Judges 5:10

_SPEAK, YE THAT RIDE ON WHITE ASSES, YE THAT SIT IN JUDGMENT, AND WALK BY THE WAY._ Speak, ye that ride on white asses - i:e., join in this song of praise. х_ 'ªTONOWT_ (H860) _ TSªCHOROWT _ (H6715), bright shining she-asses (cf. Judges 10:4: Bovet, 'Voyage en Terre Sainte,' p. 311).] Those which are dappled are most highly prized; but being rare, and therefore costly, are possessed only by the wealthy and great. 'Some are of considerable size, and when fancifully dyed with henna, their tails and ears bright red, and their bodies spotted, like an heraldic talbot, with the same colour, they bear the chief priests and the men of the law, as they appear to have done from the earliest times' (Layard, 'Nineveh and Babylon,' p. 472, note). [The Septuagint has: epibebeekotes epi onou thee

Verse Judges 5:10. _YE THAT RIDE ON WHITE ASSES_] Perhaps אתנות צחרות _athonoth tsechoroth_ should be rendered _sleek_ or _well-fed asses_; rendered _asinos nitentes, shining asses_, by the _Vulgate_. _YE THAT SIT IN JUDGMENT_] ישבי על מדין _yoshebey al middin_; some have rendered this, _ye who dwell in Middin_. This was a place in the tribe of Judah, and is mentioned Joshua 15:61. _AND WALK BY THE WAY._] Persons who go from place to place for the purposes of traffic....

YE THAT RIDE ON WHITE DONKEYS ... - i. e. nobles or magistrates. Deborah appeals to the classes mentioned in Judges 5:6, to bear witness to the happy change that had followed the overthrow of Jabin. THAT SIT IN JUDGMENT - Rather “that sit on saddles, or horse-cloths,” a further description of those who ride on asses....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 5:1 THEN SANG DEBORAH, etc. The ode which follows was doubtless the composition of Deborah the prophetess, and was sung by her (as the gender of the Hebrew verb indicates), assisted by Barak, who perhaps sang the antistrophe (cf. Exodus 15:1, Exodus 15:21). It is a song of wonderful beauty and lyric power, somewhat difficult, as all Hebrew poetry is. JUDGES 5:2 Her first feeling was one of patriotic joy that her countrymen had been roused to the venture of war, and of gratitude to God that it was so. "For the bold leading of the leaders of Israel, for the

SPEAK, YE THAT RIDE ON WHITE ASSES,.... Though in some countries, as in ours, it is reckoned disgraceful to ride on asses; so Leo Africanus b makes mention of a preacher in Africa, who was called the ass rider; because he was continually, sitting on an ass; yet in Judea, where there were no horses, or very few, it was accounted honourable; so it was in the time of our Lord; for his riding on an ass to Jerusalem was not mean and disgraceful, but honourable and glorious: and so it certainly was in those early times of the judges; for we read of the sons of two of them, which were very numerous, that rode on asses' colts, Judges 10:4, and it seems that white asses were the most valuable, and chiefly used by great personages. The ass in the Hebrew language has its name from redness, that being the usual colour of them in those parts; and hence they were hateful to the Egyptians, because that...

CHAPTER 5 The Song of Deborah and Barak _ 1. The praise of Jehovah (Judges 5:1)_ 2. The condition of the people and their deliverance (Judges 5:6) 3. The celebration of the victory and the victors (Judges 5:12) 4. The fate of the enemy (Judges 5:23) This is one of the prophetic songs of the Bible. It is full of the fire of passion and enthusiasm, reflecting the character of the woman through whom the deliverance had been wrought. It has been classed with the barbaric outbursts of the battle-hymns and odes of triumph of heathen nations, likened to some wild chant of a victor, whose blood-thirst has been que

JUDGES 5. THE SONG OF DELIVERANCE. The Song of Deborah so called because of the words I, Deborah, arose (Judges 5:7) is a splendid battle-ode, evidently contemporaneous with the events which it celebrates. It breathes the patriotic fervour and religious enthusiasm which inspired the loftiest minds in Israel, and proves that a great faith was already working wonders in the tribes which till lately had been desert nomads. It is a work of genius, and therefore a work of that highest art which is not studied and artificial, but spontaneous and inevitable (Moore, 135). R. H. Hutton calls it the greatest war-song of any age or nation. Unfortunately the text has suffered a good deal, and in some passages we can do no more than guess the sense. Judges 5:1 f. Yahweh is praised for two reasons: because the leaders of

The celebration of Jehovah's acts. This seems to be the meaning of Judges 5:11; Judges 5:9 are exceedingly obscure, owing to the condition of the text. After dwelling upon Israel's sufferings, the poet, so far as we understand him, turns with thankful emotion to those who helped to put an end to them....

SPEAK, YE THAT RIDE ON WHITE ASSES— These are supposed to have been _asses_ of the _Zebra_ kind צחר _zachar._ The author of the _Observations,_ however, (p. 268.) is of opinion, "that these asses are not called _white_ on account of their natural colour, but rather from their _caparisons,_ according to the custom among the Arabs to this day, who use saddles of wood in riding, and have always, as a part of their riding furniture, a cloth which they call the _hiran,_ about six ells long, which they fold up and put upon the wooden saddle, in order to fit with greater ease; and which they use when they bait, as a sort of mattrass to repose themselves upon." The clause, _ye that sit in judgment,_ explains the preceding. _Ye who walk by the way,_ seems evidently to mean the merchants or traffickers, who might now safely travel about their business, which they could not do before this deliveran...

_The Song of Deborah and Barak Judges 5:1-31_ Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, 2 Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. 3 Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. 4 Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. 5 The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. 6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through byways. 7 The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel,