Judges 5:31

So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord!.... As Sisera and his army did, and be disappointed as his mother and her ladies were; which is not only a wish or prayer that it might be, but a prophecy

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. And the land had rest forty years.

So, i.e. so suddenly, so surely, so effectually and irrecoverably. When he goeth forth in his might; when he first riseth, and so goeth on in his course, which he doth with great might, even as a strong man that runneth a race, , and so as no creature can stop or hinder him; even so irresistible let the people be. Forty years; how to be computed, See Poole "".

Judges 5:31 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. And the land had rest forty years.Ver. 31. So let all thine enemies perish, &c.] "Let them be as dung for the earth"; yes, do thou dung thy vineyard with their dead carcasses. Be as the sun.] Let them do great exploits, live and die with glory. And the land had rest forty years.] Counting from those eighty.

(31) So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.—The abrupt burst in which the song rushes, as it were, to its conclusion, is very grand. The total frustration of the hopes of the princesses is all the more forcibly implied by the scorn with which it is left unexpressed. The one word “so” sums up the story in all its striking phases; and this passionate exclamation accounts, in part, for the intensity of feeling which runs through the whole poem, by showing that Deborah regards the battle as part of one great religious crusade. The completeness of the overthrow caused it to be long remembered as an example of Israel’s triumph over God’s enemies (Psalms 83:9-10; Psalms 83:12-15). When the Christian warriors of the first crusade were riding deep in the blood of the murdered Saracens, after the capture of Jerusalem, they were fully convinced that they were “doing God service;” and so filled were they with religious emotion, that at vesper-time they all suddenly fell upon their knees with streaming tears. The general dissemination of a feeling of pity—pity even for our worst enemies—is a very modern feeling, and still far from universal. But let them that love him.—This is probably the right reading, though it was early altered into “they that love thee.” As the sun when he goeth forth in his might.—For the metaphor, comp. Psalms 19:4-5; Psalms 68:1-3; Daniel 12:3; Matthew 13:43. And the land had rest.—This is not a part of the song, but concludes the whole story (Judges 3:11; Judges 3:30; Judges 8:28). This is the last we hear of any attempt of the Canaanites to re-conquer the land which they had lost, although we see a small and spasmodic outbreak of this race in the story of Abimelech (Judges 9.).

31. Conclusion. So let all thine enemies perish] With the same completeness, with the same overthrow of proud confidence. The language recalls Psalms 68:2-3; Psalms 92:9. It is taken for granted that Israel’s enemies are Jehovah’s also. Jehovah’s friends are compared to the rising of the sun, an impressive figure which fitly closes the Ode. It is remarkable to find such an expression as them that love him at this early date. This idea is strongly characteristic of Deut., and of Dtc. passages in the Hexateuch, e.g. Exodus 20:6 = Deuteronomy 5:10; cf. the late Psalms 31:23; Psalms 97:10; Psalms 145:20. And the land had rest] A chronological note added by the Rd; see on Judges 3:11.

A most striking conclusion, in which the spiritual truth, which the whole narrative is intended to convey, comes out.

31. So shall perish — Or, so let all thy enemies perish. “The prophetess does not stop to say that all the hopes of Sisera’s mother were dashed to the ground, but she implies this in another abrupt