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Deborah

December 15, 2023

For other uses, see Deborah (disambiguation).

According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (Hebrew: דְּבוֹרָה, Dəḇōrā) was a prophetess of God, 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.[1] Alternatively, "lappid"[1] translates as "torch" or "lightning", therefore the phrase, "woman of Lappidoth" could be referencing Deborah as a "fiery woman."[2] Deborah told Barak, an Israelite general[1] from Kedesh in Naphtali, that God commanded him to lead an attack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera (Judges 4:6–7); the entire narrative is recounted in chapter 4.

Deborah
Deborah as portrayed in Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum (1553)
Other namesDebora, Débora, Dvora, Debra
Occupation(s)Prophetess of God, Fourth Judge of Israel
PredecessorShamgar
SuccessorGideon
SpouseLapidoth (possibly)

Judges 5 gives the same story in poetic form. This northern Cisjordanian[3] passage, often called The Song of Deborah, may date to as early as the twelfth century BCE,[4] and is perhaps the earliest sample of Hebrew poetry.[5]

Bible narrative edit

 
Deborah Beneath the Palm Tree (c. 1896–1902), James Tissot
 
Grave near Kedesh attributed to Barak or Deborah

In the Book of Judges, it is stated that Deborah was a prophet, a judge of Israel and the wife of Lapidoth.[6][7] She rendered her judgments beneath a date palm tree between Ramah in Benjamin and Bethel in the land of Ephraim.[8]

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 of 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 River Kishon. 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.[7]

Then Deborah said, according to Judges 4:14:

"Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?" So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him.

As Deborah prophesied, a battle is fought (led by Barak), and Sisera is completely defeated. He escapes on foot while his army is pursued as far as Harosheth Haggoyim and destroyed. Sisera comes to the tent of Jael and lies down to rest. He asks for a drink, she gives him milk and while he is asleep she hammers a tent-pin through his temple.[7]

The Biblical account of Deborah ends with the statement that after the battle, there was peace in the land for 40 years (Judges 5:31).

The Song of Deborah edit

 
Deborah portrayed in Gustave Doré's illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours (1865)

The Song of Deborah is found in Judges 5:2–31 and is a victory hymn, sung by Deborah and Barak, about the defeat of Canaanite adversaries by some of the tribes of Israel. The song itself differs slightly from the events described in Judges 4. The song mentions six participating tribes: Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir—a group associated with the Tribe of Manasseh—Zebulun, Issachar and Naphtali, as opposed to the two tribes in Judges 4:6 (Naphtali and Zebulun) and does not mention the role of Jabin (king of Hazor).[9] The song also rebukes three other tribes (Reuben, Dan, and Asher) for their lack of patriotism.[10] 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".[11]

Though the presence of victory hymns is not uncommon 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.[12] 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. Some claim a date as early as the 12th century BCE,[4] while others claim it to be as late as the 3rd century BCE. Based on its language and content, the current consensus is that the song was written no earlier than the 7th century BCE.[13]

Traditional chronology edit

Traditional Jewish chronology places Deborah's 40 years of judging Israel (Judges 5:31) from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC.[14] The Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC to 1124 BC.[15] 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[16] or the second half of the 11th century BC.[17]

Gallery edit

Artistic depictions of Deborah

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Van Wijk-Bos, Johanna WH. The End of the Beginning: Joshua and Judges. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2019.
  2. ^ García Bachmann, Mercedes L., Ahida E. Pilarski, and Barbara E. Reid. "Judges." Wisdom commentary, Liturgical Press, 2018.
  3. ^ "On Some Alleged Developments of the Proto-Semitic Phoneme / t / in Iron Age Canaanite Dialects". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2023-11-13.
  4. ^ a b Coogan, Michael David (2006). A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-0195139112.
  5. ^ Cook, Stanley (1911). "Deborah" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 904.
  6. ^ Judges 4:4
  7. ^ a b c "Deborah", Jewish Encyclopedia.
  8. ^ Judges 4:5
  9. ^ Nelson, Richard (2006). "Judges". The Harper Collins Study Bible, rev. ed. Eds. Attridge, Harold & Wayne Meeks. New York: HarperCollins, p. 353.
  10. ^ Singer, Isidore, ed. (1912). "Deborah, The Song of". The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 4 (3 ed.). New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 490.
  11. ^ Coogan, Michael David (2006). A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 217. ISBN 978-0195139112.
  12. ^ Niditch, Susan (2011). "Tales of Deborah and Jael, Warrior Women". Judges: a commentary. The Old Testament Library. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 59–67. ISBN 978-1611644937.
  13. ^ Frolov, S. (2011). "How Old is the Song of Deborah?". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. 36 (2): 163–84. doi:10.1177/0309089211423720. S2CID 170121702. 'To be sure, the consensus outlined here is by no means perfect; several publications that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s diverge from it, sometimes in a major way. In particular, Alberto Soggin, Ulrike Schorn, and Barnabas Lindars see the Song, or at least the bulk thereof, as a product of the early monarchy; Ulrike Bechmann and Manfred Görg place it in the late pre-exilic period; Michael Waltisberg advocates early post-exilic provenance (fifth to third centuries BCE); and B.-J. Diebner shifts the composition's date all the way to the turn of the eras.' (p. 165); 'With the text's internal parameters and the external conditions of its existence considered in a systematic fashion, what we know as Judg. 5.2–31a presents itself as an integral part of the Deuteronomistic oeuvre and should be dated, accordingly, between c. 700 and c. 450 BCE.' (p. 183)
  14. ^ Jewish History: Deborah the Prophetess, Chabad.
  15. ^ Northen Magill, Frank and Christina J. Moose (2003-01-23). "Deborah". Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-57958040-7. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  16. ^ Albright, W. F. (1937). "Further Light on the History of Israel from Lachish and Megiddo". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 68 (68): 22–26. doi:10.2307/3218855. JSTOR 3218855. S2CID 163435967.
  17. ^ Mayes, A. D. H. (1969). "The Historical Context of the Battle against Sisera". Vetus Testamentum. 19 (3): 353–360. doi:10.2307/1516506. JSTOR 1516506.

Further reading edit

  • Bird, Phyllis (1974). "Images of Women in the Old Testament". In Ruether, Rosemary Radford (ed.). Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-21692-9.
  • Brown, Cheryl Anne (1992). No Longer be Silent: First Century Jewish Portraits of Biblical Women: Studies in Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities and Josephus's Jewish Antiquities. Louisville, KY: Westminster J. Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-25294-X.
  • Deen, Edith (1955). All the Women of the Bible. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Lacks, Roslyn (1979). Women and Judaism: Myth, History, and Struggle. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-02313-8.
  • Otwell, John H. (1977). And Sarah Laughed: the Status of Woman in the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. ISBN 0-664-24126-3.
  • Phipps, William E. (1992). Assertive Biblical Women. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-28498-9.
  • Schroeder, Joy A. (2014). Deborah's Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-999104-4.
  • Williams, James G. (1982). Women Recounted: Narrative Thinking and the God of Israel. Sheffield: Almond Press. ISBN 0-907459-18-8.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Deborah.
 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Bible, King James, Judges#Chapter 4
  • 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
Preceded by Judge of Israel Succeeded by

December 15, 2023
deborah, other, uses, disambiguation, according, book, judges, hebrew, בו, dəḇōrā, prophetess, fourth, judge, monarchic, israel, only, female, judge, mentioned, hebrew, bible, many, scholars, contend, that, phrase, woman, lappidoth, translated, from, biblical,. For other uses see Deborah disambiguation According to the Book of Judges Deborah Hebrew ד בו ר ה Deḇōra was a prophetess of God 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 1 Alternatively lappid 1 translates as torch or lightning therefore the phrase woman of Lappidoth could be referencing Deborah as a fiery woman 2 Deborah told Barak an Israelite general 1 from Kedesh in Naphtali that God commanded him to lead an attack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera Judges 4 6 7 the entire narrative is recounted in chapter 4 DeborahDeborah as portrayed in Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum 1553 Other namesDebora Debora Dvora DebraOccupation s Prophetess of God Fourth Judge of IsraelPredecessorShamgarSuccessorGideonSpouseLapidoth possibly Judges 5 gives the same story in poetic form This northern Cisjordanian 3 passage often called The Song of Deborah may date to as early as the twelfth century BCE 4 and is perhaps the earliest sample of Hebrew poetry 5 Contents 1 Bible narrative 1 1 The Song of Deborah 2 Traditional chronology 3 Gallery 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External linksBible narrative edit nbsp Deborah Beneath the Palm Tree c 1896 1902 James Tissot nbsp Grave near Kedesh attributed to Barak or Deborah In the Book of Judges it is stated that Deborah was a prophet a judge of Israel and the wife of Lapidoth 6 7 She rendered her judgments beneath a date palm tree between Ramah in Benjamin and Bethel in the land of Ephraim 8 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 of 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 River Kishon 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 7 Then Deborah said according to Judges 4 14 Go This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands Has not the Lord gone ahead of you So Barak went down Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him As Deborah prophesied a battle is fought led by Barak and Sisera is completely defeated He escapes on foot while his army is pursued as far as Harosheth Haggoyim and destroyed Sisera comes to the tent of Jael and lies down to rest He asks for a drink she gives him milk and while he is asleep she hammers a tent pin through his temple 7 The Biblical account of Deborah ends with the statement that after the battle there was peace in the land for 40 years Judges 5 31 The Song of Deborah edit nbsp Deborah portrayed in Gustave Dore s illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours 1865 The Song of Deborah is found in Judges 5 2 31 and is a victory hymn sung by Deborah and Barak about the defeat of Canaanite adversaries by some of the tribes of Israel The song itself differs slightly from the events described in Judges 4 The song mentions six participating tribes Ephraim Benjamin Machir a group associated with the Tribe of Manasseh Zebulun Issachar and Naphtali as opposed to the two tribes in Judges 4 6 Naphtali and Zebulun and does not mention the role of Jabin king of Hazor 9 The song also rebukes three other tribes Reuben Dan and Asher for their lack of patriotism 10 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 11 Though the presence of victory hymns is not uncommon 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 12 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 Some claim a date as early as the 12th century BCE 4 while others claim it to be as late as the 3rd century BCE Based on its language and content the current consensus is that the song was written no earlier than the 7th century BCE 13 Traditional chronology editTraditional Jewish chronology places Deborah s 40 years of judging Israel Judges 5 31 from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC 14 The Dictionary of World Biography The Ancient World claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC to 1124 BC 15 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 16 or the second half of the 11th century BC 17 Gallery editArtistic depictions of Deborah nbsp Deborah and Barak in a miniature from the 13th century Psalter of St Louis nbsp Jael Deborah and Barak c 1630 by Salomon de Bray nbsp A statue of Deborah 1792 in Aix en Provence France nbsp Deborah depicted in a pendentive of a church dome in Tenancingo Mexico nbsp Deborah Judging Israel west facing panel at the northwest corner of the Nebraska State CapitolSee also editBattle of Mount Tabor biblical The Deborah number Handel s Deborah Handel References edit a b c Van Wijk Bos Johanna WH The End of the Beginning Joshua and Judges Wm B Eerdmans Publishing 2019 Garcia Bachmann Mercedes L Ahida E Pilarski and Barbara E Reid Judges Wisdom commentary Liturgical Press 2018 On Some Alleged Developments of the Proto Semitic Phoneme t in Iron Age Canaanite Dialects academic oup com Retrieved 2023 11 13 a b Coogan Michael David 2006 A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament The Hebrew Bible in its Context Oxford England Oxford University Press p 216 ISBN 978 0195139112 Cook Stanley 1911 Deborah In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 7 11th ed Cambridge University Press p 904 Judges 4 4 a b c Deborah Jewish Encyclopedia Judges 4 5 Nelson Richard 2006 Judges The Harper Collins Study Bible rev ed Eds Attridge Harold amp Wayne Meeks New York HarperCollins p 353 Singer Isidore ed 1912 Deborah The Song of The Jewish Encyclopedia Vol 4 3 ed New York Funk amp Wagnalls p 490 Coogan Michael David 2006 A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament The Hebrew Bible in its Context Oxford England Oxford University Press p 217 ISBN 978 0195139112 Niditch Susan 2011 Tales of Deborah and Jael Warrior Women Judges a commentary The Old Testament Library Louisville Kentucky Westminster John Knox Press pp 59 67 ISBN 978 1611644937 Frolov S 2011 How Old is the Song of Deborah Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36 2 163 84 doi 10 1177 0309089211423720 S2CID 170121702 To be sure the consensus outlined here is by no means perfect several publications that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s diverge from it sometimes in a major way In particular Alberto Soggin Ulrike Schorn and Barnabas Lindars see the Song or at least the bulk thereof as a product of the early monarchy Ulrike Bechmann and Manfred Gorg place it in the late pre exilic period Michael Waltisberg advocates early post exilic provenance fifth to third centuries BCE and B J Diebner shifts the composition s date all the way to the turn of the eras p 165 With the text s internal parameters and the external conditions of its existence considered in a systematic fashion what we know as Judg 5 2 31a presents itself as an integral part of the Deuteronomistic oeuvre and should be dated accordingly between c 700 and c 450 BCE p 183 Jewish History Deborah the Prophetess Chabad Northen Magill Frank and Christina J Moose 2003 01 23 Deborah Dictionary of World Biography The Ancient World Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 1 57958040 7 Retrieved 1 April 2013 Albright W F 1937 Further Light on the History of Israel from Lachish and Megiddo Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 68 68 22 26 doi 10 2307 3218855 JSTOR 3218855 S2CID 163435967 Mayes A D H 1969 The Historical Context of the Battle against Sisera Vetus Testamentum 19 3 353 360 doi 10 2307 1516506 JSTOR 1516506 Further reading editBird Phyllis 1974 Images of Women in the Old Testament In Ruether Rosemary Radford ed Religion and Sexism Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions Simon amp Schuster ISBN 0 671 21692 9 Brown Cheryl Anne 1992 No Longer be Silent First Century Jewish Portraits of Biblical Women Studies in Pseudo Philo s Biblical Antiquities and Josephus s Jewish Antiquities Louisville KY Westminster J Knox Press ISBN 0 664 25294 X Deen Edith 1955 All the Women of the Bible New York Harper amp Row Lacks Roslyn 1979 Women and Judaism Myth History and Struggle Garden City NY Doubleday ISBN 0 385 02313 8 Otwell John H 1977 And Sarah Laughed the Status of Woman in the Old Testament Philadelphia Westminster Press ISBN 0 664 24126 3 Phipps William E 1992 Assertive Biblical Women Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 0 313 28498 9 Schroeder Joy A 2014 Deborah s Daughters Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 999104 4 Williams James G 1982 Women Recounted Narrative Thinking and the God of Israel Sheffield Almond Press ISBN 0 907459 18 8 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Deborah nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Bible King James Judges Chapter 4 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 ReconstructedPreceded byShamgar Judge of Israel Succeeded byGideon Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Deborah amp oldid 1187286033, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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