Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 5:29 - 5:29
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The princesses in attendance upon Sisera's mother sought to console her with the remark, that Sisera would have to gather together rich booty, and that his return was delayed in consequence. In the expression “the wisest of her princesses” (see Ges. §119, 2), the irony is very obvious, as the reality put all their wise conjectures to shame. תַּעֲנֶנָּה, third pers. plur. fem. for תַּעֲנֶינָה. The second hemistich of Jdg 5:29 contains a clause inserted as a parenthesis. אַף־הִיא is adversative: “but she;” אַף is only an emphatic copula; the antithesis lies in the emphatic change of subject indicated by הִיא. אֲמָרֶיהָ הֵשִׁיב, lit. to bring back her words, i.e., to repeat. לָהּ is used in a reflective sense, “to herself.” The meaning is: But Sisera's mother did not allow herself to be quieted by the words of her wise princesses; on the contrary, she kept repeating the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay his coming? In Jdg 5:30 there follows the answer of the wise princesses. They imagine that Sisera has been detained by the large amount of booty which has to be divided. הֲלֹא, nonne, is he not, in the sense of lively certainty. They will certainly discover rich booty, and divide it. רַחַם, uterus, for puella. “A girl (or indeed probably) two girls to the head of the man,” i.e., for each man. צְבָעִים, coloured things, cloths or clothes. רִקְמָה, worked stuff, or garments worked in divers colours (see the remarks on Exo 26:36), is attached without the vav cop. to צְבָעִים, and is also dependent upon שְׁלַל. The closing words, שָׁלָל לְצַוְּארֵי, “for the necks,” or (as the plural is also frequently used to signify a single neck, e.g., Gen 27:16; Gen 45:14) “for the neck of the booty,” do not give any appropriate sense, as שָׁלָל neither signifies animals taken as booty nor the taker of booty. The idea, however, that שָׁלָל is used for שָׁלָל אִישׁ, like הֵלֶךְ in 2Sa 12:4 for הֵלֶךְ אִישׁ, viator, and חֶתֶף in Pro 23:28 for חֶתֶף אִישׁ, seems inadmissible, since שָׁלָל ecni has just before been used three times in its literal sense. There is just the same objection to the application of שָׁלָל to animals taken as booty, not to mention the fact that they would hardly have thought of having valuable clothes upon the necks of animals taken as booty. Consequently the only explanation that remains, is either to alter לְצַוְּארֵי into לְצַוָּארֹו or לְצַוָּארָיו, or else to change שָׁלָל into שֵׁגָל, the royal spouse. In the former case, שָׁלָל would have to be taken as in apposition to רִקְמָתַיִם צֶבַע: a variegated cloth, two worked in divers colours for his (Sisera's) neck as booty, as the lxx have rendered it (τῷ τραχήλῳ αὐτοῦ σκῦλα). Ewald and Bertheau decide in favour of the second alteration, and defend it on the ground that שׁלל might easily find its way into the text as a copyist's error for שׁגל, on account of שׁלל having been already written three times before, and that we cannot dispense with some such word as שֵׁגָל here, since the repetition of שָׁלָל three times, and the threefold use of לְ, evidently show that there were three different kinds of people among whom the booty was to be distributed; and also that it was only a fitting thing that Sisera should set apart one portion of the booty to adorn the neck of his wife, and that the wisest of the noble ladies, when mentioning the booty, should not forget themselves.