Barak

Barak is the army commander at the time when the prophetess Deborah is a judge over Israel. She orders him to fight the Canaanites. Barak defeats the army of the Canaanites and their commander flees. He hides in a tent, but is killed by a woman. After the battle is over, Barak and Deborah sing a victory song that is known as “The Song of Deborah and Barak” (Judges 5:1).

The name Barak means “lightning”. Therefore, some Bible translations sometimes render his name as “lightning Barak”.
Hebrews 11:32 calls Barak one of the people of faith, together with Gideon, Jephthah and Samson.

Barak is the son of Abinoam from the tribe of Naphtali. He gets the order from the prophetess and judge, Deborah, to fight the army of the Canaanites with 10 000 soldiers from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon. King Jabin of Canaan has 900 iron chariots at his disposal and has been oppressing the people of Israel for 20 years.
Barak is willing to carry out this order only on condition that Deborah goes with him. In reaction to this, Deborah predicts that the commander of the Canaanite army will be killed by a woman.

Barak defeats the army of the Canaanites, because God has spread great panic in their ranks. Their commander Sisera, in desperation, jumps from his chariot and flees to the encampment of the Kenites, a people who were on good terms with the Canaanites.
There Sisera asks Jael to hide him in her tent and not to betray him. But when he falls asleep, exhausted, Jael drives a tent peg through his head with a hammer, and he dies. When Barak and his soldiers come to Jael’s tent sometime later to murder Sisera, he is already dead.

The story in Judges 4 about the battle with the Canaanites is followed by a victory song in Judges 5. Here we read that Deborah and Barak sang this song.
The story and the song belong together, but do not precisely agree with each other. According to Judges 4 there were only soldiers from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon fighting with them, but in Judges 5 there are more tribes of Israel named.