Judges 5:2

_PRAISE YE THE LORD FOR THE AVENGING OF ISRAEL, WHEN THE PEOPLE WILLINGLY OFFERED THEMSELVES._ For the avenging of Israel, х_ BIPªROA`_ (H6544) _ PªRAA`OWT_ (H6546) _ Bª-YISRAA'EEL_ (H3478)] - in the freeing of Israel from bondage (Robinson), or in the leading on of the lenders in Israel (Gesenius) х_ BªHITNADEEB_ (H5068) _ `AAM_ (H5971), in the people showing themselves willing - i:e., that the princes of Israel put themselves at the head of the people, who came with alacrity as a volunteer force, praise is due to the Lord. Septuagint, en too arxasthai archeegous en Israeel en proairesei laou eulogeite ton kurion]...

Verse Judges 5:2. _FOR THE AVENGING OF ISRAEL_] See the notes, c., at the end of the chapter. _Clarke "_Judges 5:28_"_....

Render “For the leading of the leaders in Israel (the princes), for the willingness of the people (to follow them) bless ye the Lord.” See Deuteronomy 32:42 note, and compare Judges 5:9 and Judges 5:13, where the nobles and the people are again contrasted....

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

PRAISE YE THE LORD FOR THE AVENGING OF ISRAEL,.... The injuries done to Israel by any of their enemies, and particularly what wrongs had been done them by Jabin, king of Canaan, for twenty years past; though some understand it of the vengeance God took on Israel for their sins; and though praise is not given directly for that, yet inasmuch as, when that was the case, there were some whose spirits were stirred up to engage voluntarily in the deliverance of them from the oppression of their enemies, it was matter of praise: WHEN THE PEOPLE WILLINGLY OFFERED THEMSELVES: to go and fight for Israel against their enemies, particularly those of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, Judges 5:18; though not excluding others that joined, who could not have been forced to it, had they not freely offered themselves; and which was owing to the secret influence of divine Providence on their

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 LORD. Hebrew. _Jehovah._ App-4....

The translation, after the LXX. cod. A, gives a good parallelism (leaders and people as in Judges 5:9), but it rests on slender support. The noun rendered _leaders_has this meaning among others (such as _abundant hair_, in Arabic), but in Hebrew the verb -took the lead" properly means to _loosen_Exodus 5:4, especially _to let the hair go loose_Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 13:45, and the noun is used of the long _locks_of the Nazirites Numbers 6:5. Wearing the hair long was the mark of a vow not to do certain things until a specified object had been at

PRAISE YE THE LORD— Full of gratitude for this signal mark of divine favour, Deborah begins her song with a noble acknowledgment of God's assistance, and, as usual in poems of this kind, bursts forth in the next verse into a fine apostrophe, with all that variety of change in numbers and persons, which so eminently distinguishes the Hebrew poetry. Houbigant renders this clause, Because the leaders of Israel undertook the war, Because the people willingly offered themselves, praise ye the Lord. In which version, as he observes, the clauses correspond, as is usual in this kind of poetry....