PROPHETESS AND JUDGE · THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL

Deborah. Judged Israel under her palm tree; with Barak she broke Jabin of Hazor.

LED ISRAELi

Not given The years of her judging are not given; after the victory "the land had rest forty years"

TRIBE

Not stated (she lived in mount Ephraim)

IN THE LINE

5th of 15

SCRIPTURE SAYS

“She dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim: and the children of…”

PROPHETS

Deborah herself

THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL: 15 RULERS MOSES → SAMUEL

THE CYCLE

Forgetting, oppression, a cry, a deliverer, rest

  • 1 · FORGOT GOD "The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead." Judges 4:1
  • 2 · OPPRESSED: JABIN, KING OF CANAAN, WHO REIGNED IN HAZOR, 20 YEARS Jabin's captain Sisera had nine hundred chariots of iron, and "twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel". Judges 4:2–3
  • 3 · CRIED OUT "The children of Israel cried unto the LORD." Judges 4:3
  • 4 · DELIVERED The LORD routed Sisera before Barak at the Kishon; Jael killed Sisera; Israel prevailed until Jabin was destroyed. Judges 4:14–24
  • 5 · REST The land had rest 40 years. Judges 5:31

SUCCESSION

Before and after

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS

What Scripture says of her

  • "She dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment." Judges 4:5
  • She called Barak and gave him the LORD's command to go to mount Tabor; when he would not go without her, she went, saying the LORD would "sell Sisera into the hand of a woman". Judges 4:6–9
  • "Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand." Judges 4:14
  • In the song: "until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel". Judges 5:7

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE LAND

The places Scripture names

The tribes of Israel · tribe of Not stated (she lived in mount Ephraim). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • "They chose new gods; then was war in the gates." Judges 5:8

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • De Deborah herself “Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?”

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

THE CANAANITE KINGS

Jabin, king of Canaan in Hazor · Sisera, his captain

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

SCRIPTURE'S OWN NUMBERS

No years given

Twenty years of oppression, then forty of rest (Judges 4:3, 5:31). No year BC is given.

The song is a poetic retelling of the same events

Keil (1865)

Keil reads the song's words as heaping up verbs "for the purpose of depicting the boldness and greatness of the deed", not as a second version of how Sisera died.[2]

Two different versions, the song the older

Moore (1895)

Moore lists three differences: Sisera as a king or as Jabin's general, the whole people or two tribes in the battle, and the manner of Sisera's death; he holds the song to be older than the prose.[23]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 4

Judges 4 Judges 5 1 Samuel 12 Hebrews 11

PASSAGES · 3

Judges 4:1–5:31 1 Samuel 12:9–11 Hebrews 11:32

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture does not name Deborah's tribe, give the years she judged, or record her death.
  • Hebrews 11:32 names Barak, not Deborah; 1 Samuel 12:11 names "Bedan" (see the open question).
  • Barak is never said to judge; he commands the army under her word (Judges 4:6-10). He has no page of his own here.
  • "Harosheth of the Gentiles", Sisera's city, is not yet in the site's atlas.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • "Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time." Judges 4:4

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 276–286 (chronology of the judges).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 322–323 (Judges 5:25–27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 357–358 (Judges 8:27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 373 (Judges 10:3–5).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 387–394 (Judges 11:34–40).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 398 (Judges 12:8–10).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), pp. 156–157 (Joshua 15:13–19).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth (1872 printing of the 1865 translation) (1872), p. 208 (Joshua 19:50).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), pp. 17–18 (1 Samuel 1:1).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), p. 39 (1 Samuel 2:27–36).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), p. 56 (1 Samuel 4:18).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (1872 printing of the 1866 translation) (1872), pp. 117–118 (1 Samuel 12:11).
  • C. F. Keil, tr. Andrew Harper, Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Chronicles (1872), pp. 123–124 (1 Chronicles 6:28, Hebrew 6:13).
  • C. F. Keil, tr. Andrew Harper, Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Chronicles (1872), p. 165 (1 Chronicles 9:22).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 2 (1872 printing) (1872), p. 87 (Exodus 18:24–27).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 71–72 and note (Numbers 11:24–30).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 113–115 (Numbers 11:25–29).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), p. 499 (Deuteronomy 33:4–5).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. xxxvii–xlii (Introduction §7, Chronology).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. xxviii–xxix (Introduction, the Minor Judges).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 27 and notes (Judges 1:13).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 66–67 (Judges 2:9).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 107–108 (Judges 4, the two accounts).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 113–114 (Judges 4:5).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 231–232 (Judges 8:27).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 274–275 (Judges 10:4).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 302–305 and note (Judges 11:39).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 310 (Judges 12:8).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. 311 (Judges 12:13–15, on 1 Samuel 12:11).
  • Edward Mack, in The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, "Chronology of the Old Testament" (1915), section VII (From the Disruption to the Exodus).
  • S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges) (1911), p. xxx (Introduction §4).
  • James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. III (1906), §617, p. 264 (Merneptah's Hymn of Victory).
  • Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, vol. 1 (Genesis to Deuteronomy) (1706), on Deuteronomy 33:5.
  • Julius Wellhausen, tr. J. S. Black and A. Menzies, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1885), ch. VI (Chronicles), §III.2.

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