Lange Commentary - Judges 5:1 - 5:1

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Lange Commentary - Judges 5:1 - 5:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Deborah’s Song of Triumph

Jdg_5:1-31

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The Superscription

Jdg_5:1

1Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,

EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL

The special sign of the prophetic spirit, is the use of lyrical expression. The praise of God, and the proclamation of his mighty deeds, burst from the prophets in the rapture of poetic visions. Their language is glowing and powerful, like a torch in the night. This lofty view of the nature of poetry shows itself everywhere. Poets, says Socrates, speak like men divinely inspired, like those who deliver oracles. Among the Romans, legendary tradition (Liv. i. 7) told of an ancient prophetic nymph, Carmenta (from Carmen). Of no Judge is it expressly said that he was a prophet: this is affirmed of Deborah alone; and she alone among them sang,—and that, not merely as Miriam, who with her women formed the responsive choir to Moses’ song, but as Moses, the victor, himself.

She sang, åַúָּùַׁø . She was the creator of the song. Quite parallel is the expression, Exo_15:1 : “then sang Moses and the sons of Israel” ( éָùִׁéø ), not “they sang.” Moses, divinely inspired, composed the song, and the people sang it. The case was similar with Deborah. The feminine of the verb, with the following connective, å , expresses the independent creation and the joint-execution of the Song; for already in the fourth chapter, Barak stands for the most part for the people themselves. Thus, Barak has gone up to Mount Tabor, Jdg_4:12; Sisera’s army is thrown into confusion before Barak, Jdg_5:15; Barak pursues, Jdg_5:16; etc. Here also, therefore, Barak takes the place which in the Song of Moses the “children of Israel” occupy. He and his men raise Deborah’s hymn as their song of triumph; and thus it becomes a national hymn. Song is the noblest ornament which the nations of antiquity can devise for victory. They preserve its utterances tenaciously, both as evidences of their prowess, and as incentives to action in times of dishonor. In the days of Pausanias (in the second century after Christ), and therefore about 800 years after the event, the Messenians still sang a triumphal song of the time of Aristomenes (Paus. iv. 16). Perhaps the most interesting remnant of German recollections of Arminius, is the Westphalian popular song, still sung in the region of what was once the field of victory (cf. Horkel, in Der Gesch. der Deutschen Vorzeit, i. 257). In the case of Israel, whose victories are the steps in its national work, and the evidences of its religious truth, the interest of such a song is the greater, because there tradition moulded the conscience of the generations, and fidelity to its earliest history formed the conditions of the national calling, greatness, and glory.

The form of the Song, as of the old Hebrew poetry generally, is that of free rhythm. The Song is a poetical stream: everywhere poetical, and yet untrammeled by any artistic division into strophes. Such a division, it is true, is not altogether wanting; but it is never made a rule. Consequently, efforts to force it systematically on the poem, while only traces of it show themselves, are all in vain. There is no want of finish; introduction and conclusion are well defined; but the pauses subordinate themselves to the thoughts, and these unfold themselves free as the waves. The peculiar character of the Song consists in the boldness of its imagery and the force of its unusual language. It appropriates, in a natural manner, all those forms which genuine poetry does not seek but produce; but it appropriates them all with a freedom which endures none as a rule, yet without, like the natural stream, violating harmony. The Song, then, has strophes, but they are not of equal measure; it moves along in parallelisms, but with variations corresponding to the movement of the thought. The most interesting feature to be noticed, is the alliteration, which appears in the highest development and delicacy, as elsewhere only in the old Norse poems, but also with considerable freedom from restraint. It is important to notice this, because it testifies, more than any division into strophes that may exist, to the nature of the popular song and its lyrical use. The divisions which the poem certainly shows, are determined only by its own course of thought. They are: the praise of God, as introduction (Jdg_5:25); the delineation of the emergency (Jdg_5:6-8); the call to praise that the evil no longer exists (Jdg_5:9-11); delineation of the victory and the victors (Jdg_5:12-23); the fate of the enemy (Jdg_5:24-31). The renderings which distinguish the following translation from the older versions extant, will be justified under the several verses in which they occur.

Footnotes:

[The author’s version of the Song forms an essential part of his exposition, and we therefore substitute a translation of it, adhering as closely as practicable to his German, for the ordinary English text. For Dr. Cassel’s rendering of éִäåָֹã , cf. “Textual and Grammatical,” note 1, p. 23. In general, it will be seen that he does not anxiously aim at literalness. The black-faced letters are designed to imitate, rather than reproduce, the alliteration which in our author’s view forms a marked feature of the poem (see above). It may be useful to some readers to be referred to the following readily accessible English versions of the Song: Robinson’s, with an extended commentary, in Bibl. Repository, 1831, p. 568; “Review of Hollmann on the Song of Deborah,” Chris. Spectator (New Haven), ii. 307; Robbins, “The Song of Deborah,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 1855, p. 597; Milman’s version, in Hist. of the Jews, i. 292; Stanley’s, in Jewish Church, i. 370. The whole special literature of the subject is given by Bachmann, i. 298 ff.—Tr.]