That ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, 1 march on with strength. 22. Then did the horsehoofs stamp By reason of the pransings, the pransings of their strong ones. 23. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; 1 Or, thou hast trodden down strength. 2 Or, among. miles in length, which drains the plain of Esdraelon. In summer it is an insignificant stream, but in winter it overflows the surrounding country, turning it into a morass. This is evidently what happened through a rain storm at the time of the battle. The rising waters impeded the chariots of the Canaanites and the army became panic-stricken before the fierce attack of the Hebrews; and many soldiers while fleeing lost their lives in the swollen stream. “The fate of Sisera's army finds a parallel in the battle between the French and Turks, near Tabor, on April 16, 1799, when many of the latter were drowned in attempting to pass the morass in their flight." Ancient. The word thus rendered is of very doubtful meaning, and no certain one can be given. O my soul, etc. An expression of the intense exultation of the poet at the thought of the great victory. But it seems to many out of place here, and the line is usually regarded as corrupt, and frequently left untranslated. 22. Pransings. Better, galloping. The verse is descriptive of the confusion of the chariot corps in their flight. Cf. Nah. 3 : 2 f. 23. The emphasis placed upon the failure of the inhabitants of Meroz to render assistance and the position of the curse in the poem shows that the reference is not to a non-participation like that mentioned in vv. 15b-17, but something more blameworthy. The juxtaposition with the blessing of Jael to which the curse is a foil suggests that the people of Meroz allowed fugitives to escape, perhaps Sisera. The location of Meroz is entirely unknown. Angel of the Lord. Cf. 2: 1. Against the mighty. Better is 24. Blessed 1above women shall Jael be, The wife of Heber the Kenite, Blessed shall she be 1above women in the tent. 25. He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought him butter in a lordly dish. 2 26. She put her hand to the 2 nail, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote through his head, Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples. 27. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay: At her feet he bowed, he fell : 3 Where he bowed, there he fell down 3 dead. 1 Or, of. 2 Or, tent-pin. 3 Or, over powered. the marginal reading among the mighty. The enemy would not have been distinguished with the epithet mighty. 24. The wife of Heber the Kenite. These explanatory words are regarded by many as a gloss derived from 4:17. They interrupt the Hebrew parallelism. Women in the tent. Tentdwelling, Bedouin women. 25. Butter. Curdled milk, parallel with milk in the previous line. Cf. 4:19. Lordly dish. Literally a dish of nobles, i.e. a large fine dish. 26. This verse must be interpreted poetically. Jael struck Sisera either with a heavy tent-pin or a heavy hammer or mallet. The word is different from that in 4: 21, but it may have been the same utensil. In the next line Sisera is a gloss. The two lines may be rendered, She smote, crushed his head, He was standing when she struck him. 27. Descriptive of how "Sisera went down on his knees, fell prostrate, and lay there dead." 28. Through the window she looked forth, and cried, The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? 29. Her wise ladies answered her, 2 Yea, she returned answer to herself, 30. Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? A damsel, two damsels to every man; To Sisera a spoil of 3 divers colours, A spoil of divers colours of embroidery, Of divers colours of embroidery on both sides, on the necks of the spoil? 1 Heb. steps. garments. 2 Or, (Yet she repeateth her words unto herself). *Or, dyed 28-30. The poet turns from this scene, to show us Sisera's mother anxiously awaiting her son's victorious return. 28. Looked. The force of the original is not only to look, but to overhang. The verb cried, which occurs only here, is a word of uncertain root meaning, better taken as a synonym of look. Lattice is a synonym of window. His chariot, a collective noun, his chariot troop. Wheels. Marg. steps, the sound made by blows, here the hoof beats of the chariot horses for which the mother of Sisera was listening. Through the window she looked forth and peered, The mother of Sisera through the lattice — Why delays his chariot troop to come? 29. With a slight change in the first word: The wisest of her princes answers her, Yea, she herself repeats her words to herself. The second line means that the mother of Sisera keeps repeating to herself either her anxious forebodings or the consolation of the princes given in v. 30. 30. Embroidery on both sides. Literally two pieces of varie 31. So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years. RD 5. Gideon and his son Abimelech, Chaps. 6-9 6. And the children of Israel did that which was evil in RD the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them gated stuff. On the necks of the spoil. The text gives also for the neck of the spoiler or by the change of a single letter for the neck of the queen. But the verse seems to have suffered through the repetitions of words in transcription. It probably originally consisted of only four lines, and, removing repeated words and literally translating with an added letter giving his neck, read, Are they not finding, dividing the spoil, A wench, two wenches for each man? A variegated piece or two for his neck? 31. Them that love him. Better after the Greek and Syriac The possessive his with might arose The section dealing with Gideon is the most thrilling of all the stories of Judges. The hero Gideon is portrayed in fascinating lines. He appears as an humble peasant threshing grain in a wine vat, and is visited by the angel of Jehovah. He is of marked strength and courage, and also of human doubt and hesitation. God grants him wondrous signs, and yet he is a hero of faith; and through faith as well as stratagem he obtains a great victory. For sermonic purposes no story of Judges is equal to that of Gideon. The narrative is long and complex, composed of the interlacings of J and E, with later annotations. The evidence of two original stories is clear when we compare 7: 23-8: 3 with 8: 4-21. Both passages give a conclusion of the war against Midian, but they 2. into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of Midian the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strong 3. holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the chil do not together represent one continuous narrative. In one, tribal hosts are pursuing the Midianites and the chiefs of Midian are Oreb and Zeeb, who fall into the hands of the Ephraimites. In the other, Gideon, to avenge a family wrong, with three hundred men, apparently of his own clan Abiezer, is pursuing the Midianites, and the kings who fall into his hands are Zebah and Zalmunna. These differences reveal a diversity of authorship and provide a basis for expecting evidences of two united and edited narratives in the account of the events previous to the war. 6:1-6. This account opens with the usual Deuteronomic introduction. Israel sins and is delivered into the power of the Midianites, who overrun all the land, compelling the people to take refuge in caves and fastnesses. This oppression is described so vividly and at such unusual length that the Deuteronomic author not unlikely found some such description in his source JE. 1. The usual formula of the Deuteronomic, author. Midian. An Arab tribe reckoned as a son of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. 25: 1-6. Of it were the merchantmen who kidnaped Joseph, Gen. 37:28; and Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, Exod. 2:15-21. A town of the name Midian, according to the ancient geographer Ptolemy, was on the side of the Gulf of Akabah, opposite the traditional site of Sinai. This would indicate the principal settled home of the tribe, but from the Old Testament references the tribe was largely nomadic, frequenting the Sinaitic peninsula and the territory to the northeast, including even that of Moab. 8: 24 they are called Ishmaelites. In 2. Dens. Hiding-places. The word is of uncertain deriva tion. 3. When Israel had sown. The invasion was not for per manent conquest, but only for plunder. The Amalekites. See A term used frequently of the 3:13. The children of the east. |