The Song

On the day of the victory, Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang. The song began with princes taking the lead and people volunteering, and it called for the LORD to be blessed. Kings and princes were told to listen. The two who had gone together to the mountain now sang together about what had happened.

Their song reached back beyond the battle to the LORD going out from Seir and marching from Edom. In its telling, the earth trembled, the heavens poured rain, and the mountains quaked before Him. Then it returned to the roads of Israel. In the days of Shamgar and Jael, travelers had left the highways for the byways.

“Life in the villages ceased; it ended in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel.” The woman first found judging beneath a palm named herself within the song. Around that line lay the deserted roads and the villages whose life had ceased. She sang of arising among them.

The song remembered new gods chosen and war at the gates, with no shield or spear found among forty thousand in Israel. Deborah’s heart was with the princes and the volunteers. Riders, people seated on saddle blankets, and travelers on the road were called to attend to the singers at the watering places. The deeds of that day were to be recounted there.

Then came the call for Deborah to awake and sing, and for Barak to take his captives. The song named those who came: Ephraim and Benjamin, commanders from Machir, and men bearing the marshal’s staff from Zebulun. Issachar’s princes were with Deborah. Issachar went with Barak into the valley at his heels.

Other names carried a different account. Reuben remained amid great indecision; Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan, Dan lingered by the ships, and Asher remained along the coast. The song asked why they had stayed. It remembered Zebulun and Naphtali as people who risked their lives on the battlefield’s heights.

The kings of Canaan fought by the waters of Megiddo and took no silver plunder. “From the heavens the stars fought; from their courses they fought against Sisera.” The song told of the Kishon sweeping them away and of horses galloping. Its words carried the battle beyond the movements of the two armies.

Then it came to Jael. “Most blessed among women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women.” It remembered the request for water and the milk she gave, then the peg, the hammer, and Sisera’s death. The commander lay still at her feet.

From the tent, the song moved to a window. Sisera’s mother peered through the lattice, asking why his chariot was so long in coming. Her wisest ladies answered, and she repeated their answer to herself: the men must be dividing plunder, including captive women and embroidered garments. The song left her with that explanation, waiting for the chariot its hearers knew he had abandoned.

The singers ended by asking that the LORD’s enemies perish and that those who loved Him shine like the sun at its brightest. Then the account stepped out of the song and gave the length of what followed. The years under Jabin had numbered twenty. And the land had rest for forty years.