Although a little bit long, this extract from Matthew Henry's commentary is excellent...:
She was not herself fit to command an army in person, being a woman; but she nominated one that was fit, Barak of Naphtali.
Some struggles, we may suppose, that brave man had made towards the shaking off of the yoke, but could not effect it till he had his commission and instructions from Deborah. He could do nothing without her head, nor she without his hands; but both together made a complete deliverer, and effected a complete deliverance.
1. By God's direction, she orders Barak to raise an army, and engage Jabin's forces, that were under Sisera's command, Jdg_4:6, Jdg_4:7. Barak, it may be, had been meditating some great attempt against the common enemy; a spark of generous fire was glowing in his breast, and he would fain do something to the purpose for his people and for the cities of his God. But two things discouraged him:
(1.) He wanted a commission to levy forces; this therefore Deborah here gives him under the broad seal of heaven, which, as a prophetess, she had a warrant to affix to it: “Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded it?
[1.1.] She directs him what number of men to raise - 10,000; and let him not fear that these will be too few, when God hath said he will by them save Israel.
[1.2.] Whence he should raise them - only out of his own tribe, and that of Zebulun next adjoining. These two counties should furnish him with an army sufficient; he need not stay to go further.
And, [1.3.] She orders him where to make his rendezvous - at Mount Tabor, in his own neighbourhood.
(2.) When he had an army raised, he knew not how he should have an opportunity of engaging the enemy, who perhaps declined fighting, having heard that Israel, if they had but courage enough to make head against any enemy, seldom failed of success. “Well,” says Deborah, in the name of “God, I will draw unto thee Sisera and his army.”
She assured him that the matter should be determined by one pitched battle, and should not be long in the doing.
[2.1.] In mentioning the power of the enemy, Sisera, a celebrated general, bold and experienced, his chariots, his iron chariots, and his multitude of soldiers, she obliged Barak to fortify himself with the utmost degree of resolution; for the enemy he was to engage was a very formidable one.
But, [2.2.] In fixing the very place to which Sisera would draw his army, she gave him a sign, which might help to confirm his faith when he came to engage. When afterwards Barak should see the event falling out just as Deborah had foretold, he might thence infer that certainly in the rest she said she spoke under a divine direction.
[2.3.] She gave him an express promise of success I will (that is, God will, in whose name I speak) deliver them into thy hand; so that when he saw them drawn up against him, according to Deborah's word, he might be confident that, according to her word, he should soon see them fallen before him.
At Barak's request, she promises to go along with him to the field of battle. (1.) Barak insisted much upon the necessity of her presence, which would be to him better than a council of war (Jdg_4:8): “If thou wilt go with me to direct and advise me, and in every difficult case to let me know God's mind, then I will go with all my heart, and not fear the chariots of iron; otherwise not.” Some make this to be the language of a weak faith; he could not take her word unless he had her with him in pawn, as it were, for performance. It seems rather to arise from a conviction of the necessity of God's presence and continual direction, a pledge and earnest of which he would reckon Deborah's presence to be, and therefore begged thus earnestly for it. “If thou go not up with me, in token of God's going with me, carry me not up hence.” Nothing would be a greater satisfaction to him than to have the prophetess with him to animate the soldiers and to be consulted as an oracle upon all occasions.
Deborah promised to go with him, Jdg_4:9. No toil nor peril shall discourage her from doing the utmost that becomes her to do for the service of her country. She would not send him where she would not go herself. Deborah was the weaker vessel, yet had the stronger faith. But though she agrees to go with Barak, if he insists upon it, she gives him a hint proper enough to move a soldier not to insist upon it: The journey thou undertakest (so confident was she of the success that she called his engaging in war but the undertaking of a journey) shall not be for thy honour; not so much for thy honour as if thou hadst gone by thyself; for the Lord shall sell Sisera (now his turn comes to be sold as Israel was, Jdg_4:2, by way of reprisal) “into the hands of a woman;” that is, [1.] The world would ascribe the victory to the hand of Deborah: this he might himself foresee. [2.] God (to correct his weakness) would complete the victory by the hand of Jael, which would be some eclipse to his glory. He dares not fight unless he have Deborah with him, to direct him and pray for him. She therefore stood to her word with a masculine courage; this noble heroine arose and went with Barak.
To me, this presents a much more balanced, accurate and unbiased view of Deborah.
Splash