Deborah’s song
5
📚And on that day Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang a song✭, saying, 2 📚“Praise the LORD for vengeance
taken for Israel,
when the people willingly offered✭
themselves.
3 📚“Listen, O you kings!
Give ear, O you princes!
I, even I, will sing to the LORD;
I will sing praise to the LORD
God of Israel.
4 📚✭LORD, when you went out of Seir,
when you marched out
from the field of Edom,
the earth trembled
and the heavens dripped,
yes, the clouds dripped water.
5 📚The mountains melted away
before the LORD,
even that Sinai from before
the LORD God of Israel.
6 📚“In the days of Shamgar✭ the son of Anath,
in the days of Jael,
the highways were deserted✭,
and the travelers walked through
byways.
7 📚Life in the villages came
to a stop,
came to a stop in Israel, until I✭,
Deborah, arose,
until I arose a mother in Israel.
8 📚“They chose new gods✭;
then war came
to the gates.
Was there a shield or spear seen among
forty thousand in Israel✭?
9 📚My heart is with✭ the leaders
of Israel
who offered themselves willingly
among the people.
Praise the LORD.
10 📚“Speak, you who ride
on white donkeys✭,
you who sit in judgment
and walk by the way.
11 📚“Those who are delivered from the noise
of archers in the watering places,
there they will declare the righteous
acts of the LORD✭,
the righteous acts toward the
inhabitants of his villages
in Israel.
Then the people of the LORD
went down to the gates.
12 📚“Awake, awake, Deborah!
Awake, awake✭! Utter a song!
Arise, Barak!
And lead your captivity captive✭,
you son of Abinoam.
13 📚“Then he caused the survivors
to have dominion over
the nobles among the people;
the LORD caused me✭ to have
dominion over the mighty.
14 📚“From Ephraim a root of those
in Amalek✭ came down;
after you, Benjamin, among your people.
Leaders came down
from Machir✭,
and out of Zebulun
those who handle
the pen of the writer.
15 📚And the princes of Issachar were
with Deborah;
Issachar, and also Barak;
he was sent on foot into the valley.
In the divisions of Reuben
there weregreat searchings
of heart.
16 📚Why did you stay among
the sheepfolds to hear
the bleatings of the flocks?
Concerning the divisions
of Reuben
there were great searchings
of heart✭.
17 📚Gilead✭ stayed beyond Jordan.
And why did Dan remain
in ships?
Asher✭ continued at the seashore,
and stayed at his breakwaters.
18 📚✭Zebulun and Naphtali were a people
who put their lives
in jeopardy of death
on the high places of the field.
19 📚“The kings came and fought,
then the kings of Canaan fought in
Taanach by the waters of Megiddo✭;
they took no plunder of silver.
20 📚✭They fought from the heavens;
the stars in their courses
fought against Sisera.
21 📚✭The river of Kishon swept
them away,
that ancient river, the river Kishon.
O my soul, you have trampled
down strength.
22 📚Then the hooves of the horses
hammered
because of the prancing,
the prancing of their mighty ones.
23 📚‘Curse Meroz✭’,
said the angel of the LORD✭,
‘curse its inhabitants bitterly,
because they did not come
to the help of the LORD,
to the help of the LORD against the
mighty.’
24 📚“Most blessed of women be Jael✭,
1 the wife of Heber the Kenite;
most blessed shall she be of women
in the tent.
25 📚He asked water,
and she gave him milk;
she brought forth curds
in an excellent bowl.
26 📚She put her hand to the peg,
and her right hand to
the workmen’s hammer,
and with the hammer
she struck Sisera.
She crushed his head,
and she pierced and
struck through his temples.
27 📚At her feet he bowed, he fell,
he lay down.
At her feet he bowed, he fell.
Where he bowed,
there he fell down dead.
28 📚“The mother✭ of Sisera
looked out at a window,
and cried out through
the lattice,
‘Why is his chariot
so long in coming?
Why are the wheels of
his chariots delayed?’
29 “Her wise ladies answered her,
indeed she gave answer to herself,
30 📚‘Have they not found,
have they not divided
the plunder;
to each man a girl or two;
to Sisera a plunder of garments of
various colours,
a plunder of various colours of
needlework,
of various colours of needlework
on both sides,
for the necks of those who
take the plunder?’
31 📚“So may all your enemies perish✭,
O LORD.
But may those who love him
be like the sun when it goes
forth in its might”.
And the land had rest for forty years.