Godly women & subverting the dominant paradigm

The thing that sticks out to most people in Judges 4 are the roles of the women in story, Deborah and Jael. The Bible has often been accused of being a very patriarchal book, but maybe people think of it that way because the roles of women in Bible are much more subtle than people think.

In the story, Deborah is the voice of God (prophetess), and Jael ends up being the hand of God (tent peg +10), but I think the larger theme is that God is always seeking to do things differently than the way us hu-mans would do it. Women during this period of time weren't valued or considered useful by society, but God still used them as if to say, "Hey, why don't you realize the way that you do things isn't right! Try it my way."

On a side note, I think Barak is also an important side character because his behavior illustrates a big problem with a lot of people who claim to follow God. Sure, I'll lead this army of 10k men, God... just don't send me against those damn iron chariots! They got like 900 of them, yo! Our obedience sometimes only goes so far, in when God gives us a direct command. In the end, God will do as He wills, but it's us who are missing out the opportunity to serve Him, just like Barak missed out on the opportunity to capture and kill Sisera, the man who had been oppressing the Israelites.