Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 4

Again did evil in the sight of the Lord. — They turned their backs, and fell away like their forefathers, starting aside like a broken bow (Psalms 78:57); see Judges 3:12.

When Ehud was dead. — See Judges 3:31.

Sold them. —See Judges 2:14.

Jabin. —The name means, “he is wise.” It may have been a dynastic name, like Abimelech, Melchizedek, Pharaoh, Hadad, Agag, etc.

King of Canaan — that is, of some great tribe or nation of the Canaanites. In Joshua 11:1, Jabin is called king of Hazor and sends messages to all the other Canaanite princes.

Reigned in Hazor. —See Joshua 11:1. Hazor was in the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 19:36) and overlooked the waters of Merom (Josephus, Antiquities 5.5.1). We find from Egyptian inscriptions of Rameses II, etc., that it was a flourishing town in very ancient days. Owing to its importance, it was fortified by Solomon (1 Kings 9:15).

Its inhabitants were taken captive by Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29), and it is last mentioned in 1 Maccabees 9:27 (Compare Josephus, Antiquities 13.5.7). De Saulcy discovered large and ancient ruins to the north of Merom, which he identifies with this town.

The Bishop of Bath and Wells (Lord A. Hervey, On the Genealogies, p. 28) has pointed out the strange resemblance between the circumstances of this defeat and that recorded in Joshua 11.

In both, we have a Jabin, king of Hazor; in both, there are subordinate kings (Judges 5:19; Joshua 11:1); in both, chariots are prominent, which, as we conjecture from Joshua 11:8, were burnt at Misrephoth-maim (“burnings by the waters”); and in both, the general outline of circumstances is the same, and the same names occur in the list of conquered kings (Joshua 11:21–22).

This seems to be the reason why Josephus, in his account of the earlier event (Antiquities 5.1.18), does not mention either Jabin or Hazor, though strangely enough he says, in both instances, with his usual tendency to exaggeration, that the Canaanites had 300,000 foot, 10,000 horse, and 3,000 chariots. It is again a curious, though it may be an unimportant circumstance, that in 1 Samuel 12:9 the prophet mentions Sisera before Eglon.

Of course, if the received view of the chronology is correct, we must make the not impossible supposition that in the century and a half which is supposed to have elapsed since the death of Joshua, Hazor had risen from its obliteration and its ashes (Joshua 11:11; Josephus, Antiquities 5.5.4), under a new Canaanite settlement, governed by a king who adopted the old dynastic name.

If, on the other hand, there are chronological indications that the whole period of the Judges must be greatly shortened, we may perhaps suppose that the armies of Joshua and Barak combined the full strength of the central and northern tribes in an attack from different directions, which ended in a common victory.

In that case, the different tribal records can only have dwelt on that part of the victory in which they were themselves concerned. It is remarkable that even so conservative a critic as Bishop Wordsworth holds “that some of the judges of Israel were only judges of portions of Canaan, and that the years run parallel to those of other judges in other districts of the same country.”

If there are difficulties in whatever scheme of chronology we adopt, we must remember the antiquity and the fragmentary nature of the records, which were written with other and far higher views than that of furnishing us with an elaborate consecutive history.

The captain of whose host. —In Eastern narratives, it is common for the king to play a very subordinate personal part. In the last campaign of Croesus, we hear much more of Surenas, the general of the Parthians, than of Orodes (Arsaces, 14).

Sisera. —The name long lingered among the Israelites. It occurs again in Ezra 2:53 as the name of the founder of a family of Nethinim (minor servants of the Levites, of Canaanite origin; see 2 Samuel 21; Ezra 2:43; 1 Chronicles 9:2). In the strange fashion which prevailed among some of the Rabbis of claiming a foreign descent, the great Rabbi Akiva professed to be descended from Sisera.

Harosheth. —The name means “wood-cutting.” The Aramaic Targum renders it, “In the strength of citadels of the nations.” It was an ingenious and not improbable conjecture of the late Dr. Donaldson that the town was named from the fact that Sisera made the subject Israelites serve as “hewers of wood” in the cedar-woods and fir-woods of Lebanon. The site of Harosheth has been precariously identified with Harsthîeh, a hill on the southeast of the plain of Akka (Thomson’s Land and Book, chapter 29).

Of the Gentiles — that is, of the nations; of mixed inhabitants; lying as it did in Galilee of the Gentiles. (Compare Tidal, king of nations,Genesis 14:1, and The king of the nations in Gilgal,Joshua 12:23.)

Cried to the Lord. —Judges 3:9; Judges 3:15; Psalms 107:13.

Nine hundred. — Josephus magnifies the number to 3,000.

Chariots of iron. —Judges 1:19; Joshua 17:10. We may notice that as the children of Israel burnt these chariots at Misrephoth-maim (Joshua 11:9), they could not have been of solid iron throughout.

Mightily oppressed. — The word “mightily” is rendered “sharply” in Judges 8:1; “by force” in 1 Samuel 2:16.

Deborah. —The name means “bee,” like the Greek Melissa. The names of Jewish women were often derived from natural objects, as Rachel, “a lamb,” Tamar, “a palm,” etc. It has been sometimes regarded as a title given to her as a prophetess, just as the priestesses of Delphi were called Bees (Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.106); and priests were called by the title Malebee (Essçn). But the fact that Rachel’s nurse (Genesis 35:8) had the same name is against this supposition, though Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 5, § 5) accepts it. She had, as Cornelius à Lapide quaintly says, “a sting for foes, and honey for friends.” The pronunciation Debŏrah is now so deeply-rooted in England (possibly from the Vulgate, Debbora) that it would, perhaps, be pedantic to alter it; but properly the “ô” is long (נְבִיאָה; Septuagint, Deborra and Debbôra).

A prophetess. —Literally, a woman, a prophetess; like Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), Noadiah (Nehemiah 6:14), Anna (Luke 2:36), etc. She is the only female judge, or, indeed, female ruler of any kind in Jewish history, except the Phoenician murderess, Athaliah. She is also the only judge to whom the title “prophet” is expressly given. “Prophetess” (like the Latin Vates) implies the possession of poetic as well as of prophetic gifts (Exodus 15:20); and we see her right to such a title, both in her predictions (Judges 4:9), her lofty courage (Judges 5:7), and the splendour of her inspired song (Judges 5). She has modern parallels in the Teutonic prophetesses, Veleda and Alaurinia (Tacitus, Germania 8), and Joan of Arc, the “Inspired Maid of Domremi.” Among the Jews prophetesses were the exception; among the ancient Germans they were the rule.

The wife of Lapidoth. —This is probably the meaning of the phrase, although some ancient commentators make it mean “a woman of Lapidoth;” as does Tennyson (Princess), “Like that great dame of Lapidoth.” The phrase closely resembles “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,” “Huldah the prophetess, wife of Shallum.” The name Lapidoth, which occurs nowhere else, means “flames,” “lamps,” or “splendours;” and Rashi says that she was called “a woman of lamps,” from making the wicks for the lamps of the sanctuary; while others, with equal improbability, interpret it of her shining gifts and of her fiery spirit.

The parallels which are adduced to support this view (Isaiah 62:1; Job 41:2; Nahum 2:5) are inadequate; as also is Ecclesiasticus 48:1, The word of Elias burnt like a torch; and the Midrash, which says of Phinehas, that “when the Holy Ghost filled him, his countenance glowed like torches” (Cassel). Perhaps there was a fancy that such a prophetess could only be a virgin. The name Lapidoth has a feminine termination, but this does not prove that it may not have been, like Naboth, Shelomith, Koheleth, etc., the name of a man. It is uncertain whether Deborah was of the tribe of Ephraim or Issachar (Judges 5:15; Ewald, ii. 489).

She judged Israel. —We see from the next verse that up to this time her functions had mainly consisted of peaceful arbitration and legal decision (Deuteronomy 17:8).

She dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah.—Similarly, Abraham is said to have lived under the oak of Mamre (Genesis 14:13), and Saul under the pomegranate of Migron (1 Samuel 14:2). “Such tents the patriarchs loved” (Coleridge).

Dean Stanley (Jewish Chron. i. 318) draws a fine contrast between the triumphant “mother of Israel” (Judges 5:7) under her palm, full of the fire of faith and energy, and Judæa Captiva, represented on the coins of Titus as a weeping woman sitting under a palm-tree, “with downcast eyes and folded hands, and extinguished hopes.”

The words “she dwelt” are literally she was sitting, which may merely mean that she took her station under this well-known and solitary palm when she was giving her judgment ; just as St. Louis, under the oak-tree at Vincennes (Stanley, Jewish Chron. i. 218), and as Ethelbert received St. Austin and his monks under an oak.

The tree won its name as the “Deborah palm” from her, and may also have originated the name Baal-Tamar, “the lord of the palm” (Judges 20:33). Near it was another very famous tree—Allon-Bachuth, the oak or terebinth of weeping; it was so called from the weeping at the burial of the other Deborah (Genesis 35:8). This tree is alluded to in 1 Samuel 10:3, if the true reading there is “the oak of Deborah,” and not of Tabor, as Thenius conjectures.

Between Ramah and Beth-el.—Both towns were on the confines of Benjamin and Ephraim (Joshua 16:2).

In mount Ephraim.—This was the one secure spot in Palestine (see Note on Judges 3:27). The Chaldee prosaically amplifies this into: “she lived in Ataroth (Joshua 15:2), having independent means, and she had palm-trees in Jericho, gardens in Ramah, olive groves in the valley, a well-watered land in Bethel, and white clay in the king’s mount.”

Came up.—This is a technical term for going before a superior (Numbers 16:12; Deuteronomy 25:7). Deborah, unlike the German Veleda—who lived in a tower, in revered seclusion—allowed the freest access to her presence as she sat beneath her palm.