Judges 5:6

_IN THE DAYS OF SHAMGAR THE SON OF ANATH, IN THE DAYS OF JAEL, THE HIGHWAYS WERE UNOCCUPIED, AND THE TRAVELLERS WALKED THROUGH BYWAYS._ In the days of Shamgar ... in the days of Jael. Shamgar [Septuagint, Samegar] is mentioned, Judges 3:31, as a judge, who by one feat of bravery effected a deliverance, for Israel. According to Josephus ('Antiquities,' b. 5:, ch. 4:, sec. 3), his official rule continued only one year, and extended exclusively over those tribes which bordered on the Philistine territory. The association of Jael with Shamgar suggests the idea that reference is made to some unrecorded judge of that name, probably the successor of Shamgar, and whose public authority might be of equally brief duration. The presumption that this is the true interpretation, rather than that the reference is to the wife of Heber the Kenite, is strengthened by the fact that the name of

Verse Judges 5:6. _THE HIGHWAYS WERE UNOCCUPIED_] The land was full of anarchy and confusion, being everywhere infested with banditti. No public road was safe; and in going from place to place, the people were obliged to use unfrequented paths....

Words dcscriptive of a state of weakness and fear, so that Israel could not frequent the highways. It is a graphic description of a country occupied by an enemy....

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

IN THE DAYS OF SHAMGAR, THE SON OF ANATH,.... Of whom see Judges 3:31; who succeeded Ehud as a judge, but lived not long, and did not much; at least wrought not a perfect deliverance of the children of Israel; but during his time till now, quite through the twenty years of Jabin's oppression, things were as they are after described: IN THE DAYS OF JAEL; the wife of Heber the Kenite, spoken of in the preceding chapter, Judges 4:17, who appears to be a woman of masculine spirit, and endeavoured to do what good she could to Israel, though not a judge among them, as Jarchi suggests; and who before this affair of Sisera had signalized herself by some deeds of hers in favour of Israel, and against their enemies; yet far from putting a stop to the outrages committed; for in the times of both these pers

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

SHAMGAR. Compare Judges 3:31. THE HIGHWAYS, &C.. the highways were closed....

_Shamgar the son of Anath_ See on Judges 3:31. It is extraordinary that the period of the oppression (_in the days of_as Judges 15:20) should be dated by Shamgar, if he was the deliverer referred to in Judges 3:31, and by Jael who slew the leader of the Canaanite army. We have seen reason to question the account of Shamgar in Judges 3:31; the context of the present passage clearly implies that he was not a deliverer but a foreign oppressor, perhaps the predecessor of Sisera. Jael must be the same person as the heroine of Judges 5:24 ff.; but she belongs to the time, n

IN THE DAYS OF SHAMGAR— The prophetess in these verses gives us a description of the wretched state of Israel during the time of that captivity, from which she, by the assistance of God, delivered them. It is very easy, says the author of the _Observations,_ (p. 216.) to turn out of the roads in the east, and go to a place by winding about over the lands, when that is thought safer. Dr. Shaw takes notice of this circumstance, observing, that in Barbary they found no hedges, mounds, or inclosures, to retard or molest them. To this Deborah doubtless refers, though the Doctor does not apply his remark to the present passage. Bishop Pococke's account of the manner in which the Arabs, under whose care he was, conducted him to Jerusalem, illustrates this with great liveliness. It was by night, not by the _high road,_ but through the _fields;_ and I observed that he avoided, as much as he could...