Judges 5 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

In this chapter, the author presents a song that Deborah and Barak sang to celebrate the victory that Yahweh enabled them to win over Sisera.

Some translations prefer to set apart quotations, prayers, and songs with special formatting. The ULT and many other English translations set the lines of chapter 5, which is a song, farther to the right on the page than the rest of the text.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

How were the Israelites able to fight against Sisera if they had no weapons?

In 5:8, this song describes how Jabin’s occupying soldiers took away the weapons that the Israelites had. So how were the Israelites able to fight a battle against Sisera’s forces? As a note to 4:2 explains, the name Harosheth Hagoyim may describe a place where Jabin forced captive peoples to cut wood for him. It has been suggested that the conscripted Israelites who joined Barak’s army took their axes and hatchets with them and used them as weapons.

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Hebrew poetry

Except for a brief introduction and conclusion, this chapter is poetry that consists of pairs of phrases that repeat the same meaning. The second phrase advances the idea of the first by affirming, contrasting, or supplementing it in different words. (Sometimes there is a third line with similar meaning.) Hebrew poetry was based on this kind of repetition, and it would be good to show this to your readers by including both (or all three) phrases in your translation. It may be clearer in your language to connect the phrases with a word other than and in order to show that the second phrase is repeating the idea of the first one, not saying something different. For example, in 5:2 you might say, “For the loosening of long hair in Israel, yes, for the volunteering of the people.” (See: figs-parallelism)

Deborah and Barak singing this song together

While the author says in 5:1 that both “Deborah and Barak” sang this song, the first-person verbs and pronouns in it are singular. It was common for the Israelites to sing in responsive parts, so it may be that Deborah and Barak each sang parts of this song individually, responding to one another. For example, it seems probable that in 5:12 Barak sang “awake, Deborah” and Deborah responded “Arise, Barak.”

Hebrew does not mark first-person pronouns or verbs for gender, so it is not clear in many cases which of them sang which parts, although in some cases the text does give us a fair idea. For the sake of languages that do mark first-person singular pronouns or verbs for gender, here are some suggestions as to who might be singing when the song says “I” or “my.” This is, however, largely a matter of interpretation, so use your own best judgment in your translation. Since Deborah and Barak are, in a sense, speaking for each other, another alternative would be to use plural first-person pronouns. (See: writing-pronouns and figs-youcrowd)

• In 5:3, you could consider using masculine forms for “I … even I, let me sing” and feminine forms for “I will make music.” The verb translated as “make music” refers to singing with an instrumental accompaniment. Deborah was a prophetess, and the Old Testament prophets appear to have sung at least some of their prophecies to instrumental accompaniment. (See, for example, Ezekiel 33:32.) So it is perhaps more likely that Deborah sang “I will make music” and Barak sang “let me sing.”
• Deborah is speaking of herself as “I” in 5:7, so it would be appropriate to use feminine forms there.
• It has been suggested that in 5:9, it would be more appropriate for Deborah to thank the leaders, who would have included Barak, and for Barak to thank those who volunteered in response to his summons. So you may wish to mark “My” as feminine.
• Barak is probably referring to himself as “me” in 5:13, since he was the one who led the Israelite army “against the warriors” of Sisera.
• Barak seems to be speaking in 5:15, “my commanders in Issachar were with Deborah,” because otherwise Deborah would be speaking of herself in the third person, which she does not seem to do in this song.
• It has been suggested that in 5:21, Barak may have described the Kishon River flooding, since he saw this first-hand in the battle, and then said, “March on, my soul, in strength,” recalling how the Israelite soldiers pursued the attack against Sisera vigorously when they saw how the flooding had put them and their chariots at a disadvantage.

A different setting for part of the song

There is an apparent change of setting in 5:10–11, from the original performance of the song at a victory celebration to its repeated recitation at places where travelers stopped along the road for water. In this part of the song, Deborah and Barak are not addressing people who are not present as if they could hear them. That is a poetic device that writers and speakers in the Bible sometimes use, but it does not occur here. Rather, verses 10 and 11 of the song reflect its later use at “watering places” to commemorate the victory over Sisera and Jabin. So translate verse 10 as a direct address to people who are present.