{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JDG","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Judges","commonName":"Judges","introduction":"The Book of Judges\n\nIntroduction\n\nContents, and Character, Origin and Sources, of the Book of Judges\n\nThe book of Judges, headed Shophetim in the Hebrew Bibles, and Κριταί in the Alexandrian version, and called liber Judicum in the Vulgate, contains the history of the Israelitish theocracy for a period of about 350 years, from the death of Joshua to the death of Samson, or to the time of the prophet Samuel. It may be divided according to its contents into three parts: (1) an introduction (Judg 1-3:6); (2) the history of the several judges (Judg 3:7-16:31); and (3) a twofold appendix (Judg 17-21). In the Introduction the prophetic author of the book first of all takes a general survey of those facts which exhibited most clearly the behaviour of the Israelites to the Canaanites who were left in the land after the death of Joshua, and closes his survey with the reproof of their behaviour by the angel of the Lord (Jud1:1- Jos 2:5). He then describes in a general manner the attitude of Israel to the Lord its God and that of the Lord to His people during the time of the judges, and represents this period as a constant alternation of humiliation through hostile oppression, when the nation fell away from its God, and deliverance out of the power of its enemies by judges whom God raised up and endowed with the power of His Spirit, whenever the people returned to the Lord (Judg 2:6-3:6). This is followed in the body of the work (Judg 3:7-16:31) by the history of the several oppressions of Israel on the part of foreign nations, with the deliverance effected by the judges who were raised up by God, and whose deeds are for the most part elaborately described in chronological order, and introduced by the standing formula, \"And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,\" etc.; or, \"And the children of Israel again did evil (added to do evil),\" etc. They are arranged in six historical groups: (1) the oppression by the Mesopotamian king, Chushan-rishathaim, with the deliverance from this oppression through Othniel the judge (Jdg 3:7-11); (2) the oppression by the Moabitish king Eglon, with the deliverance effected through Ehud the judge (Judg 3:12-30), and the victory achieved by Shamgar over the Philistines (Jdg 3:31); (3) the subjugation of Israel by the Canaanitish king Jabin, and the deliverance effected through the prophetess Deborah and Barak the judge (Judg 4), with Deborah's song of victory (Judg 5); (4) the oppression by the Midianites, and the deliverance from these enemies through the judge Gideon, who was called to be the deliverer of Israel through an appearance of the angel of the Lord (Judg 6-8), with the history of the three years' reign of his son Abimelech (Judg 9), and brief notices of the two judges Tola and Jair (Jdg 10:1-5); (5) the giving up of the Israelites into the power of the Ammonites and Philistines, and their deliverance from the Ammonitish oppression by Jephthah (Judg 10:6-12:7), with brief notices of the three judges Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (Jdg 12:8-15); (6) the oppression by the Philistines, with the account of the life and deeds of Samson the judge, who began to deliver Israel out of the power of these foes (Judg 13-16). To this there are added two appendices in Judg 17-21: viz., (1) the account of the worship of images by the Ephraimite Micah, and the transportation of that worship by the Danites to Laish-Dan (Judg 17-18); and (2) the infamous conduct of the inhabitants of Gibeah, and the war of revenge which was waged by the congregation of Israel against the tribe of Benjamin as a punishment for the crime (Judg 19-21). Both these events occurred in the earliest part of the period of the judges, as we may gather, in the case of the first, from a comparison of Jdg 18:1 with Jdg 1:34, and in that of the second from a comparison of Jdg 20:28 with Jos 22:13 and Jos 24:33; and they are merely placed at the end of the book in the form of appendices, because they could not well be introduced into the six complete historical tableaux; although, so far as the facts themselves are concerned, they are intimately connected with the contents and aim of the book of Judges, inasmuch as they depict the religious and moral circumstances of the times in the most striking manner in two pictures drawn from life. The relation in which the three parts stand to one another, therefore, is this: the introduction depicts the basis on which the deeds of the judges were founded, and the appendices furnish confirmatory evidence of the spirit of the age as manifested in those deeds. The whole book, however, is pervaded and ruled by the idea distinctly expressed in the introduction (Jdg 2:1-3, Jdg 2:11-22), that the Lord left those Canaanites who had not been exterminated by Joshua still in the land, to prove to Israel through them whether it would obey His commandments, and that He chastised and punished His people through them for their disobedience and idolatry; but that as soon as they recognised His chastening hand in the punishment, and returned to Him with penitence and implored His help, He had compassion upon them again in His gracious love, and helped them to victory over their foes, so that, notwithstanding the repeated acts of faithlessness on the part of His people, the Lord remained ever faithful in His deeds, and stedfastly maintained His covenant.\n\nWe must not look to the book of Judges, therefore, for a complete history of the period of the judges, or one which throws light upon the development of the Israelites on every side. the character of the book, as shown in its contents and the arrangement of the materials, corresponds entirely to the character of the times over which it extends. The time of the judges did not form a new stage in the development of the nation of God. It was not till the time of Samuel and David, when this period was ended, that a new stage began. It was rather a transition period, the time of free, unfettered development, in which the nation was to take root in the land presented to it by God as its inheritance, to familiarize itself with the theocratic constitution given to it by the Mosaic law, and by means of the peculiar powers and gifts conferred upon it by God to acquire for itself that independence and firm footing in Canaan, within the limits of the laws, ordinances, and rights of the covenant, which Jehovah had promised, and the way to which He had prepared through the revelations He had made to them. This task could be accomplished without any ruler directly appointed by the Lord. The first thing which the tribes had to do was to root out such Canaanites as remained in the land, that they might not only establish themselves in the unrestricted and undisputed possession and enjoyment of the land and its productions, but also avert the danger which threatened them on the part of these tribes of being led away to idolatry and immorality. The Lord had promised them His help in this conflict, if they would only walk in His commandments. The maintenance of civil order and the administration of justice were in the hands of the heads of tribes, families, and households; and for the relation in which the congregation stood to the Lord its God, it possessed the necessary organs and media in the hereditary priesthood of the tribe of Levi, whose head could inquire the will of God in all cases of difficulty through the right of Urim, and make it known to the nation. Now as long as the generation, which had seen the wonderful works of the Lord in the time of Joshua, was still living, so long did the nation continue faithful to the covenant of its God, and the tribes maintain a successful conflict with the still remaining Canaanites (Judg 1:1-20, Jdg 1:22-25). But the very next generation, to which those mighty acts of the Lord were unknown, began to forget its God, to grow weary and lax in its conflicts with the Canaanites, to make peace with them, and to mix up the worship of Jehovah, the jealous and holy God, with the worship of Baal and Astarte, the Canaanitish deities of nature, and even to substitute the latter in its place. With the loss of love and fidelity to the Lord, the bond of unity which formed the tribes into one congregation of Jehovah was also broken. The different tribes began to follow their own separate interests (vid., Jdg 5:15-17, Jdg 5:23; Jdg 8:5-8), and eventually even to oppose and make war upon one another; whilst Ephraim was bent upon securing to itself the headship of all the tribes, though without making any vigorous efforts to carry on the war with the oppressors of Israel (vid., Jdg 8:1., Jdg 12:1-6). Consequently Israel suffered more and more from the oppression of heathen nations, to which God gave it up as a chastisement for its idolatry; and it would have become altogether a prey to its foes, had not the faithful covenant God taken compassion upon it in its distress as often as it cried to Him, and sent deliverers (מושׁיעים, Jdg 3:9, Jdg 3:15; cf. Neh 9:27) in those judges, after whom both the age in question and the book before us are called. There are twelve of these judges mentioned, or rather thirteen, as Deborah the prophetess also judges Israel (Jdg 4:4); but there are only eight (Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson), who are described as performing acts by which Israel obtained deliverance from its oppressors. Of the other five (Tolah, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon) we are merely told that they judged Israel so many years. The reason for this we are not to seek in the fact that the report of the heroic deeds of these judges had not been handed down to the time when our book was written. It is to be found simply in the fact that these judges waged no wars and smote no foes.\n\nThe judges (shophetim) were men who procured justice or right for the people of Israel, not only be delivering them out of the power of their foes, but also by administering the laws and rights of the Lord (Jdg 2:16-19). Judging in this sense was different from the administration of civil jurisprudence, and included the idea of government such as would be expected from a king. Thus in Sa1 8:5-6, the people are said to have asked Samuel to give them a king \"to judge us,\" to procure us right, i.e., to govern us; and in Kg2 15:5 Jotham is said to have judged, i.e., governed the nation during the illness of his father. The name given to these men (shophetim, judges) was evidently founded upon Deu 17:9 and Deu 19:17, where it is assumed that in after-times there would be a shophet, who would stand by the side of the high priest as the supreme judge or leader of the state in Israel. The judges themselves corresponded to the δικασταί of the Tyrians (Josephus, c. Ap. i. 21) and the Suffetes of the Carthaginians (qui summus Paenis est magistratus, Liv. Hist. xxvii. 37, and xxx. 7), with this difference, however, that as a rule the judges of Israel were called directly by the Lord, and endowed with miraculous power for the conquest of the enemies of Israel; and if, after delivering the people from their oppressors, they continued to the time of their death to preside over the public affairs of the whole nation, or merely of several of its tribes, yet they did not follow one another in a continuous line and unbroken succession, because the ordinary administration of justice and government of the commonwealth still remained in the hands of the heads of the tribes and the elders of the people, whilst occasionally there were also prophets and high priests, such as Deborah, Eli, and Samuel (Jdg 4:4; Sa1 4:18; Sa1 7:15), in whom the government was vested. Thus \"Othniel delivered the children of Israel,\" and \"judged Israel,\" by going out to war, smiting Chushan-rishathaim, the Aramaean king, and giving the land rest for forty years (Jdg 3:9-11); and the same with Ehud and several others. On the other hand, Shamgar (Jdg 3:31) and Samson (Judg 13-16) are apparently called judges of Israel, simply as opponents and conquerors of the Philistines, without their having taken any part in the administration of justice. Others, again, nether engaged in war nor gained victories. No warlike deeds are recorded of Tola; and yet it is stated in Jdg 10:1, that \"he rose up after Abimelech to deliver Israel (את־ישׂראל להושׁיע), and judged Israel twenty-three years;\" whilst of his successor Jair nothing more is said, than that \"he judged Israel twenty-two years.\" Both of these had delivered and judged Israel, not by victories gained over enemies, but by placing themselves at the head of the tribes over whom Gideon had been judge, at the termination of the ephemeral reign of Abimelech, and by preventing the recurrence of hostile oppression, through the influence they exerted, as well as by what they did for the establishment of the nation in its fidelity to the Lord. This also applies to Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, who followed Jephthah in direct succession (Jdg 12:8-15). Of these five judges also, it is not stated that Jehovah raised them up or called them. In all probability they merely undertook the government at the wish of the tribes whose judges they were; whilst at the same time it is to be observed, that such cases as these did not occur until the desire for a king had begun to manifest itself throughout the nation (Jdg 8:22-23).\n\nBut if all the judges did not fight against outward enemies of Israel, it might appear strange that the book of Judges should close with the death of Samson, without mentioning Eli and Samuel, as both of them judged Israel, the one forty years, the other for the whole of his life (Sa1 4:18; Sa1 7:15). But Eli was really high priest, and what he did as judge was merely the natural result of his office of high priest; and Samuel was called to be the prophet of the Lord, and as such he delivered Israel from the oppression of the Philistines, not with the sword and by the might of his arm, like the judges before him, but by the power of the word, with which he converted Israel to the Lord, and by the might of his prayer, with which he sought and obtained the victory from the Lord (Sa1 7:3-10); so that his judicial activity not only sprang out of his prophetic office, but was continually sustained thereby. The line of actual judges terminated with Samson; and with his death the office of judge was carried to the grave. Samson was followed immediately by Samuel, whose prophetic labours formed the link between the period of the judges and the introduction of royalty into Israel. The forty years of oppression on the part of the Philistines, from which Samson began to deliver Israel (Jdg 13:1, Jdg 13:5), were brought to a close by the victory which the Israelites gained through Samuel's prayer (1 Sam 7), as will be readily seen when we have determined the chronology of the period of the judges, in the introductory remarks to the exposition of the body of the book. This victory was not gained by the Israelites till twenty years after Eli's death (comp. Sa1 7:2 with Sa1 6:1 and Sa1 4:18). Consequently of the forty years during which Eli judged Israel as high priest, only the last twenty fell within the time of the Philistine oppression, the first twenty before it. But both Samuel and Samson were born during the pontificate of Eli; for when Samson's birth was foretold, the Philistines were already ruling over Israel (Jdg 13:5). The deeds of Samson fell for the most part within the last twenty years of the Philistine supremacy, i.e., not only in the interval between the capture of the ark and death of Eli and the victory which the Israelites achieved through Samuel over these foes, which victory, however, Samson did not live to see, but also in the time when Samuel had been accredited as a prophet of Jehovah, and Jehovah had manifested himself repeatedly to him by word at Shiloh (Sa1 3:20-21). Consequently Samuel completed the deliverance of Israel out of the power of the Philistines, which Samson had commenced.\n\nThe book of Judges, therefore, embraces the whole of the judicial epoch, and gives a faithful picture of the political development of the Israelitish theocracy during that time. The author writes throughout from a prophet's point of view. He applies the standard of the law to the spirit of the age by which the nation was influenced as a whole, and pronounces a stern and severe sentence upon all deviations from the path of rectitude set before it in the law. The unfaithfulness of Israel, which went a whoring again and again after Baal, and was punished for its apostasy from the Lord with oppression from foreign nations, and the faithfulness of the Lord, who sent help to the people whenever it returned to Him in its oppression, by raising up judges who conquered its enemies, are the two historical factors of those times, and the hinges upon which the history turns. In the case of all the judges, it is stated that they judged \"Israel,\" or the \"children of Israel;\" although it is very obvious, from the accounts of the different deliverances effected, that most of the judges only delivered and judged those tribes who happened to be oppressed and subjugated by their enemies at a particular time. The other tribes, who were spared by this or the other hostile invasion, did not come into consideration in reference to the special design of the historical account, namely, to describe the acts of the Lord in the government of His people, any more than the development of the religious and social life of individual members of the congregation in harmony with the law; inasmuch as the congregation, whether in whole or in part, was merely fulfilling its divinely appointed vocation, so long as it observed the law, and about this there was nothing special to be related (see the description given of the book of Judges in Hengstenberg, Diss. on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. pp. 16ff.).\n\nLastly, if we take a survey of the gradual development of Israel during the times of the judges, we may distinguish three stages in the attitude of the Lord to His constantly rebelling people, and also in the form assumed by the external and internal circumstances of the nation: viz., (1) the period from the commencement of the apostasy of the nation till its deliverance from the rule of the Canaanitish king Jabin, or the time of the judges Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar, Deborah and Barak (Judg 3-5); (2) the time of the Midianitish oppression, with the deliverance effected by Gideon, and the government which followed, viz., of Abimelech and the judges Tola and Jair (Judg 6-10:5); (3) the time of the Ammonitish and Philistine supremacy over Israel, with the judges Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon on the one hand, and that of Samson on the other (Judg 10:6-16:31). Three times, for example, the Lord threatens His people with oppression and subjugation by foreign nations, as a punishment for their disobedience and apostasy from Him: viz., (1) at Bochim (Jdg 2:1-4) through the angel of the Lord; (2) on the invasion of the Midianites (Jdg 6:7-10) through the medium of a prophet; and (3) at the commencement of the Ammonitish and Philistine oppression (Jdg 10:10-14). The first time He threatens, \"the Canaanites shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you\" (Jdg 2:3); the second time, \"I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you; I said unto you, I am Jehovah, your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites: but ye have not hearkened to my voice\" (Jdg 6:9-10); the third time, \"Ye have forsaken me and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more; go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation\" (Jdg 10:13-14). These threats were fulfilled upon the disobedient nation, not only in the fact that they fell deeper and deeper under the oppression of their foes, but by their also becoming disjointed and separated more and more internally. In the first stage, the oppressions from without lasted a tolerably long time: that of Chushan-rishathaim eight years; that of Eglon the Moabite, eighteen; and that of the Canaanitish king Jabin, as much as twenty years (Jdg 3:8, Jdg 3:14; Jdg 4:3). But, on the other hand, after the first, the Israelites had forty years of peace; after the second, eighty; and after the third, again forty years (Jdg 3:11, Jdg 3:30; Jdg 5:31). Under Othniel and Ehud all Israel appears to have risen against its oppressors; but under Barak, Reuben and Gilead, Dan and Asher took no part in the conflict of the other tribes (Jdg 5:15-17). In the second stage, the Midianitish oppression lasted, it is true, only seven years (Jdg 6:1), and was followed by forty years of rest under Gideon (Jdg 8:28); whilst the three years' government of Abimelech was followed by forty-five years of peace under Tola and Jair (Jdg 10:2-3); but even under Gideon the jealousy of Ephraim was raised to such a pitch against the tribes who had joined in smiting the foe, that it almost led to a civil war (Jdg 8:1-3), and the inhabitants of Succoth and Penuel refused all assistance to the victorious army, and that in so insolent a manner that they were severely punished by Gideon in consequence (Jdg 8:4-9, Jdg 8:14-17); whilst in the election of Abimelech as king of Shechem, the internal decay of the congregation of Israel was brought still more clearly to light (Judg 9). Lastly, in the third stage, no doubt, Israel was delivered by Jephthah from the eighteen years' bondage on the part of the Ammonites (Jdg 11:8.), and the tribes to the east of the Jordan, as well as the northern tribes of the land on this side, enjoyed rest under the judges Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon for thirty-one years (Jdg 12:7, Jdg 12:9,Jdg 12:11, Jdg 12:14); but the Philistine oppression lasted till after Samson's death (Jdg 13:5; Jdg 15:20), and the internal decay increased so much under this hostile pressure, that whilst the Ephraimites, on the one hand, commenced a war against Jephthah, and sustained a terrible defeat at the hands of the tribes on the east of the Jordan (Jdg 12:1-6), on the other hand, the tribes who were enslaved by the Philistines had so little appreciation of the deliverance which God had sent them through Samson, that the men of Judah endeavoured to give up their deliverer to the Philistines (Jdg 15:9-14). Nevertheless the Lord not only helped the nation again, both in its distress and out of its distress, but came nearer and nearer to it with His aid, that it might learn that its help was to be found in God alone. The first deliverers and judges He stirred up by His Spirit, which came upon Othniel and Ehud, and filled them with courage and strength for the conquest of their foes. Barak was summoned to the war by the prophetess Deborah, and inspired by her with the courage to undertake it. Gideon was called to be the deliverer of Israel out of the severe oppression of the Midianites by the appearance of the angel of the Lord, and the victory over the innumerable army of the foe was given by the Lord, not to the whole of the army which Gideon summoned to the battle, but only to a small company of 300 men, that Israel might not \"vaunt themselves against the Lord,\" and magnify their own power. Lastly, Jephthah and Samson were raised up as deliverers out of the power of the Ammonites and Philistines; and whilst Jephthah was called by the elders of Gilead to be the leader in the war with the Midianites, and sought through a vow to ensure the assistance of God in gaining a victory over them, Samson was set apart from his mother's womb, through the appearance of the angel of the Lord, as the Nazarite who was to begin to deliver Israel out of the power of the Philistines. At the same time there was given to the nation in the person of Samuel, the son for whom the pious Hannah prayed to the Lord, a Nazarite and prophet, who was not only to complete the deliverance from the power of the Philistines which Samson had begun, but to ensure the full conversion of Israel to the Lord its God.\n\nWith regard to the origin of the book of Judges, it is evident from the repeated remark, \"In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes\" (Jdg 17:6; Jdg 21:25; cf. Jdg 18:1; Jdg 19:1), that it was composed at a time when Israel was already rejoicing in the benefits connected with the kingdom. It is true this remark is only to be found in the appendices, and would have no force so far as the date of composition is concerned, if the view held by different critics were well-founded, viz., that these appendices were added by a later hand. But the arguments adduced against the unity of authorship in all three parts, the introduction, the body of the work, and the appendices, will not bear examination. Without the introduction (Judg 1:1-3:6) the historical narrative contained in the book would want a foundation, which is absolutely necessary to make it intelligible; and the two appendices supply two supplements of the greatest importance in relation to the development of the tribes of Israel in the time of the judges, and most intimately connected with the design and plan of the rest of the book. It is true that in Judg 1, as well as in the two appendices, the prophetic view of the history which prevails in the rest of the book, from Jdg 2:11 to Jdg 16:31, is not distinctly apparent; but this difference may be fully explained from the contents of the two portions, which neither furnish the occasion nor supply the materials for any such view-like the account of the royal supremacy of Abimelech in Judg 9, in which the so-called \"theocratical pragmatism\" is also wanting. But, on the other hand, all these portions are just as rich in allusions to the Mosaic law and the legal worship as the other parts of the book, so that both in their contents and their form they would be unintelligible apart from the supremacy of the law in Israel. The discrepancies which some fancy they have discovered between Jdg 1:8 and Jdg 1:21, and also between Jdg 1:19 and Jdg 3:3, vanish completely on a correct interpretation of the passages themselves. And no such differences can be pointed out in language or style as would overthrow the unity of authorship, or even render it questionable. Even Sthelin observes (spez. Einl. p. 77): \"I cannot find in Judg 17-21 the (special) author of Judg 1-2:5; and the arguments adduced by Bertheau in favour of this, from modes of expression to be found in the two sections, appear to me to be anything but conclusive, simply because the very same modes of expression occur elsewhere: לשׁבת יואל in Exo 2:21; חתן in Num 10:29; בּיד נתן, Jos 10:30; Jos 11:8; Jdg 6:1; Jdg 11:21; לאשּׁה נתן, Gen 29:28; Gen 30:4, Gen 30:9; Gen 34:8, etc.; חרב לפי הכּה, Num 21:24; Deu 13:16; Jos 8:24; Jos 10:28, Jos 10:30, Jos 10:32, etc. Undoubtedly בּי שׁאל only occurs in Jdg 1:1 and the appendix, and never earlier; but there is a similar expression in Num 27:21 and Jos 9:14, and the first passage shows how the mode of expression could be so abbreviated. I find no preterites with ו, used in the place of the future with ו in Judg 1; for it is evident from the construction that the preterite must be used in Jdg 1:8, Jdg 1:16, Jdg 1:25, etc.; and thus the only thing left that could strike us at all is the idiom בּאשׁ שׁלּח, which is common to both sections, but which is too isolated, and occurs again moreover in Kg2 8:12 and Psa 74:7.\" But even the \"peculiar phrases belonging to a later age,\" which Sthelin and Bertheau discover in Judg 17-21 do not furnish any tenable proof of this assertion. The phrase \"from Dan to Beersheba,\" in Jdg 20:1, was formed after the settlement of the Danites in Laish-Dan, which took place at the commencement of the time of the judges. נשׁים נשׂא, in Jdg 21:23, is also to be found in Rut 1:4; and the others either occur again in the books of Samuel, or have been wrongly interpreted.\n\nWe have a firm datum for determining more minutely the time when the book of Judges was written, in the statement in Jdg 1:21, that the Jebusites in Jerusalem had not been rooted out by the Israelites, but dwelt there with the children of Benjamin \"unto this day.\" The Jebusites remained in possession of Jerusalem, or of the citadel Zion, or the upper town of Jerusalem, until the time when David went against Jerusalem after the twelve tribes had acknowledge him as king, took the fortress of Zion, and made it the capital of his kingdom under the name of the city of David (Sa2 5:6-9; Ch1 11:4-9). Consequently the book was written before this event, either during the first seven years of the reign of David at Hebron, or during the reign of Saul, under whom the Israelites already enjoyed the benefits of a monarchical government, since Saul not only fought with bravery against all the enemies of Israel, and \"delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them\" (Sa1 14:47-48), but exerted himself to restore the authority of the law of God in his kingdom, as is evident from the fact that he banished the wizards and necromancers out of the land (Sa1 28:9). The talmudical statement therefore in Bava-bathra (f. 14b and 15a), to the effect that Samuel was the author of the book, may be so far correct, that if it was not written by Samuel himself towards the close of his life, it was written at his instigation by a younger prophet of his school. More than this it is impossible to decide. So much, however, is at all events certain, that the book does not contain traces of a later age either in its contents or its language, and that Jdg 18:30 does not refer to the time of the captivity (see the commentary on this passage).\n\nWith regard to the sources of which the author made use, unless we are prepared to accept untenable hypotheses as having all the validity of historical facts, it is impossible to establish anything more than that he drew his materials not only from oral tradition, but also from written documents. This is obvious from the exactness of the historical and chronological accounts, and still more so from the abundance of characteristic and original traits and expressions that meet the reader in the historical pictures, some of which are very elaborate. The historical fidelity, exactness, and vividness of description apparent in every part of the book are only to be explained in a work which embraces a period of 350 years, on the supposition that the author made use of trustworthy records, or the testimony of persons who were living when the events occurred. This stands out so clearly in every part of the book, that it is admitted even by critics who are compelled by their own dogmatical assumptions to deny the actual truth or reality of the miraculous parts of the history. With regard to the nature of these sources, however, we can only conjecture that Judg 1 and 17-21 were founded upon written accounts, with which the author of the book of Joshua was also acquainted; and that the accounts of Deborah and Barak, of Gideon, and the life of Samson, were taken from different writing, inasmuch as these sections are distinguished from one another by many peculiarities. (Further remarks on this subject will be found in the exposition itself.)","order":7,"numberOfChapters":21,"sha256":"85f6a06a2f6ec7d7537b94921f050c762a6ba7de8d76fcdeb9bddb85afb56724","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JDG/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JDG","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":21,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JDG/21.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JDG","chapter":21},"totalNumberOfVerses":211},"chapter":{"number":5,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["The historical introduction (\"Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying\") takes the place of a heading, and does not mean that the song of Deborah and Barak which follows was composed by them jointly, but simply that it was sung by them together, in commemoration of the victory. The poetess or writer of the song, according to Jdg 5:3, Jdg 5:7, and Jdg 5:12, was Deborah. The song itself opens with a summons to praise the Lord for the willing and joyful rising up of His people. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["2 That the strong in Israel showed themselves strong,\nThat the people willingly offered themselves,\nPraise ye the Lord!\nThe meaning of פּרע and פּרעות is a subject of dispute. According to the Septuagint rendering, and that of Theodot., ἐν τῷ ἄρξασθαι ἀρχηγοὺς ἐν Ἰσραήλ, many give it the meaning to begin or to lead, and endeavour to establish this meaning from an Arabic word signifying to find one's self at the head of an affair. But this meaning cannot be established in Hebrew. פּרע has no other meaning than to let loose from something, to let a person loose or free (see at Lev 10:6); and in the only other passage where פּרעות occurs (Deu 32:42), it does not refer to a leader, but to the luxuriant growth of the hair as the sign of great strength. Hence in this passage also פּרעות literally means comati, the hairy ones, i.e., those who possessed strength; and פּרע, to manifest or put forth strength. The persons referred to are the champions in the fight, who went before the nation with strength and bravery. The preposition בּ before פּרע indicates the reason for praising God, or rather the object with which the praise of the Lord was connected. וגו בּפרע, literally \"in the showing themselves strong.\" The meaning is, \"for the fact that the strong in Israel put forth strength.\" התנדּב, to prove one's self willing, here to go into the battle of their own free will, without any outward and authoritative command. This introduction transports us in the most striking manner into the time of the judges, when Israel had no king who could summon the nation to war, but everything depended upon the voluntary rising of the strong and the will of the nation at large. The manifestation of this strength and willingness Deborah praises as a gracious gift of the Lord. After this summons to praise the Lord, the first part of the song opens with an appeal to the kings and princes of the earth to hear what Deborah has to proclaim to the praise of God. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["3 Hear, ye kings; give ear, ye princes! \nI, to the Lord will I sing,\nWill sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel.\n4 Lord, when Thou wentest out from Seir, \nWhen Thou marchedst out of the fields of Edom,\nThe earth trembled, and the heavens also dropped; \nThe clouds also dropped water.\n5 The mountains shook before the Lord, \nSinai there before the Lord, the God of Israel.\nThe \"kings and princes\" are not the rulers in Israel, for Israel had no kings at that time, but the kings and princes of the heathen nations, as in Psa 2:2. These were to discern the mighty acts of Jehovah in Israel, and learn to fear Jehovah as the almighty God. For the song to be sung applies to Him, the God of Israel. זמּר, ψάλλειν, is the technical expression for singing with an instrumental accompaniment (see at Exo 15:2). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["To give the Lord the glory for the victory which had been gained through His omnipotent help over the powerful army of Sisera, and to fill the heathen with fear of Jehovah, and the Israelites with love and confidence towards Him, the singer reverts to the terribly glorious manifestation of Jehovah in the olden time, when Israel was accepted as the nation of God (Ex 19). Just as Moses in his blessing (Deu 33:2) referred the tribes of Israel to this mighty act, as the source of all salvation and blessing for Israel, so the prophetess Deborah makes the praise of this glorious manifestation of God the starting-point of her praise of the great grace, which Jehovah as the faithful covenant God had displayed to His people in her own days. The tacit allusion to Moses' blessing is very unmistakeable. But whereas Moses describes the descent of the Lord upon Sinai (Ex 19), according to its gracious significance in relation to the tribes of Israel, as an objective fact (Jehovah came from Sinai, Deu 33:2), Deborah clothes the remembrance of it in the form of an address to God, to bring out the thought that the help which Israel had just experienced was a renewal of the coming of the Lord to His people. Jehovah's going out of Seir, and marching out of the fields of Edom, is to be interpreted in the same sense as His rising up from Seir (Deu 33:2). As the descent of the Lord upon Sinai is depicted there as a rising of the sun from the east, so the same descent in a black cloud amidst thunder, lightning, fire, and vapour of smoke (Exo 19:16, Exo 19:18), is represented here with direct allusion to these phenomena as a storm rising up from Seir in the east, in which the Lord advanced to meet His people as they came from the west to Sinai. Before the Lord, who came down upon Sinai in the storm and darkness of the cloud, the earth shook and the heaven dropped, or, as it is afterwards more definitely explained, the clouds dropped with water, emptied themselves of their abundance of water as they do in the case of a storm. The mountains shook (נזלוּ, Niphal of זלל, dropping the reduplication of the ל = נזלּוּ, Isa 63:19; Isa 64:2), even the strong rocky mountain of Sinai, which stood out so distinctly before the eyes of the singer, that she speaks of it as \"this Sinai,\" pointing to it as though it were locally near. David's description of the miraculous guidance of Israel through the desert in Psa 68:8-9, is evidently founded upon this passage, though it by no means follows from this that the passage before us also treats of the journey through the desert, as Clericus supposes, or even of the presence of the Lord in the battle with Sisera, and the victory which it secured. But greatly as Israel had been exalted at Sinai by the Lord its God, it had fallen just as deeply into bondage to its oppressors through its own sins, until Deborah arose to help it (Jdg 5:6-8). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["6 In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath,\nIn the days of Jael, the paths kept holiday, \nAnd the wanderers of the paths went crooked ways.\n7 The towns in Israel kept holiday, they kept holiday,\nUntil that I, Deborah, arose, \nThat I arose a mother in Israel \n8 They chose new gods; \nThen was war at the gates: \nWas there a shield seen and a spear \nAmong forty thousand in Israel?\nThe deep degradation and disgrace into which Israel had sunk before the appearance of Deborah, through its falling away from the Lord into idolatry, forms the dark reverse of that glorification at Sinai. Although, after Ehud, Shamgar had also brought help to the people against their enemies by a victory over the Philistines (Jdg 3:31), and although Jael, who proved herself a heroine by slaying the fugitive Sisera, was then alive, things had got to such a pitch with Israel, that no one would venture upon the public high roads. There are no good grounds for the conjecture that Jael was a different person from the Jael mentioned in Jdg 4:17., whether a judge who is not further known, as Ewald supposes, or a female judge who stood at the head of the nation in these unhappy times (Bertheau). ארחות חדלוּ, lit., \"the paths ceased,\" sc., to be paths, or to be trodden by men. נתיבות הלכי, \"those who went upon paths,\" or beaten ways, i.e., those who were obliged to undertake journeys for the purpose of friendly intercourse or trade, notwithstanding the burden of foreign rule which pressed upon the land; such persons went by \"twisted paths,\" i.e., by roads and circuitous routes which turned away from the high roads. And the פּרזון, i.e., the cultivated land, with its open towns and villages, and with their inhabitants, was as forsaken and desolate as the public highways. The word perazon has been rendered judge or guidance by modern expositors, after the example of Teller and Gesenius; and in Jdg 5:11 decision or guidance. But this meaning, which has been adopted into all the more recent lexicons, has nothing really to support it, and does not even suit our verse, into which it would introduce the strange contradiction, that at the time when Shamgar and Jael were judges, there were no judges in Israel. In addition to the Septuagint version, which renders the word δυνατοὶ in this verse (i.e., according to the Cod. Vat., for the Col. Al. has φράζων), and then in the most unmeaning way adopts the rendering αὔξησον in Jdg 5:11, from which we may clearly see that the translators did not know the meaning of the word, it is common to adduce an Arabic word which signifies segregavit, discrevit rem ab aliis, though it is impossible to prove that the Arabic word ever had the meaning to judge or to lead. All the old translators, as well as the Rabbins, have based their rendering of the word upon פּרזי, inhabitant of the flat country (Deu 3:5, and Sa1 6:18), and פּרזות, the open flat country, as distinguished from the towns surrounded by walls (Eze 38:11; Zac 2:8), according to which פּרזון, as the place of meeting, would denote both the cultivated land with its unenclosed towns and villages, and also the population that was settled in the open country in unfortified places-a meaning which also lies at the foundation of the word in Hab 3:14. Accordingly, Luther has rendered the word Bauern (peasants). שׁקּמתּי עד for קמתּי אשׁר עד. The contraction of אשׁר into שׁ, with Dagesh following, and generally pointed with Seghol, but here with Patach on account of the ק, which is closely related to the gutturals, belongs to the popular character of the song, and is therefore also found in the Song of Solomon (Jdg 1:12; Jdg 2:7, Jdg 2:17; Jdg 4:6). It is also met with here and there in simple prose (Jdg 6:17; Jdg 7:12; Jdg 8:26); but it was only in the literature of the time of the captivity and a still later date, that it found its way more and more from the language of ordinary conversation into that of the Scriptures. Deborah describes herself as \"a mother in Israel,\" on account of her having watched over her people with maternal care, just as Job calls himself a father to the poor who had been supported by him (Job 29:16; cf. Isa 22:21). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Jdg 5:8 describes the cause of the misery into which Israel had fallen. חדשׁים אלהים is the object to יבחר, and the subject is to be found in the previous term Israel. Israel forsook its God and creator, and chose new gods, i.e., gods not worshipped by its fathers (vid., Deu 32:17). Then there was war (לחם, the construct state of לחם, a verbal noun formed from the Piel, and signifying conflict or war) at the gates; i.e., the enemy pressed up to the very gates of the Israelitish towns, and besieged them, and there was not seen a shield or spear among forty thousand in Israel, i.e., there were no warriors found in Israel who ventured to defend the land against the foe. אם indicates a question with a negative reply assumed, as in Kg1 1:27, etc. Shield and spear (or lance) are mentioned particularly as arms of offence and defence, to signify arms of all kinds. The words are not to be explained from Sa1 13:22, as signifying that there were no longer any weapons to be found among the Israelites, because the enemy had taken them away (\"not seen\" is not equivalent to \"not found\" in Sa1 13:22); they simply affirm that there were no longer any weapons to be seen, because not one of the 40,000 men in Israel took a weapon in his hand. The number 40,000 is not the number of the men who offered themselves willingly for battle, according to Jdg 5:2 (Bertheau); for apart from the fact that they did not go unarmed into the battle, it is at variance with the statement in Jdg 4:6, Jdg 4:10, that Barak went into the war and smote the enemy with only 10,000 men. It is a round number, i.e., an approximative statement of the number of the warriors who might have smitten the enemy and delivered Israel from bondage, and was probably chosen with a reference to the 40,000 fighting men of the tribes on the east of the Jordan, who went with Joshua to Canaan and helped their brethren to conquer the land (Jos 4:13). Most of the more recent expositors have given a different rendering of Jdg 5:8. Many of them render the first clause according to the Peshito and Vulgate, \"God chose something new,\" taking Elohim as the subject, and chadashim (new) as the object. But to this it has very properly been objected, that, according to the terms of the song, it was not Elohim but Jehovah who effected the deliverance of Israel, and that the Hebrew for new things is not חדשׁים, but חדשׁות (Isa 42:9; Isa 48:6), or חדשׁה (Isa 43:19; Jer 31:22). On these grounds Ewald and Bertheau render Elohim \"judges\" (they chose new judges), and appeal to Exo 21:6; Exo 22:7-8, where the authorities who administered justice in the name of God are called Elohim. But these passages are not sufficient by themselves to establish the meaning \"judges,\" and still less to establish the rendering \"new judges\" for Elohim chadashim. Moreover, according to both these explanations, the next clause must be understood as relating to the specially courageous conflict which the Israelites in their enthusiasm carried on with Sisera; whereas the further statement, that among 40,000 warriors who offered themselves willingly for battle there was not a shield or a lance to be seen, is irreconcilably at variance with this. For the explanation suggested, namely, that these warriors did not possess the ordinary weapons for a well-conducted engagement, but had nothing but bows and swords, or instead of weapons of any kind had only the staffs and tools of shepherds and husbandmen, is proved to be untenable by the simple fact that there is nothing at all to indicate any contrast between ordinary and extraordinary weapons, and that such a contrast is altogether foreign to the context. Moreover, the fact appealed to, that אז points to a victorious conflict in Jdg 5:13, Jdg 5:19, Jdg 5:22, as well as in Jdg 5:11, is not strong enough to support the view in question, as אז is employed in Jdg 5:19 in connection with the battle of the kings of Canaan, which was not a successful one, but terminated in a defeat.\nThe singer now turns from the contemplation of the deep degradation of Israel to the glorious change which took place as soon as she appeared: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["9 My heart inclines to the leaders of Israel; \nTo those who offered themselves willingly in the nation. Praise ye the Lord!\n10 Ye that ride upon white asses; \nYe that sit upon covering, \nAnd that walk in the way, reflect!\n11 With the voice of the archers among drawers (of water), \nThere praise ye the righteous acts of the Lord, \nThe righteous acts of His villages in Israel.\nThen the people of the Lord went down to the gates!\nWe must supply the subst. verb in connection with ל לבּי, \"My heart is (sc., inclined) towards the leaders of Israel,\" i.e., feels itself drawn towards them. הוקק for מהוקק (Jdg 5:14), the determining one, i.e., the commander or leader in war: as in Deu 33:21. The leaders and willing ones are first of all to praise the Lord for having crowned their willingness with victory. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["And all classes of the people, both high and low, have reason to join in the praise. Those who ride upon white, i.e., white-spotted asses, are the upper classes generally, and not merely the leaders (cf. Jdg 10:4; Jdg 12:14). צהר, lit. dazzling white; but since there are no asses that are perfectly white, and white was a colour that was highly valued both by Hebrews and Arabs, they applied the term white to those that were only spotted with white. Those who sit upon coverings (מדּין from מד, a covering or carpet, with the plural termination ין, which is to be regarded as a poetical Chaldaism) are the rich and prosperous; and those who walk on the way, i.e., travellers on foot, represent the middle and lower classes, who have to go about and attend to their affairs. Considered logically, this triple division of the nation is not a very exact one, as the first two do not form a true antithesis. But the want of exactness does not warrant our fusing together the middle term and the first, and understanding by middin either saddles or saddle-cloths, as Ewald and Bertheau have done; for saddle-cloths are still further from forming an antithesis to asses, so that those who ride upon white asses could be distinguished, as the upper classes and leaders, from those who sit upon saddles, or are \"somewhat richer.\" Moreover, there is no reason for regarding these three classes as referring simply to the long line of warriors hastening from the victory to the triumphal fte. On the contrary, all classes of the people are addressed, as enjoying the fruits of the victory that had been obtained: the upper classes, who ride upon their costly animals; the rich resting at home upon their splendid carpets; and the poor travellers, who can now go quietly along the high-road again without fear of interruption from the foe (Jdg 5:6). שׂיחוּ is rendered \"sing\" by many; but this rendering cannot be sustained from Psa 105:2 and Psa 145:5, and it is not necessary on the verse before us, since the well-established meaning of the word \"ponder,\" reflect, sc., upon the acts of the Lord, is a perfectly suitable one. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["The whole nation had good reason to make this reflection, as the warriors, having returned home, were now relating the mighty acts of the Lord among the women who were watering their flocks, and the people had returned to their towns once more. This is in all probability the idea of the obscure verse before us, which has been interpreted in such very different ways. The first clause, which has no verb, and cannot constitute a sentence by itself, must be connected with the following clause, and taken as an anakolouthon, as יתנּוּ שׁם does not form a direct continuation of the clause commencing with מקּול. After the words \"from the voice of the archers,\" we should expect the continuation \"there is heard,\" or \"there sounds forth the praise of the acts of the Lord.\" Instead of that, the construction that was commenced is relinquished at יתנּוּ שׁם, and a different turn is given to the thought. This not only seems to offer the simplest explanation, but the only possible solution of the difficulty. For the explanation that מן is to be taken as signifying \"away from,\" as in Num 15:24, etc., in the sense of \"far from the voice of the archers, among the watering women,\" does not suit the following word שׁם, \"there,\" at all. It would be necessary to attribute to מן the meaning \"no more disquieted by,\" a meaning which the preposition could not possibly have in this clause. מחצצים are not sharers in the booty, for חצץ simply means to cut, to cut in pieces, to divide, and is never applied to the sharing of booty, for which חלּק is the word used (vid., Jdg 5:30; Psa 68:13; Isa 9:2). מחצּץ is to be regarded, as the Rabbins maintain, as a denom. from חץ, to hold an arrow, signifying therefore the shooter of an arrow. It was probably a natural thing for Deborah, who dwelt in Benjamin, to mention the archers as representatives of warriors generally, since this was the principal weapon employed by the Benjaminites (see Ch1 8:40; Ch1 12:2; Ch2 14:7; Ch2 17:17). The tarrying of the warriors among the drawers of water, where the flocks and herds were being watered, points to the time of peace, when the warriors were again occupied with their civil and domestic affairs. יתנּוּ is a simple aorist. תּנּה, lit. to repeat, then to relate, or praise. \"The righteousness of Jehovah,\" i.e., the marvellous acts of the Lord in and upon Israel for the accomplishing of His purposes of salvation, in which the righteousness of His work upon earth was manifested (cf. Sa1 12:7; Mic 6:5). פּרזונו צדקות has been rendered by modern expositors, either \"the righteous acts of His guidance or of His decision\" (Ewald and Bertheau), or \"the righteous acts of His commanders,\" or \"the benefits towards His princes (leaders) in Israel\" (Ros. and others). But neither of these can be sustained. We must take פּרזון here in just the same sense as in Jdg 5:7; the country covered with open towns and villages, together with their inhabitants, whom Jehovah had delivered from the hostile oppression that had rested upon them, by means of the victory obtained over Sisera. After that victory the people of the Lord went down again to their gates, from the mountains and hiding-places in which they had taken refuge from their foes (Jdg 5:6, Jdg 5:7), returning again to the plains of the land, and the towns that were now delivered from the foe. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Jdg 5:12 forms the introduction to the second part, viz., the description of the conflict and the victory. Throwing herself into the great event which she is about to commemorate, Deborah calls upon herself to strike up a song, and upon Barak to lead off his prisoners:\n12 Awake, awake, Deborah!\nAwake, awake, utter a song!\nRise up, Barak, and lead captive thy captives, O son of Abinoam!\nעוּרי has the tone upon the last syllable on the first two occasions, to answer to the rapid summoning burst of the Lord in the opening address (Bertheau). שׁבי שׁבה, to lead away captives, as the fruit of the victory; not merely to lead in triumph. On the form וּשׁבה with Chateph-patach, see Ewald, 90, b. In the next three strophes of this part (Jdg 5:13-21) the progress of the conflict is described; and in the first two the part taken in the battle by the different tribes (Jdg 5:13-15, and Jdg 5:15-18). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["13 Then came down a remnant of nobles of the nation; \nJehovah came down to me among the heroes.\n14 Of Ephraim, whose root in Amalek; \nBehind thee Benjamin among thy peoples.\nFrom Machir came down leaders, \nAnd from Zebulun marchers with the staff of the conductor.\n15a And princes in Issachar with Deborah, \nAnd Issachar as well as Barak, \nDriven into the valley through his feet.\nLooking back to the commencement of the battle, the poetess describes the streaming of the brave men of the nation down from the mountains, to fight the enemy with Barak and Deborah in the valley of Jezreel; though the whole nation did not raise as one man against its oppressors, but only a remnant of the noble and brave in the nation, with whom Jehovah went into the battle. In Jdg 5:13 the Masoretic pointing of ירד is connected with the rabbinical idea of the word as the fut. apoc. of רדה: \"then (now) will the remnant rule over the glorious,\" i.e., the remnant left in Israel over the stately foe; \"Jehovah rules for me (or through me) over the heroes in Sisera's army,\" which Luther has also adopted. But, as Schnurr. has maintained, this view is decidedly erroneous, inasmuch as it is altogether irreconcilable with the description which follows of the marching of the tribes of Israel into the battle. ירד is to be understood in the same sense as ירדוּ in Jdg 5:14, and to be pointed as a perfect ירד.\n(Note: The Cod. Al. of the lxx contains the correct rendering, τότε κατέβη κατάλειμμα. In the Targum also ירד is correctly translated נתת, descendit, although the germs of the rabbinical interpretation are contained in the paraphrase of the whole verse: tunc descendit unus ex exercitu Israel et fregit fortitudinem fortium gentium. Ecce non ex fortitudine manus eorum fuit hoc; sed Dominus fregit ante populum suum fortitudinem virorum osorum eorum.) \n\"There came down,\" sc., from the mountains of the land into the plain of Jezreel, a remnant of nobles. לאדּירים is used instead of a closer subordination through the construct state, to bring out the idea of שׂריד into greater prominence (see Ewald, 292). עם is in apposition to לאדּירים, and not to be connected with the following word יהוה, as it is by some, in opposition to the accents. The thought is rather this: with the nobles or among the brave Jehovah himself went against the foe. לי is a dat. commodi, equivalent to \"for my joy.\" \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["\"From (מנּי, poetical for מן) Ephraim,\" sc., there came fighting men; not the whole tribe, but only nobles or brave men, and indeed those whose roots were in Amalek, i.e., those who were rooted or had taken root, i.e., had settled and spread themselves out upon the tribe-territory of Ephraim, which had formerly been inhabited by Amalekites, the mount of the Amalekites, mentioned in Jdg 12:15 (for the figure itself, see Isa 27:6; Psa 80:10, and Job 5:3). \"Behind thee,\" i.e., behind Ephraim, there followed Benjamin among thy (Ephraim's) people (עממים, a poetical form for עמּים, in the sense of hosts). Benjamin lived farther south than Ephraim, and therefore, when looked at from the stand-point of the plain of Jezreel, behind Ephraim; \"but he came upon the scene of battle, either in subordination to the more powerful Ephraimites, or rushing on with the Ephraimitish hosts\" (Bertheau). \"From Machir,\" i.e., from western Manasseh, there came down leaders (see at Jdg 5:9), sc., with warriors in their train. Machir cannot refer to the Manassite family of Machir, to which Moses gave the northern part of Gilead, and Bashan, for an inheritance (comp. Jos 17:1 with Jos 13:29-31), but it stands poetically for Manasseh generally, as Machir was the only son of Manasseh, from whom all the Manassites were descended (Gen 50:23; Num 26:29., Num 27:1). The reference here, however, is simply to that portion of the tribe of Manasseh which had received its inheritance by the side of Ephraim, in the land to the west of the Jordan. This explanation of the word is required, not only by the fact that Machir is mentioned after Ephraim and Benjamin, and before Zebulun and Issachar, but still more decidedly by the introduction of Gilead beyond Jordan in connection with Reuben, in Jdg 5:17, which can only signify Gad and eastern Manasseh. Hence the two names Machir and Gilead, the names of Manasseh's son and grandson, are poetically employed to denote the two halves of the tribe of Manasseh; Machir signifying the western Manassites, and Gilead the eastern. \"From Zebulun marchers (משׁך, to approach in long processions, as in Jdg 4:6) with the staff of the conductor.\" ספר, writer or numberer, was the technical name given to the musterer-general, whose duty it was to levy and muster the troops (Kg2 25:19; cf. Ch2 26:11); here it denotes the military leader generally. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["שׂרי, \"my princes,\" does not furnish any appropriate meaning, as neither Deborah nor Barak was of the tribe of Issachar, and it is not stated anywhere that the Issacharites gathered round Deborah as their leaders. The reading שׂרי (stat. constr.), adopted by the old versions, must be taken as the correct one, and the introduction of the preposition בּ does not preclude this (compare בגּלבּע הרי, Sa2 1:21, and Ewald, 289, b.). עם, which is used to denote an outward equality, as in Sa1 17:42, and is substantially the same as the כּן which follows (\"just as\"), is construed without כּ in the first clause, as in Psa 48:6. בּעמק: into the valley of Jezreel, the plain of Kishon. בּרגליו שׁלּח, as in Job 18:8, to be sent off, i.e., incessantly impelled, through his feet; here it is applied to an irresistible force of enthusiasm for the battle. The nominative to שׁלּח is Issachar and Barak.\n15b At the brooks of Reuben were great resolutions of heart.\n16 Why remainest thou between the hurdles, \nTo hear the piping of the flocks?\nAt the brooks of Reuben were great projects of heart.\n17 Gilead rests on the other side of the Jordan;\nAnd Dan ... why tarries he by ships? \nAsher sits on the shore of the sea, \nAnd by his bays he reposes.\n18 Zebulun, a people that despises its soul even to death, \nAnd Naphtali upon the heights of the field.\nIn this strophe Deborah first of all mentions the tribes which took no part in the conflict (Jdg 5:15-17), and then returns in Jdg 5:18 to the Zebulunites, who staked their life along with Naphtali for the deliverance of Israel from the yoke of the enemy. The enumeration of the tribes who remained at a distance from the conflict commences with Reuben (Jdg 5:15 and Jdg 5:16). In this tribe there did arise a lively sympathy with the national elevation. They held meetings, passed great resolutions, but it led to no practical result; and at length they preferred to remain quietly at home in their own comfortable pastoral life. The meaning brooks for פּלגּות is well established by Job 20:17, and there is no reason whatever for explaining the word as equivalent to פּלגּות, מפלגּות, divisions (Ch2 35:5, Ch2 35:12; Ezr 6:18). The territory of Reuben, which was celebrated for its splendid pastures, must have abounded in brooks. The question, Why satest thou, or remainedst thou sitting between the hurdles? i.e., in the comfortable repose of a shepherd's life, is an utterance of amazement; and the irony is very apparent in the next clause, to hear the bleating of the flocks, i.e., the piping of the shepherds, instead of the blast of the war-trumpets. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["Gilead, Dan, and Asher took no part at all. By Gilead, the tribes of Gad and half Manasseh are intended. The use of the term הגּלעד to denote the whole of the territory of the Israelites on the east of the Jordan probably gave occasion to this, although גלעד (without the article) does not refer to the land even here, but refers primarily to the grandson of Manasseh, as the representative of his family which dwelt in Gilead. (For further remarks, see at Jdg 5:14.) Dan also did not let the national movement disturb it in its earthly trade and commerce. גּוּר, to keep one's self in a place, is construed here with the accusative of the place, as in Psa 120:5. The territory of Dan included the port of Joppa (see at Jos 19:46), where the Danites probably carried on a trade with the Phoenicians. Asher also in his land upon the coast did not allow himself to be disturbed from his rest, to join in the common war of its nation. ימּים חוף is used, as in Gen 49:13, for the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. מפרצים, ἁπ. λεγ., literally a rent, and hence applied to a bay, as an incision made in the sea-shore. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Zebulun and Naphtali acted quite differently. Zebulun showed itself as a people that despised its life even to death, i.e., that sacrificed its life for the deliverance of its fatherland. Naphtali did the same in its mountain home. The two tribes had raised 10,000 fighting men at Barak's call (Jdg 4:10), who constituted at any rate the kernel of the Israelitish army.\nIf we run over the tribes enumerated, it seems strange that the tribes of Judah and Simeon are not mentioned either among those who joined in the battle, or among those who stayed away. The only way in which this can be explained is on the supposition that these two tribes were never summoned by Barak, either because they were so involved in conflict with the Philistines, that they were unable to render any assistance to the northern tribes against their Canaanitish oppressors, as we might infer from Jdg 3:31, or because of some inward disagreement between these tribes and the rest. But even apart from Judah and Simeon, the want of sympathy on the part of the tribes that are reproved is a sufficient proof that the enthusiasm for the cause of the Lord had greatly diminished in the nation, and that the internal unity of the congregation was considerably loosened.\nIn the next strophe the battle and the victory are described: - \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["19 Kings came, ... they fought; \nThe kings of Canaan fought At Taanach, at the waters of Megiddo.\nA piece of silver they did not take.\n20 From heaven they fought, \nThe stars from their courses fought against Sisera.\n21 The brook of Kishon swept them away, \nThe brook of the olden time, the brook Kishon.\nGo on, my soul, in strength!\nThe advance of the foe is described in few words. Kings came on and fought. They were the kings of Canaan, since Jabin, like his ancestor (Jos 11:1.), had formed an alliance with other kings of northern Canaan, who went to the battle under the command of Sisera. The battle took place at Taanach (see at Jos 12:21), by the water of Megiddo, the present Lejun (see at Jos 12:21), i.e., by the brook Kishon (cf. Jdg 4:7). Taanach and Megiddo were not quite five miles apart, and beside and between them there were several brooks which ran into the southern arm of the Kishon, that flowed through the plain to the north of both these towns. The hostile kings went into the battle with the hope of slaying the Israelites and making a rich capture of booty. But their hopes were disappointed. They could not take with them a piece of silver as booty. בּצע, which generally signifies booty or gain, is probably to be taken here in its primary sense of frustum, from בּצע, to cut off or cut in pieces, a \"piece of silver,\" equivalent to a single piece of valuable booty. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["For not only did the Israelites fight against them, but he powers of heaven also. \"From heaven\" is more minutely defined by \"the stars from their courses.\" These words explain the statement in Jdg 4:15, \"the Lord discomfited Sisera;\" though in our opinion not so clearly as to enable us to define more precisely the natural phenomenon by which God threw the enemy into confusion. In all probability we have to think of a terrible storm, with thunder and lightning and hail, or the sudden bursting of a cloud, which is poetically described as though the stars of heaven had left their courses to fight for the Lord and His kingdom upon earth. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["The kings of Canaan could do nothing against these powers. They were smitten; the brook Kishon washed them (i.e., their corpses) away. The meaning \"to wash away\" is well established by the dialects and the context, though the verb itself only occurs here. As the battle was fought between Taanach and Megiddo, i.e., to the south of the brook Kishon, and the smitten foe fled towards the north, many of them met with their death in the waves of the brook, which was flowing over its banks at the time. The brook is called קדוּמים נחל, i.e., the brook of the old world or the olden time (according to the lxx Cod. Vat. χειμάῤῥους ἀρχαίων), as the stream that had been flowing from time immemorial, and not, as the Chaldee interprets it, the stream that had been celebrated from olden time on account of the mighty acts that had been performed there. The meaning suggested by Ewald and others, \"brook of attacks, or slaughters,\" is not well sustained, although קדּם is sometimes used to denote a hostile encounter. The last clause interrupts the description of the slaughter and the victory. Borne away by the might of the acts to be commemorated, Deborah stimulates her soul, i.e., herself, to a vigorous continuation of her song. תּדרכי is jussive, and עז an accusative governed by the verb, in strength, vigorously; for she had still to celebrate the glorious results of the victory. This is done in the third part of the song (Jdg 5:22-31), the first strophe of which (Jdg 5:22-24) describes in brief drastic traits the flight of the foe, and the treatment of the fugitives by the people of the land. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["22 Then did the hoofs of the horses stamp \nWith the hunting, the hunting of his strong ones.\n23 Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord;\nCurse ye, curse ye the inhabitants thereof! \nBecause they came not to the help of Jehovah, \nTo the help of Jehovah among the mighty.\n24 Blessed before women be Jael, \nThe wife of Heber the Kenite, \nBlessed before women in the tent!\nThe war-chariots of the enemy hunted away in the wildest flight (Jdg 5:22). The horses stamped the ground with the continuous hunting or galloping away of the warriors. דהרה, the hunting (cf. דּהר, Nah 3:2). The repetition of the word expresses the continuance or incessant duration of the same thing (see Ewald, 313, a.). אבּירים, strong ones, are not the horses, but the warriors in the war-chariots. The suffix refers to סוּס, which is used collectively. The mighty ones on horses are not, however, merely the Canaanitish princes, such as Sisera, as Ewald maintains, but the warriors generally who hunted away upon their war-chariots. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["The enemy, or at all events Sisera, might have been destroyed in his flight by the inhabitants of Meroz; but they did not come to the help of the Israelites, and brought down the curse of God upon themselves in consequence. That this is the thought of Jdg 5:23 is evident from the context, and more especially from the blessing pronounced upon Jael in Jdg 5:24. The situation of Meroz, which is not mentioned again, cannot be determined with certainty Wilson and v. Raumer imagine that it may be Kefr Musr on the south of Tabor, the situation of which at all events is more suitable than Marussus, which was an hour and a half to the north of Beisan, and which Rabbi Schwarz supposed to be Meroz (see V. de Velde, Mem. p. 334). The curse upon the inhabitants of this place is described as a word or command of the angel of the Lord, inasmuch as it was the angel of the Lord who fought for Israel at Megiddo, as the revealer of the invisible God, and smote the Canaanites. Deborah heard from him the words of the curse upon the inhabitants of Meroz, because they did not come to help Jehovah when He was fighting with and for the Israelites. \"Among the heroes,\" or mighty men, i.e., associating with the warriors of Israel. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Jael behaved altogether differently, although she was not an Israelite, but a woman of the tribe of the Kenites, which was only allied with Israel (see Jdg 4:11, Jdg 4:17.). For her heroic deed she was to be blessed before women (מן as in Gen 3:14, literally removed away from women). The \"women in the tent\" are dwellers in tents, or shepherdesses. This heroic act is poetically commemorated in the strophe which follows in Jdg 5:25-27. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["25 He asked water, she gave him milk; \nShe handed him cream in the dish of nobles.\n26 She stretched out her hand to the plug, \nAnd her right hand to the workmen's hammer, \nAnd hammered Sisera, broke his head, \nAnd dashed in pieces and pierced his temples.\n27 Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: \nBetween her feet he bowed, he fell: \nWhere he bowed, there he fell down dead.\nAssuming that the fact itself is well known, Deborah does not think it necessary to mention Sisera's name in Jdg 5:25. חמאה, which generally signifies thick curdled milk, is used here as synonymous with חלב, in the sense of good superior milk. ספל is only used here and in Jdg 6:38, and signifies a bowl or vessel for holding liquids (see Arab., Chald, and Talm.; also Bochart, Hieroz, i. pp. 625ff., ed. Ros.). The dish of nobles is a fine costly bowl, such as they are accustomed to hand to noble guests. The whole verse is simply intended to express the thought, that Jael had given to her guest Sisera a friendly reception, and treated him honourably and hospitably, simply in order to make him feel secure. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["\"Her hand,\" i.e., the left hand, as is shown by the antithesis, \"her right hand,\" which follows. On the form תּשׁלחנה, the third pers. fem. sing. with נה attached, to distinguish it the more clearly from the second pers., see the remarks on Exo 1:10. עמלים הלמוּת, hammer or mallet of the hard workers, is a large heavy hammer. For the purpose of depicting the boldness and greatness of the deed, the words are crowded together in the second hemistich: הלם, to hammer, or smite with the hammer; מחק, ἁπ. λεγ., to smite in pieces, smite through; מחץ, to smite or dash in pieces; חלף, to pierce or bore through. The heaping up of the words in Jdg 5:27 answers the same purpose. They do not \"express the delight of a satisfied thirst for revenge,\" but simply bring out the thought that Sisera, who was for years the terror of Israel, was now struck dead with a single blow. כּרע בּאשׁר, at the place where he bowed, there he fell שׁדוּד, overpowered and destroyed. In conclusion, the singer refers once more in the last strophe (Jdg 5:28-30) to the mother of Sisera, as she waited impatiently for the return of her son, and foreboded his death, whilst the prudent princesses who surrounded her sought to cheer her with the prospect of a rich arrival of booty. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["28 Through the window there looks out and cries aloud \nThe mother of Sisera, through the lattice work, \nWhy does his chariot delay its coming? \nWhy tarry the steps of his team? \n29 The wise of her princesses reply:\n- But she repeats her words to herself - \n30 Surely they are finding and sharing booty: \nA maiden, two maidens to the head of a man, \nBooty of variegated cloths for Sisera: \nBooty of variegated cloths, garments worked in divers colours, \nA variegated cloth, two garments worked in divers colours for his neck as booty.\nSisera's mother looks out with impatience for the return of her son, and cries aloud out of the window, Why is he never coming?-foreboding the disastrous result of the war. תּיבּב, ἁπ. λεγ., signifies to cry; in Aramaean it is used for הריע and רנּן, to denote a loud joyful cry; here it evidently signifies a loud cry of anxiety. For the repeated question, Why does his chariot delay its coming? is evidently expressive of anxiety and alarm. The form אחרוּ, perf. Piel for אחרוּ, may be attributed to the influence of the aleph, which favours the seghol sound, like יחמוּ in Gen 30:39. The combination of מרכּבותיו פּעמי, \"steps of his chariots,\" cannot be explained, as it is by Bertheau, on the ground that the word פעמי, as a general expression for intermittent movement, might also be applied to the jerking of the wheels in rolling, but simply on the supposition that מרכּבות, as a synonym for רכב, is used for the horses yoked to the chariot in the sense of team, like רכב in Sa2 8:4; Sa2 10:18, etc. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["The princesses in attendance upon Sisera's mother sought to console her with the remark, that Sisera would have to gather together rich booty, and that his return was delayed in consequence. In the expression \"the wisest of her princesses\" (see Ges. 119, 2), the irony is very obvious, as the reality put all their wise conjectures to shame. תּעננּה, third pers. plur. fem. for תּענינה. The second hemistich of Jdg 5:29 contains a clause inserted as a parenthesis. אף־היא is adversative: \"but she;\" אף is only an emphatic copula; the antithesis lies in the emphatic change of subject indicated by היא. אמריה השׁיב, lit. to bring back her words, i.e., to repeat. להּ is used in a reflective sense, \"to herself.\" The meaning is: But Sisera's mother did not allow herself to be quieted by the words of her wise princesses; on the contrary, she kept repeating the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay his coming? In Jdg 5:30 there follows the answer of the wise princesses. They imagine that Sisera has been detained by the large amount of booty which has to be divided. הלא, nonne, is he not, in the sense of lively certainty. They will certainly discover rich booty, and divide it. רחם, uterus, for puella. \"A girl (or indeed probably) two girls to the head of the man,\" i.e., for each man. צבעים, coloured things, cloths or clothes. רקמה, worked stuff, or garments worked in divers colours (see the remarks on Exo 26:36), is attached without the vav cop. to צבעים, and is also dependent upon שׁלל. The closing words, שׁלל לצוּארי, \"for the necks,\" or (as the plural is also frequently used to signify a single neck, e.g., Gen 27:16; Gen 45:14) \"for the neck of the booty,\" do not give any appropriate sense, as שׁלל neither signifies animals taken as booty nor the taker of booty. The idea, however, that שׁלל is used for שׁלל אישׁ, like הלך in Sa2 12:4 for הלך אישׁ, viator, and חתף in Pro 23:28 for חתף אישׁ, seems inadmissible, since שׁלל ecni has just before been used three times in its literal sense. There is just the same objection to the application of שׁלל to animals taken as booty, not to mention the fact that they would hardly have thought of having valuable clothes upon the necks of animals taken as booty. Consequently the only explanation that remains, is either to alter לצוּארי into לצוּארו or לצוּאריו, or else to change שׁלל into שׁגל, the royal spouse. In the former case, שׁלל would have to be taken as in apposition to רקמתים צבע: a variegated cloth, two worked in divers colours for his (Sisera's) neck as booty, as the lxx have rendered it (τῷ τραχήλῳ αὐτοῦ σκῦλα). Ewald and Bertheau decide in favour of the second alteration, and defend it on the ground that שׁלל might easily find its way into the text as a copyist's error for שׁגל, on account of שׁלל having been already written three times before, and that we cannot dispense with some such word as שׁגל here, since the repetition of שׁלל three times, and the threefold use of ל, evidently show that there were three different kinds of people among whom the booty was to be distributed; and also that it was only a fitting thing that Sisera should set apart one portion of the booty to adorn the neck of his wife, and that the wisest of the noble ladies, when mentioning the booty, should not forget themselves. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["31a So shall all Thine enemies perish, O Jehovah! \nBut let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its strength.\nThis forms the conclusion of the song. כּן, so, refers to the whole of the song: just in the same manner as Sisera and his warriors. The rising of the sun in its strength is a striking image of the exaltation of Israel to a more and more glorious unfolding of its destiny, which Deborah anticipated as the result of this victory. With the last clause, \"And the land had rest forty years\" (cf. Jdg 3:11, Jdg 3:30; Jdg 8:28), the account of this event is brought to a close. \n"]}],"introduction":"Deborah's Song of Victory - Judges 5\nThis highly poetical song is so direct and lively an utterance of the mighty force of the enthusiasm awakened by the exaltation of Israel, and its victory over Sisera, that its genuineness if generally admitted now. After a general summons to praise the Lord for the courage with which the people rose up to fight against their foes (Jdg 5:2), Deborah the singer dilates in the first section (Jdg 5:3-11) upon the significance of the victory, picturing in lively colours (1) the glorious times when Israel was exalted to be the nation of the Lord (Jdg 5:3-5); (2) the disgraceful decline of the nation in the more recent times (Jdg 5:6-8); and (3) the joyful turn of affairs which followed her appearance (Jdg 5:9-11). After a fresh summons to rejoice in their victory (Jdg 5:12), there follows in the second section (Jdg 5:13-21) a lively picture of the conflict and victory, in which there is a vivid description (a) of the mighty gathering of the brave to battle (Jdg 5:13-15); (b) of the cowardice of those who stayed away from the battle, and of the bravery with which the braver warriors risked their lives in the battle (Jdg 5:15-18); and (c) of the successful result of the conflict (Jdg 5:19-21). To this there is appended in the third section (Jdg 5:22-31) an account of the glorious issue of the battle and the victory: first of all, a brief notice of the flight and pursuit of the foe (Jdg 5:22-24); secondly, a commemoration of the slaying of Sisera by Jael (Jdg 5:24-27); and thirdly, a scornful description of the disappointment of Sisera's mother, who was counting upon a large arrival of booty (Jdg 5:28-30). The song then closes with the hope, founded upon this victory, that all the enemies of the Lord might perish, and Israel increase in strength (Jdg 5:31). The whole song, therefore, is divided into three leading sections, each of which again is arranged in three somewhat unequal strophes, the first and second sections being introduced by a summons to the praise of God (Jdg 5:2, Jdg 5:12), whilst the third closes with an expression of hope, drawn from the contents of the whole, with regard to the future prospects of the kingdom of God (Jdg 5:31). \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JDG/5.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JDG","chapter":5},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JDG/6.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JDG","chapter":6},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JDG/4.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JDG","chapter":4},"numberOfVerses":26}