Judges 4:15

And the Lord discomfited Sisera and all [his] chariots, and all [his] host,.... Frightened them, as the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, or disturbed them with a noise and tumult, as the word

And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.

The Lord discomfited Sisera, with great terror and noise, as the word signifies, 1 Samuel 10, most probably with thunder, and lightning, and hailstones, or other such instruments of destruction poured upon them from heaven, as is sufficiently implied, . With the edge of the sword, i.e. by the sword of Barak and his army, whose ministry God used; but so that they had little else to do but to kill these whom God by more powerful arms had put to flight. Fled away on his feet, that he might flee away more secretly and securely in the quality of a common soldier, whereas his chariot would have exposed him to more observation and hazard.

Judges 4:15 And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all [his] chariots, and all [his] host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off [his] chariot, and fled away on his feet.Ver. 15. And the Lord discomfited Sisera.] Or, Terrified, as the vulgar Latin hath it, perhaps by thunder and hailstones, as Joshua 10:10 1 Samuel 7:10, where the same Hebrew word is used; or else by some hurry noise made in the air by the angels, as 2 Kings 6:15-18; but something was certainly done from heaven, wherewith the Canaanites were so frightened, that many of them ran into the river Kishon and there perished. So the winds fought for Theodosius in that famous battle against Maximus. Hence Claudian, a heathen, cried out of him - “ O nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aether, Et coniurati veniunt ad classica venti ” Aug., De Civ. Dei, lib. v. cap. 26.

(15) Discomfited.—The same word as in Exodus 14:24; Joshua 10:10. The LXX. exestçse, and the Vulg. perterruit, imply the element of immediate Divine aid in the battle. Sisera, and all his chariots.—“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God” (Psalms 20:7; comp. Psalms 33:16-17; Proverbs 21:31). And all his host.—“Do unto them . . . as to Sisera, as to Jabin at the brook of Kison, which perished at Endor, and became as the dung of the earth” (Psalms 83:9-10). Considering the allusion to the swollen waters of the Kishon and the storm in Judges 5:20-22, it seems probable that Josephus is following a correct Jewish tradition when he describes the battle thus:—“They joined battle, and as the ranks closed a violent storm came on, and much rain and hail; and the wind drove the rain against the faces of the Canaanites, darkening their outlook, so that their archeries and their slings were rendered useless, and their heavy-armed soldiers, because of the cold, were unable to use their swords. But since the storm was behind the Israelites, it caused them less harm, and they further took courage from their belief in God’s assistance, so that, driving into the midst of the enemy, they killed many of them,” &c. (Antt. v. 5, § 4). The battle thus closely resembled that of Timoleon against the Carthaginians at the Crimessus (Grote, xi. 246), and the English victory at Crecy, as has been graphically described by Dean Stanley (Jew. Church, i. 329). We may add that similar conditions recurred in the battle of Cannæ, except that it was the storm of dust and not of rain that was blown in the faces of the Romans by the Scirocco (Liv. 22:46; Plut. Fab. 16). Sisera lighted down off his chariot.—We find an Homeric hero, Idæus (Il. v. 20), doing the same thing. On this the frivolous critic Zoilus made the objection, “Why did he not fly in his chariot?” The answer is the same as here: Sisera would have far more chance of escaping into concealment if he left the well-known chariot of a general. Besides this, his chariot—like those of the Egyptians at the Red Sea—was probably struggling in the trampled morass. “It was left to rust on the banks of the Kishon, like Roderick’s on the shores of the Guadelete” (Stanley).

Verse 15. The Lord discomfited Sisera] ויהם יהוה vayiahom Jehovah; the Lord CONFOUNDED, threw them all into confusion, drove them pell-mell-caused chariots to break and overthrow chariots, and threw universal disorder into all their ranks. In this case Barak and his men had little to do but kill and pursue, and Sisera in order to escape, was obliged to abandon his chariot. There is no doubt all this was done by supernatural agency; God sent his angel and confounded them.

15. discomfited] lit. ‘confused,’ ‘threw into a panic.’ The word, not a common one, occurs again in the prose counterpart to the Song of Moses (Exodus 14:24), and in Joshua 10:10 just before the poetic fragment Judges 4:12-13; cf. 1 Samuel 7:10. The words with the edge of the sword do not go well with threw into a panic; they may have come accidentally from Judges 4:16.

Lighted down off his chariot - Probably his chariot stuck in the morass (see the note at Judges 4:7); or he might leave his chariot in order to mislead his pursuers, and in hope of gaining a place of

15. The Lord discomfited Sisera — Confused and confounded him, and gave such an impulse to the warriors of Barak that the vigorous use of their swords was more terrible than Jabin’s chariots, and