Judges 4:1–24 relates how after suffering under Canaanite oppression for twenty years, Israel cried out for help to the Lord, and he sent Deborah, a woman, a prophetess.
Now in Judges 6:8 the prophet is introduced literally as a man, a prophet.
The reader is primed for high expectations. If a woman prophetess could be as effective as Deborah, what will a man, a prophet be able to achieve?
1 But the function of the prophet in Judges 6:1–40 contrasts sharply with that of Deborah. This prophet comes not to set in motion the process of deliverance, but to preach, with a message of deserved divine excoriation of the nation’s behavior.
2
8 the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery.