Motherhood as Skull-Crushing Calling

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ

A brief reading through the book of Judges places women and mothers at a crucial point in redemptive history. Unlike the stereotypical vision of motherhood offered by radical feminists in our day—that of unhappy women cooking and offering some tidbits of domestic tranquility and nothing more—the Biblical understanding of women, particularly mothers, is that of a bold and musical class of humans.

In Judges 4, Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, and most certainly a mother in Israel, found herself in a unique place of history. She judged God’s people into victory when the men were nowhere to be found. And that little episode guides us through one of my favorite scenes of domestic tranquility in the Bible.

19 And Sisera said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. 20 And he said to her, “Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’ ” 21 But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. 22 And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple.

This, of course, leads Deborah, in Judges 5, to compose a song of victory, which concludes with these words:

“So may all your enemies perish, Lord!
    But may all who love you be like the sun
    when it rises in its strength.”

This is undoubtedly not how our culture views motherhood. But the Bible—always eager to overthrow cultural definitions—views motherhood as the capacity to follow God’s design and destroy an enemy or three when the time is ripe. Motherhood means virtue and productivity, and it means that the household songs are songs of blessedness.

Biblical mothers crush God’s enemies, compose songs in honor of crushing God’s enemies, and it was a virgin mother who gave birth to the crusher of all enemies, Jesus Christ.

If there is ever a season for courageous motherhood who understand their domestic role as beautifiers, their cultural roles as exemplifiers of the good, and their liturgical role as participants in the holy, that time is now.

Our desire at Providence is to see mothers who love the home indeed but who make the home a place of refuge for the weary and sabbath for their offspring and their husbands. Let the world deride motherhood as archaic, and we will praise motherhood as superlative; let the world call mothers to treasure life away from home, and we will call women to their rightful places as queens of the garden; let the world form their worldviews of mothers through the lens of their liberated warriors in Hollywood, and we will laugh at them for they shall see their empires crumbling by the simple deeds of godly mothers.

May your days be blessed, mothers of Providence, may your strength never cease, and may your hearts meditate on the songs of Deborah and Jael all your days.