Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 4:15

"And Jehovah discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot, and fled away on his feet." — Judges 4:15 (ASV)

Discomfited. —The same word as in Exodus 14:24; Joshua 10:10. The Septuagint exestēse, and the Vulgate perterruit, imply the element of immediate divine aid in the battle.

Sisera, and all his chariots. —Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God (Psalms 20:7; Proverbs 21:31).

And all his host. —Do unto them ... as to Sisera, as to Jabin at the brook of Kison, which perished at Endor, and became as the dung of the earth (Psalms 83:9–10). Considering the allusion to the swollen waters of the Kishon and the storm in Judges 5:20-22, it seems probable that Josephus is following a correct Jewish tradition when he describes the battle thus:

“They joined battle, and as the ranks closed a violent storm came on, with much rain and hail. The wind drove the rain against the faces of the Canaanites, darkening their outlook, so that their archery and their slings were rendered useless, and their heavy-armed soldiers, because of the cold, were unable to use their swords. But since the storm was behind the Israelites, it caused them less harm, and they further took courage from their belief in God’s assistance, so that, driving into the midst of the enemy, they killed many of them,” etc. (Antiquities, Book V, Chapter 5, Section 4).

The battle thus closely resembled that of Timoleon against the Carthaginians at the Crimessus (Grote, xi. 246), and the English victory at Crecy, as has been graphically described by Dean Stanley (Jewish Church, Vol. I, p. 329). We may add that similar conditions recurred in the battle of Cannae, except that it was the storm of dust and not of rain that was blown in the faces of the Romans by the Scirocco (Plutarch, Fabius 16).

Sisera alighted from his chariot. —We find an Homeric hero, Idæus (Iliad, Book V, line 20), doing the same thing. On this, the frivolous critic Zoilus made the objection, “Why did he not fly in his chariot?” The answer is the same as here: Sisera would have a far greater chance of escaping into concealment if he left the well-known chariot of a general. Besides this, his chariot—like those of the Egyptians at the Red Sea—was probably struggling in the trampled morass. “It was left to rust on the banks of the Kishon, like Roderick’s on the shores of the Guadelete” (Stanley).