Judges 4


Judges 4 is the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the activities of judge Deborah, belonging to a section comprising Judges 3:1 to 5:31.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 24 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including XJudges with extant verses 5–8.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

A linguistic study by Chisholm reveals that the central part in the Book of Judges can be divided into two panels based on the six refrains that state that the Israelites did evil in Yahweh's eyes:
Panel One
Panel Two
Furthermore from the linguistic evidence, the verbs used to describe the Lord's response to Israel's sin have chiastic patterns and can be grouped to fit the division above:
Panel One
Panel Two

Deborah (4:1–16)

This chapter opens with the conventional narrative pattern of the book, connecting with Ehud without reference to Shamgar, to introduce Deborah the prophet as the savior, after Israel's formulaic cry to God for relief from oppression.
Deborah delivered military instructions received directly from God to Barak, the apparent leader of the Israelites, to confront the army of Jabin, led by Sisera, and thereby showing that YHWH is the ultimate military commander in the holy wars fought by his people.
The structure of the section from verses 6–16 is as follows:
In verses 12-16, the pattern of Israel's redemption is completed with the underdogs' victory as prophesied by the prophetess.

Verse 4

  • "Prophetess": or "female prophet", like "Huldah" who relayed an important oracle about the need for reform in the time of king Josiah ; "Noadiah" mentioned in Nehemiah 6:14; and the wife of Isaiah.
  • "Wife of Lapidoth" in Hebrew can also be translated as 'woman of fire', or 'woman of torches/lightning flashes', in a parallel to "Barak" whose name means 'lightning'.

    Jael kills Sisera (4:17–24)

The structure of this section is:
Sisera came to Jael's tent
Barak came to Jael's tent
In this section, Sisera was looking for a place to hide from Israelite pursuers and by chance came to Jael's tent. Jael intentionally went out to meet Sisera and tricked him into thinking that she could provide service. Sisear asked for water, but Jael demonstrated ancient Near Eastern hospitality by instead giving him milk means "mountain goat" and covering him up to sleep, whereupon Jael struck him dead with a tent-peg and hammer. The action was sung with some detail and nuance in the ancient poem of Judges 5 verse 22, as the fulfilment of Deborah's prediction.
The last two verses contain a reminder that YHWH controls the battle and gives relief from Israel's oppressors.

Verse 20

The last words of Sisera to Jael contain an irony, with the play of the word "any man" : the first use refers to the one coming to the tent, which was Barak, whereas the second use refers to the one in the tent, which was Sisera, and the answer should be "No", because Sisera would no longer be alive by the time Barak came.

Archaeology