Tribal patriotism, the memory of past grievances, the desire for plunder, and zeal for Jehovah the God who had led their forefathers through the wilderness into the land of Canaan, stirred their courage and fired them to deeds of valor.  Well they chose their battlefield, out on the plain on the northern side of the muddy, sluggish river Kishon.  On the slightly rising ground they faced the Canaanite warriors who came out across the plain from the city of Megiddo, six miles away.  The Canaanites were armed with chariots and the best weapons that the early Semitic civilization could produce, but one thing they lacked,—­courage, fired by religious zeal.

Again a striking natural phenomenon appears suddenly to have turned the tide of Israel’s fortune.  On the eve of battle a drenching thunderstorm seems to have swept across the alluvial plain transforming it into a morass and the sluggish Kishon into a rushing, unfordable river.  In the words of the ancient triumphal ode: 

  From heaven fought the stars,
  From their courses fought against Sisera. 
  The river Kishon swept them away,
  The ancient river, the river Kishon. 
  O my soul, march on with strength! 
  Then did the horse-hoofs resound
  With the galloping, galloping of their steeds.

The Hebrew even brings out the sound of the sucking of the horses’ hoofs in the soft mud.  The storm not only gave to the Hebrews, who were on foot, a vast advantage, but it meant to them that Jehovah, whose chariot was the clouds, his weapons, the lightning, and who spoke through the thunders, was fighting in their behalf.

The victory was overwhelming.  Sisera, the Canaanite leader, fled, but only to fall later, ignominiously slain by a woman.  Henceforth the Canaanite cities of central Palestine were occupied by the Hebrews.  The vanquished were either enslaved or absorbed in intermarriage.  From them, however, the Hebrews learned skill in agriculture and received a heritage of art, ideas and customs that had been developed by the Canaanites for many centuries.  How far was this heritage beneficial to the Hebrews?  What temptations did it bring to them?  Did it mark a step forward in their development?  Were the early Hebrews a pure or a mixed race?

More important than the spoils and lands which fell to the Hebrews was the new demonstration of Jehovah’s ability and willingness to deliver his people which they received in the battle beside Kishon.  Throughout all of Israel’s colonial period the chief force binding the scattered Hebrew tribes together was their faith in Jehovah.  The victory greatly strengthened that faith and prepared the way for the closer union which was necessary before Israel could become a permanent force among the nations of the earth.  The vision of what they had been able to achieve through united action never completely faded from the memory of the Hebrews.  Their subsequent experiences also tended to revive this memory.  Amidst the warring elements in Palestine a powerful nation was gradually taking form; in the school of hard experience it was learning the lessons that were fitting it for a large life.