Judges 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

After Sisera's defeat, Deborah and Barak sing a victory song. It praises the LORD, recalls his coming from Seir, and describes the state of Israel before the battle. It names the tribes that came to fight and the ones that stayed home, tells how the Kishon River swept the enemy away, and describes Jael killing Sisera in her tent and Sisera's mother waiting at her window for a son who will not return. The chapter closes with the land at rest for forty years.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • Deborah sang on that day.
   • Barak son of Abinoam sang with her on that day.
   • What follows is the song they spoke.
2. 5:2
   • The opening phrase is ambiguous: it describes either leaders taking the lead in Israel, or hair worn loose for battle, or vengeance taken in Israel.
   • The people offered themselves willingly.
   • The hearers are called to bless the LORD.
3. 5:3
   • Kings are commanded to listen.
   • Rulers are commanded to give ear.
   • The speaker declares she herself will sing to the LORD.
   • The speaker will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel.
4. 5:4
   • The LORD went out from Seir.
   • The LORD marched from the open country of Edom.
   • The earth shook.
   • The heavens dripped.
   • The clouds dripped water.
5. 5:5
   • The mountains flowed down before the LORD.
   • The phrase attached to Sinai is ambiguous: either 'this Sinai' or 'the One of Sinai'.
   • This happened before the LORD, the God of Israel.
6. 5:6
   • This was in the days of Shamgar son of Anath.
   • This was in the days of Jael.
   • The highways ceased to be used.
   • Those who traveled walked by crooked side paths.
7. 5:7
   • Village life in Israel ceased.
   • It ceased in Israel.
   • It ceased until Deborah arose.
   • Deborah arose as a mother in Israel.
8. 5:8
   • New gods were chosen.
   • Then there was war at the gates.
   • No shield or spear was to be seen among forty thousand in Israel.
9. 5:9
   • The speaker's heart is toward the commanders of Israel.
   • Those commanders offered themselves willingly among the people.
   • The hearers are called to bless the LORD.
10. 5:10
    • Those who ride on light-colored donkeys are addressed.
    • Those who sit on saddle coverings are addressed, though the word is ambiguous and may mean those who sit in judgment.
    • Those who walk on the road are addressed.
    • They are commanded to speak or to ponder.
11. 5:11
    • There is a sound at the watering places, whose source is ambiguous: either those who divide flocks, or singers, or archers.
    • There they recount the righteous acts of the LORD.
    • They recount the righteous acts of his village people in Israel.
    • Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates.
12. 5:12
    • Deborah is called to awake.
    • Deborah is called to utter a song.
    • Barak is called to arise.
    • Barak is called to lead his captives away captive.
    • Barak is addressed as the son of Abinoam.
13. 5:13
    • A survivor or remnant went down, and the verb is ambiguous between going down and having dominion.
    • This was to or over the nobles among the people.
    • The LORD came down for the speaker among the mighty, with the same ambiguity between coming down and having dominion.
14. 5:14
    • Some came from Ephraim.
    • Their root was in Amalek.
    • Benjamin came after you among your peoples.
    • Commanders came down from Machir.
    • From Zebulun came those who bear the marshal's staff.
15. 5:15
    • The princes of Issachar were with Deborah.
    • Issachar was likewise with Barak.
    • He was sent into the valley at his feet.
    • Among the divisions of Reuben there were great resolves of heart.
16. 5:16
    • Reuben is asked why he sat among the sheepfolds.
    • The reason given is to hear the whistling for the flocks.
    • Among the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.
17. 5:17
    • Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan.
    • Dan is asked why he lingered by ships.
    • Asher stayed at the shore of the seas.
    • Asher remained by his landing places.
18. 5:18
    • Zebulun was a people that scorned their own lives to the point of death.
    • Naphtali also did so.
    • This was on the heights of the field.
19. 5:19
    • Kings came and fought.
    • Then the kings of Canaan fought.
    • They fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo.
    • They took no gain of silver.
20. 5:20
    • They fought from heaven.
    • The stars from their courses fought against Sisera.
21. 5:21
    • The torrent Kishon swept them away.
    • The Kishon is called an ancient torrent.
    • The speaker addresses her own soul concerning treading down in strength, and the verb is ambiguous between a command to march on and a statement that she trod down strength.
22. 5:22
    • Then the hooves of horses hammered the ground.
    • This was from the galloping of his mighty stallions.
23. 5:23
    • A curse is pronounced on Meroz.
    • The angel of the LORD said it.
    • Its inhabitants are to be cursed bitterly.
    • The reason is that they did not come to the help of the LORD.
    • They did not come to the help of the LORD among the mighty warriors.
24. 5:24
    • Jael is blessed above women.
    • Jael is the wife of Heber the Kenite.
    • She is blessed above women who dwell in tents.
25. 5:25
    • He asked for water.
    • She gave him milk.
    • She brought him curds.
    • She brought it in a bowl fit for nobles.
26. 5:26
    • She put her hand to the tent peg.
    • She put her right hand to the workmen's hammer.
    • She struck Sisera.
    • She crushed his head.
    • She shattered and pierced through his temple.
27. 5:27
    • Between her feet he sank down.
    • He fell.
    • He lay still.
    • Between her feet he sank down and fell again.
    • Where he sank down, there he fell destroyed.
28. 5:28
    • The mother of Sisera looked out through the window.
    • She wailed through the lattice.
    • She asked why his chariot was so long in coming.
    • She asked why the hoofbeats of his chariots delayed.
29. 5:29
    • Her wise ladies answered her.
    • She also returned an answer to herself.
30. 5:30
    • They ask whether the men have not found and divided spoil.
    • They say there is a girl or two for each man.
    • They say there is spoil of dyed garments for Sisera.
    • They say the dyed spoil is embroidered.
    • They say the dyed embroidered cloth is for the necks of those taking the spoil.
31. 5:31
    • The prayer is that all the LORD's enemies perish in this way.
    • The prayer is that those who love him be like the sun going out in its might.
    • The land had rest forty years.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1

This chapter is a victory poem retelling the same battle that chapter 4 tells in prose. Its Hebrew is unusually old and in places badly preserved, which is why modern translations differ from one another, and from the King James, more here than almost anywhere else in the Bible.

5:2

Israel at this time had no standing army. Fighting men came as volunteers from the tribes, so the fact that people "willingly offered themselves" is the point being praised. The first line is uncertain in Hebrew: it can mean "when the leaders took the lead" or "when men let their hair hang loose" (a warrior's vow) as easily as the King James "for the avenging of Israel."

5:3

Addressing foreign kings and princes as the audience is a standard opening move for an ancient victory poem: the defeated world is summoned to listen.

5:4

Seir and Edom are the hill country south-east of Israel, toward Sinai. The poem pictures God coming up from the south, from the desert, bringing a storm with him.

5:5

"Even that Sinai" translates a Hebrew phrase, "the One of Sinai," which is a title for God rather than a comment about the mountain, though the King James reading, that Mount Sinai itself quaked, is also possible.

5:6

Shamgar appears briefly at the end of chapter 3 as an earlier deliverer of Israel. Jael appears in chapter 4 and again at verse 24 here. Roads sitting empty means the main routes were unsafe from raiders, so traffic moved along back trails.

5:7

"A mother in Israel" is an idiom for a woman who protects and holds a community together, not a statement about her own children. The Hebrew word behind "inhabitants of the villages" is rare and disputed; it may mean unwalled village life, or the peasantry, or warriors.

5:8

The gate was the fortified entrance of a walled town and also its public square, where markets were held and disputes settled. War reaching the gates means the enemy was at the town itself. "Forty thousand" may be a round number; the Hebrew word for thousand can also mean a military unit or clan contingent.

5:10

White donkeys were expensive and marked out people of rank. The middle phrase is uncertain in Hebrew and may describe rich saddle blankets rather than sitting in judgment. The verse addresses the well-off, the officials and ordinary travelers alike.

5:11

Wells and springs were where women drew water daily and where news was exchanged, so they served as a place for stories to be repeated. The Hebrew behind "the noise of archers" is obscure; it may instead mean the voices of singers, or of those dividing flocks.

5:12

"Lead thy captivity captive" is King James English for taking prisoners away, not for anything happening to Barak.

5:13

The Hebrew of this verse is damaged and no translation of it is secure; versions differ over who comes down to whom, and whether the speaker is Deborah or the LORD.

5:14

These are Israelite tribes. Machir was a son of Manasseh, and his name stands here for that tribe's territory. "They that handle the pen of the writer" does not mean scribes: the Hebrew refers to the staff carried by a muster officer, the man who counted and organized troops.

5:15

"Divisions of Reuben" means the clans that made up the tribe. "Great thoughts of heart," and "searchings of heart" in the next verse, describe hesitation and argument over whether to join the fight, the poem is criticizing Reuben, not praising its reflection.

5:16

Sheepfolds are stone-walled pens. The sound named here is the piping or whistling shepherds used to call flocks. The charge is that Reuben stayed home tending animals while others fought.

5:17

Gilead is the Israelite territory east of the Jordan. "Abode in his breaches" means Asher stayed in the coastal inlets and harbors where its people worked. All four names are tribes or tribal regions that did not send men.

5:18

"High places" here simply means the heights of the battlefield. It does not have the sense it carries elsewhere in the Old Testament, where a high place is a hilltop shrine.

5:19

Taanach and Megiddo were fortified Canaanite cities guarding the Jezreel valley, the main east–west route across northern Israel. "They took no gain of money" means the defeated kings carried off no plunder, an insult, since plunder was the expected reward of a victorious army.

5:20

Stars fighting "in their courses" is battle imagery drawn from the sky: the heavenly bodies leave their fixed paths to join the fight. In context it runs together with the storm and flood of the surrounding verses.

5:21

The Kishon is a seasonal stream that runs low or dry much of the year and floods violently after heavy rain, turning the valley floor to mud, which is fatal to chariots. "That ancient river" renders a Hebrew word of uncertain meaning; it may instead mean onrushing or overwhelming.

5:22

"Prancings" is King James English for hard galloping. The picture is of horses pounding the ground as they try to escape.

5:23

Meroz is otherwise unknown; it was presumably a town that owed troops and sent none. A curse here is a formal public declaration made against a community, not a private wish.

5:24

The Kenites were a nomadic group long associated with Israel by marriage and treaty. Chapter 4 notes that Heber's clan was at peace with Sisera's king, which is why Sisera thought her tent safe. In this culture a guest who entered a tent was under the host's protection, and a woman's tent was somewhere no man would be searched for, both of which make the act that follows a violation of custom as well as a killing.

5:25

"Butter" here is curdled milk, something like thick yoghurt: a herder's staple offered to an honored guest. A "lordly dish" is a bowl of the sort used for nobility.

5:26

Pitching and striking tents was women's work among nomads, so the peg and mallet were tools Jael would have handled every day. "She smote off his head" is misleading: the Hebrew says she shattered or crushed his head, and the next clause describes the peg driven through his temple.

5:27

The repetition is deliberate slow motion, the poem replaying the collapse from several angles. It is worth noticing that the song and the prose account in chapter 4 picture the killing slightly differently: chapter 4 has Sisera asleep, while the poem's wording describes a man sinking down at her feet.

5:28

A lattice is a pierced wooden screen set in a window, which let a woman see the street without being seen from it.

5:29

"her wise ladies" are the noblewomen who attend her. The second half of the verse means she is repeating the same answer back to herself.

5:30

This is the mother imagining the delay is caused by her son dividing the spoils of victory. "A damsel or two" translates a coarse Hebrew word, literally "a womb, two wombs," for captive women taken as part of the plunder. "Divers colours" means dyed and embroidered cloth, a luxury good.

5:31

"Forty years" is a conventional round figure in Judges for a generation of peace, and closes this episode the way similar phrases close the others.