25 – Deborah’s Song

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NOTE: THE TRANSCRIPT IS NOT EXACTLY LIKE THE RECORDING.

Barak challenged Deborah’s Judgeship, her authority over Israel and her authority over him as his commander in chief. His demand that she accompany him to battle resulted in the shame of losing the glory for valor on the battlefield. Barak did not deny or have no faith in Deborah’s prophecies nor was he a coward. He was simply a man who believed a Judge of Israel should have battlefield valor, and Deborah had none. What she had was YHVH’s prophecies. This went against Barak’s paradigm.

But now, even though Barak tried to shame Deborah for not having valor on the battlefield, we will see that she was forgiving and humble to elevate him out of his shame by sharing the victory status with him.

Judges 5:1 Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,

Deborah is credited with composing and singing this song of praise but it was not only Deborah who sang. According to her, Barak sang with her which is a testament to his personal recovery from his mistake. The implication is that he had a change of heart about Deborah’s Judgeship. Him joining her suggests he now understands and accepts her authority over Israel which includes her authority over him as a citizen and military leader of Israel.

Now let’s look at the obscurity of verse 2. It is obscure because of the way it is worded in Deborah’s song. Poets take poetic license sometimes which can involve changing word order for the purpose of meter or rhyme. Here is how different Bible versions translate the Hebrew poetic license into English.

Judges 5:2 “Because the leaders took the lead in Israel, because the people offered themselves willingly, be blessed, Yahweh! – WEB

Verse 2 is translated differently by the King James which does not use the word “leaders”.

KJV – Judges 5:2 Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.

MKJV – Praise Jehovah for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.

NET – Judges 5:2 “When the leaders took the lead2 in Israel, When the people answered the call to war — Praise the LORD!

ISV – Judges 5:2 “When hair grows long in Israel, when the people give themselves willingly, bless the LORD!

ESV – Judges 5:2 “That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the LORD!

Here is what the Masoretic text says:

Judges 5:2 PraiseH1288 ye the LORDH3068 for the avengingH6544 H6546 of Israel,H3478 when the peopleH5971 willingly offered themselves.H5068

And now the Interlinear:

Judges 5:2  בפרעH6544 for the avenging פרעותH6546 for the avenging בישׂראלH3478 of Israel, בהתנדבH5068 willingly offered themselves. עםH5971 when the people ברכוH1288 Praise יהוה׃H3068 ye the LORD

H6544
פּרע
pâra‛
paw-rah’

A primitive root; to loosen; by implication to expose, dismiss; figuratively absolve, begin: – avenge, avoid, bare, go back, let, (make) naked, set at nought, perish, refuse, uncover.

The battle with Sisera loosened the hold of Israel’s enemy. YHVH avenged Israel and absolved the people for their sins against Him.

H6546
פּרעה
par‛âh
par-aw’

Feminine of H6545 (in the sense of beginning); leadership (plural concretely leaders): – + avenging, revenge.

The reason this is important is because the way this verse is interpreted gives credit to the leaders of Israel – Deborah and Barak, with Deborah blowing her own horn, or it gives credit to YHVH.

How about this interpretation, my own:

For avenging, for leadership of Israel when the people willingly offered themselves, Praise YHVH!

It was YHVH who avenged Israel but that process started with the leaders, Deborah and Barak, and then the people willingly entering the battle. Praise YHVH! This was a Kingdom effort even though the battle was not joined by all the tribes. More on that in a while.

Now Deborah launches into her personal praise of YHVH which indicates that she did not intend to glorify herself in the previous verse which is how some of these translations portray it.

Judges 5:3 “Hear, you kings! Give ear, you princes! I, even I, will sing to Yahweh. I will sing praise to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Deborah’s praise goes to YHVH, not the leaders of Israel as is rendered in verse 2 in some Bible versions.

Judges 5:4 “Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water.

She now recounts Israel’s experience at Mount Sinai. YHVH marching from the field of Edom speaks of how He prevented the Edomites at Mount Seir from doing anything to Israel who stood at the base of the mountain.

This is more than praising YHVH for His protection and victory. It also brings back to Israel the Law of Moses which was the purpose of her Judgeship. As a prophetess, her Kingdom job was to call people to repentance. She did a fabulous job of that to the point that God was now willing to avenge Israel.

Deuteronomy 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. 

Returning Israel back to Moses.

Deuteronomy 33:2 He said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose from Seir to them. He shone from Mount Paran. He came from the ten thousands of holy ones. At his right hand was a fiery law for them.

From Mount Paran references how YHVH kept the Ishmaelites at bay. And how did He do this? With tens of thousands of his Heavenly host, angels, which He used to guard Israel. This same heavenly host will appear in another poetic license later on in the chapter.

Now let’s understand the Sinai reference. Why is this Sinai reference being made? This is a covenant renewal between YHVH and Israel being mediated by and because of Deborah. Moses interceded. Deborah sang praise. Why the difference? Because YHVH wanted to destroy Israel during Moses’ day. But YHVH has not said He wants to destroy Israel in Deborah’s days. Rather, He used her to call Israel back to Himself. For this, Deborah sings praise about the time when YHVh gave the Law to Israel at Mount Sinai and He held the Edomites and Ishmaelites at bay during the process.

Judges 5:5 The mountains quaked Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

The presence of God was spectacular at Mount Sinai. Deborah is drawing a comparison to that occurrence and the war victory of her day.

Judges 5:6 “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways.

We will see this again in Israel’s future:

Isaiah 33:8 The highways are desolate. The traveling man ceases. The covenant is broken. He has despised the cities. He doesn’t respect man.

This is talking about the Assyrian who ravaged the northern Kingdom of Israel. However, anytime Israel is under siege, there is no traffic on the highways. Isaiah’s prophecy develops Deborah’s song.

We saw how the highways were desolate during the COVID manmade debacle, didn’t we? YHVH’s patterns never cease in order that we might learn from them. But we also have a prophecy for us in our future of people getting where they need to go by “byways”. What is a byway? A different and less used route.

Here comes Deborah to speak of her role in Israel.

Judges 5:7 The rulers ceased in Israel. They ceased until I, Deborah, arose; Until I arose a mother in Israel.

There were no more righteous rulers after the death of Ehud until came arose as prophetess. Whether Israel’s leader is a father or a mother is irrelevant as long as the person is doing YHVH’s will and not his or her own.

Judges 5:8 They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

I will repeat what I said last week which is that when Israel is right standing with YHVH there is no war. What does “right standing” mean? A synonym for “right standing” is “righteousness”. And what is our righteousness?

Deuteronomy 6:24 Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are today. 

Deuteronomy 6:25 It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.” 

The Law of Moses is our righteousness. The righteousness that YHVH attributes to us is when we first believe Him, when we accept Yeshua’s authority in our lives. After that, we must continue walking as He walked which was in the Law He gave Moses to teach us.

Only when Israel is in rebellion against YHVH is their war. Every time Israel chooses new gods, war is in the gates (oh, America and the Westernized world). The first thing the enemy does is disarm the population. No shield or spear is seen among the people.

Why do I mention America and the Westernized nations. It is because the people of those nations are from the east. Not only from the east but, particularly from the Middle East – Israel, the northern Kingdom. Understand that there were other indigenous people in the northern Middle East, Europe and America and elsewhere as the northern Kingdom tribes migrated, sometimes together and sometimes not. However, wherever they went, they took the upper hand in those areas. Today, they are in what is called “the West”. Europe is considered part of “the West” even though it is east directionally from America and north of the Middle East.

And what has been going in the last 200 years with Europeans and Americans? They have begun to return to the place of their origins – the Middle East. The tribes of Judah’s southern Kingdom and Israel’s northern Kingdom began to have a quest to return to the Middle East, specifically to Israel, as conquerors. Guess what today’s Gaza and Lebanon wars are about? America and Israel, the sister nations of Revelation 13 trying to return to bring Babylon to YHVH’s land! They chose new gods and they will never be without war.

Judges 5:9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless Yahweh!

Deborah lauds leaders of Israel who offer themselves to YHVH as willing servants. David Guzik says: She also had a heart for other leaders and their work. Her vision was bigger than just getting “her job” done. She wanted to see the Kingdom of God advanced.

Deborah’s heart and our heart toward the Kingdom must be the same. We must always be working to advance YHVH’s Kingdom over our own little kingdoms. That Deborah had a heart for the leaders of Israel also shows her own humility even though she held the highest position in Israel like Moses and Samuel. That is what YHVH wants from all those He puts in leadership: a heart for the labor of other leaders as well as for those who follow them.

Judges 5:10 “Speak, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who walk by the way.

The IVPBBC commentary says: Only the wealthy merchants could afford these prized animals. The call here is to have all classes, those who ride and those who must walk because of their poverty, to join in the song of praise for Yahweh who will deliver the people.

Those who “ride on white donkeys”, “sit on rich carpets” and “walk by the way” are the wealthy of the nation of Israel which probably means they are also the political elite. Doing YHVH’s ways and rising up to protect Israel from enemies is not only the job of the common people but also the wealthy. Deborah is alluding that there should not be classes of people based on wealth in Israel. All must pull together with each other regardless of financial or political status. Those 2 class separations do not belong in Israel!

Judges 5:11 Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, there they will rehearse Yahweh’s righteous acts, the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. “Then Yahweh’s people went down to the gates.

Where was Israel’s secluded and protected place where water was drawn? Where was the place of YHVH’s gates? Shiloh. Shiloh was far from the noise of archers, the place where the ritual water was drawn, and it was the place of His name and thus the place of His gates. “The place of gates” is an idiom for someone’s home. YHVH’s dwelling place was in Shiloh, so it was to His place where they went to give thanksgiving and peace offerings to YHVH for releasing them from the oppression He had sold them into.

Let me stop here to explain that Shiloh was believed to be so secluded and protected that no one could destroy it. So, in Samuel’s time, when YHVH allowed the ark to be captured by the Philistines and Shiloh destroyed, it was a shock! It is always a shock when an empire falls! But in Deborah’s time, Shiloh was indeed the place far from the noise of archers, far from the sounds of battle not only because of the geographic distance to the battlefield between Israel and Sisera but because of Shiloh’s secluded station in the mountains of Ephraim.

Judges 5:12 ‘Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, you son of Abinoam.’

God roused Deborah to oppose the Canaanites; she did not initiate this action. Then He roused her to sing His praise after the victory.

Judges 5:13 “Then a remnant of the nobles and the people came down. Yahweh came down for me against the mighty.

As Deborah had said of those who ride on white donkeys, that they and the common people should join the battle together, so did they. And YHVH showed up, too. This is the way Israel’s wars are to be fought. The leaders are to go to battle, not just send others.

Judges 5:14 Those whose root is in Amalek came out of Ephraim, after you, Benjamin, among your peoples. Governors come down out of Machir. Those who handle the marshal’s staff came out of Zebulun.

Deborah, having directed their praises to the Author of their deliverance, proceeds to speak with commendation of the instruments of it, and gives us the muster of those tribes which freely offered themselves to battle. She assigns the first place to the tribe of Benjamin; the second to those of her own tribe who were settled in Amalek; the third to the Manassites beyond Jordan; the fourth to the tribe of Zebulun; and the last to the tribe of Issachar. There was a root of them against Amalek — This translation is very obscure, and therefore it might be better rendered, and more agreeably to the Hebrew, out of Ephraim came down those who were planted, or whose rest was in Amalek; meaning some of the tribe of Ephraim, who were settled in or about the mount of Amalek. So says the Benson commentary.

Machir references those warriors who came from the western side of Manasseh. The scepter coming out of Zebulun references the leaders of the tribe of Zebulun who were in the battle. They did not send lesser men than themselves.

Judges 5:15 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As was Issachar, so was Barak. They rushed into the valley at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart.

Issachar is known as a tribe of valiant warriors. They rushed into the fray with Barak in the lead.

1 Chronicles 7:5 Their brothers among all the families of Issachar, mighty men of valor, listed in all by genealogy, were eighty-seven thousand.

…and some of the best judges in Israel.

1 Chronicles 12:32 Of the children of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their heads were two hundred; and all their brothers were at their command.

Issachar is not a tribe that we hear Ephraimites say, “Oh, if only I could be from Issachar…”. No. Most people like to proudly claim descendance from Judah and Levi. We need some who say they might be from Issachar because YHVH’s people need some wisdom and understanding.

“By the watercourses of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart” meaning having great thoughts of joining the battle, and possibly even praying for the battle. But pay attention because we will find out something.

Judges 5:16 Why did you sit among the sheepfolds? To hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, there were great searchings of heart.
Judges 5:17 Gilead lived beyond the Jordan. Why did Dan remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, and lived by his creeks.

Reuben, Gilead (east Manasseh), Dan, and Asher did not join the battle. Rather, they were practicing their religious introversions and doing great introspection on the battle. Not much help on the battlefield itself.

Judges 5:18 Zebulun was a people that jeopardized their lives to the death; Naphtali also, on the high places of the field.

So Zebulun and Naphtali were valiant on the battlefield.

Judges 5:19 “The kings came and fought, then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. They took no plunder of silver.

The kings of the Canaanites came to fight to no avail. None of Hazor’s allies took plunder because they all died that day. Once YHVH engages His enemies, no amount of enemies can defeat Him. And there were a lot of enemies on that battlefield.

Judges 5:20 From the sky the stars fought. From their courses, they fought against Sisera.

Back to poetic license. This is a reference to the Heavenly Host that fought on the earth with YHVH on behalf of Israel. Stars in scripture sometimes symbolize YHVH’s army. Sometimes the stars represent the tribes, but here the stars symbolize YHVH’s Heavenly Host, His angelic army, that routed all of Jabin’s forces marshalled by Sisera. We know this because:

Judges 4:15  And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host [Sisera’s army], with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.
Judges 4:16  But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host [YHVH’s army], unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host [army] of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left. 

Who is YHVH’s army that went before Barak? The stars, the Heavenly Host, of YHVH.

Judges 5:21 The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength.

Josephus tells us that a violent storm came that turned the battle to Israel. The Kishon river overflowed its banks and, as I said last week, Sisera’s chariots were wrecked. How? In the same way as Pharoah’s with the wheels stuck in the mud.

Judges 5:22 Then the horse hoofs stamped because of the prancing, the prancing of their strong ones.
Judges 5:23 ‘Curse Meroz,’ said Yahweh’s angel. ‘Curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they didn’t come to help Yahweh, to help Yahweh against the mighty.’

Meroz is thought to have been a city within the plains of Galilee north of Mount Tabor in Israel which was cursed by YHVH.

Judges 5:24 “Jael shall be blessed above women, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
Judges 5:25 He asked for water. She gave him milk. She brought him butter in a lordly dish.

Judges 5:26 She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer. With the hammer she struck Sisera. She struck through his head. Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples.
Judges 5:27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay. At her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.

Sisera was in a bodily position of bowing to a woman, Jael, something that was unthinkable in the world in that day. Men just didn’t bow to women – ever! Kind of like Barak having a hard time bowing to Deborah. Sisera was humiliated in his death. We see how YHVH is able to use whomever He pleases for His purposes, whether male or female.

Now Deborah puts herself in the place of Sisera’s mother.

Judges 5:28 “Through the window she looked out, and cried: Sisera’s mother looked through the lattice. ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots wait?’
Judges 5:29 Her wise ladies answered her, Yes, she returned answer to herself,
Judges 5:30 ‘Have they not found, have they not divided the plunder? A lady, two ladies to every man; to Sisera a plunder of dyed garments, a plunder of dyed garments embroidered, of dyed garments embroidered on both sides, on the necks of the plunder?’

Sisera’s mother’s hopes for her son’s grand victory over the upstart slaves of Israel was answered with a great big NO by YHVH!

Judges 5:31 “So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.

Let YHVH’s enemies perish and let our light so shine that it is as bright as the noonday sun. And then Deborah continued as Israel’s National Judge for another 40 years. And there was peace in the land. The 40 years refers us back to Moses again. It is that Deborah was like Moses calling the people to YHVH and then watching over them for the next 40 years.