2. For the prefixed, see the remark on p. 577

above.

3. The prophetess here calls herself mother in Israel, in the sense of benefactress; just as distinguished men are termed fathers of their country, or fathers in general; Job 29: 16. Gen. 45: 8. Compare also the use of the term father towards a prophet, 2 K. 6: 21. 13: 14.

VERSE 8. D. These words are susceptible of two interpretations: they chose new gods; or, God chose new things, i. e. new modes of deliverance for his people, e. g. by a female hand and not by military valour. The former is the version of the Seventy, Chaldee, the Rabbins, the English, Le Clerc, Schnurrer, Herder, Dathe, Hollmann, and others; while the latter is exhibited by the Syriac, Arabic of the Polyglott, Vulgate, Luther, etc. In favour of the former it may be said, that Israel, which has been mentioned immediately before, may with perfect ease and propriety be regarded as the subject; while moreover the choice of new gods, the turning aside to idolatry, is throughout the Book of Judges assigned as the cause of God's displeasure against his people and of their consequent subjugation to their enemies; comp. Judg. 2: 11 seq. 2: 20 seq. 3: 7, 8, 12. 6: 1. 8: 33. 10: 6, 7. 13: 1. Against the other interpretation we may also say, that although

is used in the feminine in a similar meaning, Is. 42: 10. 48: 6. Jer. 31: 22; yet the sense thus obtained harmonizes less with the context here, and is less supported by historical analogy. Strictly speaking too, we may say with Schnurrer, that on this supposition the subject of the next clause must be the Israelites, and it must then refer to the wars waged by them against their enemies,-an interpretation which would do violence to the sense of the whole passage.

לָחֵם is for לָחֶם The form

, lit. warring of the gates, i. e. war in or around the gates or cities; with reference, no doubt, to hostile incursions, in which the cities of Israel were surprised and plundered; comp. 1 Sam. 30: 1 seq. (which is found in some Mss.) like 7 for 7, etc. The word may either be taken as a noun, or as the infinitive of Piel used as a noun, to oppugnare. Gesenius prefers the former.

ANTON JA, no shield was seen. The word D is here a direct negative; as also in Is. 22: 14. 2 K. 3: 14. Prov. 27: 24, where it is parallel with . See Gesenius' Lex. under D, A. 6. This negative sense may here be derived from its use

either as an interrogative, or as a particle of swearing.-In respect to the number forty thousand, see on p. 578 above. The clause may also refer to the dejection and apathy of the whole people, who neglected to rise and employ even the arms which they had, in behalf of their liberties.

VERSE 9. After this description of the bondage of Israel and its effects upon the courage of the people, the prophetess now, by a natural contrast, again repeats her exclamations of gratitude to the princes and the people, that they at length had risen and triumphed. The verse is thus parallel with v. 2. The preposition is to be supplied before; an omission which is not unfrequent in poetic parallelism; see Deut. 33: 4, and comp. Prov. 27: 7. 13: 18. etc.* She invites here further the whole nation in general, to join her in this gratitude and in a song of praise to Jehovah. The following verses are more specific.

VERSE 10. This verse specifies three classes of persons, whom we may regard as including the whole people. The first are those who ride upon white asses. These we may take to be the nobles, princes, magnates; first, because it is expressly refated that the thirty sons of Jair who judged Israel, and the seventy sons and nephews of Abdon, who also judged Israel, rode upon ass colts, Judg. 10: 4. 12: 14; a circumstance which seems to be mentioned as pertaining to their rank in life ;-and secondly, because it is a well known fact that white elephants, camels, asses, and mules, or rather those approaching to white, have always been highly prized among oriental nations, and are usually the property of princes. It is also proper here to remark, that the ass of warmer countries, as Palestine, and also e. g. in Genoa, is quite a stately animal, and bears little resemblance to his degraded brother in more northern regions. Comp. Bocharti Hieroz. P. I. p. 476. or T. I. p. 529, 543, ed. Rosenmueller; also p. 183, or p. 151 ed. Rosenm.

A second class of persons is described in the words

2. What is then 7? The Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldee, the Rabbins, Luther, the English, Le Clerc, and others, take it as if compounded from 72; and then render, those who sit 777 in or for judgment, i. e. judges. Such a use however of the particles and is elsewhere unknown in He

• Gesenius Lehrgeb. p. 837. Stuart's Heb. Gram. § 559. b.

brew. Nor does it help the matter to write the word with other vowels, e. g. 2, for this would mean controversy and not judgment. Michaelis has very arbitrarily translated, ihr die auf Wagen fahren; probably for the sake of antithesis with the preceding and following clauses. The easiest and best supported interpretation is that which I have given, upon the authority of Cocceius, Schnurrer, Herder, Dathe, Gesenius, Hollmann, and others. In this is regarded as the less common form of the plural, either of 2, whence in Ps. 109: 18, and i Lev. 6: 3; or of the fem. 2, whence ni Ps. 133: 2; just as 7 from Job 12:11. Both of these words come from 77, Arabic, in the sense of to extend, spread out; and they are spoken properly of any thing which may be spread out, e. g. of carpets or coverings, and of the large outer garments of the Hebrews, which they also used to sleep upon at night, Ex. 22: 25, 26. Deut. 24: 13.* Those then who are here said to recline on carpets are the rich, the opulent, in distinction from the nobles and the poor ;—the idea of costly, splendid, being here implied, as in 1 K. 22: 10.

The third class are those who walk the streets or by the way, i. e. the poor. Thus then we have the nobles, the wealthy, and the poor, or the whole nation, to whom the invocation of the poetess is addressed, to join the song of triumph.

I ought to remark here, that Schnurrer does not refer the two last orizo to different classes of men. He supposes that those who recline on carpets and those who walk the streets, simply designate persons of every class who are at leisure or are engaged in business, i. e. the whole community; and he compares Deut. 6: 7, where the Israelites are commanded to talk of the precepts of the law both while they sit in the house and walk by the way.' The rendering of the Syriac version and Arabic of the Polyglott would rather support this view, viz. sedentes in domibus. But it is well remarked by Hollmann, that in the passage of Deuteronomy referred to, it is not so much the object to include the whole community of persons, as it is to cover every moment of time; so that the point of Schnurrer's comparison falls away.

The turn given to this verse by Jerome is somewhat amusing, and as some perhaps may think, not wholly inapposite. "Ascensores asinarum populus Israel dicitur; asinae vero in quibus

* Jahn, Bib. Archaeol. § 122. Mod. Traveller, Palestine, p. 8.

ascendunt, Doctores tribus Israel dicuntur; super quorum doctrina reliquus populus quasi super asinas ascendere dicitur, id est, requiescere. Et ipsi asinae dicuntur, hoc est, gradientes instar asinae in lege,, sedentes super judicium, id est, super legem, etc."

*

VERSE 11. The prophetess has just called upon all the people to join in a song, and she now declares the occasion, at or on account of the voice, or joyful cry, of those who divide the spoil. It would be in vain here to attempt to enumerate the different interpretations proposed of this verse. The difficulty arises principally from the word D. The Septuagint has ἀπὸ φωνῆς ἀνακρουομένων; the Vulgate paraphrastically and arbitrarily, ubi collisi sunt currus, et hostium suffocatus est exercitus. Similar to these is Le Clerc. But the word unquestionably means either archers, or those who divide sc. the spoil. If the former, it is a denominative in the Piel form from 7, arrow; if the latter it is the Piel part. from to divide, which probably derives its meaning from the oriental custom of dividing by lot by means of arrows. The former sense is followed by the Chaldee, the Rabbins, Luther, the English, and also Justi; to whose interpretation I shall recur again below. I have preferred the sense to divide, on the authority of Schnurrer, Herder, Dathe, Gesenius, Hollmann, and others; and because it seems to me to accord better with the context. In this interpretation, the x are the victorious warriors, who return laden with booty to their various tribes, and halt at the watering places to divide out the spoil. These, as is well known, are the usual places of encampment and rest in the east; and the division of the plunder was also an occasion of rejoicing and song; see the description of such a scene, 1 Sam. 30: 16. In Is. 9: 2 also, the joy of those who divide the spoil is used by comparison to indicate great joy; comp. 68: 13. 119: 162. Is. 33: 23. In these rejoicings the prophetess now calls upon the rest of the nation to join; also around these streams and watering places to celebrate their triumph, the aid and victories of Jehovah; and then to descend in tranquillity to their several cities. Compare here verse 15; and also Virgil Ecl. I. 51, 52:

hic inter flumina nota Et fontes sacros frigus captabis opacum.

* Pocock. Spec. Hist. Arabum, p. 324. 40: 25.

Ps.

A. Schultens ad Job.

Should any one prefer here to render bip by more than the voice of etc. expressing a degree of rejoicing greater than that of those who divide the prey, I know not that there would be any very valid objection. The remainder of the verse would not be affected by such a mode of rendering.

Justi proposes still another version, which is not without its merits. He takes in the sense of archers, i. e. hostile warriors, who were wont to seize upon the shepherds and their flocks when collected around the watering places. The prefix 2 in bip he would render by prae, loco, instead of. His version then is instead of the noise of the [hostile] archers around the watering-troughs, there they shall celebrate, etc." But to say nothing here of the force thus put upon the preposition, this interpretation, to my taste at least, has less of elegance, and harmonizes less with the context, than either of those discussed above.

is fut. Piel from the יְתַנּוּ The verb .שָׁם יְחַכּוּ צְדָקוֹת יְהוָה

root. The noun

signifies not only righteousness, but benefit, favour, and also deliverance, i. q. v and, 45: 24. 46: 13. 51: 6, 8. 56: 1. Hence we may properly translate it here favours, deliverances, victories, always perhaps with the accessory idea of their having been righteously bestowed, as against idolaters. The word some have proposed to read ; so Schnurrer and Dathe. But this is unnecessary; because the praeter, when it follows a future, may take of course a future sense. *

VERSE 12. Having thus invited the whole nation to join the song of victory, the prophetess now turns to herself and Barak, the leaders and heroes of the triumph, in a tone of vivid appeal and excitation. She calls upon herself to dictate a strain descriptive of the preparation and the conflict,-that strain to which the nation shall respond; and on Barak to lead forth his captives and display them in triumph before his countrymen. If we assume this to be the proper interpretation, then the remainder of the poem is the song which Deborah thus indites.

It is however only with hesitation that I have at length given the preference to the above interpretation. Schnurrer proposes a different connexion of the parts; viz. to unite verse 12 with the succeeding verses; and to regard it as the appeal and in

* Gesenius Lehrgeb. p. 794. Stuart's Heb. Gr. § 503. c. 2.