Origins and Calling
Barak was the son of Abinoam and came from Kedesh in the territory of the tribe of Naphtali. He appears in the Book of Judges as the military commander raised up to lead Israel against the Canaanites.
At that time the people of Israel had been oppressed for twenty years by Jabin, king of Canaan, whose capital was Hazor, and by his commander-in-chief Sisera. Deborah, the prophetess and judge, summoned Barak and ordered him, in the name of God, to muster ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and to gather them upon Mount Tabor, at the northern edge of the great plain of Esdraelon.
The War against Sisera
Sisera advanced against the Israelites with nine hundred iron chariots and a great host of people. According to the account, Barak declined to go into battle unless Deborah accompanied him; she agreed, but declared that for this reason the glory of the victory would belong not to him but to a woman.
Deborah prophesied that God would draw Sisera to the river Kishon. In the battle that followed at Mount Tabor, the Canaanite army was routed; according to one account a cloudburst caused flooding that limited the maneuverability of the enemy chariots, and the greater part of Sisera's forces were slain by Barak's army.
Sisera fled the battlefield and sought refuge with Jael, a Kenite woman, who killed him while he slept and afterward showed his body to Barak. So the prophecy that the honor of the victory would fall to a woman was fulfilled. Following the deliverance, the account records that there was peace in the land for forty years.
Veneration in the Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church venerates Barak as one of the Righteous of the Old Testament. He is numbered among the Holy Forefathers, the company of righteous men and women of the old covenant who are commemorated on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ.
The Epistle to the Hebrews names Barak among those who through faith were victorious (Hebrews 11:32-34), and it is in this commendation of his faith that his place among the witnesses of the old covenant is grounded.
