圣经注释书

本章所载，是因以色列击败迦南王耶宾的军队并获致胜利的美满结果，而作所唱的凯歌。当时在类似场合发表诗作，可能与今日一样习以为常；然而士师时代诸诗仅此一篇得以留存，因它乃女先知底波拉受感而作，既为当时的赞美诗，也为后世留下赞美的范本，且为那一时期的历史提供了许多亮光。I. 此诗以赞美神起首（士 5:2,3）。II. 全诗要旨在于纪念这一伟大功绩。1. 将神在此次为他们显现的作为，与在西奈山向他们显现的作为相比较（士 5:4,5）。2. 借追念他们先前所处的困苦境况，来彰显他们所得的拯救（士 5:6–8）。3. 呼召那些分享胜利福祉的人同来赞美（士 5:9–13）。4. 对在战事中奋勇争先的支派予以尊荣，对逃避服役的则加以贬斥（士 5:14–19,23）。5. 述及神亲自为他们争战（士 5:20–22）。6. 特别颂扬击杀西西拉的雅亿之尊荣，对此着墨甚多（士 5:24–30）。全诗以向神的祈祷作结（士 5:31）。

The triumphant song of Deborah and Barak, after the defeat of Sisera, captain of the armies of Jabin, king of Canaan.

INTRODUCTION TO Judges 5

This chapter contains a song of praise on account of the victories obtained over Jabin, and his kingdom; after an exhortation to praise is given, and kings excited to attend to it, the majestic appearance of God at Seir, on Sinai, is observed, to raise in the mind a divine veneration of him, Judges 5:1; then the miserable state and condition Israel was in before these victories, and therefore had the more reason to be thankful, Judges 5:6; the governors, and judges, and the people that were delivered, together with Deborah and Barak, are stirred up to rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, and bless his name, Judges 5:9; and those who willingly engaged in the war are praised, and such who were negligent reproved, and some even cursed, Judges 5:14; but Jael, Heber's wife, is particularly commended for her exploit in slaying Sisera, Judges 5:24; and the mother of Sisera, and her ladies, are represented as wondering at his long delay, and as assured of his having got the victory, Judges 5:28; and the song is concluded with a prayer for the destruction, of the enemies of the Lord, and for the happiness and glory of them that love him, Judges 5:31.

V.

The song of Deborah is one of the grandest outbursts of impassioned poetry in the Bible. It is a song of victory, or what the Greeks would have called an Epinician ode. Attempts have been made to show that it cannot have been the work of Deborah, but must belong to a later age, because it contains certain forms which are asserted to be of late occurrence. It is now, however, generally admitted that these may be provincial or colloquial usages of great antiquity, though they only found their way later into the written style. The peculiar splendour and intensity of the poetic passion which breathes throughout the ode, the archaic simplicity of its structure, and the fact that it refers to many circumstances not preserved in the parallel prose narrative, leave little or no doubt as to its perfect genuineness.

It has been arranged in various ways; but the arrangement adopted by Ewald (which may be seen in Dean Stanley’s Jewish Church, ii. 334), with some modifications, seems to be the most satisfactory. It consists there of a prelude, followed by three main sections, each divisible into three unequal strophes, and ended by a triumphant aspiration, as follows:—

The Prelude (Judges 5:2-3).

I.

The Significance of the Victory (Judges 5:4-11).

α. Israel’s glorious Redemption of old (Judges 5:4-5).

β. Israel’s recent Degeneracy (Judges 5:6-8).

γ. The Crisis of Deliverance (Judges 5:9-11).

II.

Second Prelude (Judges 5:12).

The Muster and the Battle (Judges 5:13-21).

α. The Gathering of the Loyal (Judges 5:13-15 a).

β. The Malingerers and the Brave (Judges 5:15 b—Judges 5:18).

γ. The Victory (Judges 5:19-22).

III.

The Issues of the Victory (Judges 5:24-30).

α. The Faithless City (Judges 5:23).

β. The Avenger (Judges 5:24-27).

γ. The Mother’s Frustrated Hope (Judges 5:28-30).

The Cry of Triumph (Judges 5:31).

Although the structure of the ode may not have been intended to be exactly regular, the above scheme fairly represents it. It is characterised throughout by an intense and scathing irony and passion, which gains fresh force from the alliterative form in which it resembles the old Scandinavian and Teutonic poems. There are similar Epinician odes in Exodus (Exodus 15.), Numbers (Numbers 21:27-30), Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 32), 1 Samuel (1Samuel 18:7), and 2 Samuel (2 Samuel 1); but this is incomparably finer than any of those, and has never been equalled, much less surpassed. In energy, scorn, and pathos it rises immensely above the loftiest flights of the “Theban Eagle” (Pindar), whose odes were regarded as unequalled in Greek poetry.

TRANSLATION OF THE SONG OF DEBORAH.

I.

THE PRELUDE (Judges 5:2-3).

2.For the leading of the leaders of Israel,

For the self-devotion of the people—praise ye the Lord.

3.Hear, O kings; attend, O princes; I to the Lord, even I, will sing, I will sound the harp to the Lord, the God of Israel.

I.

ISRAEL’S GLORIOUS REDEMPTION OF OLD (Judges 5:4-5).

4.Lord, in Thy going forth from Seir,

In Thy marching forth from Edom’s field,

The earth trembled; yea, the heavens dropped:

Yea, the clouds poured down water.

5.The mountains flowed away before the face of the Lord:

This Sinai before the Lord, the God of Israel.

II.

ISRAEL’S RECENT DEGENERACY (Judges 5:6-7).

6.In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways ceased, The wayfarers walked in winding ways.

7.Ceased the warriors in Israel, ceased Until I arose—Deborah—

I arose, a mother in Israel.

III.

THE CRISIS OF DELIVERANCE (Judges 5:8-11).

8.They chose new gods;

Then was there war in the gates.

Shield nor spear was seen

Among forty thousand in Israel!

9.My heart is with the reformers of Israel,

With the self-devoted of the people—Praise the Lord:

10.Ye that ride on bright she-asses,

Ye that sit on rich divans,

Ye that walk in the way,

Think of it!

11.Instead of the hallooings of the archers

Among the water-drawers,

Then let them praise the righteous acts of the Lord;

The righteous acts of His governance in Israel.

Then to the gates went down the people of the Lord.

II.

NEW PRELUDE (Judges 5:12).

12.Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake; utter a song!

Up, Barak! lead captive thy captives, son of Abinoam!

THE MUSTER AND THE BATTLE (Judges 5:13-22).

I.

THE GATHERING OF THE LOYAL (Judges 5:13-15).

13.Then came down to battle a valiant few of the nobles of

the people; The Lord came down to me among the heroes;

14.Out of Ephraim (came) those whose root is in Amalek Behind thee (came) Benjamin, among thy people; Out of Machir came masters;

And from Zebulon chieftains, with the marshal’s staff-

15.And the princes of Issachar, with Deborah, Even Issachar, as well as Barak, Rushed down at his heels into the plain.

II.

THE MALIGNERERS AND THE BRAVE (Judges 5:16-18).

16.By the streams of Reuben was courage of word.

Why stayest thou within the sheepfolds,

To hear the sounds of shepherds’ flutes?

By the streams of Reuben was cowardice in deed,

17. Gilead beyond Jordan lingered,

And Dan, why did he cower in ships?

Asher sat by the shore of the sea,

And by his rocky bays reposed.

18. Zebulon-a people flinging its soul to death!

And Naphtali—on the heights of the field.

III.

THE VICTORY (Judges 5:19-22).

19.They came-the kings they fought;

They fought, the kings of Canaan.

In Taanach, on Megiddo’s waters,

No dust of silver did they win.

From heaven they fought;

The stars in their courses fought against Sisera!

21.The torrent Kishon swept them away;

The torrent of slaughters, the torrent Kishon.

Trample, my soul, on strength!

22.Then stamped the hoofs of the steeds

With the plungings, the plungings of the mighty ones!

III.

THE ISSUES OF THE VICTORY (Judges 5:23-30).

I.

THE FAITHLESS CITY (Judges 5:23).

23.Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord;

Curse ye with a curse the inhabitants thereof;

Because they came not to the help of the Lord,

To the help of the Lord among the heroes.

II.

THE AVENGER (Judges 5:24-27).

24.Blessed among women be Jael,

Heber, the Kenite’s wife;

Among women in the tent blessed be she.

25.Water asked he, milk she gave:

In a bowl of the nobles she brought him cream.

26.Her left hand to the tent-peg she stretched forth,

And her right hand to the workman’s hammer.

And she hammered Sisera, shattered his head,

And battered and crashed through his temples.

27.Between her feet he writhed, he fell, he lay;

Between her feet he writhed, he fell;

Where he writhed there he fell down—dead!

III.

THE MOTHER’S FRUSTRATED HOPES (Judges 5:28-30).

28.Through the window looked forth and wailed

The mother of Sisera, through the lattice-work,

“Why lingers his chariot to come?

Why tarry the pacings of his chariots?”

29.The wise of her princesses answer her;

Yea, she repeats their words to herself—

“Are they not finding? Are they not sharing the spoil?

A maiden, two maidens, to each man.”

30.Prey of dyed robes for Sisera,

Prey of red robes, of embroidery;

One dyed, two of embroidery, for the neck of the princess.

THE EPILOGUE.

31.So perish thine enemies, O Lord!

But let those who love Thee be as the sun’s rising in his

strength.

Ch. 5 The Song of Deborah

There can be little doubt that this splendid Ode belongs to the same date as the events which it describes. The passions roused by the battle have not cooled down; the sense of a common danger, the enthusiasm of united action, the exultation in Jehovah’s triumphant aid, are felt with a vividness which only a contemporary could have put into words. The religious temper and the political situation agree with what we know of the period of the Judges from elsewhere, while the antique poetic language may well be characteristic of the same date. The Ode, then, is a most ancient composition, earlier probably than anything else in the Old Testament of the same extent; its original place may have been in some collection of old Hebrew songs such as the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18) or the Book of the Wars of Jehovah (Numbers 21:14). A text so ancient must inevitably have suffered in the course of ages; and though the general sense is clear, in many places we cannot follow the connexion of thought or interpret particular words. This is due partly to our ignorance of the ancient language, and even more to the exceedingly corrupt state of the text; in Jdg 5:8-15 especially the corruption is so deep-seated that it looks as if some accident had happened to the ms. from which our present text is descended. Prof. Moore suggests that at this point the page was obliterated or rubbed, so that the early copyist was driven to make what sense he could out of it. The process of corruption must have begun before the Greek Versions were made, for on the whole they presuppose much the same text as we have.

The Song is an invaluable witness to the history of the period. After a spell of oppression (Jdg 5:7), probably brought on by the expansion of the Israelite tribes in the direction of the Great Plain, the Canaanites, led by Sisera at the head of the local chiefs, made a determined effort to drive the Israelites back into their hills. To resist this formidable movement, and to put an end to an intolerable state of insecurity and humiliation, Deborah roused the tribes. Six of them, those immediately N. and S. of the Plain, responded to the summons; the remoter clans, Dan and Asher in the N., Reuben and Gilead (Gad) on the E. of Jordan, refused to stir themselves. Judah is not mentioned: it was cut off from Ephraim and the rest by a line of Canaanite strongholds (see p. xxx); Simeon and Levi, who are also passed over, seem to have been unable to maintain a distinct existence after the early stages of the invasion. The battle was fought near Taanach and Megiddo (Jdg 5:19), down the valley of the Kishon, whose waters, swollen by a tremendous storm (Jdg 5:20 f.), worked havoc among the Canaanite forces.

That a summons to battle could be sent round and meet with a response shews that the tribes admitted the claim of a common bond of race. At an earlier period some of them, at any rate, had wandered together in the desert, and camped together on the outskirts of Canaan (p. xxviii f.). Israel had not yet grown into a nation, but when the tribes made common cause against Sisera, under the impulse of Deborah’s high enthusiasm, they took the first step in the development of united national action. Stronger, however, than the bond of race was the influence of a common faith. The Song bears unmistakable witness to the fervour and reality of Israel’s religion at this early period. Jehovah is the God of Israel; He is no Canaanite deity, His seat is in the southern desert (Sinai, Horeb) whence He travels in tempest to His people’s aid (Jdg 5:4-5); His presence and power are on the side of Israel (Jdg 5:11); He fights in Israel’s battles (Jdg 5:23), and Israel’s enemies are His (Jdg 5:31). This faith, which gave to Israel a distinctive character among other races, confirms indirectly the tradition which connects the acceptance of Jehovah as the national God with Sinai and the work of Moses; herein lay the secret of Israel’s national progress during the ages of slow consolidation which followed.

The Song falls naturally into three divisions: A. Jdg 5:2-11 an introduction, B. Jdg 5:12-22 a description of the battle, C. Jdg 5:23-31 the sequel. Within these divisions some kind of strophical arrangement, i.e. a grouping of verses connected in thought, can be detected, thus:

A.  

Jdg 5:2-3.  

Jdg 5:4-5.  Jehovah’s advent.  

Jdg 5:6-8.  The recent oppression.  

Jdg 5:9-11.  ?? The celebration of Jehovah’s acts.  

B.  

Jdg 5:12.  

Jdg 5:13-15 a.  The muster.  

Jdg 5:15 b–18.  The reluctant and the ready.  

Jdg 5:19-22.  The battle.  

C.  

Jdg 5:23.  

Jdg 5:24-27.  The courage of Jael.  

Jdg 5:28-30.  The mother of Sisera.  

Jdg 5:31 a.  Conclusion.  

To obtain a more complete symmetry, with a regular number of verse-lines in each strophe, the text must be considerably altered; and as the emendations are necessarily conjectural, none of the attempts to restore a perfectly consistent scheme of strophes and verse-lines can claim any certainty. Much ingenious labour has been spent upon the metre of the Song; but while we can hardly deny the existence of a metrical system in Hebrew, in this case the text is too insecure to establish any satisfactory results. All that can safely be said is that the prevailing rhythm contains four, or sometimes three, beats in each verse-line, e.g. Jdg 5:28 :The cursing of Meroz.Prelude.Exordium.

Oút of the wíndow loóked and críed

The móther of Sísera oút of the láttice:

Whý do his cháriots tárry in cóming,

Whý línger the stéps of his teáms?

An imposing effect is produced by the frequent use of the kind of parallelism known as the climactic or progressive; (1) the first line is incomplete, and the second line repeats some words of it and completes them, e.g. Jdg 5:4 b (? text), Jdg 5:7; Jdg 5:12 b, Jdg 5:19 a (? text), 23b, cf. Psalm 29:1; Psalm 92:9 a, Psalm 93:3, Psalm 94:3 etc.; (2) the first line is complete, and the second line repeats some words of it with an addition, e.g. Jdg 5:3 b, Jdg 5:5; Jdg 5:11 b, Jdg 5:21; Jdg 5:24, cf. Psalm 22:4; Psalm 29:5; Psalm 29:8; Psalm 67:3; Psalm 77:16. This kind of parallelism is not common, and belongs only to elevated poetry.

Jud 5:1-31.

底波拉与巴拉的感恩之歌。

1. 那时底波拉和巴拉……在那日唱歌——这首壮丽的凯歌，显然是底波拉本人所作。

底波拉作为“女先知”，既作了这首庄严的颂歌，也亲自唱诵它；就诗的灵感和抒情的火热而言，圣经中没有任何一首圣歌能超越它。正如米利暗曾接唱摩西之歌的第一节 Exodus 15:21，以之为对唱，照样，巴拉也带着男子的歌班以唱 Judges 5:2 来应和底波拉的歌；这一节也恰好适于作对唱，因为它概括了整首颂歌的主题。比较大卫的先例 2 Samuel 6:15。

Then sang Deborah, and Barak - There are many difficulties in this very sublime song; and learned men have toiled much to remove them. That there are several gross mistakes in our version will be instantly acknowledged by all who can critically examine the original. Dr. Kennicott has distributed it into parts, assigned to Deborah and Barak alternately. But his division is by far too artificial. Dr. Hales has also given a version of it which, perhaps, comes nearer to the simplicity of the original; but it also leaves several difficulties behind. As these are the two best versions I have met with, I shall lay them both in parallel columns before the reader, after introducing the general description of this song, given by each of these learned men. These the reader will find at the conclusion of the chapter.