Verse 7
7. Ceased the government During the long period of subjection and disorder just described, there ceased to be any government in Israel worthy of the name. Dominion was in the hands of foreign rulers, and the Hebrew people were shut up in their towns and villages, not daring to go forth; the laws were not observed, and even the work of Shamgar seems to have been only a throwing off of the yoke by one grand feat of strength; and not a government of the people.
They ceased That is, the ruling powers, the civil rulers, which the word government necessarily implies.
Etymologically, there is much reason to cling to the common version, villages, for פרזון , which we have rendered government; but the same word occurs again in Judges 5:11, and in such a connexion as to make no tolerable sense if rendered villages. We therefore give the above explanation, which has the support of the Septuagint, Vulgate, Gesenius, Furst, and many of the best scholars. I,
Deborah These words, in the absence of any thing sufficient to make it improbable, clearly fix the authorship of this song in the prophetess herself.
A mother in Israel As a distinguished chieftain, providentially raised up to lead a nation through a revolution, or to throw off a foreign yoke, is called a father of his country, so Deborah arose, a mother in Israel.
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