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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 235. Deborah
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Literature
Brooke, S. A., The Old Testament and Modern Life (1896), 177.
Cooke, G. A., The Book of Judges (1913), 44.
Davies, D., Talks with Men, Women and Children, iii. (1891) 161.
Dawson, W. J., The Comrade-Christ (1894), 150.
Fairweather, D., Bound in the Spirit (1906), 167.
Farningham, M., Women and their Work (1906), 43, 47.
Forbes, A. P., Sermons on the Grace of God (1862), 245.
Fraser, J., University Sermons (1887), 137.
Henson, H. H., The Value of the Bible (1904), 53.
Horton, R. F., Women of the Old Testament (1898), 119.
Ingram, W. C, Happiness in the Spiritual Life (1891), 85.
Mackay, W. M., Bible Types of Modern Women (1912), 78.
Maclaren, A., The Beatitudes (1896), 199.
Matheson, G., The Representative Women of the Bible (1907), 155.
Mayor, J. B., The World's Desire (1907), 102.
Miller, T. E., Portraits of Women of the Bible (1910), 75, 85.
Potter, H. C, Sermons of the City (1880), 125.
Simeon, J., Some Women of the Old Testament: Eve to Ruth (1905), 195.
Stanley, A. P., Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, i. (1888) 279.
Stanley, A. P., Scripture Portraits (1867), 23.
Stuart, J., Church and Home (1900), 122.
Thatcher, G. W., Judges and Ruth (Century Bible), 56.
Watson, R. A., Judges and Ruth (Expositor's Bible) (1889), 91, 106.
Williams, I., Female Characters of Holy Scripture (1890), 80.
Christian World Pulpit, xxx. (1886) 1 (H. P. Liddon); xl. (1891) 40 (W. B. Carpenter); lxxi. (1907) 163 (J. H. Rushbrooke); lxxix. (1911) 251 (F. Sparrow).
Churchman's Pulpit: Second Sunday after Trinity, x. 1 (R. Eyton), 3 (W. L. Williams), 5 (J. B. Mayor), 8 (T. J. Madden), 9 (J. R. Woodford), 12 (W. F. Pelton), 14 (J. H. Newman), 18 (F. Ealand), 19 (A. P. Forbes).
Expositor, 3rd Ser., v. (1887) 38 (A. B. Davidson).
Preachers' Monthly, v. (1883) 335 (P. Brooks).
Until that I Deborah arose.- Jdg_5:7.
The history of the chosen people during the interval between the death of Joshua and the rise of Samuel-between the establishment of the Sanctuary at Shiloh on the first occupation of the country and its final overthrow by the Philistines-is specially interesting. Other portions of Scripture may be more profitable “for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness”; but for merely human interest-for the lively touches of ancient manners, for the succession of romantic incidents, for the consciousness that we are living face to face with the persons described, for the tragical pathos of events and characters-there is nothing like the history of the Judges from Othniel to Eli. It would seem, if one may venture to say so, as if the Book of Judges had been left in the sacred books with the express view of enforcing upon us the necessity, which we are sometimes anxious to evade, of recognizing the human, national, let us even add barbarian, element which plays its part in the sacred history. The Book of Judges recalls our thoughts from the ideal which we imagine of past and of sacred ages, and reminds us, by a rude shock, that even in the heart of the chosen people, even in the next generation after Joshua, there were irregularities, imperfections, excrescences, which it is the glory of the sacred historian to have recorded faithfully, and which it will be our wisdom no less faithfully to study.
1. “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” This sentence, frequently and earnestly repeated, is the key-note of the whole book. It expresses the freedom, the freshness, the independence, the licence, the anarchy, the disorder of the period.
Once settled in Canaan, the Israelites could not resist the temptation to adopt the worship of the native deities, on whom the prosperity of flocks and fields was supposed to depend. The God of Israel came from the desert; in the early days of the settlement His home was believed to be in Sinai rather than in Canaan; hence the popular religion, without ceasing to regard Jehovah as the God of Israel, felt it necessary to pay homage at the same time to the gods of the country. No doubt also the popular mind tended to identify Jehovah with the local Baals and Astartes, whose sanctuaries were scattered over the land. Such confusions gravely imperilled the distinctive character of Israel's religion; they produced a degradation of faith and morals which led the prophets to charge Israel with having fallen into Baal-worship from the very day they entered into Canaan; the popular religion could only be described as a “forsaking” of Jehovah.
2. These troubled and stormy times often produced a warrior-hero to cope with them. Of these Israelite heroes many strange and warlike deeds were told, as they are told also of warrior chieftains in other lands. The compilers and editors called these men “judges,” but they were not judges in our sense of the word at all; they were chieftains and heroes, whose influence was felt mainly in war and was of a local and temporary character. Such leaders were Ehud and Barak, Gideon and Jephthah; while several of the minor judges were perhaps rather heads of great families, deriving their authority from the distinction of their birth and the number of their relatives and dependents.