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Deborah's Song of Victory

Judges 5:1-31

5
Chapter 5
1 Deborah sang, and Barak son of Abinoam, on that day, saying: 2 When locks are loosed in Israel, when the people voluntarily offer themselves, bless the LORD. 3 Hear, O kings; give ear, O rulers: I to the LORD, I will sing; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel. 4 The LORD, when you went out from Seir, when you stepped from the field of Edom, the earth quaked, even the heavens dripped, even the clouds dripped waters. 5 Mountains flowed down from the face of the LORD, this Sinai from the face of the LORD God of Israel. 6 In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Yael, the highways ceased, and the goers of paths would go highways of crookednesses. 7 The rural-dwellers ceased in Israel; they ceased, until I, Deborah, arose—I arose a mother in Israel. 8 They chose new gods; then there was fighting at the gates. He appeared with a shield and a spear among forty thousand in Israel. 9 My heart is toward the law-engravers of Israel, those who voluntarily offer themselves among the people. Bless the LORD. 10 Riders of tawny donkeys, those who sit on Midian, and walkers on the way—speak! 11 From the voice of those drawing water between the watering places, there they declare the righteous acts of the LORD, the righteousness of his villages in Israel. Then the people went down to the gates with the LORD. 12 Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, word of song! Arise, Barak, and lead captive your captivity, son of Abinoam! 13 Then a survivor went down to the majestic ones; he went down with the LORD for me among warriors. 14 From Ephraim their root in Amalek after you, Benjamin among your peoples. From Machir they descended legal; from Zebulun drawing lots with the staff of the book. 15 And princes in Issachar with Deborah, and Issachar thus with Barak in the valley; he sent at his feet in the divisions of Reuben great searchers-of-heart. 16 Why did you sit between the sheepfolds, to hear the whistling for the flocks, for the divisions of Reuben—great searchers of heart? 17 Gilead dwelt beyond the Jordan, and Dan—why does he sojourn? Ships which he sat at the coast of seas, and upon its bays he dwells. 18 Zebulun is a people who risked his life to death, and Naphtali on the heights of the field. 19 Kings came; they fought. Then the kings of Canaan fought at Gath-rimmon by the waters they divided—from stepping in silver they did not take. 20 From the heavens the stars fought from their tracks; they fought with Sisera. 21 The Kishon stream swept them away, the stream of the ancients, the Kishon stream—you trampled my nephesh, O mighty one. 22 Then the heels of the horse pounded from its galloping, galloping, Mighty One. 23 Curse Meroz, said the angel of the LORD; curse its inhabitants, for they did not come to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty. 24 May she be blessed above women—Jael wife of Heber the Kenite; above women in the tent may she be blessed. 25 He asked for water; she gave him fat portions. In a bowl of majesties she presented anger. 26 She put her hand to the peg and her right hand to the workers’ hammer, and she hammered Sisera, smashing his head and crushing and piercing his temple. 27 Between her legs he crouched, he fell, he lay; between her legs he crouched, he fell; where he crouched, there he fell down dead. 28 Through the window she peered out and wailed, the mother of Sisera, through the lattice. "Why has his chariot delayed to come? Why have the steps of his chariots tarried?" 29 Her wise ones, her princesses, answer her; even she returns her sayings to her. 30 Are they not finding and dividing the spoil? A womb, two wombs for the head of a man; spoil of dyed cloth for Sisera, spoil of dyed cloth, embroidery, dyed embroidery for the necks; spoil. 31 Thus may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love him be like the going out of the Sun in its might, and the land grew quiet forty years.