Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time, Judg 4:1.
Do you know anything about Lappidoth? I know he was Deborah’s husband and that is all. He is mentioned nowhere else in the entire Bible. Yet because of his amazing wife his name was written down for everyone to read for thousands of years.
No, it was not because God ordained that a wife have no identity without her husband, as some feminists might try to argue. Have you ever googled your own name or simply looked it up in your city’s telephone directory? Somewhere in the world there is someone else with the same name as you, first and last. Imagine how many there are with just your first name. I can find six Marys in the New Testament alone.
It was necessary to identify people in the scriptures by their parents or spouses or children in order to make it plain who was being talked about. There was at least one other Deborah in the Bible, the nurse of Rebekah, in Gen 35:8. I imagine there were many other little girls named Deborah throughout Israel, especially after the time of Judges 4. Miriam, after all, is the Hebrew for the Aramaic Mary, of whom we have so many in the first century AD. Surely the great woman judge was a worthy namesake too.
So what is the big deal about Lappidoth? Just this—he was mentioned because of his wife, and he is respected because of his wife. Whom you marry can make or break you in your career, in your reputation in the community, and most important, as a servant of God.
How many times have you heard it said, or even said yourself, “He would make a good (elder, preacher, Bible class teacher, deacon) if not for his wife?” God made woman so man would not be alone and so he would have a suitable helper in life. David says, “[Jehovah] is our help” in Psalm 33:20, using exactly the same Hebrew word describing God as the one God used of woman in Gen 2:15. Part of the help God gives men is the women who stand beside them. There is nothing demeaning about being a tool in the hand of the Lord.
Maybe the problem is men who do not recognize their duty to spiritually lead the family, “nourishing and cherishing” their brides, as Christ did the church. Keith is the one who taught me how to study. “And created a monster,” he always adds.
Inevitably though, the onus falls on women who will not be led, who will not grow, who use their freewill instead to rebel against God.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 about people who would not follow Him. The point of the parable was the lame excuses people will make, but I can read at least one of those excuses in a different way. When the Lord presents him an opportunity, I would hate for my husband to have to say, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.”
A worthy woman who can find? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he shall have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of his life. Her husband is known in the gates where he sits with the elders of the land. Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised, Prov 31:10-12, 23,30.
Dene Ward
Do you know anything about Lappidoth? I know he was Deborah’s husband and that is all. He is mentioned nowhere else in the entire Bible. Yet because of his amazing wife his name was written down for everyone to read for thousands of years.
No, it was not because God ordained that a wife have no identity without her husband, as some feminists might try to argue. Have you ever googled your own name or simply looked it up in your city’s telephone directory? Somewhere in the world there is someone else with the same name as you, first and last. Imagine how many there are with just your first name. I can find six Marys in the New Testament alone.
It was necessary to identify people in the scriptures by their parents or spouses or children in order to make it plain who was being talked about. There was at least one other Deborah in the Bible, the nurse of Rebekah, in Gen 35:8. I imagine there were many other little girls named Deborah throughout Israel, especially after the time of Judges 4. Miriam, after all, is the Hebrew for the Aramaic Mary, of whom we have so many in the first century AD. Surely the great woman judge was a worthy namesake too.
So what is the big deal about Lappidoth? Just this—he was mentioned because of his wife, and he is respected because of his wife. Whom you marry can make or break you in your career, in your reputation in the community, and most important, as a servant of God.
How many times have you heard it said, or even said yourself, “He would make a good (elder, preacher, Bible class teacher, deacon) if not for his wife?” God made woman so man would not be alone and so he would have a suitable helper in life. David says, “[Jehovah] is our help” in Psalm 33:20, using exactly the same Hebrew word describing God as the one God used of woman in Gen 2:15. Part of the help God gives men is the women who stand beside them. There is nothing demeaning about being a tool in the hand of the Lord.
Maybe the problem is men who do not recognize their duty to spiritually lead the family, “nourishing and cherishing” their brides, as Christ did the church. Keith is the one who taught me how to study. “And created a monster,” he always adds.
Inevitably though, the onus falls on women who will not be led, who will not grow, who use their freewill instead to rebel against God.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 about people who would not follow Him. The point of the parable was the lame excuses people will make, but I can read at least one of those excuses in a different way. When the Lord presents him an opportunity, I would hate for my husband to have to say, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.”
A worthy woman who can find? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he shall have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of his life. Her husband is known in the gates where he sits with the elders of the land. Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised, Prov 31:10-12, 23,30.
Dene Ward
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