Judges 4-5: The Women's Turn

There are many times in Israel's history when God used the weak, or those who were presumed to be weak, to confound the wise.  Such is the case of Deborah.  Deborah was a prophetess.  You don't have to be strong to be a prophet, you just have to be able to see God and his works.  Deborah had that ability where Barak did not.  When she told him to go up against the deadly Sisera because God would make him successful, he refuses to go unless she goes with him.  He knew he needed someone who could see what God was doing if he could not. Deborah says she will go with him, but the honor will not be his because he has relegated his role to a woman.  So she sings:
"Village life in Israel ceased,
ceased until I, Deborah, arose,
arose a mother in Israel," - Judges 5:7 NIV

As if to emphasize that it was the women who deserve the honor, when the Canaanites are routed and Sisera escapes, it is another woman, Jael, that has the guts to drive a tent peg through his temple.  Deborah's song recognizes Jael as well. 
"Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
most blessed of tent-dwelling women.
He asked for water, and she gave him milk;
in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.
Her hand reached for the tent peg,
her right hand for the workman's hammer.
She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple.
At her feet he sank,
he fell; there he lay.
At her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell-dead." - Judges 5:24-27 NIV

Deborah's song ends with an acknowledgement:
"So may all your enemies perish, O LORD!
But may they who love you be like the sun
when it rises in its strength."
Then the land had peace forty years. - Judges 5:31 NIV

In Deborah's song, she recognizes that it wasn't that the women were strong, they were just willing vessels who loved the Lord God.