Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 5

Then sang Deborah. — She was a prophetess, and the word for “prophet,” like the Latin vates, involved gifts which were closely allied to those of the poet.

And Barak. — Doubtless Deborah was the sole author of the song, as is implied by the singular verb (Judges 5:3); but no doubt Barak joined in antiphon when it was sung, just as Moses, at the head of the warriors, and Miriam, at the head of the women, sang the song of Moses, in Exodus 15:1. As the English version requires some correction, I have appended a translation at the end of the chapter, which must be regarded as a kind of running commentary.

For the avenging of Israel. —The Hebrew word peraoth cannot have this meaning, though it is found in the Syriac and implied by the Chaldee. The word only occurs in Deuteronomy 32:42, and there, as here, implies the notion of leading; so that the Septuagint are doubtless right in rendering it, “In the leading of the leaders of Israel.” God is praised because both leaders and people (Judges 5:9; Judges 5:13) did their duty.

Peraoth is derived from perang, “hair”; and whether the notion which it involves is that of comati, “nobles, who wear long hair” (compare Homer’s “long-haired Greeks,” and Tennyson’s “his beard a yard before him, and his hair a yard behind”), or “hairy champions,” or the hair of warriors streaming behind them as they rode to battle (“His beard and hoary hair streamed like a meteor to the troubled air”: Gray), leadership seems to be the notion involved.

When the people willingly offered themselves. —Compare Psalms 110:3: Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

Hear, O you kings. —There were no kings or princes in Israel, but the appeal is to the “kings of the earth,” as in Psalm 2:10; for which reason the Septuagint render “princes” by satraps. The Chaldee refers it to the kings allied with Jabin.

Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir. —See Psalms 68:7-9; Habakkuk 3:3–12. The majority of commentators, both ancient and modern, suppose that the reference is to the promulgation of the law on Sinai, as described in Exodus 19:16-18, Deuteronomy 33:3. But the mention of Seir and Edom seems to show that this is not the case, and, indeed, the imagery is different, and the context requires a more pertinent allusion.

If the thunders and lightnings of the fiery law are alluded to, we can only suppose that a contrast is intended between the glory which Israel derived from that revelation and their recent abject condition.

However, the train of thought is clearer if we explain the allusion as referring to the march of Israel from Kadesh Barnea to their first great conquest on the east of the Jordan. This march seems to have been signalised, and the battles of Israel aided, by the same majestic natural phenomena as those which had helped them to defeat Sisera, as though Jehovah Himself were the leader of their vanguard. Though the earthquakes and rains which made so deep an impression upon them are not recorded in the Pentateuch, the memory of the circumstances is preserved in these three passages.

Melted. — Literally, flowed away — a powerful poetic image. (Isaiah 64:3; Psalms 97:5 — melted like wax.)

Even that Sinai. — Rather, even this Sinai, as though Deborah actually saw the sacred mountain before her. The boldness of the expression leaves no difficulty in supposing the meaning to be that even as Sinai was moved (Psalms 68:8), so the mountains of Edom seemed to melt away before the march of Jehovah and the banners of Israel.