See Joshua 11:1 note. Since the events there narrated, Hazor must have been rebuilt, and have resumed its position as the metropolis of the northern Canaanites; the other cities must also have resumed their independence, and restored the fallen dynasties. Harosheth (identified by Conder with El Hara... [ Continue Reading ]
OPPRESSED - The same word is used Exodus 3:9 of the oppression of Israel by the Egyptians. If they were put to task-work in hewing timber, their condition was very like that of their ancestors making bricks.... [ Continue Reading ]
DEBORAH, A PROPHETESS - Her name, meaning a bee, is the same as that of Rebekah’s nurse (marginal reference). The reason of her preeminence is added. She was “a woman, a prophetess,” like Miriam Exodus 15:20; Huldah 2 Kings 22:14, etc. In Judges 4:6, Judges 4:9,Judges 4:14, we have examples of her p... [ Continue Reading ]
SHE DWELT - Rather, “she sat,” namely, to judge the people Judges 4:10, but not in the usual place, “the gate” Ruth 4:1; Proverbs 22:22. It suited her character, and the wild unsafe times better, that she should sit under a palm-tree in the secure heights of Mount Ephraim, between Ramah and Bethel ... [ Continue Reading ]
The name Barak signifies lightning, an appropriate name for a warrior. It is found also as Barca or Barcas, among Punic proper names. Compare Mark 3:17. On Kedesh-Naphtali see the marginal reference. Deborah speaks of God as Yahweh the God of Israel, because she speaks, as it were, in the presence... [ Continue Reading ]
The brook or stream Kishon (Nahr Mukutta), so called from its winding course, caused by the dead level of the plain of Esdraelon through which it flows, rises, in respect to one of its sources or feeders, in Mount Tabor, and flows nearly due west through the plain, under Mount Carmel, and into the B... [ Continue Reading ]
Barak, like Gideon Judges 6:15, Judges 6:36, Judges 6:40, and Abraham Genesis 15:2; Genesis 17:18, and Moses Exodus 4:10, Exodus 4:13, and Peter Matthew 14:30, exhibited some weakness of faith at first. But this only makes his example more profitable for our encouragement, though he himself s [ Continue Reading ]
Mark the unhesitating faith and courage of Deborah, and the rebuke to Barak’s timidity, “the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Jael, Judges 4:22). For a similar use of a weak instrument, that the excellency of the power might be of God, compare the history of Gideon and his 300, Davi... [ Continue Reading ]
Rather, “and ten thousand men went up (to Tabor) at his feet;” i. e. as his followers (“after him,” Judges 4:14).... [ Continue Reading ]
Read, “Heber the Kenitc had severed himself from the Kenites which were of the children of Hobab,” etc., “unto the oak (or terebinth tree) in Zaanaim” (or Bitzaanaim, which Conder identifies with Bessum, twelve miles southeast of Tabor, and near Kedesh on the Sea of Galilee). This migration of Heber... [ Continue Reading ]
LIGHTED DOWN OFF HIS CHARIOT - Probably his chariot stuck in the morass (see the note at Judges 4:7); or he might leave his chariot in order to mislead his pursuers, and in hope of gaining a place of safety while they were following the track of the chariot-wheels and the bulk of the host.... [ Continue Reading ]
What with the overflowing of the Kishon Judges 5:21, by which numbers were drowned, and the panic which had seized the defeated army, and made them an easy prey to the sword of the pursuing Israelites, Sisera’s whole force was cut to pieces and broken up.... [ Continue Reading ]
Sisera went, not to Heber’s tent, but to Joel’s, as more secure from pursuit. Women occupied a separate tent. Genesis 18:6, Genesis 18:10; Genesis 24:67.... [ Continue Reading ]
STAND IN THE DOOR ... - The characteristic duplicity of the Oriental character, both in Sisera and Joel, is very forcibly depicted in this narrative. It is only by the light of the Gospel that the law of truth is fully revealed.... [ Continue Reading ]
If we can overlook the treachery and violence which belonged to the morals of the age and country, and bear in mind Jael’s ardent sympathies with the oppressed people of God, her faith in the right of Israel to possess the land in which they were now slaves, her zeal for the glory of Yahweh as again... [ Continue Reading ]
See the margin. The meaning is, that Barak’s great victory was the beginning of a successful resistance to Jabin, by which the Israelites recovered their independence, and finally broke the Canaanite power. Accordingly, we hear no more of Canaanite domination in the Book of Judges.... [ Continue Reading ]