Deborah occupies a very unique place in Scripture. She was a prophetess-a married woman, too, and judged Israel.
She was an exception to the rule, but the exception proves the rule.
Scripture does not speak against the place she took, nor does it approve. It simply states the fact.
Yet there is sufficient out of Deborah's own mouth to see what she thought of it—condemn, at any rate, the backwardness of the men, even if we go no further.
She summoned Barak to go against Sisera. As a prophetess she told him that the Lord would deliver the enemy into his hand.
But Barak in his unmanliness would not go except Deborah accompanied him. She promptly acceded to his request, but informed him that the journey should not be for his honor. Sisera should be sold into the hand of a woman.
Surely Deborah's reply implied that if it were a matter of shame for Barak that a woman should slay Sisera, it was not less a matter of shame that a woman should be forced by the men's backwardness to judge Israel.