Judges 5:19

"The kings came and fought;

Then fought the kings of Canaan,

In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo:

They took no gain of money.

From heaven fought the stars,

From their courses they fought against Sisera.

The river Kishon swept them away,

The ancient river, the river Kishon.

O my soul, march on with strength."

"The kings came and fought" (Judges 5:19). A number of very careless commentators write very freely about who "the king" of Canaan was. Note the plural "kings" here. We have no idea how many "kings" of Canaan there were, but the story of Adonibezek, as we noted earlier, mentions no less than "seventy kings" which he had conquered, and it is a fair guess that there were dozens of such petty "kings"' involved in this war with Israel. For purposes of defense, they had all joined forces under Jabin, and Jabin had named Sisera, in all probability another one of the petty "kings" of Canaan, as the commander-in-chief of the united armies.

"They fought in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo" (Judges 5:19). Megiddo was a tributary to Kishon a few miles west of Mount Tabor, and this mention of the battle by "Megiddo" does NOT contradict the truth that the battle started at Mount Tabor. How then did it get to Megiddo? When the violent hail and rain storm thundered down upon them from the east, 900 horses, dragging their chariots with their astounded drivers after them, performed one of the greatest stampedes of human history.

The Israelites pursued them, and the battle reached as far as the mouth of the tributary Megiddo. Therefore, allegations that there is some kind of a contradiction here as to where the battle took place are ridiculous. Given the big stampede and the hot pursuit of Barak and his men, the battle was fought in a dozen different places. See Josephus' account of what happened, above.

"Megiddo" gave its name to the conflict mentioned in Revelation, Armagedon ([~Har] [~Magedon]) (Revelation 16:16).

"From heaven fought the stars" (Judges 5:20). "The powers of heaven were arrayed against Sisera, and the victory was not won by Israel alone."[32]

"The river Kishon swept them away" (Judges 5:21). Anyone familiar with what horses will do in the face of a hailstorm could have no trouble envisioning what happened. The direction from which the hail came determined the direction in which the stampeding horses moved, and that propelled many into the turbulent waters of the flooding Kishon, or into the mire of the flood plain.

Josephus' statement that many were killed "by the chariots" suggests that there might have been swords or scythes attached to the wheels of the chariots, although T. C. Mitchell of the British Museum was of the opinion that, "This practice was probably not introduced until Persian times."[33]