Deborah or ( ) was a
prophetess and the fourth, and the only female, Judge of
pre-monarchic Israel
in the
Old Testament (Tanakh). Her story is told twice, in chapters
4 and 5 of
Judges.
Judges 5 gives this same story in
poetic
form. This passage, often called
The Song of Deborah, may date to as early as the
8th century BC and is perhaps the
earliest sample of
Hebrew
poetry.
It is also significant because it is one of the oldest passages
that portrays
fighting women, the
account being that of
Jael, the wife of
Heber, a
Kenite
tentmaker.
Jael killed
Sisera by driving a
tent peg
through his
temple as he slept. The
account is interesting in that both Deborah and Jael are portrayed
as strong independent women. The poem may have been included in the
Book of the Wars of the
Lord mentioned in
Numbers
21:14.
The
Deborah number, a
dimensionless number used in
rheology, is named after her
Deborah's personal life
Little is known about Deborah's personal life. In the
Book of Judges, it is stated that she was the
wife of Lappidoth (meaning "torches"). But since this name is not
found outside of the
Book of Judges,
it might simply mean that Deborah herself was a "fiery"
spirit.
She was a poet and she rendered her judgments beneath a
palm tree between
Ramah and
Bethel in the land of
Ephraim.
( ) Some people today refer to Deborah as
the mother of Israel
because of
the "Song of Deborah and Barak" found in .
After being oppressed by
Jabin, the king of
Canaan, in
Hazor, for
twenty years, ( ) Deborah prevailed upon Barak to face
Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, in battle. The
victory to which the Bible refers is the victory of an Israelite
force of ten thousand over Sisera's force of nine hundred iron
chariots. ( )
Barak agreed to the battle only after Deborah agreed to accompany
him into battle. recounts Deborah's assent to Barak's request:
- "And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the
journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the
LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose,
and went with Barak to Kadesh."
According to the Biblical account, the Israelites went out to meet
the army of Sisera in battle. When Deborah saw the army, she said,
according to :
- "Up; for this [is] the day in which the LORD hath delivered
Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out before thee?
So Barak
went down from Mount
Tabor
, and ten thousand men after him."
As Deborah prophesied, the Lord gave the victory to the Israelites.
The Egyptian leader, Sisera, fled the battle site seeking refuge in
the tent of the woman Jael. In the Biblical account, Jael killed
the enemy leader, Sisera. The Biblical account of Deborah ends in
Judges 5. She was born in ancient Irael in 1184 b.c. and lived till
1224 b.c.
After the battle, there was peace in the land for forty years. (
)
Historical and biblical context
The accounts of Judges 4 and 5 tell the story of a battle at
Kishon and Taanach whose waters lap the walls
of ancient
Megiddo.
In alliance with
Barak the king of Kadesh
and some of Israel's northern tribes after the death of Joshua in
the time of Shamgar the son of Anath which is located on the north slope of Mount Tabor. Jabin the king of
Canaan reigned at
Hazor and the commander of
his army was
Sisera who lived in
Haroseth-ha-goiim.
In context
Joshua has just finished attacking
the Perizzites of Adonai-zedek at Bezek, Kirith -arba,
Kirathsepher, Sheshi, Ahiman and Talmai. The sons of
Hobab the Kenite, father-in-law of Moses, went up with
the sons of Judah into the wilderness of Negeb at the ascent of
Arab and lived with the Amalakites.
Judah did
not take Ashkelon
, Ekron
or Bethel of the Hittites. Manassah did not subdue Beth Shean,
Tanaach, Dor
, Ibleam, or Meggido.
Ephron did not drive out the Canaanites in Gezer
, Zebulon did not drive out the inhabitants of
Kitron or Nahalol. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, Sidon
, Ahlab, Achzib
, Aphik or Rehob
.
Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants
of Beth
Shemesh or Beth
Anath. The Amorites drove back the Danites into the
highlands. Meanwhile, in the south, battles continued with the
Edomites, the
Moabites and
the
Philistines.
Most of the then Egyptian territory shown in the adjoining map was
up in arms and there were few allies among the southern tribes who
were free to come to the assistance of Deborah and Barak. Israel,
which the song of Deborah and Barak numbers at 40,000 spears, was
unavailable except for forces from the tribes of
Ephraim,
Benjamin,
Machir,
Zebulon, Isaachar, and
Naphtali. The references to Kishons waters
and Tanaach waters which lap at Meggido indicate that as Deborah's
forces moved down from Kadesh in the mountains, the enemy moved
north, taking the southern route up to
Megiddo where the battle was fought. With 10,000
iron-bound chariots involved on either side, it was clearly a
sizable battle, likely to be historically recorded by both sides.
It can't be the account of the historical battle of
Megiddo given by
Thutmoses
III, c 1470 BC. It does agree with the taking of the narrow
mountain road that was more susceptible to ambush and thus arriving
with the advantage of surprise; and in the fact that the king of
Kadesh was involved in the battle. That conflict is also a bit
early for the Iron Age. Egypt is at peace with its neighbors until
the death of
Amenophis III c 1353.
After that, the Egyptian garrison at Beth Shean and the king of
Kadesh continue to be at war throughout the rest of the
Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and
the
Nineteenth dynasty of
Egypt up through
Ramesses II and the
battle of Kadesh c 1285 BC. Going by the textual artifacts in this
account, the battle took place sometime in the reign of
Seti I, and may have resulted in the capture.
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