Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 4:5

"And she dwelt under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill-country of Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment." — Judges 4:5 (ASV)

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.