Judges 4 - Introduction

4 and 5. Deborah and Barak deliver Israel from the Canaanites

The account of the deliverance exists in two versions, one in prose (ch. 4), the other in poetry (ch. 5). The two agree in the main: the chief actors are the same, Deborah, Barak, Sisera, Jael; the Canaanites are defeated with Jehovah's powerful aid in a battle near the Kishon; Sisera is murdered by Jael in her tent. But there are some striking disagreements: in ch. 4 the oppressor is Jabin king of Hazor, and Sisera of Harosheth is his general; Deborah is connected with Ephraim, Barak with Kedesh; two tribes only, Zebulun and Naphtali, take part in the battle; Jael murders Sisera while he lies asleep by driving a tent-peg through his temples. On the other hand, ch. 5 knows nothing of Jabin, Sisera is the head of a confederacy of Canaanite kings (Judges 5:19), and is in fact a king, his mother has princesses for attendants (Judges 5:29); apparently both Deborah and Barak belong to Issachar (Judges 5:15); the struggle is on a much larger scale, all the tribes are summoned to arms, and for the first time Israel acts almost as a nation (Judges 5:13-18); Jael fells Sisera with a mallet while he is standing and drinking (Judges 5:26 f.). Comparing the two versions there can be no doubt as to which we are to follow; the Song is obviously ancient, and may well be contemporary with the events it describes; it is not only one of the finest odes in the Hebrew language, but it possesses the highest value as a historical document. Moreover the prose narrative is not consistent with itself. How is it that Jabin has no share in the battle, and allows Barak to muster his forces at Kedesh, within a few miles of Hazor, and pass unmolested almost under its walls? Why did Sisera take refuge with Jael rather than with Jabin whose city was close at hand? It is evident that Jabin is out of place in this narrative; he must have been introduced into it from Joshua 11:1-15 JE, underlying which is probably an ancient tradition of a struggle between Jabin king of Hazor and the two tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, assembled at Kedesh for the fight, in the early days of the Israelite invasion. How this Jabin-tradition came to be mixed up with the story of Sisera we cannot exactly tell; perhaps it was because both were concerned with fighting in northern Palestine, and with fighting against Canaanites; the two were then superficially harmonized by reducing Sisera to the position of general of Jabin's army. It is noteworthy that the combination was effected before Psalms 83:9 and 1 Samuel 12:9 (D) were written, and before the Dtc. compiler of Judges provided ch. 4 with his introduction and conclusion. The narrative of the battle between Sisera and the tribes of Israel, which remains when the Jabin-tradition is withdrawn, seems to have preserved an independent tradition where it differs from ch. 5: e.g. in the account of Sisera's death, and of the negotiations between Deborah and Barak; while the addition of such names as Tabor, Harosheth, which harmonize with the general situation implied in ch. 5, is perfectly natural in a prose version. The hand of the Dtc. compiler reveals itself in Judges 4:1-3; Judges 4:23-24; Judges 5:31 b.