Judges 5:1-12

Judges 5. The Song of Deliverance.— The Song of Deborah— so called because of the words “ I, Deborah, arose” ( Judges 5:7)— is a splendid battle-ode, evidently contemporaneous with the events which it celebrates. It breathes the patriotic fervour and religious enthusiasm which inspired the loftiest minds in Israel, and proves that a great faith was already working wonders in the tribes which till lately had been desert nomads. “ It is a work of genius, and therefore a work of that highest art which is not studied and artificial, but spontaneous and inevitable” (Moore, 135). R. H. Hutton calls it “ the greatest war-song of any age or nation.” Unfortunately the text has suffered a good deal, and in some passages we can do no more than guess the sense.

Judges 5:1 f. Yahweh is praised for two reasons: because the leaders of the people were leaders, taking their proper place at the post of honour and danger; and because the battle was fought not by conscripts but by volunteers ( cf. Psalms 11:03).

Judges 5:3. Read “ I, to Yahweh I will sing,” where it is possible, though not necessary, that “ I,” as in many of the Psalms, means collective Israel. “ I will sing praise” means, I will make melody with voice and instruments.

Judges 5:4 f. Yahweh’ s special place of abode was still Seir, in the field of Edom, from which He is conceived as coming forth in a thunderstorm. As He passes, the earth trembles and the heavens are in commotion (so the LXX). The second half of Judges 5:5 disturbs the flow of ideas, and is probably a marginal gloss which has found its way into the text

Judges 5:6 . If Shamgar was one of the Judges ( Judges 3:31), it is very strange that he should be named here as if he had recently been a leading oppressor of Israel, perhaps the immediate forerunner of Sisera. Moore treats the words “ in the days of Jael” as a gloss. The Heb. of Judges 5:7 b is ambiguous, meaning either “ till I, Deborah, arose,” or “ till thou, Deborah, didst arise.” The LXX has “ till Deborah arose.”

Judges 5:8 a yields no certain sense

Judges 5:8 b means that the Israelites had to fight with such poor weapons as they could find.

Judges 5:10 f. Very obscure.