Deborah, who judged under a palm
“Deborah said to Barak, “Go; for this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Hasn’t Yahweh gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.”Judges 4:14 · WEB
Judges runs on a bleak cycle: the people forget God, an oppressor arrives, they cry out, God raises a deliverer, and it holds until that deliverer dies. Deborah is one of the few the book has nothing bad to say about. She is a prophet and the nation's judge, and she settles disputes sitting under a palm tree — people come to her. Israel has been ground down for twenty years by an army with nine hundred iron chariots. She summons Barak and gives him God's orders; he agrees only if she comes too. She comes, and tells him the honour of the victory will therefore go to a woman. It does — and not to her, but to Jael, in a tent, with a hammer. The song they sing afterwards is one of the oldest passages in the Bible.