Why Do God’s People Sing?

————

Take Time to Pray Before Diving In

————

Read Judges 5

————

Judges 5 invites us to slow down and reflect. It’s a song, not a story. A response, not a report. Deborah and Barak are not trying to explain everything that happened, they are overwhelmed by what God has revealed about Himself.

It’s worth asking: Why do we sing at all? Why does gathered worship involve music?

Sometimes we assume singing is meant to stir our emotions or prepare us for something more important. God’s people sing because they have seen God clearly. Worship isn’t something we work up—it’s something that spills out.

In Colossians 3:16, Paul exhorts the church:

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Singing is not optional for God’s people. Singing is one way the Word of Christ takes root among us. When God reveals Himself through His Word, His people respond by singing truth back to Him and to one another.

That’s exactly what happens in Judges 5. After God delivers Israel from overwhelming oppression, Deborah and Barak respond with a song. Not because they were told to. Not because it was tradition. But because they couldn’t help it. When God reveals Himself, praise is the natural response.

Judges 5 should not be read as a narrative or an argument, but instead should be read as lyrics to a song. These are words that are spilling out of the souls of Deborah and Barak as they respond to who God is and what God has done. They retell what has taken place in chapter 4 but in poetic form. 

Remembering the Darkness

As the song begins, Deborah reflects on how bad things had become in Israel. Life wasn’t pleasant. Roads were unsafe. Villages were empty. Fear shaped everyday decisions. 

But this wasn’t random suffering. Israel had turned away from God, choosing other gods and other ways. And God had warned them what would happen if they did. Early in Judges, God told Israel that if they rejected His word and pursued their own way, He would allow the enemy to remain in the land and oppress them. Judges 5 doesn’t shy away from this truth. God was faithful to His word, even when that meant judgment.

That may sound uncomfortable, but it’s actually reassuring. A God who keeps His word (even when it’s hard) is a God we can trust.

But that’s not the end of the story.

God’s Faithfulness Brings Hope

In the middle of the darkness, Deborah sings about God stepping in. Deborah describes the Lord as a mighty warrior. The kind of King who commands creation itself. Mountains tremble. Storms obey. Enemies fall.

What’s crazy is how God wins. He doesn’t rely on military power or human strength. He defeats a powerful enemy through unexpected means, making it clear that the victory belongs to Him alone.

God didn’t need Israel to win the battle, but He invited them to follow Him into it.

Some tribes trusted Him and stepped forward. Others held back, choosing comfort and safety. And one group, Meroz, is cursed because they refused to help at all, even though they were right in the middle of the action. Their unwillingness wasn’t neutral; it was disobedience.

This reminds us that obedience matters. Not because God depends on us, but because obedience is one way we honor Him. While He doesn’t need us to fulfill His purposes, God invites us to participate in His divine work, and in our participation, He receives the glory. One example of this is when Paul asks in Romans 10:14, “How will they believe if they have not heard?” We have been called by God to be messengers who proclaim his gospel; our obedience to that call is a form of worship. Our faithfulness to evangelism is praise to God.

A Redemptive Song

Look closely at the imagery of the lyrics in this song, beginning in the second half of verse 26. Deborah sings:

“She struck Sisera; she crushed his head;
she shattered and pierced his temple.
Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still;
between her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell—dead.”

What a beautifully horrific verse to include in a song of praise.

The language is graphic. It is meant to be. Deborah wants us to feel the finality of the enemy’s defeat. Sisera, the feared general of a brutal and advanced military, is not merely wounded, not merely defeated, but utterly destroyed. He falls, he lies still, and the song repeats it for emphasis: there he fell—dead.

But this imagery is doing more than recounting a moment in Israel’s history. The language should immediately call something else to mind. It echoes the promise God made all the way back in Eden, in Genesis 3:15, when He told the serpent that the offspring of the woman would crush his head.

From that moment on, the Old Testament gives us glimpses, small foretastes, of that promise being worked out. Again and again, God brings deliverance by raising up someone who acts according to His will and destroys the one who stands in opposition to Him. Jael standing over Sisera is one of those moments. It is not the fulfillment, but it is a shadow—a preview.

And the ultimate fulfillment of that promise is not Jael. It is Jesus.

Because the truth is, we are no better than Israel. When God reveals Himself to us, we compromise. We ignore what we don’t like. We reject what makes us uncomfortable. We adjust the truth so it fits our desires. We don’t like being told that we are sinners who fall short of God’s holiness. We don’t like being reminded that we are dependent creatures. We resist the reality that we need God. And we are angered by the idea that God’s wrath will be poured out on those who refuse to follow Him—because at the heart of it all, we hate the fact that we cannot be God.

But what we need, what all of us need, is to recognize that these things are true whether we like them or not. God is holy. He has created us. He has called us to submit to His authority and His kingship. And like Israel, we chase after things that will never satisfy. By nature, we reject God and His revelation. And because of that, we too deserve His judgment. Just as God was just in judging Israel, He would be just in judging us.

As sinners, the only thing we are owed is the curse of sin, which is death. And beyond death, we face the righteous wrath of God for eternity. That is the weight of our condition apart from Christ.

But here is the good news. In Jesus Christ, we are promised a deliverance we could never achieve on our own. In His grace and mercy, God sent His Son as the perfect sacrifice. Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, yet without sin. On the cross, He took our sin upon Himself. He absorbed the wrath of God that we deserve. He died, was buried, and three days later rose again.

And in His resurrection, Jesus stood over Satan the way Jael stands over Sisera in this song. Hebrews 2:14 puts it this way: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

The Risen Christ has put sin, death, and Satan beneath his feet and crushed them through his death and resurrection. And those who repent and believe, and follow Jesus are promised to be made right before God and no longer have to fear death or his wrath.

Jesus now reigns with all authority. And like Israel, we are called to follow Him. Not half-heartedly, not conveniently, but faithfully.

This truth alone is enough to move us to praise.

Worth Asking

As you sit with this passage, it’s worth asking:

• Where have I seen God’s faithfulness in my own life?

• Where might God be calling me to trust Him more fully?

• Is my worship shaped more by habit and feeling—or by who God truly is?

Praise flows naturally when our eyes are opened to God’s character and work.

Prayer Points from Devotional

• Praise God for revealing Himself in His Word.

• Thank God for keeping His Word and for the provision of salvation through Jesus.

• Confess ways you (we) have not taken seriously the call/command to sing as God’s people.

• Thank God for His forgiveness.

• Ask God to help strengthen your soul to respond through song regularly to who He is especially when we gather together for corporate worship.