1. There can be little doubt that the splendid ode found in the fifth chapter of Judges belongs to the same date as the events which it describes. The passions roused by the battle have not cooled down; the sense of a common danger, the enthusiasm of united action, the exultation in Jehovah's triumphant aid, are felt with a vividness which only a contemporary could have put into words. The religious temper and the political situation agree with what we know of the period of the Judges from elsewhere, while the antique poetic language may well be characteristic of the same date. The ode, then, is a most ancient composition, probably earlier than anything else of the same extent in the Old Testament; its original place may have been in some collection of old Hebrew songs, such as the Book of Jashar or the Book of the Wars of the Lord. A text so ancient must inevitably have suffered in the course of ages; and though the general sense is clear, in many places we cannot follow the connexion of thought or interpret particular words. But we have no difficulty in understanding it sufficiently to be able to appreciate its great lyric and dramatic qualities-its impetuous rapidity, its vivid and picturesque suggestiveness, the brevity and compression, yet completeness, with which it develops its theme. Apart from its literary distinction, it has a high historical value from the light it incidentally throws on the social condition of Israel at the time of its composition. As regards its authorship there seems to be no conclusive reason for rejecting the very ancient tradition according to which it was composed by Deborah, even though we should fail to detect the peculiarly feminine traits that have been seen by some in the allusions to Jael, Sisera's mother, and the like. In its mechanical structure the main feature to be observed is the parallelism which it shows in common with all Hebrew poetry, and more particularly the progressive parallelism which is seen in such clauses as:
From heaven fought the stars;
From their courses fought [they] with Sisera;
or:
Through the window she looked forth and cried;
The mother of Sisera through the lattice.
2. It is pre-eminently a battle-song of triumph. Barak and Deborah are twice addressed in it, but the poem was composed, not to glorify them but to celebrate the triumph over the enemy. It is, however, because of its association with the “judge” Barak that it is put into the Book of Judges. The prose story of chap. 4 is evidently regarded by the Deuteronomic editor as the more important for his purpose. Yet it is almost certain that the poem contains the truer account. Prose traditions were always liable to additions and alterations in the mouths of the people, while it was more difficult to alter poetry without disturbing the rhythm of the whole. In the main, it is more patriotic than moral, more warlike than religious, and thus unquestionably reflects the temper of the time. In it we see the lyric poetry of war and patriotism brought to perfection. Its treatment of the theme from so many standpoints and with reference to so many national interests is itself a mark of long experience in literary composition. The song is, in fact, a literary consummation, like the poems of Homer. And, although in the mouth of a woman, it breathes the very spirit of those that delight in war.
It is necessary to say once more, because it is one of the key-notes of his character, that all his life long F. W. Robertson was a soldier at heart. Again and again he expresses his conviction that, in a military life, the highest self-sacrifice he was capable of could alone have been accomplished. Those who have heard him speak of battle-battle not as an incident of mere war, but as the realization of death for a noble cause-will remember how his lips quivered, and his eyes flashed, and his voice trembled with restrained emotion. Unconsciously to himself, the ring of his words, the choice of his expressions, his action even in common circumstances, his view of the Universe and of Humanity, were influenced and coloured by the ideal he had formed of a soldier's life, by the passionate longing of his youth to enter it, and by the bitterness of the regret with which he surrendered it.1 [Note: S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson, 41.]
3. The song falls naturally into three divisions: Jdg_5:2-11, an introduction; Jdg_5:12-22, a description of the battle; Jdg_5:23-31, the sequel.
(1) In the first part God is celebrated as the Helper of Israel from of old and from afar; He is the spring of the movement in which the singer rejoices, and in His praise the strophes culminate. Jehovah is invoked and praised as the God of the Hebrews alone. He seems to have no interest in the Canaanites, or compassion towards them. Yet the grandeur of the Divine forth-going is declared in bold and striking imagery, and the high resolves of men are clearly traced to the Spirit of the Almighty. Duty to God is linked with duty to country, and it is at least suggested that Israel without Jehovah is nothing and has no right to a place among the peoples. The nation exists for the glory of its Heavenly King, to make known His power and His righteous acts. The enemies of Israel are the enemies of Jehovah, and they who fight for the national cause fight for God.
(2) The second part of the song tells of the battle, and there never was a grander description of a battle, witnessed, as it were, from the parapet of heaven. In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo are the marshalled kings. But the very stars in their courses are marshalled against them. And see, almost at once, there is the ancient river Kishon sweeping them away-“O my soul, march on with strength!” And the fierce battle-horses are pawing the ground-there is the thud and the thunder, the confusion and the conflict-and the victory is secured. Through this wonderful song we are able to see with our own eyes and to follow the events of that memorable day.
(3) After the vivid description of the battle come the cursing of Meroz and the blessing of Jael. The courageous devotion of Jael is set effectively against the unpatriotic selfishness of Meroz. In considering this section we should remember that the song of Deborah is no more than the passionate, poetic utterance of a patriot who belongs to the wild, uncivilized and unchristian period in which it was composed, and all that it says about God, and about the fight and the slaughter of Sisera, is to be judged in accordance with the morality and theology of the time in which it was written. The Jehovah of the Hebrews, at this period in their history, was very much like the gods of other nations just emerged from the savage state. He was their own God, the God who defended their country from the gods of other nations, the existence of whom the Hebrews did not deny. Nothing could be dearer to Him than that the Israelites should mercilessly slay those who worshipped other gods who disputed His pre-eminence. In judging Meroz for its lack of patriotic spirit, Deborah identifies the cause of Israel with the cause of Israel's God. To be disloyal to the nation implied religious treason. The Canaanites were Jehovah's enemies, and the highest goodness was to destroy them. Yet Meroz sat still and allowed her brethren to do all the bloody fighting, when it was in her power utterly to block the escaping foe and thus to exterminate this enemy of God's people.
4. So overmastering is this religious feeling that Jael's breach of hospitality, because committed in the interests of Jehovah, is extolled as an act of heroism. We may imagine how Deborah could cry with full belief in the justice of her cry: “Blessed above women be Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite.” There are, however, three things to be taken into account if we are to understand the situation aright.
(1) A Hebrew woman of undaunted courage but of fierce spirit, in the first flush of victory chanting her triumphant warsong, feeling that twenty years of cruel suffering and oppression had now been signally revenged, seeing the oppressor himself laid low and her nation once more free, may be forgiven if at the moment she thought less of the mode and instrument by which that freedom had been won than of the great result achieved-may be almost forgiven, or at least understood, if, in the disturbed balance of her mind, the true measure of things failed to impress itself upon her conscience, and the end might seem to justify the means.
(2) But Deborah was here expressing not so much her own as the nation's thankfulness for deliverance; the nation would naturally warmly express its gratitude, without entering with any minute criticism into the question of the morality of the act whereby that deliverance had been effected; and it was only reasonable and right that Jael's name should be handed down to posterity as that of one who shared the glory of having helped in bringing about a great national blessing.
(3) Deborah's ode of triumph rises to its loftiest level at its close-“So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.” It is not our cause but Thine, it is not our vengeance that Jael has wreaked, but the vengeance of Jehovah upon an oppressor and a savage-“But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.” It is a strange thing that so fierce a battle-chant should settle down into such a sweet swan-song as this at the end. It is a strange thing that in the same soul there should throb the delight in battle, the almost delight in murder, and these lofty thoughts. But let us learn the lesson that true love to God means hearty hatred of God's enemy. We need not then deduct anything from our admiration of the great woman, prophetess and patriot, because she deals the need of praise to the doughty deed of Jael. It is only necessary to realize the whole situation, and then we can follow with a heartfelt approval, making due allowance for the different moral atmosphere of the time, her quick transition from the cursed Meroz who came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty, to the blessed Jael, the woman who did.
I loved Frederick Maurice, as every one did who came near him; and have no doubt that he did all that was in him to do of good in his day. I only went once to a Bible-lesson of his; and the meeting was significant, and conclusive. The subject of lesson, Jael's slaying of Sisera. Concerning which, Maurice, taking an enlightened modern view of what was fit and not, discoursed in passionate indignation; and warned his class, in the most positive and solemn manner, that such dreadful deeds could only have been done in cold blood in the Dark Biblical ages; and that no religious and patriotic Englishwoman ought ever to think of imitating Jael by nailing a Russian's or Prussian's skull to the ground,-especially after giving him butter in a lordly dish. At the close of the instruction, through which I sat silent, I ventured to enquire, why then had Deborah the prophetess declared of Jael, “Blessed above women shall the wife of Heber the Kenite be”? On which Maurice, with startled and flashing eyes, burst into partly scornful, partly alarmed, denunciation of Deborah the prophetess, as a mere blazing Amazon; and of her Song as a merely rhythmic storm of battle-rage, no more to be listened to with edification or faith than the Norman's sword-song at the battle of Hastings. Whereupon there remained nothing for me,-to whom the Song of Deborah was as sacred as the Magnificat,-but total collapse in sorrow and astonishment; the eyes of all the class being also bent on me in amazed reprobation of my benighted views, and unchristian sentiments. And I got away how I could, but never went back.1 [Note: Ruskin, Prœterita, iii. chap. i. (Works, xxxv. 486).]
The opening verse of Deborah's Song gives us the whole secret of the national inspiration in a tribute of glory to Jahweh: “For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, for that the people offered themselves willingly, praise ye Jahweh!” In the end of the Song which thus grandly opens, we are repelled by the savage exultation of a woman over the treacherous murder of a defeated foe. And rightly; for Christ has given us the right to judge. But do we pay as much attention to the virtues which are manifest in the Song? Nowhere do we find a more scathing exposure of those who prefer the material ambitions of life, however legitimate, to the call of national need in the name of the religious ideal; and nowhere is self-sacrifice more finely celebrated. “Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives to the death, and Naphtali on the high places of the field.” Whatever views we have of war-and we are those who themselves owe their religious liberty to the virtues of the battle-field-let us remember what war did for Israel. “By war,” says Jahweh elsewhere, “I took you”; and we may extend the meaning of these words beyond the mere fact that so He helped them to freedom, to the moral assurance that by the call to fight He redeemed them from selfishness, from servitude to material aims, from schism and disloyalty to Himself. The battle-field was the Golgotha of early Israel. It was there that Zebulun and Naphtali laid down their lives for the brethren; and there that the Spirit of Christ which was in Israel from the beginning won its earliest triumphs.1 [Note: G. A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, 153.]
The Biblical way of conveying truth is not to be likened to the erection of a building; it is the gradual unfolding of a tree. The acorn becomes a plant, the plant becomes a sapling, and the sapling, in turn, becomes the full-grown oak, until, by the process of inward expansion, the tree becomes what the house built of stone could never be, a living, fruit-bearing, and organic unity. This is the story of religion as set forth in the Biblical records. It began as a tiny rill away up in the Semitic highlands. It increased in volume and depth as it sped through the Mosaic age and entered the period of the monarchy. It was fed by priesthood and prophecy, psalm and proverb, discipline and deliverance, until, in the fulness of the times, it flowed a mighty river and poured its waters into the sea of the New Testament Gospel.2 [Note: John Adams, Israel's Ideal 2.]
