Judges 4

4 1 And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, when 2 Ehud was dead. And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor ; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. 3 And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD : for he had nine hundred chariots of iron ; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. 4, 5 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill country of 6 Ephraim : and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded, saying, Go and draw unto mount Tabor, and take with thee ten 7 thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun ? And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his 8 multitude ; and I will deliver him into thine hand. And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go 9 with me, then I will go : but if thou wilt not go with me, I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee : notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor ; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and 10 went with Barak to Kedesh. And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together to Kedesh ; and there went up ten thousand men at his feet : and Deborah went up with him. 12, 13 And they told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount Tabor. And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the peo- 14 ple that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, unto the river Kishon. And De- borah said unto Barak, Up ; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand ; is not the LORD gone out before thee ? So Barak went down from mount Tabor, 15 and ten thousand men after him. And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak ; and Sisera lighted down from his 16 chariot, and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles : and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword ; there 11 was not a man left. (Now Heber the Kenite had severed himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab the brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak 17 in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.) Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite : for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the 18 house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me ; fear not. And he turned in unto her into the tent, and she covered 19 him with a rug. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink ; for I am 20 thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. And he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and 21 inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here ? that thou shalt say, No. Then Jael Heber’s wife took a tent-pin, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground ; for he was in a deep sleep ; 22 so he swooned and died. And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And he came 23 unto her ; and, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the tent-pin was in his temples. So God subdued 24 on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. And the hand of the children of Israel prevailed more and more against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.

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

2. For that the leaders took the lead in Israel,

For that the people offered themselves willingly,

Bless ye the LORD,

3. Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel.

4. LORD, when thou wentest forth out of Seir, When thou marchedest out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, Yea, the clouds dropped water.

5. The mountains flowed down at the pres- ence of the LORD, Even yon Sinai at the presence of the LORD, the God of Israel.

6. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the high ways were un- occupied, And the travellers walked through by- ways.

7. The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased, Until that I Deborah arose, That I arose a mother in Israel.

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

9. My heart is toward the governors of Israel, That offered themselves willingly among the people: Bless ye the LORD.

10. Tell of it, ye that ride on white asses, Ye that sit on rich carpets, And ye that walk by the way.

11. Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, Even the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates.

12. Awake, awake, Deborah; Awake, awake, utter a song: Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity cap- tive, thou son of Abinoam.

13. Then came down a remnant of the nobles and the people; The LORD came down for me against the mighty.

14. Out of Ephraim came down they whose root is in Amalek; After thee, Benjamin, among thy peoples; Out of Machir came down governors, And out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal’s staff.

15. And the princes of Issachar were with De- borah; As was Issachar, so was Barak;

Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben There were great resolves of heart.

16. Why satest thou among the sheepfolds, To hear the pipings for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben There were great searchings of heart.

17. Gilead abode beyond Jordan: And Dan, why did he remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, And abode by his creeks.

18. Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death, And Naphtali, upon the high places of the field.

19. The kings came and fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan, In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo: They took no gain of money.

20. They fought from heaven, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

21. The river Kishon swept them away, That ancient river, the river Kishon, O my soul, march on with strength.

22. Then did the horsehoofs stamp By reason of the prancings, the prancings of their strong ones.

23. 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, To the help of the LORD against the mighty.

24. Blessed above women shall Jael be, The wife of Heber the Kenite, Blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

25. He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought him butter in a lordly dish.

26. She put her hand to the nail, And her right hand to the workmen’s ham- mer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote through his head, Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples.

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.

28. Through the window she looked forth, and cried, The mother of Sisera cried through the lat- tice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?

29. Her wise ladies answered her,

Yea, she returned answer to herself, 30 Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil?

A damsel, two damsels to every man; To Sisera a spoil of divers colors, A spoil of divers colors of embroidery,

The Plain of Esdraelon constitutes one of the great physical features of Palestine. We fail to understand, in any good measure, the physical geography of the country, unless we obtain a distinct conception of the form, extent, position, and surroundings of the Plain of Esdraelon. Physically it is a no less important feature of the country than the plain of the sea-coast or the valley of the Jordan; while in historic associations it is even richer than either of these. This plain, intersecting the country from east to west, opens eastwardly on the valley of the Jordan and westwardly on the Mediterranean Sea. The portion bordering the Jordan valley is divided by parallel mountain-ridges, while that which lies upon the Mediterranean Sea, along the north of Carmel, has received a separate name—the Plain of Acre. The central portion of the Biblical “Plain” or “Valley of Megiddo,” is an immense triangle, the apex of which is toward the west, at the eastern end of Mount Carmel; its sides being the mountain-ranges of Galilee and Samaria—that of Galilee running east twelve miles, that of Samaria southeast eighteen miles, from Carmel; and the base being a line twelve or fifteen miles in length, crossing from Jenin northward to the mountains of Galilee below Nazareth, and touching on the way, the western ends of Gilboa and Little Hermon, which come in from the east. Mount Tabor, at the northeastern extremity of this plain, lies over against Little Hermon, as the latter lies over against Gilboa, and as the latter again lies over against the mountains of Samaria. The ridges of Little Hermon and Gilboa divide the portion of the plain east of the triangle into three nearly equal parts; the middle part being the famous “Valley of Jezreel” leading down to the Jordan valley by a gentle decline. The name “Esdraelon,” now given to the great plain, is only a Greek form of the Hebrew Jezreel. The river Kishon and its tributaries carry the surplus water of the great plain from Jenin and the foot of Gilboa and Tabor westward to the Mediterranean. The chief stream of the Kishon runs northwestwardly. A stream from the neighborhood of old Megiddo, the modern Lejjan, flowing northwardly into the Kishon, is doubtless the same with the Scriptural “waters of Megiddo” (5 : 19). The Kishon, for the

Of divers colors of embroidery on both sides, on the necks of the spoil?

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.

greater part of its length, is dry in summer. Flowing through a nearly level plain, yet at no great distance from a range of lofty hills, one can readily understand that, in a sudden rainstorm and the consequent rush of water from the hills, the river should speedily and widely overflow its banks, and the adjacent country become deluged. N. C. B.

Esdraelon is the great battle-field of Old Testament history. Here, after Barak, fought Gideon and the Midianites; here Saul fell before the Philistines; Josiah before the Egyptians under Necho. Here in later times fought Vespasian, the Crusaders, and Buonaparte. H. C.—The great and final world-battle of the Apocalypse is to be fought in “Armageddon,” the hill or city of Megiddo. That may not, indeed, be a physical battle, fought out on the Plain of Esdraelon, in front of old Megiddo; yet if it was desirable that the field of the great battle, decisive in the world’s spiritual history, should receive a name suggestive of desperate conflict, of valorous exploits, and at last of signal victory through God’s grace, none better could have been chosen than Armageddon. N. C. B.

The whole borders of the Plain of Esdraelon are dotted with places of high historic and sacred interest. On the east we have Endor, Nain, and Shunem, ranged round the base of the “hill of Moreh” or “Little Hermon;” then Bethshean in the centre of the “valley of Jezreel;” then Gilboa, with the “well of Harod,” and the ruins of Jezreel, at its western base. On the south are Engannim, Taanach, and Megiddo. At the western apex, on the overhanging brow of Carmel, is the scene of Elijah’s sacrifice; and close by the foot of the mountain below runs the Kishon, on whose banks the false prophets of Baal were slain. On the north are Nazareth and Tabor. P. S.

4 : 1-3. What a continued circle is here of sins, judgments, repentance, deliverance! The association with idolaters taints them with sin, their sin draws on judgment, the smart of the judgment moves them to repentance, on their repentance follows speedy deliverance, on their deliverance they sin again! Who would not think idolatry an absurd and unnatural thing? which as it hath the fewest inducements, so had also the most direct prohibitions from God; and yet after all their warnings Israel falls into it again. Neither affliction nor repentance can secure an Israelite from redoubling his worst sin, if he be left to his own frailty. Bp. H.—The battle of Merom, one of the two great battles by which Joshua first secured possession of the land, had been fought against a confederacy of northern Canaanites under Jabin, king of Hazor. The issue was a complete victory over the confederate army, followed, after long warfare, by the capture of all their towns (Hazor itself being burned with fire), and the slaughter or dispersion of the whole Canaanite population of the district (Josh, 11). Yet now, about a hundred and fifty years later, Hazor is found again as a great Canaanite city, with another king of the same name as in the days of Joshua, with powerful allies among neighboring Canaanite kings, and with a numerous army, so well equipped that it had no fewer than nine hundred war-chariots. Lee.

4. Deborah, a prophetess.** The term prophetess is applied to Deborah in the sense that she was endued with Divine gifts to instruct, direct, and govern others, and also excited by God’s Holy Spirit to declare his will to the people; which was the peculiar office of a prophet. Bp. Patrick.

5. Deborah,** “the bee,” is described as a “burning woman.” The meeting-place for all in Israel who sought judgment at her hands was between Ramah and Bethel, under a palm-tree, which afterward bore her name. Thence she sent for Barak (“lightning”), the son of Abinoam, from the far north, from Kedesh in Naphtali. His ready obedience proved his preparedness. A. E.—He could do nothing without her head, nor she without his hands; both together made a complete deliverer and effected a complete deliverance. The greatest and best are not self-sufficient, but need one another. H.—Deborah cannot lead the army, but she can inspire it. Barak cannot prophesy, but he can fight. There is work for the seer and work for the warrior. The world always needs its prophets and its heroes. The worker without the thinker will blunder into confusion; the thinker without the worker will fail for want of power to execute his designs. W. F. A.

6. Kedesh.** West of the plain and lake of Huleh are several small plains, which, with their bright green crops and the wooded hills that slope gently down to them, form some of the softest and most beautiful scenery in Palestine. The largest and most picturesque of these plains is that of Kades, or Zaanaim, with the ruins of Kedesh-naphtali, lying on its western border.

Wilson.—Kedesh Naphtali, when freed by Barak from foreign foes, must have comprised within its borders everything that could make it a flourishing town. They had every kind of produce at their very doors; and this would be the case with all that long string of towns which studded the goodly heritage of Naphtali. Tristram.

Mount Tabor. A remarkable mountain of Palestine rises abruptly from the northeastern arm of the Plain of Esdraelon. It is beautiful and symmetrical in its proportions, as seen from a distance. It lies about six or eight miles almost due east from Nazareth. Dic. B.—It is wholly separated from surrounding elevations on all sides except the west, and on that side connected only by a low ridge with the mountains of Galilee bounding the Plain of Esdraelon, with which it stands in line. The height of Tabor above the sea is reckoned at eighteen hundred feet; the height above the adjacent plain being not far from fifteen hundred. N. C. B.

View from Tabor. On the north, Naphtali’s brown peaks running in a serried ridge athwart the glowing sky. To the right a corner of the Sea of Galilee, slumbering in its deep bed, and towering over it the glittering top of Hermon. On the east, the long purple ridge of Gilead, rising like a colossal wall from the Jordan valley. On the south and southwest the Plain of Esdraelon, Palestine’s battle-field, sweeping round the base of the mount and extending, a sea of verdure, away to the hills of Samaria and the dark ridge of Carmel. Four miles distant, beyond an eastern arm of the plain, rose “the hill Moreh,” a gray, treeless ridge, with the villages of Endor and Nain upon its side. Over its left shoulder appeared the bare white top of Gilboa. Standing on this spot I was able to understand why Tabor was the gathering place of the northern tribes. Connected by a wooded ridge with the hills of Galilee and the mountains of Naphtali, it was always accessible to them; while at the same time it stood out commanding the Plain of Esdraelon. Its steep sides were easily defended, and its broad top gave ample space for the organization of a little army of mountaineers. The graphic story of Barak and Deborah was here brought vividly before my mind: Barak eagerly watching the advance of Sisera across the plain, while Deborah, with the enthusiasm of a patriot and the inspiration of a prophetess, looked and prayed to heaven for the signal to attack. At length her eye saw it, and she cried: “Up, for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand!” Porter.

10-13. Barak summons the people of his region to Kedesh and thence marches with them to Mount Tabor. Recruits come in from Issachar and Manasseh and Ephraim and Benjamin; but the more distant tribes, though invited to the contest, fail to be represented. The king of the Canaanites hears of the rising, and speedily Sisera, his chief captain, with an immense army and a dreaded cavalry force—“his horses and chariots of iron”—makes his way southward, and encamps on the lower side of Esdraelon, at the river Kishon, by the friendly Canaanite towns of Taanach and Megiddo. From the summit of Tabor, Megiddo could be seen—fifteen miles to the southwest. N. C. B.—With what scorn did Sisera look at these gleanings of Israel! How unequal did this match seem of ten thousand Israelites against his vast host and his nine hundred chariots of iron! The faith of Deborah and Barak was not appalled with this world of adversaries, which from Mount Tabor they saw hiding all the valley below them: they knew whom they had believed, and how little an arm of flesh could do against the God of Hosts. Bp. H.

14. Deborah raised the cry, which twice over occurs in the story of the battle, “Arise, Barak.” She gave with unhesitating confidence to the doubting troops the augury which he had asked before the insurrection began, “This is the day when the Lord shall deliver Sisera into thy hand.” Down from the wooded heights descended Barak and his ten thousand men. It is emphatically repeated that they were “on foot,” and thus contrasted in the most forcible manner with the horses and chariots of their enemies. Stanley.—From the top of the mount, where he was completely unassailable by the enemy’s iron chariots, he heroically sallies down to the level plain with his far inferior force, in order that by giving Sisera every advantage the glory of the victory to be achieved over him might be so much the greater.

15. The Lord discomfited Sisera.** Or, as the Heb. implies confounded, threw them into disorder, drove them tumultuously together, causing chariots to break and overthrow chariots, and horses and men to be mingled in their fall in wild confusion. It was not so much the bold and unexpected charge of Barak that produced this effect, as a supernatural panic, a terror from God, that seized their spirits, threw them into irretrievable confusion, and made them an easy prey to the sword. Bush.—The expression is the same as when Jehovah fought against Egypt (Ex. 14:25), and again when before Gibeon Joshua bade sun and moon stand still (Josh.

10:10). It indicates the direct interference of the Lord through terrible natural phenomena. As we gather from Ju. 5:20-22, a fearful storm swept down from heaven in face of the advancing army. The battle must have drawn toward Endor, where its fate was finally decided (Ps. 83:9, 10). It was impossible to retreat, and only in one direction could flight be attempted. And now the waters of Kishon had swollen into a wild torrent which swept away the fugitives! A. E.

The beaten army fell back toward the northeast—toward Tabor—on the line of direct march for the Israelites to the battle—and when passing three miles to the south of Tabor, at Endor, they were overtaken by the Israelites, or more probably were intercepted by a reserve from Tabor, and slain in great numbers. “They perished at Endor,” says the Psalmist; “they became as dung for the earth” (83:9). Such was the first great battle of Megiddo. The second, for its importance, and for the triumphant success of the Israelites, compares well with the first. This was fought under Gideon, and also pertains to the period of the Judges. (See Section 227.) The battle of Mount Tabor, in which Napoleon and Kleber defeated an immense Turkish army, was fought on the Plain of Esdraelon, south of the hills of Nazareth, in the middle of spring (April 15th, 1799). The statement is made on good authority that multitudes of the Turks perished on that day by falling into the branch of the Kishon which flows from the western end of Mount Tabor. N. C. B.

17. Sisera fled on foot from the plain, over the Nazareth hills, across Zebulun’s territory, and, after travelling forty miles from the battlefield, reached Heber’s encampment at Kedesh. Tent Work.

Jael and Sisera.

Consider together Chs. 4:17-22 and 5:24-27.

11. Now Heber the Kenite.** This verse comes in here parenthetically to prepare the way for what is soon to be said about Jael, a woman of this family. The verse should be included in the usual marks of a parenthesis. Bush.

21. Jael took a nail of the tent. One of the great pins by which the tent was fastened to the ground. Patrick.—The tents of the Bedoween Arabs are kept firm and steady by bracing or stretching down their eyes with cords tied down to hooked wooden pins well pointed, which they drive into the ground with a mallet; one of these pins answering to the nail, as the mallet does to the hammer. Shaw.

Smote the pin into his temples. Jael was moved to this action by some extraordinary and overruling impulse, making her the instrument of Divine vengeance. This case, like that of Ehud, is not to be judged by ordinary rules. Hales.—It can scarce be doubted that she had some Divine direction or impulse to stir her to do what she did. The resolution she took appears very extraordinary, and so has the marks and tokens of its being from the extraordinary hand of God. In this view all is clear and right; she ought to obey God rather than man, and all obligations to man cease when brought in competition with our higher obligations toward God. Waterland.—As to this act of Jael’s (like that of Ehud’s in the chapter before), we have reason to think she was conscious of such a Divine impulse upon her spirit to do it, as did abundantly satisfy herself (and it ought therefore to satisfy us) that it was well done. Thus do the weak things of the world confound the mighty. See here Jael’s glory, and Sisera’s shame. H.—If all the circumstances and influences which impelled Jael to the daring act, and sustained her in it, were known, we should find that she violated neither the customs of her people, nor the laws of war then in force, nor the abstract and greater laws of righteousness, by thus destroying the enemy of God’s people and the oppressor of her own, who from necessity sought in her tent an asylum to which he had no right, and the granting of which might have involved her and her whole family in ruin. W. M. Thompson.

Sisera had no right to enter her tent at all. The women’s apartment of an Arab tent, the only place in it where any privacy exists, must never under any circumstances be entered by a man. Instances are recorded among the Arabs of a defeated warrior having hidden himself in the apartments of women; but such a heinous breach of Eastern etiquette has in each case been followed by the sentence of death. The insult and wrong done to Jael from the point of view of a Bedaween woman was such that, in order to avenge her honor, her husband or her brother would have been bound by the unwritten but inflexible code of Eastern law to take Sisera’s life. She simply became the executioner of a sentence which some other person would, under ordinary circumstances, have carried out. In Deborah’s inspired commendation of the conduct of Heber’s wife, particular stress is laid upon the fact of her being a Bedaween woman, and acting nobly and righteously from a Bedaween’s point of view. “Blessed let her be among women in the tent.” This could not possibly have been said if it were a case of treachery or murder in connection with a guest. Neil.

From 5 : 30 we see what kind of a man Sisera was, and what kind of hunting he was doing with his war chariots. He would surround some town of the Hebrews, slay the men and the old women, rob the homes, then burn them. But he would take the damsels—the young girls, and divide them as slaves among his fierce warriors. Jael had seen these Canaanites go by her tent dragging their weeping captives to endure a life of degradation worse than death. Let me modernize the story: There was a settlement in the Far West some years ago, where a score of families lived in peace and safety. Suddenly a band of Sioux started on the war-path. They slew and scalped all the men. Then they took the wives and daughters of those whom they had slain and scalped, “to every man a damsel or two,” and started for the wilderness. On their retreat they passed the lodge of a Chippewa hunter. He was away, but his wife was at home. They stopped with their captives and demanded food. She gave it to them and they started on. The chief for some cause lingered behind the rest. The Chippewa woman, maddened by the sight of those girls carried away to be the slaves of the savages who had murdered their husbands and fathers, seized a rifle and shot that Sioux chieftain, the leader of that robber band, and slew him! Was she a cruel murderess, or a righteous avenger? C. E. Babb.

Deborah is one of the most striking figures in Jewish history. She was the leader and guide of her countrymen in the effort which restored to them peace and freedom, civil and religious. She was the judge who awarded praise or blame to those who had been false or true to the cause of God and of Israel. And she utters an emphatic and extraordinary blessing upon Jael. Jael’s action on the one hand, and Deborah’s inspired judgment on the other, raise questions to which no reflecting mind can be insensible. We cannot get over the difficulty by saying that Deborah’s utterance about Jael is not inspired; that it is only a page of dark human passion occurring in a generally inspired poem. If Deborah’s blessing of Jael is uninspired, it is hard to claim inspiration reasonably for any part of her song; and if Deborah’s song is not inspired, it is difficult to say what other portions of the Book of Judges are. In weighing Deborah’s language, we have to consider, first of all, that Sisera’s life was, in Deborah’s judgment, rightly forfeited. She speaks of him as the Lord’s enemy. And what Deborah knew about him, Jael knew also. Neither of them had any doubt that his life was justly forfeited. Liddon.

We cannot but assume as the most natural supposition, that Jael knows that a Divine command has gone forth for the destruction of Sisera and his host. In that case she has as much right to kill Sisera as Deborah herself has to do so; she is as much even under an obligation to do so as Deborah herself. The whole look of things is that Jael is one with Israel throughout, that she acts upon the impulse which has roused Israel. Deborah extols her just as if she were a sister in the faith.

It ought to be noted in forming our estimate of Jael’s act, who the person she put to death was. He was the Canaanitish general and leader, against whom, as the representative of the Canaanitish power, the thunderbolt was aimed and the decree of destruction sent forth—“I will deliver him into thine hand.” Sisera is the very life and soul of the Canaanitish kingdom, the ruling spirit and the prime mover of the war. Therefore the Divine decree of destruction, which had gone forth against the Canaanitish host generally, applied with a hundredfold strength to him; and Jael, if she believed in that decree, would think that this, if any, was a case in which it should be executed. This consideration heightens the enormous responsibility which the sudden appearance of Sisera at Jael’s tent door throws upon her. Shall she not at once complete the rescue of Israel by killing Sisera? Or shall she give way to a scruple and save him? In this case she sends Sisera back to his own country to take again the part of leader of the Canaanites, and collect chariots and horsemen for another invasion. She must be either treacherous to Israel, then, or treacherous to Sisera. This was the only alternative which was open to Jael, and it would seem to have come upon her all at once, and with a short time to decide it. She decides that the real rescue of Israel requires the death of Sisera. The act is upon the type of the deceit of early ages, it is public-spirited, and strongly sympathetic. She has the whole religious cause and movement before her eyes. She is in intimate relations with Deborah and the leaders of Israel, and she knows she is conferring an enormous and incalculable benefit on the cause of Israel. . . . The great error in the treatment of the act of Jael has been looking at it apart from all those surrounding circumstances, which so evidently affix the character and the motive to the act, and give it its true interpretation. Jael’s act does not stand by itself, but has relation to and is part of the whole action which rises up under a peculiar, pressing dispensation. If that whole action is right, and if the exterminating war is justified by the Divine command, Jael’s act comes under the general head of this war and this justification. Deborah’s praise is clear and decided, and she declares that Jael “is blessed above women” on account of this act. Deborah was an inspired prophetess, and her approval of the act is identical with the approval of Scripture. But the only moral standard known to Deborah was that of the dispensation under which she lived. It was a dispensation which supposed a defective state of moral ideas in the people, and which required for its own reception an erroneous standard of morals. The praise therefore bestowed under that dispensation upon a particular act did not imply its moral correctness, according to a universal standard, did not satisfy the Bible as a whole, because it satisfied a part of the Bible. It is not presented to us as satisfying a later and a Christian standard of morality. But it should never be forgotten that this act was an act of true religious zeal done in defence of religion, and for the preservation of a Divine dispensation in the world, against idolatry, polytheism, and corruption of morals. Mozley.

Ch. 5 : 1-31.

In the song of Deborah we have the only prophetic utterance that breaks the silence between Moses and Samuel. Hers is the one voice of inspiration (in the full sense of the word) that breaks out in the Book of Judges. In her song are gathered up all the lessons which the rest of the book teaches indirectly. Hers is the life, both in her own history and in the whole period, that expresses the feelings and thoughts of thousands, who were silent till “she, Deborah, arose a mother in Israel.” Hers is the prophetic word that gives an utterance and a sanction to the thoughts of freedom, of independence, of national unity, such as they had never had before in the world, and have rarely had since. Stanley.

Deborah’s hymn of triumph was worthy of the victory. The solemn religious commencement—the picturesque description of the state of the country—the mustering of the troops from all quarters—the sudden transition to the most contemptuous sarcasm against the tribes that stood aloof—the life, fire, and energy of the battle—the bitter pathos of the close—lyric poetry has nothing in any language which can surpass the boldness and animation of this striking production. But this hymn has great historic as well as poetic value. It is the only description of the relation of the tribes to each other, and of the state of society during the period of the Judges. The northern tribes—Zebulun, Issachar, Naphtali—appear in a state of insurrection against their oppressors: they receive some assistance from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. The pastoral tribes beyond Jordan remain in unpatriotic inactivity. Dan and Asher are engaged in their maritime concerns. Of Judah and Simeon there is no notice whatever, as if they had seceded from the confederacy, or were occupied by enemies of their own. Milman.

This song opens (verse 2) with the briefest reference to the great theme of praise; calls triumphantly (3) on all kings and princes to give ear to her song; sets forth in lofty poetic conceptions the coming of Jehovah from the south, in earthquake, tempest, and storm for their help (4, 5); then falls back to give historically the state of the country prior to this great victory (6, 7); refers to the giant sins which brought on these foreign wars (8); calls on men of every grade, rulers and people, to join in her song (9-11); then summons herself and Barak to their tribute of praise (12). Again she resumes the history of this great event—how she called the people to battle (13); how one tribe after another responded or did not respond to this call (15-18); how the kings of Canaan came and fought but took no spoil (19), because God and his stars in the heavens and all the forces of nature fought for Israel (20-22). God’s angel bids them curse Meroz who would not come to the help of the Lord (23); but blesses Jael the Kenite—whose exploits the song spreads out in ample detail (25-27), not omitting a home-picture of the scenes in Sisera’s household and the kindling expectations there which were never realized! H. C.

It is in the song of Deborah, rather than in the prose narrative of the sacred writer, that we best understand the exigency of the times, and the spirit, the passion of the leaders of the theocracy. The theocracy was for the moment almost impersonated in Deborah. And Deborah lives in her song; in all the power of her prophetic utterance, in all the penetrating intensity of her womanly feeling. Yet Deborah is not merely a poet; she is a judge; and in the midst of her passion she apportions with discriminating accuracy their exact measure of desert to the different tribes; to all who had contributed, or who ought to have contributed, to the great victory. Liddon.

Her independence of character, her motherly tenderness, her patriotic enthusiasm, and her well-sustained energy in the campaign of the Israelites combined to make her a remarkable woman. She dwelt among her own people and did not separate from them in their emergency, but went with them up on Mount Tabor. The campaign in which she led was not one of temporary results, for the tyranny and the oppression of the foe were broken for all time. She was a mother, which meant a good deal in those days, when sons were sacrificed in battle, and she carried into her work a mother’s heart. She stood for home, for domestic purity, and social order. As a mother in Israel, the maternal spirit dominated all the qualities of her character. Under the shelter of the palm-tree she sat as prophetess, and they whose hearts were crushed betook themselves to her to unbosom their wrongs and to pour out their plaints to her, and in return they received marks of her patient sympathy, and were taught how to bear their wrongs. She braced up many a broken spirit and counselled the suffering ones to cling to the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She taught them to abandon their idols and strange gods and to go back and call upon the God of Israel. When she spoke her words had power in Israel. All the wrongs of her people had been steeped into her spirit—they were the wrongs of the sons of Jacob. Her mind was one of wonderful poise. The nation had become the child of her adoption, and all the love of a mother’s heart was bestowed upon it to accomplish the work given her to do. She never wavered in her religion; that remained steadfast and was without a particle of superstition. Behrends.

1. She was a “Mother in Israel;” and with a mother’s heart, and with the vehemency of a mother’s and a patriot’s love, she had shot the light of love from her eyes, and poured the blessings of love from her lips, on the people that had “jeoparded their lives unto the death,” against the oppressors; and the bitterness, awakened and borne aloft by the same love, she precipitated in curses on the selfish and coward recreants who “came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” As long as I have the image of Deborah before my eyes, and while I throw myself back into the age, country, and circumstances of this Hebrew Boadicea, in the yet not tamed chaos of the spiritual creation; as long as I contemplate the impassioned, high-souled, heroic woman, in all the prominence and individuality of will and character, I feel as if I were among the first ferments of the great affections,—the proplastic waves of the microcosmic chaos, swelling up against and yet toward the outspread wings of the Dove that lies brooding on the troubled waters. So long all is well, all replete with instruction and example. In the fierce and inordinate, I am made to know and be grateful for the clearer and purer radiance which shines on a Christian’s path, neither blunted by the preparatory veil nor crimsoned in its struggle through the all-enwrapping mist of the world’s ignorance; while in the self-oblivion of these heroes of the Old Testament—their elevation above all low and individual interests, above all, in the entire and vehement devotion of their total being to the service of their Divine Master—I find a lesson of humility, a ground of humiliation, and a shaming, yet rousing, example of faith and fealty. Coleridge.

20. The stars in their courses fought against Siscra.** Aye, though no one of them swerved from its appointed path or halted in its ordained journey. And so the stars fight in their courses to-day against all evil-doers; that eternal order which is reflected in the ordered motion of the stars is all on the side of the good and the true; and it moves on, neither hastening nor resting, to the accomplishment of the good, to the overthrow of the evil. No deed that is done upon earth can break in upon the harmonious motion of the spheres, no wickedness of man’s can break the line of God’s embattled hosts; they move majestically on to the accomplishment of his holy will. That order is for us, not against us; and its stability is a sign that the forces of evil are powerless to break it. “All things work together for good to them that love God;” and the rising and setting of suns and the stately march of the stars, are tokens of that order which will never become disorder, and this in spite of all the assaults of Satan. The stars in their courses are fighting for us, if we are the Lord’s; and so is he who is both our Lord and the Lord of the stars. S. S. T.

23. Curse ye Meroz.** The effect of the curse, like that pronounced upon Amalek (Ex. 17 : 14), seems to have “blotted out the remembrance” of its history and its site. Said the angel of the Lord. The Angel-Jehovah, before spoken of (ch. 2 : 1). It was Jehovah that commanded the curse. She would not otherwise have interrupted her strains of thanksgiving by the utterance of so fearful a judgment. Bush.—Had the people of Meroz taken up arms against Jehovah? No! Had they gone over to the enemy, and fought against the chosen people? No! What, then, had they done? Nothing! Their neutrality was their crime. “Because they came not up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Dr. Newton.—Meroz was not merely wanting in duty to the memories and traditions of Moses and of Joshua; it was undutiful toward the true King of the sacred nation, as yet unrepresented below by any earthly viceroy; the King who, though He could have done otherwise, had made His honor dependent on the loyalty and affection of His subjects. Meroz would not come “to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” To refuse aid to the sacred cause until it was certain of success, was in a man or a community belonging to the covenanted nation an act of virtual apostasy; and Meroz was not merely politically disfranchised, it was religiously excommunicated. Liddon.

There are occasions when not to act for God is to act against God. When the Lord calls for help against the mighty, he that withholds that help is cursed. By so doing he is helping the enemies of God, and among the enemies of God he will fall. There are times, our own times are such, when the enemies of the cross of Christ are unusually active against the truth. Science and literature, wit and intellect, the press and the platform, fashion and numbers, are pressed into the service, to cast discredit upon the everlasting gospel of the grace of God. At such a time to be neutral and indifferent is to be a traitor to the Lord Jesus Christ. At such a time he calls to his help against the mighty all who believe in him, who love him, and who hope in his salvation. “Who is on the Lord’s side, who?” is his appeal to his redeemed. Let no believer hold back from giving what help is in his power: the help of word and deed; the help of bold confession and of unflinching countenance; the help of tongue and pen; the help, if need be, of suffering and of martyrdom; the help of a devoted life, and of a holy Christian walk, in all humility, and purity, and faith, knowing whom he has believed, and fully assured that faith will be crowned with victory. A. C. H.

30. “Oppressors” like the Mesopotamians, Moab, Ammon, Midian, Hazor, and the Philistines, made war chiefly that they might make captives to be carried away into slavery. The “damsel or two” which each of the soldiers of Jabin’s army was expected to bring back from the battle under Siscra were of course intended for the slave-market. To what extent similar oppressions in the after history of Israel were accompanied by the removal of captives out of the land, and their sale as slaves in foreign countries, we have abundant evidence. In Joel we find God represented as “pleading” with certain nations, “for my people and my heritage,

Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations . . . having cast lots for my people; and having given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they might drink” (3 : 2). Lee.

31. Deborah lived in an age when God’s people stood against their enemies by dint, not of patient suffering, but of heroic fighting, imperilling their lives on the high places of the bloody fields of real war. She put herself in full sympathy with God, and met the circumstances and conditions of her time with the truest Christian heroism. Her sympathies are intensely deep and strong, and withal are thoroughly for God and against his enemies. With what terseness and force does she put it! So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; whenever, anywhere in the lapse of the ages, they take up arms against Thee, or how strong soever they may be in chariots and in horsemen—let them go down quick to such a doom as this! But let all who love God and put themselves with heart and hand upon his side, be as the rising sun sweeping up the eastern heavens in his might and glory! Could anything be more beautiful, nay, rather, more sublimely grand in poetic conception than this? H. C.

All the enemies of the Lord will surely perish. The day is not far off which will mark the difference between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. Then they that love the Lord will shine forth as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. The righteous will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, and they who confessed Christ before men will be confessed of him before the angels of God. Such are the fuller prophecies of the New Testament, confirming the obscurer prophecies of the Old, and encouraging us to hold on our faith without wavering, in the certainty of the great reward.

The people are set free from their oppressors, and have rest for forty years. The lesson which this chapter impresses upon us especially is that God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness. “Fear not, thou worm Jacob; I will help thee, saith the Lord,” is an exhortation which under every possible circumstance is made easy to comply with by the recollection of these wonderful acts of God. A. C. H.