Judges 5:4

4. Thy going out from Seir What going out from Seir is here meant? There is an allusion to the desert-journey of Israel, and the theophanies connected with it, especially the theophany at Sinai; and the same occurs in substance again in Psalms 68:7-8, and Habakkuk 3:3-4. That sublime theophany was the grand independence day of Israel, always fresh, and to be celebrated in the greatest of national hymns; but to explain this verse and the following as a reference exclusively to that ancient time, and as having no other application, is to meet insuperable difficulty in bringing the passage into any sort of harmony with the context. We, therefore, reject such an explanation of these words. The trembling earth, the dropping heavens, the quaking mountains, together with the statements of Judges 5:20-21 that the heavens fought, and the Kishon swept the hosts of Sisera away, all point to a terrible thunder storm which God sent on that occasion to discomfit the enemies of his people. See note on Judges 4:15. The inspired poetess saw in that tempest a sublime theophany, which reminded her of the ancient scenes at Sinai, and she very naturally passes from her address to the heathen kings (Judges 5:3) to speak of this miraculous interposition of Jehovah. She clothes her description in imagery drawn from the theophany at Sinai. Compare the use of similar imagery in Psalms 18:7-15. The going out from Seir, and through the fields of Edom, is, therefore, to be explained as the approach, from that southern quarter of the heavens, of the tremendous tempest in which Jehovah moved forth from his seat on Sinai, and marched to the rescue of his people. See note on next verse. This view, which is that of Robinson and some of the best scholars, seems to us much more tenable than that of most expositors, which makes Judges 5:4-5 the description of a scene which had no connexion at all with the subject matter of this song.

Heavens did drop Poured down floods of water, that speedily swelled the Kishon and other streams so as to sweep multitudes of the warring host away. Compare Judges 5:21.