yielding to those tempers undermines the holiness they seek. The verse pictures what mothers and wives still do when sons and husbands march into battle and into the jaws of death, watching and waiting with anxious hearts through the lattice for news of their welfare and crying out to know if it is well with them.
The verse gives the cry for Christ's return the meaning of come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, with no longer seeking or wishing delay of the end in prayer. That cry belongs to the time when all things preceding the destruction of Antichrist are accomplished and the thousand two hundred and sixty days allowed the adversary are finished, when the end is at hand and the age is begun in which the Redeemer grants the request of the waiting prophet and blessed is he that waiteth has arrived. It looks to the near and hastening day of the Lord as a day of fury and anguish and devastation and sounding of the trumpet, when all the earth will be consumed in the fire of His zeal and He will make a speedy conclusion with all inhabitants of the earth, a day that will come as a thief in the night upon those buried in sleep and will gather the church shortly.