Judgeschapter 5
31 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
Deborah and Barak, by its first verse · Victory song (poetry) · Judges, the Former Prophets · [The book of Judges](/book/judges) Deborah and Barak sing this poem on the day of a victory, and the book keeps it beside the prose account of the same war. It was made to be sung again at the wells and gathering places, so that the tribes would remember who came to the battle and who stayed home. Its Hebrew is compressed and in places hard to translate, so some lines read differently in different versions. Listen for the praise of the LORD before any praise of people. Notice the roll call of the tribes and the sharp scene at its close. Read it beside chapter 4, which tells the same day in prose.
Context
- Who
- The tribes themselves, those who came to the fight and those who stayed at home
- What
- The victory song of Deborah and Barak, praising the LORD and naming the tribes who came to the battle and those who stayed away.
- Where
- The country of the northern tribes, from the LORD's march out of Seir to the waters of Megiddo at Taanach.
- When
- On the day of the victory or soon after it, about 1210 to 1170 BC on the traditional reckoning.
- Why
- To fix the victory in Israel's memory as the LORD's work, to be sung again at the watering places.
Historical context
The singers are named in the first verse: Deborah, whom 4:4 has already called a prophetess, composes and sings, and Barak sings with her, so the woman who gave the order makes the record of it. The time is the day of the victory or soon after it, and Matthew Henry reads the occasion as a thanksgiving held as soon as a day could conveniently be set for it.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The song describes the whole north, from the march out of Seir and the field of Edom in its opening lines to the watering places where it is to be rehearsed. The occasion is a victory song, a form used across the ancient world to fix a battle in memory before anyone could revise it. A first hearer knew the countryside it describes, where caravans took the back roads, village life stopped and the highways stood empty, which is the ordinary picture of a region under raiders.
He knew what the roll call meant, since in a tribal confederation with no king and no standing army, answering a summons was the whole system. A song that names Zebulun and Naphtali for risking their lives, and Reuben by the sheepfolds, Dan by the ships and Asher on the coast for staying away, is the public record of who came.
He knew the last scene from the inside, where Sisera's mother waits at a lattice while her ladies reassure her that the delay means plunder is being divided, a girl or two for every man and dyed cloth for the commander. And he knew where the song would be sung again, since verse 11 appoints the watering places, where women and herdsmen met every day.
Significance
The first hearers were the men in the ranks and the villages that had sent them. To hear your tribe named among the brave, or named among the absent, in a song everyone would sing for generations, was a real reckoning.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The song credits the victory to the LORD marching out from Seir with the earth shaking and the clouds pouring, rather than to Barak's tactics. The rain that mired the chariots was read as the hand of God, and Israel sang it that way from the first day.
The song is still heard in the synagogue on the Sabbath of Beshalach, where it follows the Song of the Sea as the second of two songs.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Of the twenty-one chapters of Judges this is the one most often heard in the synagogue, and both rites read it whole. It closes the reading from the Prophets that follows the Torah portion of the crossing of the sea, the portion called Beshalach. A congregation hears the Song of the Sea in the morning's Torah reading and this song after it. The Ashkenazi rite reaches the song through the prose of the chapter before. The Sephardi rite begins the reading at the song itself. That the pairing sets one victory song beside the other is the writer's reading of the file that carries the three Haftarah uses of this book. It is marked as the writer's reading until a source for the pairing is filed. The Sabbath on which this happens carries a name and a set of customs in Jewish practice. No file in this repository carries that name, and the lane found no source for it on disk. The name and the customs are left for the page owed at docs/lanes/FEATURE-PAGES-OWED.md rather than stated here from memory.
How it is read
Every one of the twenty-four notes the corpus keeps on this chapter carries text, and twenty-three of them are Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, under CC-BY. This is the fullest classical treatment in the first half of the book, which fits a chapter that is sung rather than told. Radak opens it by explaining the order of the two names in the first verse. Deborah is named before Barak "because Devorah is the central actor", and he sets the phrasing beside the way Miriam is named before Aaron in Numbers (Radak on Judges 5:1:1, the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0).
At the second verse Rashi reads the breaches as the invasions that came when Israel deserted God. The blessing is the answer to the people volunteering to repent (Rashi on Judges 5:2:1). He then reads the song as a commentary on the giving of the Torah. The doubled word of the third verse he explains from a midrashic tradition about two mountains. Tabor and Carmel had come to Sinai hoping the Torah would be given on them and had gone away humiliated, and God promised them a double reward. One would come at Tabor in the doubled word of this song, and one at Carmel in the doubled confession in the days of Elijah (Rashi on Judges 5:3:1). At the fourth verse he takes the going out from Seir as the giving of the Torah, and reports the reading of Targum Jonathan as Deborah's own argument. The Torah is severe when forsaken and rewarding when kept, so Israel was handed over for leaving it and was saved when they took it up again (Rashi on Judges 5:4:1). The mountains that quaked he glosses in one line, that they dissolved like streaming water (Rashi on Judges 5:5:1).
Two of his notes give the chapter's women more office than a reader may expect. At the sixth verse, where the song dates itself by Shamgar and by Jael, he says the naming "teaches that Yael, too, judged Yisroel in her days" (Rashi on Judges 5:6:1). At the twenty-fourth he explains the blessing on Jael among women of the tent by naming the four matriarchs of whom the same word is used, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah (Rashi on Judges 5:24:1). The rabbis are also willing to correct Deborah. At the twelfth verse Rashi reports their remark from tractate Pesachim. Because she praised herself the spirit of prophecy left her, and "Awaken, awaken" is her call for its return (Rashi on Judges 5:12:1).
At the ninth verse Deborah's heart goes out to the lawgivers of Israel, the sages who volunteered among the people (Rashi on Judges 5:9:1). The word he renders as battle formations he takes from Menachem, who read it of strategists and compared the locust that advances in formation (Rashi on Judges 5:11:1). At the thirteenth verse he reads the verb as dominion rather than descent, so that the survivors of Israel mastered the mighty among the nations (Rashi on Judges 5:13:1).
The song's picture of the years before the battle Rashi reads as a record of collapse. Open unwalled towns were given up as dwellings because of the enemy, and the people crowded into fortified cities (Rashi on Judges 5:7:1). At the eighth verse he sets the two halves against each other. When Israel chose new gods there was war in their own cities. When they volunteered they went out against forty thousand officers with no shield or spear in sight, and "the Omnipresent overwhelmed them all with celestial warfare" (Rashi on Judges 5:8:1). The riders on white donkeys he takes as merchants and gentry who can now travel unafraid. The judges of the same verse are magistrates who had been afraid to give judgment in public (Rashi on Judges 5:10:1). The charity the travellers are to recount is the return of open settlement.
The roll of the tribes he reads by their histories. Ephraim stands for the root of Joshua's victory over Amalek (Rashi on Judges 5:14:1). The princes of Issachar are members of the Sanhedrin "who were engrossed in Torah study, and who knew and understood the times" (Rashi on Judges 5:15:1). Rashi explains that knowledge both of political judgment and of the calendar. Reuben's listening at the sheepfolds is listening to the noise of the fighting to hear which cry was victory and which defeat (Rashi on Judges 5:16:1). Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan, and Dan "hoarded his money into sea vessels, poised to escape" (Rashi on Judges 5:17:1). Zebulun and Naphtali are the tribes who held their lives cheap and went down to die with Barak (Rashi on Judges 5:18:1).
The battle itself Rashi tells as a war fought from above. The kings encamped from Taanach to the waters of Megiddo, on the Targum's reading (Rashi on Judges 5:19:1). The stars that fought are God's own hosts, sent out and wanting no payment (Rashi on Judges 5:20:1). The Kishon swept the army away "like a broom which brushes ashes from an oven" (Rashi on Judges 5:21:1). The battered hooves he explains by the heat of the star, which brought the mud to the boil so that the hooves came away as in scalding water (Rashi on Judges 5:22:1). The curse on Meroz he leaves as a dispute (Rashi on Judges 5:23:1). One opinion holds that Meroz was a star that guarded Sisera. Another holds that it was a great man who lived near the field and failed to come.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-seven Midrash and three Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The singing of the song draws Aggadat Bereshit 60:1 and Bereshit Rabbah 40:4. The loosed hair and the willing people draw Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 16:18 and Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 16:20. The address to kings draws Kohelet Rabbah 1:12:1. The going out from Seir is taken up at Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7 and Bereshit Rabbah 13:12, and the quaking of Sinai at Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 4:5 and Otzar Midrashim, Pesikta, Pesikta Chadata 12.
The days of Shamgar and Jael draw one locator, Introductions to Amoraic Literature, Part II (Notes and Interpretations for Chapters of the Talmud), Baba Batra, Chapter III 49. The mother in Israel is taken up at Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 44 and Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 6:2. The new gods draw Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Peliah ('Wondrous Midrash') 1. The rulers of Israel draw Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 16 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 21:10:2. The white donkeys draw Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Eiruvin 5:10 and Ein Yaakov, Eiruvin 5:11. The righteous acts recounted at the watering places draw Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 8:8 and Pesachim 87b:18. The second of those is the tractate Rashi reads that verse with.
The call to awake draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Pesakhim 6:2 and Midrash Tehillim 36:1, and the remnant that went down against the mighty draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:1:1. The tribes carry six locators: Ephraim and Benjamin at Bamidbar Rabbah 1:12 and 18:5, Issachar at Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15 and 13:20, Reuben at Gittin 89b:2 and Zebulun and Naphtali at Ein Yaakov, Megillah 1:7. The kings at Taanach draw Bamidbar Rabbah 23:7, the stars in their courses Aggadat Bereshit 1:1, the Kishon Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 10:28, and the hooves Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:22. The curse of Meroz draws Ein Yaakov, Moed Katan 3:3.
Jael's own part closes the count. The blessing on her draws Bereshit Rabbah 48:15, and the bowl of curds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 11:3:3. The hand to the tent peg draws Bamidbar Rabbah 10:2, and Sisera falling at her feet Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 12:4. The mother of Sisera at the window draws Bamidbar Rabbah 15:21 and her wise ladies Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 734:1. The closing prayer for those who love the LORD draws Aggadat Bereshit 8:3. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 5:2:1 to 5:24:1, twenty-three notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 5:1:1, the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/judges/5.json, the 40 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 37 Midrash and 3 Talmud; The reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Beshalach entry at lines 116 and 117, read by haftarahUsesForChapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The song of Deborah: the mountains quaked
Judges 5:1-3
Chapter 4 tells the battle in prose and chapter 5 sings it, the shape Exodus 14 and 15 used for the Red Sea. Judges 4:4 had called Deborah a prophetess, so the woman who gave the order composes its record, with Barak singing beside her. Verse 3 turns outward, "Listen, O kings", which puts the song with the psalms that summon the nations to listen.
Judges 5:1
“Then sang Deborah and Barak . . . on that day--This noble triumphal ode was evidently the composition of Deborah herself. The meaning is obscurely seen in our version; it has been better rendered thus, "Praise ye Jehovah; for the free are freed in Israel--the people have willingly offered themselves" [ROBINSON].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Judges 5:1
“Deborah, as “a prophetess,” both composed and sang this noble ode, which, for poetic spirit and lyric fire, is not surpassed by any of the sacred songs in the Bible. And, as Miriam took up the first verse of the song of Moses Exo 15:21, and sang it as an antiphony, so Barak, with the chorus of men, answered the song of Deborah by singing Jdg 5:2, which is also exactly suited for an antiphon, summing up as it does the subject matter of the whole ode. Compare David’s example 2Sa 6:15.”
Albert Barnes renders the line as thanks for the leading of the leaders in Israel and for the willingness of the people to follow them. Leaders and people are praised together. Barnes points out that verses 9 and 13 set the nobles and the people side by side again.
Judges 5:2
“Render “For the leading of the leaders in Israel (the princes), for the willingness of the people (to follow them) bless ye the Lord.” See Deu 32:42 note, and compare Jdg 5:9 and Jdg 5:13, where the nobles and the people are again contrasted.”
I will sing praise to the Lord: The kings and princes told to listen here are the same rank of men who fight at verse 19, where the kings of Canaan come to Taanach. The singer says I will sing twice and names the LORD, the God of Israel, as the one praised. Foreign rulers are made to hear it.
Judges 5:4-5
God comes up from the south, "from Seir" and "from the land of Edom", the march of Deuteronomy 33:2, Psalm 68:7-8 and Habakkuk 3:3. Naming "the One of Sinai", the song reaches back past Joshua to the mountain and treats this battle as the same God on the same road. The rain of verse 4 ends at the flooded river of verse 21.
Judges 5:4
“When thou wentest out of Seir - Here is an allusion to the giving of the law, and the manifestation of God’s power and glory at that time; and as this was the most signal display of his majesty and mercy in behalf of their forefathers, Deborah very properly begins her song with a commemoration of this transaction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Wesley notes that Scripture, when it recalls former acts of God, often puts several of them together in a narrow compass. Here the quaking at Sinai is set beside the march from Seir in verse 4. The LORD is named twice, each time with a title.
Judges 5:5
“Sinai - She slides into the mention of a more ancient appearance of God for his people in Sinai; it being usual in scripture repetitions of former actions, to put divers together in a narrow compass.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 5:6-8
In the days of Shamgar: Shamgar is the man of Judges 3:31 who killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goad, and Jael is named before her deed. A trader would notice these conditions first: "the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways". Verse 8 sets cause beside effect, new gods and then war "to their gates", with no shield or spear among forty thousand, as at 1 Samuel 13:19-22.
Judges 5:6
“Whereas in times when there was some order and government the travellers might be safe in the open roads, and the robbers were forced to lurk in the by-ways, no, on the contrary, the robbers insulted on the open roads without check, and the honest travellers were obliged to sculk and walk through by-ways, in continual frights.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes renders the word for villages as rulers, so the line says no one was left to do justice in the gate. John Wesley keeps the villages and explains a mother in Israel as one who would instruct, rule and protect the people. Deborah names herself by that office.
Judges 5:7
“Render the word “villages” (here and in Jdg 5:11) judgment, rule, or judges, rulers. The sense is “The princes (or magistrates) ceased in Israel,” i. e. there was no one to do justice in the gate, or defend men from their oppressors.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:7
“Ceased - The people forsook all their unfortified towns, not being able to protect them from military insolence. A mother - That is, to be to them as a mother, to instruct, and rule, and protect them, which duties a mother owes to her children.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley reads the missing shield and spear two ways. Many thousands may have been disarmed by the Canaanites and Philistines, or the people may have neglected their arms because they had given up hope of freedom. On either reading, the men were there and the weapons were few.
Judges 5:8
“Was there a shield - There was not, the meaning is not, that all the Israelites had no arms, but, either they had but few arms among them, being many thousands of them disarmed by the Canaanites and Philistines, or that they generally neglected the use of arms, as being without all hope of recovering their liberty.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 5:9-11
The volunteers of verse 2 return at verse 9, and the song praises their willingness above the size of the victory. Verse 10 tells two classes to speak, those "who ride white donkeys" and those "who travel the road". Verse 11 appoints the place for the telling, "the watering places", so the song is built to be rehearsed at the well until the villages know it by heart.
Judges 5:9
“The Lord - Who inclined their hearts to this undertaking, and gave them success in it. As she gives instruments their due, so she is careful the sovereign cause lose not his glory.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that pure white donkeys were costly and kept only by the wealthy. Adam Clarke records that some read the next phrase as those who dwell in Middin, a town of Judah named at Joshua 15:61. The Berean text reads saddle blankets here.
Judges 5:10
“Ye that ride on white asses - Perhaps אתנות צחרות athonoth tsechoroth should be rendered sleek or well-fed asses; rendered asinos nitentes, shining asses, by the Vulgate. Ye that sit in judgment - ישבי על מדין yoshebey al middin; some have rendered this, ye who dwell in Middin. This was a place in the tribe of Judah, and is mentioned Jos 15:61. And walk by the way - Persons who go from place to place for the purposes of traffic.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:10
Speak--that is, join in this song of praise. white asses--Those which are purely white are highly prized, and being costly, are possessed only by the wealthy and great. Ye that sit in judgment--has been rendered, "ye that repose on tapestries."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe that wells stood some distance from the towns, which made them dangerous in unsettled times and pleasant in peace. Singing at the watering places marks the change from the deserted highways of verse 6. The unsafe ground has become a place of praise.
Judges 5:11
“The wells which are at a little distance from towns in the East, are, in unsettled times, places of danger. But in peace they are scenes of pleasant and joyous resort.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Who came to the fight, and who stayed by the sheepfolds
Judges 5:12-13
The song calls on itself to wake with four imperatives, then calls Barak by his father's name. Its "take hold of your captives" shares a Hebrew phrase with Psalm 68:18, "You have led captives away", which Paul quotes of Christ at Ephesians 4:8. Verse 13 sets "the survivors" against "the mighty", so the poem states plainly that the smaller party won.
Judges 5:12
“Awake - Stir up thyself and all that is within thee, to admire and praise the Lord. This work needs and well deserves the utmost liveliness and vigour of soul. Lead captivity captive - How could this be done, when there was none of them left? chap. iv, 16.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Albert Barnes gives another rendering, that a remnant of the nobles came down, and the people of the LORD came down for the singer against the mighty. On his reading the following verses name who this remnant were. The roll call of the tribes begins at verse 14.
Judges 5:13
“This verse is otherwise rendered: “then a remnant of the nobles came down; the people of the Lord came down for me against the mighty.” The following verses mention in detail who this “remnant” were.”
Judges 5:14-15
The tribes go by old family names, Machir standing for Manasseh as at Genesis 50:23. Ephraim is tied to Amalek, whose people held hill country there by Judges 12:15, and Zebulun sends "the bearers of the marshal’s staff", read as muster officers or as bearers of a staff. Issachar goes "rushing into the valley", the ground where the nine hundred iron chariots of 4:13 had the advantage.
Judges 5:14
“Out of Ephraim - a root of them - Deborah probably means that out of Ephraim and Benjamin came eminent warriors. Joshua, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, routed the Amalekites a short time after the Israelites came out of Egypt, Exo 17:10. Ehud, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, slew Eglon, and defeated the Moabites, the friends and allies of the Ammonites and Amalekites. Machir, in the land of Gilead, produced eminent warriors; and Zebulun produced eminent statesmen, and men of literature.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:14
“Writer - That is, even the Scribes, who gave themselves to study and writing, whereby they were exempted from military service, did voluntarily enter into this service. With Deborah - Ready to assist her. Issachar - Hebrew. and Issachar, that is, the tribe or people of Issachar, following the counsel and example of their princes.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the princes of Issachar were with Deborah: Issachar is named twice in one verse, its princes with Deborah and its men with Barak. The tribe stood with both leaders, the woman who arose as a mother in Israel and the man who went down into the valley. Reuben is the first tribe blamed.
Judges 5:16-17
Four groups stayed away, each named with what held it: Reuben "among the sheepfolds", Gilead "beyond the Jordan", Dan "by the ships" and Asher "at the coast". Reuben draws the sharpest line, since verses 15 and 16 both close on "great indecision", long deliberation that produced no men. Judah, Simeon and Levi appear nowhere in the roll, and the song gives no reason for their absence.
Judges 5:16
“Great searchings - (thoughts, Jdg 5:15) of heart Deborah means to say that at first the Reubenites made magnanimous resolutions to help their brethren against Jabin. But they stayed at home, and let the opportunity slip.”
Albert Barnes explains that Gilead, east of the Jordan, was held by Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, so both are rebuked under one name. Dan held Joppa, later the seaport for Jerusalem, which accounts for its ships. Asher's harbors are the creeks and bays of its broken coast.
Judges 5:17
“The land of Gilead, on the east of Jordan, was divided between Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, who are both comprehended here. Joppa was in the territory of Dan Jos 19:46, and was in later times the sea-port for Jerusalem. His breaches - Rather havens; i. e. the creeks and bays and river-months by which their coast was broken. Jos 19:29.”
Judges 5:18-19
Zebulun and Naphtali, the two tribes Barak was ordered to call at 4:6 and called at 4:10, are the two the song says risked their lives. The kings of Canaan fought "at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo", yet "they took no plunder of silver" from a battle they expected to win. Many writers connect this plain with Revelation 16:16, and that identification is theirs.
Judges 5:18
“Zebulun and Naphtali - jeoparded their lives - The original is very emphatic, חרף נפשו למות chereph naphsho lamuth, they desolated their lives to death - they were determined to conquer or die, and therefore plunged into the thickest of the battle. The word jeoparded is a silly French term, and comes from the exclamation of a disappointed gamester: Jeu perdu! The game is lost; or J’ai perdue! I have lost.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry reads the clause as a mark of the kings' zeal: they came as volunteers against Israel and served Jabin without hire. Albert Barnes sets the clause beside verse 30, where Sisera's mother imagines the spoil being divided. The plunder she counts never came.
Judges 5:19
“The Canaanite hosts are now described, led to battle by their numerous kings. (Compare Jos 12:21.) They took no gain of money - i. e. either they got no booty, as they expected, or, they did not fight for plunder, but for life and victory (compare Jdg 4:16 and Jdg 5:30).”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:19
“It is said of these kings that they took no gain of money, they were not mercenary troops hired into the service of Jabin (such often fail in an extremity), but they were volunteers and hearty in the cause against Israel: they desired not the riches of silver, so the Chaldee, but only the satisfaction of helping to ruin Israel.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Judges 5:20-21
Chapter 4 says only that the Lord routed Sisera, and the song adds that "the stars fought" and "The River Kishon swept them away". Serious readers hold three old readings: a storm like the hailstones of Joshua 10:11, the host of heaven of 2 Kings 6:17, or the powers ranged behind the battle. A flooded river explains the end of nine hundred chariots on flat ground.
Judges 5:20
“They fought from heaven - The angels of God came to the assistance of Israel: and the stars in their orbits fought against Sisera; probably some thunder storm, or great inundation from the river Kishon, took place at that time, which in poetic language was attributed to the stars.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:20
“The Chaldee reads it, from heaven, from the place where the stars go forth, war was waged against Sisera, that is, the power of the God of heaven was engaged against him, making use of the ministration of the angels of heaven.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes notes that the word rendered ancient occurs only here, and he takes it to mean a river famous from old times for battles on its banks. Matthew Henry adds that the Kishon was usually shallow and its fords were known to the Canaanites. The singer then speaks to her own soul.
Judges 5:21
“The word translated ancient occurs only here. The phrase probably means that Kishon was celebrated from ancient times on account of the battles fought on its banks.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:21
“Ordinarily, it was but a shallow river, and, being in their own country, we may suppose they well knew its fords and safest passages, and yet now, probably by the great rain that fell, it was so swollen, and the stream so deep and strong, that those who attempted to pass it were drowned, being feeble and faint, and unable to make their way through it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Judges 5:22-23
The "mad galloping of his stallions" is a chariot line seen from the ground once it is mired and the teams panic. The curse on Meroz comes from "the angel of the LORD", who brought the charge at 2:1, and falls on a town of Israel for staying home. Meroz occurs nowhere else in Scripture and its site has never been fixed.
Judges 5:22
“Then were the horsehoofs broken - In very ancient times horses were not shod; nor are they to the present day in several parts of the East. Sisera had iron chariots when his hosts were routed; the horses that drew these, being strongly urged on by those who drove them, had their hoofs broken by the roughness of the roads; in consequence of which they became lame, and could not carry off their riders. This is marked as one cause of their disaster.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:22
“Then were the horse hoofs broken by the means of the prancings--Anciently, as in many parts of the East still, horses were not shod. The breaking of the hoofs denotes the hot haste and heavy irregular tramp of the routed foe.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Albert Barnes places Meroz as a village twelve miles from Samaria. Matthew Henry thinks it was a considerable place, since much was expected of it, and he compares its fading from the record to the fig tree Christ cursed. The offence is named twice: they did not come to help the LORD.
Judges 5:23
“The inhabitants of Meroz (a village 12 miles from Samaria) hung back, and gave no help in the day of battle, although it was Yahweh who called them. Hence, the curse pronounced by the Angel of the Lord.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:23
“This city of Meroz seems to have been at this time a considerable place, since something great was expected from it; but probably, after the angel of the Lord had pronounced this curse upon it, it dwindled, and, like the fig-tree which Christ cursed, withered away, so that we never read of it after this in scripture.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Blessed above women, and a mother at the lattice
Judges 5:24-25
The blessing on Jael runs close to the words spoken of Mary at Luke 1:42, and Matthew Henry is among those who set the two side by side. She is a Kenite, of the family of Moses' father-in-law by 4:11, so the highest blessing falls on a foreign woman in a tent. The song keeps the exchange of 4:19, "she gave him milk", and adds "a magnificent bowl".
Judges 5:24
“Blessed above women shall Jael - be - She shall be highly celebrated as a most heroic woman; all the Israelitish women shall glory in her. I do not understand these words as expressive of the Divine approbation towards Jael. See the observations at the end of Jdg 4:24 (note). The word bless, both in Hebrew and Greek, often signifies to praise, to speak well of, to celebrate. This is most probably its sense here.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes reads the curds as curdled milk, probably fermented and intoxicating. Matthew Henry takes the magnificent bowl as the finest dish in her house, better than she used at her own table. Barnes adds that such honour would lull Sisera into feeling safe.
Judges 5:25
“No (say others), it was milk that had the butter still in it; we call it cream. Whichsoever it was, it was probably the best her house afforded; and, to set it off, she brought it in a lordly dish, such as she called so, the finest she had, and better than she ordinarily used at her own table.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:25
“Butter - Rather curdled milk, probably a fermented and intoxicating drink. All these marks of respect and friendship would lull Sisera into security.”
Judges 5:26-27
The song says she "crushed his skull" and "pierced his temple", where 4:21 has her drive the peg into the ground as he slept, the poem heightening what the prose gives as mechanics. Verse 27 slows to one body falling, "At her feet he collapsed, he fell", the verbs said three times. Named writers read the crushed head back to Genesis 3:15 on their own authority.
Judges 5:26
“We read it she smote off his head, probably with his own sword, which, now that his head was nailed through, she durst take from his side, but not before, for fear of waking him. But because there was no occasion for cutting off his head, nor was it mentioned in the history, many think it should be read, she struck through his head.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Adam Clarke renders the Hebrew as between her feet and thinks Sisera struggled after the first blow and could not regain his footing. He compares the scene in Aeschylus where Agamemnon rises, staggers and falls under the blows of Clytemnestra. The verse ends on the word dead.
Judges 5:27
“At her feet he bowed - בין רגליה bein ragleyha, “between her feet.” After having stunned him she probably sat down, for the greater convenience of driving the nail through his temples. He bowed - he fell - He probably made some struggles after he received the blow on the head, but could not recover his feet. Aeschylus represents Agamemnon rising, staggering, and finally falling, under the blows of Clytemnestra. - Agam. v. 1384.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 5:28-30
The song ends the enemy's side indoors, with a woman at the lattice answering her own question. Her ladies reply with the arithmetic of plunder, "a girl or two for each warrior", and the Hebrew word behind girl is a coarse one for the women taken. Deborah called herself "a mother in Israel" at verse 7, and the poem closes on a second mother, awaiting a dead son.
Judges 5:28
“Cried through the lattice - This is very natural: in the women’s apartments in the East the windows are latticed, to prevent them from sending or receiving letters, etc. The latticing is the effect of the jealousy which universally prevails in those countries. Why is his chariot so long in coming? - Literally, Why is his chariot ashamed to come?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 5:28
“In these verses a sudden transition is made to the mother of the Canaanite general, and a striking picture is drawn of a mind agitated between hope and fear--impatient of delay, yet anticipating the news of victory and the rewards of rich booty. the lattice--a lattice window, common to the houses in warm countries for the circulation of air.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
John Gill reads the answer of the wise ladies as comfort, each taking her turn to ease the mother's fear. The verse sets their answer beside her own, since she keeps telling herself the same thing. The wisest counsel in Sisera's house is a guess about plunder.
Judges 5:29
“Her wise ladies answered her,.... Every one in their turn endeavouring to comfort her and make her easy.”
The closing phrase is difficult. Albert Barnes renders it the necks of the booty, meaning captive women or captured cattle wearing the dyed cloth as ornament or as burden. He compares 8:21 and 8:26 and also allows that the necks may mean backs laden with spoil.
Judges 5:30
“Render the latter part of the verse “a booty of dyed garments for Sisera, a booty of dyed garments and of party-colored cloth, a dyed garment and two party-colored clothes for the necks of the booty,” the spoil or booty being either captive damsels, or captive cattle on whose necks these clothes are to be placed (either as ornament or as a burden; compare Jdg 8:21, Jdg 8:26). But possibly “the necks of the booty” may mean the backs or shoulders (of men or beasts) laden with booty.”
The closing prayer asks that "those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest", which Matthew 13:43 takes up of the righteous shining in their Father's kingdom. Then "the land had rest for forty years", the formula's third use in the book, after 3:11 and 3:30.
Judges 5:31
“A most striking conclusion, in which the spiritual truth, which the whole narrative is intended to convey, comes out. The enemies of the Lord will perish like the host of Sisera, and all their hopes will end, like those of Sisera’s mother, in bitter disappointment and shame; but all that love our Lord Jesus Christ shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Compare Mat 13:43; Dan 12:3.”
How this psalm is built
The form: A victory ode, composed and sung by the prophetess who gave the order, addressed to kings and princes rather than to Israel alone, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The song calling on itself to wake | Verse 12 carries four imperatives in one line, awake, awake, awake, awake, and then turns and calls Barak by his father's name. John Wesley reads the call as the singer stirring up all that is within her, since the work deserves the utmost liveliness of soul. The phrase lead your captives away is the phrase Psalm 68:18 uses of God ascending on high, which Paul quotes of Christ at Ephesians 4:8.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Judges 5:12. | Judges 5:12 |
| The roll of the tribes, those who came and those who stayed | Verses 14 to 18 name the tribes by old family names rather than by the standard list, so Machir stands for Manasseh as at Genesis 50:23 and Numbers 32:39. Four groups are named with the thing that held them back: Reuben with the sheepfolds, Gilead beyond the Jordan, Dan with ships and Asher on the sea shore. Zebulun and Naphtali are the two the song says staked their lives, and they are the two Barak was ordered to call at 4:6. Judah, Simeon and Levi appear nowhere in the roll, praised or blamed.The site's published exposition note on Judges 5:16 to 17, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 5, catchword "Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710. | Judges 5:14, Judges 5:15, Judges 5:16, Judges 5:17, Judges 5:18 |
| The line repeated to mark the longest hesitation | The divisions of Reuben draw the sharpest line in the poem, and the song says it twice: great resolves of heart at the close of verse 15 and great searchings of heart at the close of verse 16. The repetition describes long deliberation that produced no men. Verse 27 works the same way at the other end of the poem, where the body of Sisera goes down in three verbs said three times over.The site's published exposition note on Judges 5:16 to 17, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 5, catchword "Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710. | Judges 5:15, Judges 5:16, Judges 5:27 |
| The song turned outward to the kings | Verse 3 addresses kings and princes rather than Israel, which puts the song in the class of the psalms that summon the nations to listen. John Gill reads the address as reaching all the potentates of the earth in that age and in later ones. John Wesley reads it as a caution to the neighbouring princes who might have designs on Israel.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 5:3. | Judges 5:3 |
| The two mothers | Deborah calls herself a mother in Israel at verse 7, which John Wesley reads as the duty of instructing, ruling and protecting. At verse 28 the poem ends the enemy's side indoors with a second mother at a lattice, counting the minutes and answering her own question while her son lies in Jael's tent. The same word frames the song's high point and its last scene.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Judges 5:7. | Judges 5:7, Judges 5:28 |
The structure of the song in the book's argument
18 more paragraphs on the patterns
The song is the high point of the book and the last of its good news. The formula that the land had rest closes it at verse 31 for the third and last time, after 3:11 and 3:30. Everything after Deborah records deliverance without rest, and the loss shows in the vocabulary before it shows in the story.
The song also praises a different thing from the victory. The willing offering of the people at verse 2 returns at verse 9, and that willingness is what the poem blesses. Matthew Henry reads the governors of verse 9 as those who stepped down from their own ease to lead, and holds that such men are worthy of double honour.
Verse 13 says the remnant was given dominion over the nobles, so the force that won was the smaller party and the poem states it rather than hiding it.
The curse of Meroz at verse 23 is spoken by the angel of the LORD, the same speaker who brought the charge at 2:1, and it falls on a town of Israel for staying home rather than on Canaan for fighting.
Albert Barnes places Meroz twelve miles from Samaria. The site's published exposition note records that Meroz occurs nowhere else in Scripture and that its site has never been fixed, so the one place the song curses by name is the one place in it a reader cannot find on a map. John Wesley reads Deborah's own comment at that verse as a statement that the curse came by divine inspiration rather than from her own ill will.
What the song adds to the prose
Chapter 4 says only that the LORD routed Sisera at 4:15, and it never mentions a river. The song supplies what the prose left out, that they fought from heaven at verse 20 and that the Kishon swept the army away at verse 21. Taken together the two chapters account for what became of nine hundred chariots of iron in flat country that suited them, since a river in flood takes wheels out of the reckoning.
Matthew Henry reads the Kishon as ordinarily a shallow river in the enemy's own country, whose fords they would have known, swollen by the rain so that the stream was too deep to pass. Albert Barnes notes that the word rendered ancient at verse 21 occurs only here, and reads it as meaning that the Kishon was celebrated from ancient times for the battles fought on its banks.
Verse 22 gives the sound of the rout, hooves hammering, which is what a chariot line looks like from the ground once it is mired and the teams begin to panic.
The historical value
The song names the battlefield as Taanach by the waters of Megiddo at verse 19, and both towns stand in the list of places Manasseh failed to clear at 1:27, so the poem fights over the exact ground the first chapter said was left in Canaanite hands.
The site's published dossier records the excavated destruction of Hazor, the seat of the king named in chapter 4, by Yigael Yadin from 1955 to 1958 and by Amnon Ben-Tor from 1990, with a Late Bronze destruction layer of about 1230 BC. The dossier states that who burned it is argued and names the proposals.
The kings of Canaan took no plunder at verse 19, which is the poem's way of recording that they expected to win and carried nothing home. The dossier's account of the Amarna Letters gives the same picture of city-kings raising chariot forces in coalition.
The New Testament's use
Verse 12 uses the phrase that Psalm 68:18 applies to God ascending on high, and Paul quotes that psalm of Christ at Ephesians 4:8, so the line has a long history in Christian reading through the psalm rather than through Judges directly.
Verse 31 asks that those who love the LORD be like the sun rising in its strength, and Matthew 13:43 takes up that figure of the righteous shining in the kingdom of their Father.
The blessing on Jael at verse 24 runs close to the words spoken to Mary at Luke 1:42, and Matthew Henry is among the writers who set the two lines side by side. The crushed head under a woman's hand at verse 26 is read back to Genesis 3:15 by named writers. The New Testament makes no such link, so that reading stands on those writers and on no text.
The plain of Megiddo at verse 19 is ground a long line of writers connect with the name at Revelation 16:16. That identification belongs to them rather than to this verse.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Judges 5:1; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Judges 5:1; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Judges 5:31 and The site's published exposition note on Judges 5:1 to 3, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 5, catchword "Then sang Deborah and Barak", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.