"A PROPHETESS, THE WIFE OF LAPIDOTH", WHO JUDGED ISRAEL (JUDGES 4:4) · THE JUDGES

Deborah. Gave Barak the LORD’s command and the day of battle, and sang the victory.

SCRIPTURE CALLS

Prophetess

ERA

The judges c. 1380–1050 BC

IN THE DAYS OF

Jabin

BOOK

None bears the name

HOW THE WORD CAME

"She judged Israel at that time": she sat under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el, "and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment".

THE CALL

How the word came

  • "She judged Israel at that time": she sat under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el, "and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment". Judges 4:4–5
  • She gave the LORD’s command to Barak as a question: "Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor". Judges 4:6
  • The victory is told twice, in prose and in a song: "Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day". In the song she is called on: "Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song". Judges 5:1 Judges 5:12

BEFORE THE KINGS

Before Jabin, king of Canaan

RULER

Jabin, king of Canaan

“And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.”

Judges 4:7 (KJV) →

THE MESSAGE

The word in its main themes

The LORD’s command to Barak

“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?”

Judges 4:6 (KJV) →

The day of battle

“Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out before thee?”

Judges 4:14 (KJV) →

The song: the LORD came from Seir

“LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.”

Judges 5:4 (KJV) →

“So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.”

Judges 5:31 (KJV) →

Those who came and those who stayed

“Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD”

Judges 5:23 (KJV) →

THE WORD TO …

To whom the word was spoken

TO BARAK, AT KEDESH

“I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

Judges 4:9 (KJV) →

TO BARAK, AT MOUNT TABOR

“Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand”

Judges 4:14 (KJV) →

TO KINGS AND PRINCES

“Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD”

Judges 5:3 (KJV) →

TO MEROZ

“Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof”

Judges 5:23 (KJV) →

SIGNS

Signs and wonders

SIGN

The stars and the river

COMPANIONS AND OPPONENTS

Who stood with her, and against her

Barak

Lapidoth

Jael

Sisera

HOW THE STORY ENDS

Scripture says, tradition says

SCRIPTURE SAYS

  • Judges ends her story with the song and the words "And the land had rest forty years"; it does not record her death. Judges 5:31

TRADITION SAYS

No tradition is recorded here.

OPEN QUESTIONS

Where readers have differed

Yes

Keil (1872); "the great majority of scholars", such as Ewald, Hitzig and Renan, as reported by Moore (1895)

Keil holds that verse 1 means the song was sung by Deborah and Barak together, not made by both, and that "the poetess or writer of the song, according to vers. 3, 7, and 12, was Deborah."[13]

A poet of the time, not Deborah

Moore (1895); also Wellhausen, Reuss, Graetz, Kuenen and others, as listed by Moore

Moore notes that some ancient versions read verse 7 in the third person, "until Deborah arose", and that the Hebrew "may equally well be rendered, until thou didst arise, Deborah"; verse 12 calls on her, and elsewhere the song speaks of her in the third person. He calls it "the natural and almost necessary inference" that "Deborah herself is not the author", and thinks it more probable "that the poem was made by one under the immediate inspiration of the events". He calls it "the oldest extant monument of Hebrew literature".[14]

A late, artificial poem

Maurice Vernes (1883–1892), as reported by Moore (1895)

Moore reports that Vernes put the prose account no earlier than the 5th century BC and the song a century or more later, and called it an artificial work. Moore answers that Vernes’ facts, where accurate, "do not justify his conclusions".[14]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 3

Judges 4 Judges 5 Hebrews 11

PASSAGES · 2

Judges 4:1–5:31 Hebrews 11:32

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Judges gives no account of how the word first came to Deborah, and does not name her tribe.
  • Judges 4:9 says the LORD would sell Sisera "into the hand of a woman", and 4:21–22 tells how Jael killed him; the text sets the two side by side but does not say in so many words that the word came to pass.
  • Scripture does not record her death. Hebrews 11:32 names Barak, not Deborah.

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Genesis; Exodus 1–11) (1864), pp. 451–452 (Exodus 4:14–16).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Genesis; Exodus 1–11) (1864), p. 472 (Exodus 6:28–7:7).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 2 (1872 printing) (1872), p. 56 (Exodus 15:19–21).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 70–71 (Numbers 11:24–30).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 75–76 (Numbers 12:1–3).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), p. 136 (Numbers 20:22–29); pp. 244–245 (Numbers 33:30–33 and Deuteronomy 10:6).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 158–161 (Balaam and his prophecies, introduction).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), p. 165 (Numbers 22:5).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 168–169 (Numbers 22:20–22).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 192–194 (Numbers 24:17–18).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), pp. 394–396 (Deuteronomy 18:15–19).
  • C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, tr. James Martin, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol. 3 (1871 printing) (1871), p. 492 (Deuteronomy 32:48–52); pp. 517–518 (Concluding remarks on the composition of the Pentateuch).
  • 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. 308 (Judges 5:1).
  • George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 130–132 (Judges 5, the date and author of the song).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), p. xlvi (Introduction §15).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 113–115 (Numbers 11:25–29).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 120–121 (Numbers 12:1).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 325–326 (Numbers 22:5).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 332–333 (Numbers 22:22).
  • George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), pp. 369–371 (Numbers 24:17–18).
  • S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary) (1895), p. xxvii (Introduction §3) and pp. xlv–xlvi (Introduction §4, the date of Deuteronomy).
  • S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 119–120 (Deuteronomy 10:6–7).
  • S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary) (1895), pp. 228–229 (Deuteronomy 18:15–19).
  • A. F. Kirkpatrick, The First Book of Samuel (Cambridge Bible for Schools) (1884), Introduction, ch. I, §§2–4 (the title, the author and the sources).
  • A. F. Kirkpatrick, The First Book of Samuel (Cambridge Bible for Schools) (1884), p. 219 (note on 28:11) and Appendix, Note VIII, pp. 244–245.
  • Origen, tr. Frederick Crombie, Against Celsus, book 1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4) (1885), 1.59–60.
  • Origen, tr. Frederick Crombie, De Principiis (On First Principles), book 3 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4) (1885), 3.2.1.
  • Tertullian, tr. Peter Holmes, A Treatise on the Soul (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3) (1885), ch. 57.
  • Jerome, tr. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W. G. Martley, Against Vigilantius (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6) (1893), ch. 5.
  • J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer (eds. and trs.), The Apostolic Fathers (one-volume edition): The Shepherd of Hermas (1891), introduction, pp. 293–294; Vision 2.3, p. 409.

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