Deborah

According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (, Dəḇōrā) was a prophetess of Judaism, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars contend that the phrase, "a woman of Lappidoth", as translated from biblical Hebrew in Judges 4:4 denotes her marital status as the wife of Lapidoth. Alternatively, "lappid" Deborah told Barak, an Israelite general It and the Song of the Sea from Exodus are sometimes cited as the earliest sample of Hebrew poetry.

Bible narrative

In the Book of Judges, it is stated that Deborah was a prophetess, a judge of Israel and the wife of Lapidoth. She rendered her judgments beneath a date palm tree between Ramah in Benjamin and Bethel in the land of Ephraim.

The people of Israel had been oppressed by Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose capital was Hazor, for twenty years. Stirred by the wretched condition of Israel she sends a message to Barak, the son of Abinoam, at Kedesh in Naphtali, and tells him that the Lord God had commanded him to muster ten thousand troops of Naphtali and Zebulun and concentrate them upon Mount Tabor, the mountain at the northern angle of the great plain of Esdraelon. At the same time she states that the Lord God of Israel will draw Sisera, commander of Jabin's army, to the Kishon River. Barak declines to go without the prophet. Deborah consents, but declares that the glory of the victory will therefore belong to a woman. As soon as the news of the rebellion reaches Sisera, he collects nine hundred chariots of iron and a host of people. The song also rebukes three other tribes (Reuben, Dan, and Asher) for their lack of patriotism, not mentioning the tribes of Gad, Simeon and Judah. Michael Coogan writes that for the redactors of the Song of Deborah, that the Canaanite general Sisera ends up being murdered by a woman (Jael)—the ultimate degradation—"is a further sign that Yahweh ultimately is responsible for the victory".

Though the presence of victory hymns is conventional in the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Deborah is unusual in that it is a hymn that celebrates a military victory of two women: Deborah, the prophetess and Jael, the warrior. Jael—the heroine of the Song of Deborah—shares parallels with the main character of the Book of Judith, who uses her beauty and charm to kill an Assyrian general who has besieged her city, Bethulia.

The Song of Deborah is commonly identified as among the oldest texts of the Bible, but the date of its composition is controversial. Many scholars claim a date as early as the 12th century BCE,

Traditional chronology

The Seder Olam Rabbah places Deborah's 40 years of judging Israel () from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC. The Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC and 1124 BC. Based on archaeological findings, different biblical scholars have argued that Deborah's war with Sisera best fits the context of either the second half of the 12th century BC or the second half of the 11th century BC. Sisera is a non-Semitic name, and the story is set "in the days of Shamgar", a hero famous for killing 600 Philistines. Many scholars, such as Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spanò, believe that the story is really about the Sea Peoples. One archaeological stratum of Hazor dating from around 1200 BCE shows signs of catastrophic fire.

Some scholars like Israel Finkelstein, who associated first monarchy of Israel with Gibeon-Gibeah polity of the early to mid 10th century BC, placed the background of the Song of Deborah in the early 10th century BC associating with the Late Iron Age I (c. 1050–950 BCE) destruction of Megiddo, which dates to c. 1000–985 BCE.

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References

External links

Book of Judges article, Jewish Encyclopedia
Debbora, Catholic Encyclopedia
Biblical Hebrew Poetry - Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
Song of Deborah (Judges 5) Reconstructed

Bible narrative

Traditional chronology

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links