From the sky the stars fought. From their courses, they fought against Sisera.
The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. My soul, march on with strength.
Then the horse hoofs stamped because of the prancing, the prancing of their strong ones.
‘Curse Meroz,’ said Yahweh’s angel. ‘Curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they didn’t come to help Yahweh, to help Yahweh against the mighty.’
“Jael shall be blessed above women, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
He asked for water. She gave him milk. She brought him butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer. With the hammer she struck Sisera. She struck through his head. Yes, she pierced and struck through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay. At her feet he bowed, he fell. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
“Through the window she looked out, and cried: Sisera’s mother looked through the lattice. ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots wait?’
Her wise ladies answered her, Yes, she returned answer to herself,
‘Have they not found, have they not divided the plunder? A lady, two ladies to every man; to Sisera a plunder of dyed garments, a plunder of dyed garments embroidered, of dyed garments embroidered on both sides, on the necks of the plunder?’
“So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 As a besom doeth the filth of the house.
As a besom doeth the filth of the house.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv20–31 Jdg 5:20 They fought from heaven; the stars in…
Jdg 5:20 They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
Ver. 20. They fought from heaven.] Where the Lord of hosts hath his Magnleh cheloth, his upper forces, say the Rabbins, as on earth he hath his Matteh cheloth, his lower forces ready prest. And sins unpardoned can soon raise the posse comitatus, all the armies of God against men.
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The stars in their courses.] Like soldiers that observed both rank and file.
Fought against Sisera,] s.c., By their extraordinary influences stirring up storms and tempests. See Joseph. "Antiq.," lib. v.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 Or, they from heaven, or the heavenly host fought,…
Or, they from heaven, or the heavenly host fought, by thunder, and lightning, and hailstones, possibly mingled with fire. Compare Jos 10:11; 1Sa 7:10.
The stars; which raised those storms by their influences, which they do naturally and ordinarily, but now far more, when God sharpened their influences, and disposed the air to receive and improve their impressions.
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In their courses, or, from their paths, or stations, or high places. As soldiers fight in their ranks and places assigned them, so did these, and that with advantage, as those enemies do which fight from the higher ground.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v24 Deborah here concludes this triumphant song,
Deborah here concludes this triumphant song,
I. With the praises of Jael, her sister-heroine, whose valiant act had completed and crowned the victory. She had mentioned her before (Jdg 5:6) as one that would have served her country if it had been in her power; now she applauds her as one that did serve it admirably well when it was in her power. Her poetry is finest and most florid here in the latter end of the song. How honourably does she speak of Jael (Jdg 5:24), who preferred her peace with the God of Israel before her peace with the king of Canaan, and though not a native of Israel (for aught that appears) yet heartily espoused the cause of Israel in this critical conjuncture, jeoparded her life as truly as if she had been in the high places of the field, and bravely fought for those whom she saw God fought for! Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. Note, Those whose lot is cast in the tent, in a very low and narrow sphere of activity, if they serve God in that according to their capacity, shall in no wise lose their reward. Jael in the tent wins as rich a blessing as Barak in the field. Nothing is more confounding, grievous, and shameful, than disappointment, and Deborah here does most elegantly describe two great disappointments, the shame of which was typical of sinners' everlasting shame.
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1. Sisera found a fatal enemy where he expected a firm and faithful friend. (1.) Jael showed him the kindness of a friend, and perhaps at that time intended no other than kindness, until God, by an immediate impulse upon her mind (which impulses then were to be regarded, and carried so much of their own evidence with them that they might be relied upon, but cannot now be pretended to), directed her to do otherwise, Jdg 5:25. He asked only for fair water to quench his thirst, but she, not only to show her housewifery and good housekeeping, but to express her respect to him, gave him milk and brought forth butter, that is (say some interpreters), milk which had the butter taken from it; we call it butter-milk. No (say others), it was milk that had the butter still in it; we call it cream. Whichsoever it was, it was probably the best her house afforded; and, to set it off, she brought it in a lordly dish, such as she called so, the finest she had, and better than she ordinarily used at her town table. This confirmed Sisera's opinion of her friendship, and made him sleep the faster and the more secure. But, (2.) She proved his mortal enemy, gave him his death's stroke: it is curiously described, Jdg 5:26, Jdg 5:27. [1.] How great does Jael look, hammering Sisera, as it is in the margin, mauling that proud man who had been so long the terror of the mighty, and sending him down slain to the pit with his iniquities upon his bones! Eze 32:27. She seems to have gone about it with no more terror nor concern than if she had been going to nail one of the boards or bars of her tent, so confident was she of divine aid and protection. We read it she smote off his head, probably with his own sword, which, now that his head was nailed through, she durst take from his side, but not before, for fear of waking him. But because there was no occasion for cutting off his head, nor was it mentioned in the history, many think it should be read, she struck through his head. That head which had been proudly lifted up against God and Israel, and in which had been forged bloody designs for the destruction of God's people, Jael finds a soft place in, and into that with a good will strikes her nail. [2.] How mean does Sisera look, fallen at Jael's feet! Jdg 5:27. At the feet of this female executioner he bowed, he fell; all his struggles for life availed not; she followed her blow until he fell down dead. There lies extended the deserted carcase of that proud man, not on the bed of honour, not in the high places of the field, not having any glorious wound to show from a glittering sword, or a bow of steel, but in the corner of a tent, at the feet of a woman, with a disgraceful wound by a sorry nail struck through his head. Thus is shame the fate of proud men. And this is a very lively representation of the ruin of those sinners whose prosperity slays them; it flatters and caresses them with milk and butter in a lordly dish, as if it would make them easy and happy, but it nails their heads and hearts too to the ground in earthly-mindedness, and pierces them through with many sorrows; its flatteries are fatal, and sink them at last into destruction and perdition, Ti1 6:9, Ti1 6:10.
2. Sisera's mother had the tidings brought her of her son's fall and ruin when she was big with expectation of his glorious and triumphant return, Jdg 5:28-30, where we have, (1.) Her fond desire to see her son come back in triumph: Why is his chariot so long in coming? She speaks this, not so much out of a concern for his safety, or any jealousy of his having miscarried (she had no fear of that, so confident was she of his success), but out of a longing for his glory, which with a feminine weakness she was passionately impatient to see, chiding the lingering chariot, and expostulating concerning the delays of it, little thinking that her unhappy son had been, before this, forced to quit that chariot which they were so proud of, and which she thought came so slowly. The chariots of his glory had now become the shame of his house, Isa 22:18. Let us take heed of indulging such desires as these towards any temporal good thing, particularly towards that which cherishes vain-glory, for this was what she here doted on. Eagerness and impatience in our desires do us a great deal of prejudice, and make it intolerable to us to be crossed. But towards the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the glories of that day, we should thus stand affected (Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly), for here we cannot be disappointed. (2.) Her foolish hope and confidence that he would come at last in so much the greater pomp. Her wise ladies answered her, and thought they gave a very good account of the delay; yea, she (in her wisdom, says the Chaldee) tauntingly made answer to herself, "Have they not sped? No doubt they have, and that which delays them is that they are dividing the prey, which is so much that it is a work of time to make a distribution of it." In the spoil they pleased themselves with the thought of, observe, [1.] How impudently, and to the reproach and scandal of their sex, these ladies boast of the multitude of damsels which the soldiers would have the abusing of. [2.] How childishly they pleased themselves with the hope of seeing Sisera himself in a gaudy mantle of divers colours; how charmingly would it look! of divers colours of needle-work, plundered out of the wardrobe of some Israelitish lady; it is repeated again, as that which pleased their fancy above any thing, of divers colours of needle-work on both sides, and therefore very rich; such pieces of embroidery they hoped Sisera would have to present his mother and the ladies with. Thus apt are we to deceive ourselves with great expectations and confident hopes of honour, and pleasure, and wealth in this world, by which we prepare for ourselves the shame and grief of a disappointment. And thus does God often bring ruin on his enemies when they are most elevated.
II. She concludes all with a prayer to God, 1. For the destruction of all his foes: "So, so shamefully, so miserably, let all thy enemies perish, O Lord; let all that hope to triumph in Israel's ruin be thus disappointed and triumphed over. Do to them all as unto Sisera," Psa 83:9. Though our enemies are to be prayed for, God's enemies, as such, are to be prayed against; and, when we see some of God's enemies remarkably humbled and brought down, this is an encouragement to us to pray for the downfall of all the rest. Deborah was a prophetess, and this prayer was a prediction that in due time all God's enemies shall perish, Psa 92:9. None ever hardened his heart against God and prospered. 2. For the exaltation and comfort of all his friends. "But let those that love him, and heartily wish well to his kingdom among men, be as the sun when he goeth forth in his strength; let them shine so bright, appear so glorious in the eye of the world, cast such benign influences, be as much out of the reach of their enemies, who curse the rising sun because it scorches them; let them rejoice as a strong man to run a race, Psa 19:5. Let them, as burning and shining lights in their places, dispel the mists of darkness, and shine with more and more lustre and power unto the perfect day." Pro 4:18. Such shall be the honour, and such the joy, of all that love God in sincerity, and for ever they shall shine as the sun in the firmament of our Father.
The victory here celebrated with this song was of such happy consequence to Israel that for the best part of one age they enjoyed the peace which it opened the way to: The land had rest forty years, that is, so long it was from this victory to the raising up of Gideon. And well would it have been if, when the churches and the tribes had rest, they had been edified, and had walked in the fear of the Lord.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv20–31 They fought from heaven,.... Either the angels of heaven,…
They fought from heaven,.... Either the angels of heaven, afterwards called stars; or the heavens, the elements, fought for Israel, and against Sisera; a violent storm of rain and hail falling at this time, which discomfited Sisera's army; See Gill on Jdg 4:15, or this victory was obtained in such a manner as plainly showed it was not of man, but of God from heaven; so the Targum,"from heaven war was made with them;''with the kings before mentioned; God fought against them, and no wonder they were conquered:
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera it seems as if it was in the night that this battle was fought, at least that the pursuit lasted till night, when the stars by their brightness and clear shining favoured the Israelites, and were greatly to the disadvantage of the Canaanites; unless it can be thought, as is by some, that the stars had an influence to cause a tempest of rain, hail, thunder, and lightnings, by which the army of Sisera was discomfited in the daytime, as before observed.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31 From heaven - Or, they from heaven, or the…
From heaven - Or, they from heaven, or the heavenly host fought, by thunder, and lightning, and hail-stones, possibly mingled with fire. The stars - Raising these storms by their influences, which they do naturally. Courses - Or, from their paths, or stations. As soldiers fight in their ranks and places assigned them, so did these.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv20–28 Verse 20. They fought from heaven] The angels of…
Verse 20. They fought from heaven] The angels of God came to the assistance of Israel: and the stars in their orbits fought against Sisera; probably some thunder storm, or great inundation from the river Kishon, took place at that time, which in poetic language was attributed to the stars. So our poet sung relative to the storms which dispersed the Spanish armada in 1588: -
"Both winds and waves at once conspire
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To aid old England-frustrate Spain's desire."
Perhaps it means no more than this: the time which was measured and ruled by the heavenly bodies seemed only to exist for the destruction of the Canaanites. There may be also a reference to the sun and moon standing still in the days of Joshua.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31 Jdg 5:20. They fought from heaven — The prophetess,…
Jdg 5:20. They fought from heaven — The prophetess, having in the foregoing verse mentioned who were the allies and helpers of Jabin, does here, in a very magnificent manner, represent who were the allies and helpers of Israel. They fought from heaven on this side; namely, the very angels of God themselves, the hosts of heaven, the armies of the Almighty. The very stars in their courses fought for Israel against Sisera — The elements, by the order of God, came to their assistance. The air and waters ranged themselves on their side; the rivers, even the small streams, lift up themselves and swept away their enemies. This is the magnificent and tremendous idea which the prophetess gives us of this victory over Sisera: see on Jdg 4:15. In the poetical scriptures, thunder and lightning are represented as the artillery of heaven. The Prophet Habakkuk, speaking of the defeat of the confederate kings of Canaan by Joshua, where there is no mention of thunder and lightning in the history, thus addresses Jehovah, Hab 3:11 —
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;
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By their light thine arrows went abroad;
And by their shining thy glittering spear.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31 God fought on the side of Israel, and gave…
God fought on the side of Israel, and gave them the victory. Josephus relates that, just as the battle began, a violent tempest came on with a great downfall of rain; and a hailstorm, which, driving full in the faces of the Canaanites, so blinded and benumbed them with cold, that they could neither use their bows with effect nor even hold their swords.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Stars, or angels, who are compared to the stars,…
Stars, or angels, who are compared to the stars, and often fought for Israel, 2 Machabees x. 29. (Vales, Philos. chap. xxxi.) (Calmet) --- The favourable and malignant influences of the stars, which the Rabbins talk of, would here be nugatory, (Haydock) unless they might contribute to bring on rain. (Cajetan) --- Josephus ([Antiquities?] v. 6.) informs us that a furious tempest of hail, &c., met the enemy in the face, and rendered all their efforts useless. (Calmet) --- A similar instance of the divine protection was obtained by the prayers of the thundering legion, in the army of M. Aurelius; (Tertullian; Eusebius, Hist. v. 5.) and again, when Theodosius attacked the tyrant Eugenius, of which Claudian speaks, (in 3 Cons. Honor.) "Te propter gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis---Obruit adversas acies, revolutaque tela---Vertit in Auctores et trubine repulit hastas---O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris---Æolus armatas hiemes, cui militat æther---Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti." (Haydock) --- Courses. This miracle was of a different kind from that which proved so fatal to the enemies of Josue. (Lyranus) --- Septuagint (Alexandrian), "They fought with (meta) Israel," for which Grabe puts, against Sisara. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v24 The Fate Of The Enemy
The Fate Of The Enemy
Jdg_5:24-31
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24Blessed among women be Jael,
The wife of Heber, the Kenite,
Blessed among women of the tents!
25He asks for water, she gives him milk,
In a beautiful bowl she carries him cream.
26With her left she takes the nail,57
With her right the heavy hammer,
Swings it over Sisera, smites his head,
Crashes through, and transpierces his temples.58
27At her feet he curls himself and falls,
At her feet he lies, curls himself again, and falls,
And as he curls himself again, falls—dead!59
Through the window she looks, at the lattice laments 28the mother of Sisera:
Why lingers his car so long,
Why stay the steps of his chariots?
29Wise ladies answer her,60
Herself also refutes her own words:
30Will they not find booty and divide it?
Two maidens for each man;
Booty of purple robes for Sisera,
Yea, booty of purple robes!
Color-embroidered vestments, two for each neck of the captured!61
31So may all thy foes fall, O God,
But those who love thee rise as the sun in his strength!
And the land rested forty years.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_5:26.—The rendering of יָרָהּ by “her left hand,”—if admissible at all,—must be justified by the assumption of an intended contrast with יְמִינָהּ in the next line. The form תִּשְׁלַחְנָה, according to Gesenius, Gram. 47, 3, 3 is an improper use of the 3d plural for the 3d singular; according to Green, 88, p. 119, it stands for תִּשְׁלָחֶנָּה—“her hand, she puts it forth;” according to Ewald, 191 c, it is simply the 3d fem. sg. תִּשְׁלַח, with an additional feminine characteristic (נָה) in order to distinguish it from the 3d masc. singular. Ewald’s view is also adopted by Bertheau, Keil, and (in the main, by) Bachmann, and is probably the true one.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_5:26.—Dr. Cassel’s rendering of the last two lines of this verse is as follows:—
Schwingt ihn auf Sisra, schlägt ihn an’s Haupt,
Schmettert nach und durchbohrt ihm die Schlafe.
We have endeavored to reproduce his alliteration as nearly as possible, but have nevertheless lost the paranomasia of הָלְמָה with חַלְמוּת, hammer, in the preceding line, for which our author has Schlägel, mallet, beetle. The awful energy of the lines, and their onomatopoetic character, may be distantly and somewhat inelegantly imitated in English, thus—
“She hammers Sisera, mashes his head,
Smashes (him), and crashes through his temples.”—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_5:27.—The above translation of this verse disregards the Masoretic text-division (according to which שָׁכַכ, “he lies,” belongs to the first line), and takes כַּאֲשֶׁר in a temporal instead of local sense. The radical meaning of כָּרַע is probably “to bend or contract one’s self” (cf. Ges. Lex., Keil, Bachmann), the usual sense “to kneel” being derivative. The mortally wounded Sisera, pinned to the ground (Jdg_4:21), involuntarily curls himself together, as Dr. Cassel says—i. e. brings his knees forward and upward. But Dr. Cassel’s idea that this involuntary muscular contraction was repeated three times is inconsistent with the proper local sense of בַּאֲשֶׁר, and with the repeated נָפַל. Dr. Cassel, it is true, seeks to avoid the latter difficulty by supposing (see the com. below) that Sisera “seeks to rise, and falls back;” but how could he rise so as to fall back when his head was pinned to the ground? It is altogether more likely that in this song of victory, נָפַל is used as in military language (and perhaps not without a touch of contemptuous irony), for “to die,” “to be slain,” in this sense, נָפַל, like πίπτειν, cadere, and our “fall,” is frequently used, cf. the Lexica. The repetition of the idea of the first line in the second and third springs from the great interest of the singer in the destruction of the much-dreaded chieftain, and serves to intensify the impression to be produced on those who hear her. Accordingly, we would render:—
At her feet he curls himself, he falls, he lies.
At her feet he curls himself, he falls!
Where he curls himself, there he falls—destroyed.
So also Bertheau, Keil, Bachmann. For בֵּין, in the sense of “at” cf. remarks of Hengstenberg on Zec_13:6, in Christol. iv. 106, Edinb. edition.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_5:29.—The above translation neglects both the suffix in שָׂרוִתֶיהָ, and the construct state of חַכְמוֹת (fem. of חָכָם). In תַּעֲנֶנָּה Dr. Cassel apparently finds the 3d fem. sing. imperf. with the suffix of the 3d fem. sing. But as the subject is plural, it is better to take תַּעֲנֶנָּה as standing for תַּעֲנֶינָה. The accented é in the latter form seeks to strengthen itself by doubling the following consonant, in which case the י naturally falls away, although it may also remain, as in Mic_7:10. Cf. Ewald, Gram. 17 c. The true rendering of the second line of this verse is much disputed. According to Keil the sense of the line is: “Sisera’s mother, however, does not allow herself to be quieted by the speeches of her wise ladies, but repeats the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay to come?” He and Bachmann translate the verse thus:—
“The wise ones of her princesses answer:
—But she repeats to herself her words—”.—Tr.]
[5 Jdg_5:30.—On our author’s text-division in this verse, see the Commentary below. Bachmann, who adheres to the Masoretic punctuation, translates as follows:—
“Will they not find, divide booty?
A maiden, two maidens for the head of a man,
Booty of colored garments for Sisera,
Booty of colored garments, (of) variegated work,
A colored garment, two variegated for the neck of the booty.”—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
The closing part of Deborah’s Song has justly been regarded as a specimen of poetical representation that cannot be surpassed. In it the singer shows that she is a woman. The triumph with which Jael’s deed is praised and Sisera’s mother mocked, evinces an almost passionate mental exaltation. The picture of Sisera’s death is drawn with startling vividness. On the back ground of a divine enthusiasm, there rises an ecstatic delight in the deed of one woman, and in the misery of another, such as springs up in none but a woman’s heart. That which in heathen female characters becomes demoniac in its nature, is in Deborah purified by the divine thoughts which animate her. No subjective interest, no private feeling, no personal passion, influences her; the highest interests of her God and people fill her soul. It is not her triumph, but that of her ever-living Maker, that she celebrates; and yet at the height of its exultation her Song breaks out in a mood by which the woman might be recognized, even if neither name nor other information on the authorship had been handed down to us. That which especially gives to the conclusion of the Song its great value and attractiveness, is the fact that from it the genuineness of the whole becomes even more psychologically than grammatically evident—that the mantic power of a prophetic woman, unweakened and in the full glow of its burning ecstasy, is nowhere else filled and controlled as it is here, by rational enthusiasm born of an objective, divinely-given truth. How well it was said of her, that she was a “woman of a fiery spirit” (Jdg_4:4), becomes here most manifest. The more terrible the tyranny, the more common-place the enemy, the more intensely burns her soul in her song of victory. The glowing heat of her prophetic enthusiasm shines through the irony, with which she places the vain pride of unbelieving enemies over against the almighty power of God. It is not an irony of hatred, disfiguring the face with scornful smiles, but such as springs from the consciousness that God’s wisdom and power are superior to all heroes and heathen. Verse 23, pronouncing the ban against Meroz, says, “thus proclaims the messenger of God.” The name of God is the source of all power and authority. Apostasy from God incurs the ban; whoever helps to advance his works, is blessed.
Jdg_5:24-25. Blessed among women be Jael. Meroz did not come to the help of the people of God. Jael came, though a woman; and not of Israel, but a dweller in tents. The name of her husband is mentioned to distinguish her from others of the same name, and also to give him an interest in the fame of his wife. Accordingly, for her sake, he also has obtained a place in the records of history. The blessing which she enjoys before all women “in the tent,” i.e. before all who like herself and the Kenites wandered about in tents, after the manner of nomads, she did not win by accident. She made an energetic use of her opportunity. She deceives the flying Sisera by the signs of homage which she presents to him. He asks only for water; she offers him milk, and, as was befitting with such a guest, כְּסֵפֶל אַרּירִים, in a bowl such as princes use. She takes the handsome show-bowl, not used on ordinary occasions, and hands him תֶמְאָה. This word, which also signifies butter, expresses in general the more solid forms of milk. Here, where it stands parallel with תָלָכ, it signifies, in harmony with the “show-bowl,” the best milk, the cream. There is absolutely nothing to suggest the opinion of older expositors (Schnurrer, p. 83, received by Herder also) that she wished to intoxicate him with the milk. Moreover, we need not assume that the milk was camel-milk; and, at all events, the intoxicating property of that milk62 must have been known to Sisera. Before Bochart (cf. Serarius, p. 145), Junius and Tremellius had already expressed the opinion, approved by Scaliger, that in סֵפֶל the Latin simpulum reappears. But saph, sephel, are Hebrew forms of a widely-diffused term for round, scooped-out vessels, whether of larger or smaller size, and may be recognized in the Greek σκάφη, bowl, trough, tub, Latin scaphium, and in the German Schaff (tub, pail), Scheffel (modius), a round measure).63 It is true, however, that sephel continued to be used among the Jews (in the Talmud) and Syrians, and that the shape of the vessel may be most nearly expressed by simpulum, which, as Cicero’s proverb, “fluctus in simpulo”—a tempest in a nutshell—proves, was a smaller drinking-vessel.
Jdg_5:26-27. The first of these verses shows that the narrator in Judges 4 was in possession of traditional information beside that furnished by this Song. The prophetess passes over intermediate, self-evident matters. Sisera, of course, must lie down and sleep, before a woman can approach his head with hammer and nail. The verse depicts the dreadful work and vigor of Jael, as she approaches and drives the nail into Sisera’s head. The terms employed (הָלַם ,מָתַק ,מָתַץ) are such as cause us to hear the blows of the hammer, sounding repeatedly, till she finishes her work. What a terrible picture! Before the warrior stands the kindled woman—the heavy hammer (as Herder finely translated הַלְמוּת עֲמֵלִים, for עַמֵל is one who works hard or heavily, a toiler) in her right hand. The smitten chieftain draws himself together, he seeks to rise, and falls back. Twice more he writhes convulsively, and dies. There he lies, the haughty warrior, who thought to destroy the People of God—slain by a woman in disgraceful flight, far from his kindred, alone and unlamented, an example to conquerors of human weakness and divine power. (שָׁדוּד is the condition of utter lifelessness, when every sound and motion has ceased; hence it stands in contrast with כָּרַע, which describes the wounded man instinctively bending and drawing himself together, as if about to rise.)
Jdg_5:28-31. But the fall of Sisera in the tent of a woman does not complete the picture of the extraordinary triumph. The prophetess shows yet another view. She carries her hearers to a distant scene. While Sisera lies here in ignominious death, what takes place in the palace of his capital? The return of the chieftain, accustomed to victory, has already been long expected. His mother stands at the window above,64 in the airy upper room. Her view commands the road to a great distance. She peers and listens; but still the rolling of the victorious chariots is not heard. No triumphal procession, with Sisera at its head, gorgeously attired and proud of victory, lights up the horizon. A sad presentiment steals over her heart: Why does his chariot delay? she cries, wailingly;65 why does he tarry so long? Is there no car66 coming, to bring tidings at least?—Who should first suffer anxiety, if not a mother? Of a wife, nothing is said; such love thrives not in the harem of a prince. He is his mother’s pride, the great hero, who had hitherto been invincible. What she has in him, and what she loses, concerns no other woman. With this pride, her women, noble ladies, whom her high rank as mother of the all-powerful commander draws around her, comfort her. Victory, they say, has also its occupations. If he has not come yet, it is because these detain him. No other explanation of his non-arrival is possible. Anxiety, therefore, is improper. For it is precisely victory that delays him. This is what her women say to her; the flattered mother admits the justness of their observations, and with them confutes her own foreboding questions.67 The prophetess, with delicate irony, calls the women who thus counsel, “wise ones.” It is the wisdom of a pride that deems it inconceivable that Sisera should not have been victorious; how could he prove unfortunate against this insignificant people! What to them is the God of Israel! It is the booty that hinders his coming. Booty, of course, delays the victor; for he must cause it to be divided. The mother and her women naturally think first of the booty; to them, that is the pith of all victories. Their fancy then proceeds to picture at pleasure the conquered treasures. How much time must it take, before every soldier has the two maidens whom he obtains as booty, assigned to him!68 And then the heap of costly clothing. The purple garments fall naturally to Sisera, for they are suitable only for princes. But each of the others also obtains embroidered garments, always two for each maiden that fell to his share. In this strain they talk with each other, and already imagine themselves to be looking over the goods which Sisera is bringing with him. But all at once the message comes: No booty, no victory—the hero is dead, the army is shattered! All is lost—the castle falls…. So perish they who set themselves against God. Fearful sorrow breaks their pride. But they who love God conquer. Their type is the sun, who like a fame-crowned victor, every morning, every spring, triumphs gloriously, with hero-like power, over clouds and darkness.
Account must here be given for departures from the ordinary division and translation in Jdg_5:30. That verse, like several others in Deborah’s Song, has undergone an incredible amount of conjecture and emendation. It reads as follows:—
הֲלֹא יִמְצְאוּ יְתַלְּקוּ שָׁלָל 1.
רַחַם רַחֲמָיִם לְרֹאשׁ גֶּכֶר 2.
שְׁלַל צְבָצִים לְסִיסְרָא 3.
שְׁלַל צְבָעִים 4.
רִקְמָה צֶבַע רִקְמָתַיִם לְצַוְּארֵי שָׁלָל. 5.
Victors found their greatest satisfaction and joy in the booty. Hence, Moses also makes Pharaoh say (Exo_15:9): “I will pursue, I will divide the spoil.” The women took for granted that Sisera will find (יִמְצְאוּ) much booty, and that consequently a division will commence. Lines 2–5 point out the method of the division. First (line 2) each man gets two maidens, or women. Then the garments are divided. But how this was done, depends upon the explanation of line 5, particularly of the words לְצַוּארֵי שָׁלָל. The difficulty69 under which expositors labored, originated in their failing to perceive that שָׁלָל means the booty of maidens mentioned in line 2. It cannot be denied that שָׁלָל is booty of persons as well as of things, cf. Num_31:11. Zec_2:13 (9) says, “They become a spoil to those who have served them.” In Isa_10:2, widows are called שָׁלָל, cf. Jer_21:9, as also Jer_1:10, where the Chaldeans are spoken of as booty. An entirely analogous error used to be made in interpreting the celebrated chorus in the Antigone of Sophocles:—
̓́Ερως ἀνίκατε μάχαν,
̓́Ερως, ὅς ἐν κτήμασι πίπτεις·
the word κτήμασι being understood, not of “the unfree,” but always of things (cf. Weimar. Jahrbuch fur Deutsche Lit., ii. 359). The “unfree” booty consists of men, animals, and things. So here, צַוְּארֵי שָׁלָל are the necks of the women taken as booty. For each neck two cloths are allowed. Thus the רִקְמָה רִקְמָתַיִם of line 5 corresponds to the רָחַם רַחֲמָתָיִם of line 2. The division was thus systematized. As many women as each had, so many times did he receive two cloths (for doubtless the dual form here really signifies the dual number). Now, it must not be overlooked that רִקְמָה is used only in connection with the division of the cloths according to the number of maidens. Elsewhere also (Eze_26:16, excepted) רִקְמָה appears as an article of female adornment, cf. Psa_45:15, for instance; also in Eze_16:13, the figure is that of a woman. This confirms the above division, and explains the expression of line Judges 3 : שְׁלַל צְרָעִים לְסִיסְרָא. The רּקְמָתַים, which the chieftain is to receive, are distinguished from the רּקְמָתַיִם, which fall to the maidens. The latter are beautifully-colored female dress-cloths;70 the former belong to Sisera, and are therefore to be taken as purple garments. It is true, צָבַע, in itself, means only to dip, i.e. to dye; but the spirit of the passage invites us to think not of merely colored, but of purple-colored garments, κατ̓ ἐξιχήν. Such garments were worn by princes in battle (cf. Jdg_8:26), and distinguished kings and rulers; by reason of which it was an honor for Mordecai to wear them (Est_8:15; cf. Rosenmüller, Morgenland, iii. 37). It is a proud thought for Sisera’s mother, that the princely garments belong to her son. The repetition of the words שְׁלַל צְבָעִים (line 4) is to be taken as expressive of this her joy. The women do not speak, as has perhaps been supposed, of what they themselves shall receive, but simply represent to themselves how much time must be consumed in dividing so much booty among so many persons, in order to explain that which so greatly needed explanation—the delay of Sisera.
We omit recounting the various different expositions of this section. Nor is room allowed us to notice the manifold endeavors that have been made to analyze the arrangement of the whole Song. Neither Köster’s, nor Ewald’s, nor Bertheau’s division holds good. Le Clerc attempted to arrange the Song according to endings of similar sound,—an attempt that must necessarily fail. On the other hand, alliteration is of such frequent occurrence, as to betray more than anything else the presence of conscious art. Since the Song, however, is not built up of regular strophes, it of course cannot be subject to the same regular laws which govern the Scandinavian poems. But the alliterative form, in its perfect freedom, enhances the power of the Song to an extraordinary degree. It resembles in its effects the pebble-stones of the brook, over which the current flows with augmented force. It would transcend the limits of our present task to institute a comparison between the various productions of the Hebrew muse with reference to this alliterative form. Let it suffice, that in the rendering of the original we have endeavored to give prominence to the delicacy of the alliteration as it appears in this Song of Deborah.
And the land rested forty years. These words do not belong to the Song; but connect themselves with the prose narrative, at Jdg_4:24, into which the poem was inserted.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deborah, the prophetic Singer. After the victory, Deborah sings a noble song, and thereby enables us to recognize that the spirit which animates her is the spirit of prophecy. The other Judges conquer like herself, but they have left us no songs of victory. But, indeed, they are not said to have been prophets. Only prophetic tongues can sing. True poetry is a sacred art. For that reason, all prophecy is a sublime hymn on judgment and divine redemption. Whatever the prophet sees, he proclaims and sings to the harp of faith. What they believed, that they spake. The wonderful works of God are always spoken of and preached with other tongues and in ecstatic song. Thus, from David’s time till now, the church of God has sung. Hallelujah is the keynote of all church-hymns.
But, just as Deborah, like Moses and Miriam, sang among the people, so the prophecy of song is not confined within the limits of the church. All popular poetry is the product of popular faith. The decay of literature is bound up in the decay of prophetic inspiration. Rhymes and verbal decorations do not rouse the masses. But when the jubilant heart, redeemed, strikes up its Easter-song, then every pulse will beat responses.
Starke: Although God has not committed the regular office of preaching to women, he has nevertheless many times imparted his prophetic Spirit to them, and through them has spoken great things.—The same: All who share in the benefits of God, should also join in bringing Him praise and thanksgiving.—Gerlach: An age in which this sublime, high-wrought, and spirited song could be composed, though full of restless and wildly antagonistic movements, was certainly not without deep and living consciousness of the high and glorious calling of the covenant-people.
[Wordsworth: We have a song of victory in Exodus; we have a song of victory in Numbers; we have a song of victory in Deuteronomy; we have this song of victory in Judges; we have a song of victory in the first of Samuel; we have a song of victory in the second of Samuel; we have the song of Zacharias, and the Magnificat, or Song of the Blessed Virgin, and the song of Simeon, in the Gospel; and all these songs are preludes to the new song, the song of Moses and of the Lamb, which the Saints of the Church glorified, from all nations, will sing, at the crystal sea, with the harps of God, when all the enemies of Christ and his Church will have been subdued, and their victory will be consummated forever (Rev_14:1-3; Rev_15:2-4).—The same (on Jdg_5:17): Here, in Dan and Asher, is the second hindrance to zeal for God’s cause; the other was that in the case of Reuben—comparative distance from the scene of danger, and rural occupation (see Jdg_5:15-16). They who live in commercial and maritime cities, engaged in worldly business, are tempted to prefer their own worldly interest to the cause of God and his Church. They who thus act, imitate Dan, and forfeit the blessing of Deborah. They also who live in country villages, removed from the din of controversy, and engaged in farming and other rural occupations, have strong temptations to live merely to themselves, and to stand aloof from their brethren, and not to listen to Deborah’s voice, and not to flock to Barak’s standard, and fight God’s battle together with them against the heresy and infidelity which assail his Church.—The same (on Jdg_5:18): Zebulun and Naphtali, in “Galilee of the Gentiles,” sent forth champions to the Lord’s battle against the enemies of the Hebrew Church; and their land was afterwards honored as the scene of Christ’s preaching (see Mat_4:13), and gave birth to many of the Apostles, the first champions of the Christian Church against the spiritual Siseras of this world.—The same (on Jdg_5:31): After the stirring emotions of the tempest of the elements, and the rush of the combatants, and the din of arms, and shock of battle, described with wonderful energy in this divine poem, the land had rest; a beautiful contrast, and an emblem of the peaceful calm which will prevail when the storms of this world will be lulled in the Sabbath of Eternity.—Henry: And well had it been if, when the churches and the tribes had rest, they had been edified, and had walked in the fear of the Lord.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[57][Jdg_5:26.—The rendering of יָרָהּ by “her left hand,”—if admissible at all,—must be justified by the assumption of an intended contrast with יְמִינָהּ in the next line. The form תִּשְׁלַחְנָה, according to Gesenius, Gram. 47, 3, 3 is an improper use of the 3d plural for the 3d singular; according to Green, 88, p. 119, it stands for תִּשְׁלָחֶנָּה—“her hand, she puts it forth;” according to Ewald, 191 c, it is simply the 3d fem. sg. תִּשְׁלַח, with an additional feminine characteristic (נָה) in order to distinguish it from the 3d masc. singular. Ewald’s view is also adopted by Bertheau, Keil, and (in the main, by) Bachmann, and is probably the true one.—Tr.]
[58] [Jdg_5:26.—Dr. Cassel’s rendering of the last two lines of this verse is as follows:—
Schwingt ihn auf Sisra, schlägt ihn an’s Haupt,
Schmettert nach und durchbohrt ihm die Schlafe.
We have endeavored to reproduce his alliteration as nearly as possible, but have nevertheless lost the paranomasia of הָלְמָה with חַלְמוּת, hammer, in the preceding line, for which our author has Schlägel, mallet, beetle. The awful energy of the lines, and their onomatopoetic character, may be distantly and somewhat inelegantly imitated in English, thus—
“She hammers Sisera, mashes his head,
Smashes (him), and crashes through his temples.”—Tr.]
[59] [Jdg_5:27.—The above translation of this verse disregards the Masoretic text-division (according to which שָׁכַכ, “he lies,” belongs to the first line), and takes כַּאֲשֶׁר in a temporal instead of local sense. The radical meaning of כָּרַע is probably “to bend or contract one’s self” (cf. Ges. Lex., Keil, Bachmann), the usual sense “to kneel” being derivative. The mortally wounded Sisera, pinned to the ground (Jdg_4:21), involuntarily curls himself together, as Dr. Cassel says—i. e. brings his knees forward and upward. But Dr. Cassel’s idea that this involuntary muscular contraction was repeated three times is inconsistent with the proper local sense of בַּאֲשֶׁר, and with the repeated נָפַל. Dr. Cassel, it is true, seeks to avoid the latter difficulty by supposing (see the com. below) that Sisera “seeks to rise, and falls back;” but how could he rise so as to fall back when his head was pinned to the ground? It is altogether more likely that in this song of victory, נָפַל is used as in military language (and perhaps not without a touch of contemptuous irony), for “to die,” “to be slain,” in this sense, נָפַל, like πίπτειν, cadere, and our “fall,” is frequently used, cf. the Lexica. The repetition of the idea of the first line in the second and third springs from the great interest of the singer in the destruction of the much-dreaded chieftain, and serves to intensify the impression to be produced on those who hear her. Accordingly, we would render:—
At her feet he curls himself, he falls, he lies.
At her feet he curls himself, he falls!
Where he curls himself, there he falls—destroyed.
So also Bertheau, Keil, Bachmann. For בֵּין, in the sense of “at” cf. remarks of Hengstenberg on Zec_13:6, in Christol. iv. 106, Edinb. edition.—Tr.]
[60] [Jdg_5:29.—The above translation neglects both the suffix in שָׂרוִתֶיהָ, and the construct state of חַכְמוֹת (fem. of חָכָם). In תַּעֲנֶנָּה Dr. Cassel apparently finds the 3d fem. sing. imperf. with the suffix of the 3d fem. sing. But as the subject is plural, it is better to take תַּעֲנֶנָּה as standing for תַּעֲנֶינָה. The accented é in the latter form seeks to strengthen itself by doubling the following consonant, in which case the י naturally falls away, although it may also remain, as in Mic_7:10. Cf. Ewald, Gram. 17 c. The true rendering of the second line of this verse is much disputed. According to Keil the sense of the line is: “Sisera’s mother, however, does not allow herself to be quieted by the speeches of her wise ladies, but repeats the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay to come?” He and Bachmann translate the verse thus:—
“The wise ones of her princesses answer:
—But she repeats to herself her words—”.—Tr.]
[61] [Jdg_5:30.—On our author’s text-division in this verse, see the Commentary below. Bachmann, who adheres to the Masoretic punctuation, translates as follows:—
“Will they not find, divide booty?
A maiden, two maidens for the head of a man,
Booty of colored garments for Sisera,
Booty of colored garments, (of) variegated work,
A colored garment, two variegated for the neck of the booty.”—Tr.]
[62][When soured. See Winer’s Realwörterbuch, i. 648.—Tr.]
[63]Of two hollow measures, still in use in Damascus, the one is called mudd, the other sumbul.
[64] שָׁקִף .בְּעַד חַחַלּוֹן נִשְׁקְפָח invariably expresses the act of looking out from a height, from a mountain, for instance, or from heaven; also from the upper chambers (Gen_26:8), to which persons of quality (Eglon, for example) retired to cool themselves.
[65] יָבַב ,וַתְּיַבֵּב occurs only in this passage. It is an onomatopoetic word, like the German “jammern,” [cf. the English “wailing.”] In Chaldee, however, it chiefly has the sense of “crying,” “sounding,” in a favorable as well as unfavorable sense.
[66]“Why delay פַּעַם .פַּעְמֵי מַרְבוֹתָיו may be used of any kind of repeated motion, like that of treading; and therefore also of the rolling of wheels.
[67] חָּשִׁיב אֲמָרֶיהָ. The mother replies herself to her own words, corrects herself. She does not answer the others,—an interpretation neither philologically congruous, nor in harmony with the fact that they have not said anything which the mother would wish to refute. Cf. Job_35:4, and Pro_22:21.
[68]The following passage from a letter written by the Emperor Claudius II., after his great victory over the Goths, may serve to confirm our explanation of Jdg_5:30 : “Tantum mulierum cepimus, ut binas et ternas mulieres victor sibi miles possit adjungere.” Trebellius Pollio, cap. 8.
[69]Observable also in Keil’s exposition.
[70][This general explanation of רִקְמָה, as cloth or garments “worked in colors,” is probably to be preferred to the more definite “embroidered in colors,” adopted by Dr. Cassel in his translation of the passage. Keil (on Exo_26:36) remarks that in the only passage where the verb רָקַם occurs, Psa_139:15, it signifies “to weave.” Robinson (Bibl. Repos., i. 610) says: “The verb רָקַם, both in Hebrew and Arabic, signifies to diversify, make variegated, sc. in color; and is not necessarily applied to needlework.” Cf. also Bachmann, in loc.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30 the stars in their courses fought--A fearful tempest burst…
the stars in their courses fought--A fearful tempest burst upon them and threw them into disorder.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 20. From heaven they fought — The elements of…
20. From heaven they fought — The elements of nature assisted in the strife. The violent thunder storm on which Jehovah rode over the fields of Edom was so terrible that the very heavens appeared to drop. See on Jdg_5:4 and Jdg_4:15.
The stars from their courses fought — This is a more minute defining of the thought in the preceding line. The bursting clouds and darting lightnings are poetically spoken of as if the stars had started from their orbits and mingled in the war of elements.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–31 20. Render with a slight change of the stop:
20. Render with a slight change of the stop:
From heaven fought the stars:
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From their highways they fought with Sisera.
The kings fought … The stars fought] A splendid contrast. Jehovah used the forces of nature as His allies and instruments; cf. Jos_10:11; 1Sa_7:10; Psa_18:14; Jer_23:19. Here it was the tempest (Jdg_5:4 f.), flooding the Kishon (Jdg_5:21), which providentially helped the Israelites.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–31 (20) They fought from heaven.—The “they” is impersonal—the powers…
(20) They fought from heaven.—The “they” is impersonal—the powers above. (Comp. Luk_12:20, Greek, and for the fact, Jdg_4:22.)
The stars in their courses.—This is probably a general reference to the providential storms which had secured the victory to Israel. To understand the “stars” as meaning “angels” is a mistaken inference from Job_38:7. There is a striking parallel in Claudian’s poem on the Consulship of Honorius:—
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“Oh nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aether
Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.”
Similarly, Æschylus represents “water and fire, in ruin reconciled,” fighting against the Greek fleet.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31 According to Josephus, a great storm in the face…
According to Josephus, a great storm in the face of the Canaanites led to their utter discomfiture, and also swelled the Kishon to overflow its banks.
The hopelessness of opposition to God.
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This verse is variously interpreted as an astrological allusion as descriptive of a thunder-storm, accompanied by wind, hail, and floods, producing confusion (Josephus); or as suggestive of the delay which lost Sisera the opportunity. The explanation of Berthau, referring it to the Divine intervention, appears more reasonable and spiritually sufficient. All through the mind of the prophetess dwells upon God as the Helper and Avenger. But there is room for an intermediate idea. The stars are symbols of an unvarying law and universal destiny. Generalise upon the great contest between right and wrong. The combatants are not only men; the whole universe is involved. Angels join in the fray. God himself is against the sinner. The latter must be vanquished.
I THE ULTIMATE CHARACTER OF THE CONTEST OF THE WICKED WITH THE RIGHTEOUS. An accidental circumstance may excuse it; a temporary character may be assumed by it. We may not divine the whole scope and drift of the quarrel. Truth may not be wholly on one side or the other. Sometimes a prophetic insight assures us that we are with God, or against him. Ultimately the question is one of right and wrong.
II THE COMBATANTS INVOLVED. Not human opponents merely; the question too large for this. The laws of the universe; the angels of God; destiny; God himself visibly contending in the person of his Son, invisibly in the councils of eternity.
III THE CERTAINTY OF THE ISSUE. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv23, 24, 28, 31 Curse ye Meroz . . . because they came…
Jdg_5:23
Curse ye Meroz . . . because they came not to the help of the Lord.
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The doom of Meroz
I. The sin of the men of meroz is described in very remarkable terms, although we have grown so familiar with them as scarce perhaps to notice their strange character: They came not to the help of the Lord. Everywhere we read of the Lords coming to the help of man; but man coming to the help of the Lord seems strange. The Lord employs instruments for the executing of His purposes, though He needs them not. The tribes of Israel were summoned to this war, and the inhabitants of Meroz declined the summons. Well; but God had entered into marriage covenant with Israel. The kingdom of Israel was His kingdom. The interests of Israel were His interests; and He had bound up with them the glory of His own name. Accordingly it is not now said of the men of Meroz that they came not to Deborahs help, nor to Baraks help, nor even to the help of Israel, but that they came not to the help of the Lord.
1. A little more specifically, the sin of the men of Meroz had in it unbelief--criminal distrust of the word and promise and power of the living God. No doubt it was largely cowardice that led them to refuse their aid. But whence the cowardice? They did not believe that the Canaanites could be subdued. They would keep on good terms with the oppressors to save their own heads.
2. But besides criminal unbelief--that root and strength of all other iniquities--the sin of the men of Meroz had in it a vile preference of their own ease, and fancied present interest before the authority and honour and interest of the God of Israel.
3. And thus, further, their sin was nothing less than enmity, war, against the living God. Doubtless they would be fain to say, What have we done so much against Him? we have but sat still in our quiet homes. Aye, and therein fought against Him. Oh, there is no possible medium between the love of the adorable God and the hatred of Him--between willing, active service rendered to God and hostility, war, against Him--He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad.
4. It was to the help of the Lord against the mighty they refused to come--against the mighty. Had the enemy, that is to say, been a feeble, contemptible one in numbers and strength, they might have had some plausible pretext for leaving the struggle to others. But all was in reality at stake.
II. Notice the judgment of the Lord against the men of Meroz for this sin. I think there can be very little doubt that there must have been some special aggravation in the case of Meroz which has not been placed on record--perhaps its having been in the immediate neighbourhood of the field of action, together with some more emphatic treachery of dealing in its refusal of aid. Lessons:
1. First, a lesson of duty--very urgent duty. It will help to bring both the duty and the urgency of it better out if it is borne in mind that, from the fall of our race downwards, the Lord has had a controversy, so to speak--a quarrel in this fallen world--a war with mighty adversaries, Satan, sin, the world that lieth in the wicked one--His gracious purpose having all along been in that war to call a people out of the world for the glory of His own name--an innumerable multitude of all kindreds and peoples and tongues, to be washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
2. Observe a second lesson of a different character, one of precious and varied encouragement to all such as are disposed humbly, yet resolutely and prayerfully, to offer themselves to the help of the Lord against the mighty. See, for example, how He will condescend to receive and welcome your aid (Jdg_5:9). And see the grateful mention, if I might so speak with reverence, which God makes of particular services (Jdg_5:14).
3. Once more, we have a lesson here of solemn warning--duty, encouragement, warning. For observe that it is by no means any and every kind of help and service that will suffice to separate us from the class, and save us from the curse, of the inhabitants of Meroz. A man may come, for example, with a help so stinted and grudging as to make it quite manifest that it is but the covering up of a desire to be let alone altogether. Or he may come with a help not so stinted in the simple amount of it, yet not offered to the Lord Himself, which is the hinge, you will carefully observe, of this whole matter, they came not to the help of the Lord--Ye did it, or, ye did it not, to Me. Assuredly, by how much the Lord has revealed His condescension and grace, in making offer to us of so marvellous a oneness of cause and interest and blessedness with Himself, by so much the more aggravated a judgment and doom must the contempt and rejection of that grace bring with it. (C. J. Brown, D. D.)
Co-operation in Gods cause required of all
I. From the earliest periods of time God has been graciously pleased to provide for the deliverance of His people from the thraldom and bondage into which they have been brought by sin.
II. In the prosecution of this work Jehovah meets with much and mighty opposition.
III. The people of God are required to co-operate with Jehovah in reference to His designs as to the children of men.
IV. Among those who are thus summoned to the help of the Lord, there are some who disregard the call.
V. To withhold our co-operative aid in reference to the designs of God to bring the world from the bondage of sin to His own blessed service is most criminal and destructive. (W. Roby.)
Why was Meroz cursed?
What had Meroz done to deserve the punishment of God? In the first place, Meroz had omitted to do a positive and plain duty. They did not join with the enemy, but they refused to help the people of God. Then again, the sin of Meroz was a sin of lukewarmness, carelessness. Supposing England to have been overrun by an hostile army. Supposing that at last, gathering all her strength to repel her enemies from her fair country, one town in an important position refused to join in the battle at a critical moment, so that the enemies of England were not crushed as we desired to see them. Surely all England would ring with words of hatred for the people that could so act. Meroz was guilty of lack of patriotism, but a lack of patriotism in the case of the children of Israel was also a lack of proper religious zeal. Well, then, in the third place, Meroz let slip an opportunity; it neglected a crisis in its life. The war led up to the gates of Meroz, the opportunity was given to them of striking a blow for God against sinners. The opportunity was refused.
1. From the conduct of the people of Meroz, then, we may take three great warnings; and in the first place a warning against sins of omission. People are apt to think a very great deal too little about sins of omission. We are all of us apt to slur over the good things which we have left undone, and to think that the only thing hateful in the sight of God or offensive to Him whom we call our heavenly Father are the gross sins which attract perhaps the observation and hatred of others, and from which our own consciences do naturally recoil. How very often do you hear a person say in a satisfied way that they have never done harm to anybody. Such persons who say that are in great danger. They seem to see no sins though there may be many in their lives; but they have forgotten altogether that the object of their own crisis, the very object of their coming into the world, was not to do no sin, but to glorify God by their lives. Neglecting prayers. When we lift up our hands to God on high and call Him our Father, when we have that mighty privilege and that great duty accorded to us and yet neglect it, is it no sin, I say, to go day by day with careless prayers, or neglected prayers, to God? Surely there is some sin in neglecting our Church and our duties of public worship. And then again, while we think of habits of evil and so forth, we are inclined not to think half enough about encouraging habits of good, doing what is right as well as avoiding what is wrong. Then again, faith--a great duty to us. Yet how many go on through life without ever troubling themselves to look into the matters of their faith, or how many dare to live on through life with a sort of lurking or lingering doubt at their hearts, which chills all their acts of devotion and makes their lives unlovely in the sight of God. The curse of God came down on Meroz; doomed to judgment was the city, not because it did that which was wrong in opposing the people of God, but because she neglected a plain duty that God had put before her plainly.
2. Then we see, in the second place, that the sin of Meroz was a sin of lukewarmness. We are warned very frequently and very earnestly in Holy Scripture about the sin of lukewarmness, not being eager to take the part of God, not being eager to proclaim ourselves His children and to show ourselves worthy of the membership of His Church. There are many warnings to this effect, notably, the character of Esau in the Old Testament. And then you remember, surely, those awful denunciations in the Book of the Revelation against the lukewarm Laodicea. We are inclined to be very hot and earnest and keen about matters of business, or about matters of pleasure, or about matters of politics, or perhaps we may even add about matters of Church partisanship. But how about true religion? Oh, we say, Let us take that easy. Our fathers did, perhaps, before us, why should not we? Do not let us take any trouble about that. That will come all right in the end.
3. And again, in the last place, we notice that the sin of Meroz was neglecting to seize an opportunity, letting a crisis in its history pass by without making use of it. The opportunity was given for striking a blow for God, and it was let slip by. We are in danger in this way. There are crises in every man and womans life, crises in the lives of all of us, which God gives to us; some of very vital importance--opportunities, which may perhaps never come again, of striking some blow for God, or of gaining some great spiritual victory over the sins which beset us. It is very important to remember this. (Cecil Hook, M. A.)
Coming to the help of the Lord
1. Meroz is never again mentioned in Scripture, and its exact site is unknown. Its sin resulted in its extinction. What was that sin?
(1) It was, first, an act of selfishness. The inhabitants of Meroz cared only for their own interests. The yoke of Jabin did not apparently lie so heavily upon them as upon the northern tribes. They could see no advantage to be gained for themselves by a military revolt, and they would run no risks in connection with it.
(2) It was, therefore, a neglect of duty. They did not fight against their brethren, but they would not fight for them. It was a purely negative sin, a sin of omission, but it was none the less a distinct and positive No to the call of duty.
(3) This refusal was an act of impiety. It betrayed a sad lack of patriotism and a contemptible indifference towards national freedom and honour. These miserable lovers of case had the souls of slaves, and were unworthy of their ancestral traditions. Their indifference was, moreover, impious. It implied a disregard of God, whose worship they were bound to uphold.
2. Meroz has perished; but did none of its inhabitants escape? Have they not had a numerous progeny and become a great people spread over the face of the earth? Their descendants are not unknown among ourselves. Is there nothing in our life that corresponds to the sin of Meroz? Consider our position in relation to the gospel of Christ, and we shall see. Our Lord has summoned us to the conquest of the world. All souls are His--His by right of creation and redemption, as they should also be by willing submission. That submission is hindered by mens ignorance and error, by reckless indifference and deliberate sin, by calculating worldliness not less than by unbridled self-indulgence. Against these foes the whole force of the gospel is directed. Every man, be he learned or ignorant, an Englishman or a Hindoo, is interested in that fact, and needs the help of which it is at once the pledge and the source. Christ, and Christ only, is the Saviour of the world; even as, on the other hand, every man belongs unto Christ, and is bound by the most stringent and absolute obligation to Him who is Lord of all. Christ comes not to this conquest alone, but as Captain of the Lords host. He summons His people to His side, gives them spear and shield, and equips them for the fight. We have, of course, the power of refusal. Our Lord asks for willing service, and will have no pressed men in the ranks. You can escape this service if you are so minded, meeting Christs call and your brothers need with a flat denial.
Multitudes do so fail, and why?
1. Some are influenced by a false intellectualism. Let us, as far as it is in our power, know the best that has been thought and said, come in contact with master minds, understand their working, see things as with their eyes, and catch the glow of their enthusiasm. To gaze on the fair forms of truth and beauty, to listen to the harmonies of perfect music, is a pure delight, and imparts an added charm to life. But such an aim touches only a small part of our duty. The knowledge of Christ--the crown of all science--can only be acquired by the obedience of faith and love; while no amount of self-culture or of aesthetic worship will justify us in ignoring the sins and sorrows of mankind, or in neglecting the opportunities we possess of meeting the terrible pressure of human need.
2. Other men are absorbed in business. Their main aim is to get on in the world, to become rich and prosperous, to make good bargains, and to ensure at any rate a steady increase of their capital or their savings. Coal, steam, and iron have their devout, if not their disinterested, worshippers. Money, which is designed to be a means, becomes an end in itself--committed to men in trust, it is hoarded or used as if it were their own, and they do nothing to rescue the heathen, because they are themselves the slaves of covetousness, which is idolatry.
3. A third class make no response to the call of Christ because of their love of pleasure. They care only for amusement, for sensuous excitement, or something to relieve the weariness and ennui of life, and to make it bright, eager, and thrilling. Enslaved and befooled by passion, all that is within them doth condemn itself for being there.
4. Yet others are prevented from joining us in our campaign because of their theological laxity. One religion, they urge, is as good as another, and to convert the heathen is a superfluous, if it be not an impossible, task. And similarly when men excuse their indifference to this great work on the ground of the coldness, the worldliness, and the strife of the Churches at home. The best of Christians are no doubt imperfect, the ideal of their life is but inadequately realised, and many who profess to be Christs are sadly inconsistent. We deplore the fact, but it does not exempt us from a plain duty. Still the Saviour asks, What is that to thee? follow thou Me. (James Stuart.)
Religious
indifference:--
I. The Lords people identified with their Lord. Observe the bearing of this principle on--
1. Sympathy (Act_9:4).
2. Power (Eph_1:22).
3. Life and grace (Joh_15:1-27.).
4. Reproach (Luk_10:16).
II. The sin of Meroz. This disregard of Gods people implies--
1. Ignorance of Gods love to His children.
2. An imperfect sense of the scheme of Divine government. By human means, etc.
3. An imperfect sense of personal responsibility--Cain (Gen_4:9).
4. Indifference to Gods truth and honour--Pilate.
5. Selfishness--Balaam.
6. Indecision--Peter in the judgment hall.
III. The sin remains. It is ever displaying itself in new forms.
1. The Church at home indifferent to the evangelisation of the heathen.
2. Wealthy congregations indifferent to poorer localities.
3. Women of ease and leisure to their burdened and weary sisters.
4. Parents unwilling to give their sons for the ministry.
5. Indifference to the conversion of souls.
IV. The result is that punishment comes upon the defaulters.
1. Of old it was, If the Lord be God, etc. (1Ki_18:21). Not less solemn and critical is the question now, What think ye of Christ? Not to confess Him is to deny Him (Mat_10:33).
2. So with our employment of gifts and opportunities. The buried talent and the hidden pound, or their ill-using, involve the darkness that is without.
3. So of the brotherhood. We are to love it, to promote and defend it. There may be flaws, but this does not justify separation. It calls for prayer and the active operation of faith, sincerity, and truth. They shall prosper that love thee.
V. Shun indifference and indecision. They bring men to perish, like Balaam, with the ungodly. Be decided as Paul, though, it bring the loss of all things. What is there so noble as to fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ for His bodys sake, which is the Church? (Col_1:24). (H. W. Dearden, M. A.)
The moral of the curse of Meroz
In a way that in some respects reminds us of the German prophetess Velleda, of the British queen Boadicea, and of the French peasant girl Joan of Arc, does Deborah revive the national spirit, and summon the people to repel the national foes. In this verse she utters true scorn for those who were inactive and self-contained in a time when the nation was in its throes for liberty and independence.
I. Our work for Christ is very analogous to war.
1. In its fierce opposition.
2. In its reverses of victory and defeat.
3. In its call for a sacrifice.
II. Neglect of such work involves us in a curse.
1. The reproachful cry of the worlds sin and sorrow.
2. Conscious separation from God. Common aim and common work are indispensable for true fellowship.
3. Loss of the rewards of true service.
4. Rebuke of Christ: Ye did it not. (U. R. Thomas.)
Inaction
Notice, first of all, that the sin for which Meroz is cursed is pure inaction. There are in all our cities a great multitude of useless men and of men perfectly contented with their uselessness. Consider some of the various points which uselessness assumes.
I. The first source of the uselessness of good men is moral cowardice. The vice is wonderfully common. The fear is concentrated on no individual, but is there not a sense of hostile or contemptuous surroundings that lies like a chilling hand upon what ought to be the most exuberant and spontaneous utterance of life? Men do not escape from their cowardice by having it proved to them that it is a foolish thing to be afraid. Nothing but the knowledge of Gods love, taking such possession of a man that his one wish and thought in life is to glorify and serve God, can liberate him from, because it makes him totally forget, the fear of man.
II. The second cause of uselessness is false humility. Humility is good when it stimulates, it is bad when it paralyses, the active powers of a man. If conscious weakness causes a man to believe that it makes no difference whether he works or not, then his humility is his curse. Remember--
1. That man judges by the size of things; God judges by their fitness.
2. That small as you think you are, you are the average size of moral and intellectual humanity.
3. That such a humility as yours comes, if you get at its root, from an over-thought about yourself, an over-sense of your own personality, and so is closely akin to pride.
III. The third cause of uselessness is indolence. There is only one permanent escape from indolence and self-indulgence--the grateful and obedient dedication to God through Christ, which makes all good work, all self-sacrifice, a privilege and joy instead of a hardship, since it is done for Him. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)
Zeal lacking
Take a heretic, a rebel, a person that hath an ill cause to manage; what he is deficient in the strength of his cause he makes up with diligence; while he that hath right on his side is cold, indiligent, lazy, inactive, trusting that the goodness of his cause will not fail to prevail without assistance. So wrong prevails, while evil persons are zealous and the good remiss. (Bp. Jeremy Taylor.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v23 CHAPTER 5—Jdg_5:23-31
CHAPTER 5—Jdg_5:23-31
THE MISERABLE END OF THE WICKED
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CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_5:23. Curse ye Meroz, etc.] (See above p. 285.) No fellow creature may presume to pronounce a curse on another, at their own instance, from any cause whatever. This passage cannot be pleaded as an example, for the prophetess expressly declares it was the doing of the Angel-Jehovah. The sin was one of omission; but though it seemed to be nothing more than neutrality, it implied in reality covert sympathy with the enemy, and a real abandonment of connection with the covenant God.
Jdg_5:24. Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, etc.] This is put in opposition to the curse on Meroz. Though only allied to Israel, and but a woman, she did most material service for God’s Church in destroying its worst enemy (see on Jdg_4:11; Jdg_4:17-18). The “women in the tent” refer to those in her circle of life—dwellers in tents, or shepherdesses. Women’s fitting place is “the tent” (Pro_7:11; Tit_2:5), as men’s place is the battlefield. The name of her husband is also given, to distinguish her the better. She is praised for making the fullest use of her opportunity.
Jdg_5:25. He asked water; she gave him milk, etc.] Put the verb in the singular, “he asks—she gives.” She must have known it was Sisera. For, on his first appearance, she hails him with the address, “Turn in, my lord, turn in; fear not.” Then she covered him with the sleeping rug (Jdg_4:18-19). And now when he asks water, she not only gives milk, but the best the house could afford. She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.] She carries him butter. חֶמְאָה—the more solid forms of milk—curdled milk (Gesenius); cream (Lias); good superior milk (Keil), who says the word is here synonymous with הָלָב or sweet, rich milk. סֵפֶל a costly bowl used by nobles—one reserved for distinguished guests. The Chaldee and Sept. render it phial, not a bottle, but a shallow drinking bowl.
Jdg_5:26. She puts her (left) hand to the nail, etc.] or “tent pin”—the peg with which the tent was fastened. It was most likely of iron, like a nail driven into the wall (Isa_22:23; Isa_22:25). And her right hand to the (heavy) workman’s hammer.] The mallet of the hand workers. הָלַם—she smites with the hammer, or hammers Sisera, smites off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. Cassel makes it, she swings it over Sisera, smites his head, crushes through and transpierces his temples. “He who sought to crush Israel with nine hundred chariots was himself crushed with one iron nail.”
Jdg_5:27. At (or between) her feet he bows, he falls, he lies down; at (between) her feet he bows, he falls; where he bows, there he falls down dead.] There is an accumulation of words in these two verses to express the deed now done, which marks it with special emphasis. Not that the perpetrator took delight in gratifying a thirst for revenge, but it brings out the thought, that he who had been so long the terror of Israel, now falls dead at a single blow. (Keil.) It is graphically rendered by Cassel—“At her feet he curls himself and falls, at her feet he lies, curls himself again and falls; and as he curls himself again, falls—dead!” Done too by a woman’s hand!
Jdg_5:28. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, etc.] This falling of the curtain on the death-scone, and transferring the reader’s thoughts the next moment to the gorgeous palace, to tell what is going on there, tends greatly to heighten the effect of the picture. An event so tragic in itself, viewed alone or from any point, becomes tenfold more terrible in the light of the awful contrast here presented. The abruptness of the transition, the appalling character of the contrast, the giving only of bold snatches of statement in the narrative, and leaving much for the imagination to fill up in its own way, all combine to render this one of the most effective dramatic representations it is possible to conceive. The word translated, “looked” means she bent forward eagerly in looking. Her son was accustomed to return a conqueror, and doubtless she thought he would so return now. But her thoughts seem to have troubled her. She must have heard something of the reports that went, that the mighty God of these Hebrews (of whom all the Canaanites knew but too well in the past), was on this occasion to put forth His power in fighting on their behalf, and if any thing were to occur like what took place in the days of Joshua, she felt there would indeed be reason for alarm. And another thing now disturbed her—the time for returning was fully come, but there was no appearance of her son, nor any tidings from the battlefield. She is in the upper airy room, standing at the window which commands a view of the road to a great distance. She looks keenly and listens, but no object is seen, and the rolling of the chariot-wheels is not heard. No triumphal procession fills up the view, but silence and solitude reign. In spite of her, a sad presentiment steals over the heart that all is not right. It was not accustomed to be thus. She cries through the lattice.] There is more of an anxious heart in that cry than she cares to acknowledge “Why does his chariot delay its coming? Why tarry the wheels?” The “lattice” here is the opening through which the cool air is admitted.
“She cries.”] It denotes feverish impatience, as if she had said, “Is he never coming?—why linger the steps of his chariot team?” How could she fail to be anxious, when he, the pride of his mother’s heart, in whom her every hope was built up, who had brought such renown to her house, the invincible Sisera, before whom the wretched Hebrew people had cowered in abject submission these twenty years, not daring to mutter or to peep, was now so long behind his time in returning from battle, and not a single hint has been received regarding the issue of the great conflict? Can it be possible that a stone has been thrown across his path, or that a spoke has been lost to his wheel?
Jdg_5:29. Her wise (used ironically) ladies] or honourable ladies in waiting—not princesses, as some make it; for Sisera was not king. These courtly sycophants are forward to offer their ingenious suggestions to account for the delay. It is caused by victory, not by defeat. What else in all reason could it be? With so vast an army, and Sisera at their head, how could it be otherwise? What other thought could be entertained? To scatter the down-trodden people would be but the work of a moment. It is the taking of an unusual quantity of spoil that accounts for their non-appearance. To search the bodies of the many slain, and to rob the homes of all their treasures must occupy time. The flattered mother allows herself to be persuaded, and her own second thoughts rise up within her to refute her first fears.
Jdg_5:30. Have they not been entirely successful? Are they not engaged in dividing the spoil? To every man a damsel, or two damsels.] This allusion, especially as being put in the foreground when describing the expected booty, casts a sad reflection on the character of the speakers, themselves females, and also on the corrupt state of the age when such things were customary. It is similar to the picture given in the Iliad; and generally among those nations that knew not God. To Sisera a booty of dyed (purple) garments-nay robes of double embroidery where gold and silver threads are woven upon the coloured ground.] On such a subject the female mind goes into minute details. “Meet for the necks of the spoil;” not, made originally for the necks of the spoiled, but now they are stripped of all; nor yet, suitable to put on the necks of the spoil, in reference to the rich garments sometimes worn by the captives; but, as in A. V. costly clothing suitable to adorn the necks of the conquerors.
In weaving such tinsel day-dreams as fancy might suggest, they fill up the time, and one hour succeeds another, when suddenly all is changed. A messenger of doom arrives, and brief but terrible is his report. The great battle is lost, Sisera’s mighty army is destroyed; while Sisera himself has met with a tragic death, and that too at the hands of a woman! So the curtain falls! * * *
Jdg_5:31. So let all thine enemies perish, etc.] The prophetess winds up with an expressive—Amen to the solemn visitation of God’s Providence, on the heads of those who dare to oppose His holy designs. It is prophetic as well as imprecatory, implying shall as well as let. It is in harmony with such passages as Rev_19:3; 1Co_16:22; Luk_16:25-26, and those Psalms which invoke destruction on God’s enemies. Such retribution is the appropriate reward of the incorrigibly wicked, and but for the great propitiation which has been made by Christ bearing the desert of our sins, it would still be the tone adopted by the God of Providence in all His dealings with men. But the language implies also the hopelessness of being able to fight against God and prosper, on the one hand, while on the other, those who have God upon their side shall march on their course after all trials and struggles are over, with the brightness and strength of the morning sun mounting up to mid-Heaven.
JAEL’S ACT
Was the conduct of Jael towards Sisera justifiable?
The deed of Jael towards Sisera, and that of Ehud towards Eglon, are so similar in character, that they must be justified on similar grounds. Much, therefore, of what has been said on the narrative in Jdg_3:15-30 will apply here (see p. 162–166). The case as regards Jael may be stated thus:—In her conduct towards Sisera, she seems to have been guilty both of treachery, and of murder, while yet her deed and the circumstances attending it are highly commended by Deborah, when speaking under the influence of the Spirit of God. Deborah is manifestly not speaking of herself. In Jdg_5:23, it is the voice of “the angel of the Lord,” that is heard making use of Deborah as the medium for pronouncing the curse on Meroz. It was no feeling of Deborah’s own that was expressed. Neither is the blessing, that was now pronounced on Jael, to be regarded as a thing done at her own instance. She was a prophetess, and was acknowledged in this whole transaction by Jehovah, as the medium for conveying the intimations of His will. We cannot, therefore, doubt that the blessing now conferred on Jael was really from God, and signified not only that her act was excusable, but was even meritorious in His sight. Besides, it is admitted on all hands, that the Book of Judges forms part of the inspired canon. Why then except this portion of it? The measure of commendation is most marked—“Blessed above women shall Jael be,” etc. The circumstances are detailed in order, from Jdg_5:24-27, as if her conduct described in those verses was matter fitted to hand down her name to the praise of future generations, and the whole account is wound up with the expression of an earnest wish by the prophetess, that all God’s enemies should in like manner perish. There can be no doubt that the prophetess regarded the death of Sisera, the enemy of God, as an act of which God approved. For the expression in Jdg_5:31, was practically saying—Amen—to Jael’s act.
This fact, that Jael’s conduct was approved by God, is sufficient to prove that it was not the ruthless act of a bloodthirsty woman. The account must be susceptible of some other interpretation. Sisera was not the personal enemy of Jael, so that the putting him to death could not be an act of personal revenge. As such, it could not have been approved of by God. Nor could it have been an act of pure barbarism, for that could not have been held up to the praise of posterity. It was indeed truly heroic, but, in Scripture, it is always the moral or religious aspect of a thing that renders it praiseworthy. At first sight, indeed, it seems to be the stronghanded act of one who has become ferocious, being stung to madness with a sense of the wrongs inflicted on her people and kindred, by the man who was now wholly in her power. In some such light do most commentators regard it:—
Jamieson says: “The taking of Sisera’s life by the hand of Jael was murder. It was a direct violation of all proper notions of honour and friendship, and for which it is impossible to conceive Jael to have had any other motive, than to gain favour with the victors. It was not divinely appointed nor sanctioned. (How does the speaker know?); and the eulogy must be regarded, not as pronounced on the moral character of the woman and her act, but on the public benefits which God would bring out of it. Yet Jael’s own name is distinctly held up to honour, and her act is circumstantially detailed in the text.”
Fausset holds, that “Jael’s sympathy with the oppressed, her faith in Israel’s God, and her bold execution of her dangerous undertaking, deserve all praise; though, as in Ehud’s case, there was the alloy of treachery and assassination.”
Keil says: “Though Jael acted with enthusiasm for the cause of God, and from religious motives, regarded her connection with the people of Israel as higher and more sacred than either the bond of peace with Jabin, or the dealings of hospitality of her tribe, yet her heroic deed cannot be acquitted of the sins of lying, treachery and assassination.” But how can we suppose that God would make use of means, which implied lying, treachery, and assassination to execute His holy purposes?
Lias denounces “the disgraceful treachery of Jael,” and adds, “we need not suppose that, because Deborah sung, and sung under the influence of inspiration, we must therefore accept her judgment on a point of morals.” Indeed! Is the weight of the Divine Spirit’s testimony weakened by passing through a human medium? Can we suppose a person to speak under the influence of the Spirit of God, and yet be in error on a point of morals?
The Speaker’s Commentary says, “Deborah speaks of this deed by the light of her own age, which did not make manifest the evil of guile and bloodshed; the light in our age does.” Was this deed, then, one of bloodthirstiness?
The Pulpit Commentary calls it an act of patriotic treachery. Oppression rouses the dark passions of the oppressed. It was a case where cruelty was rewarded with treachery. Being for the good of others, the act was less wicked than that which is entirely selfish in its motives.”
Dr. Cassel terms it “a demon-like deed, done in the spirit of a woman’s violence which knows no bounds. It also showed woman’s cunning. Yet her motives were mixed. It would have been treason against the covenant of her house with Israel, had she spared Israel’s sworn enemy. If spared he might have raised fresh troops, and continued to act as Israel’s destroyer. The freedom of the sacred nation, with which she had cast in her lot, was now trembling in the balance, and so she makes her decision.”
Edersheim calls her “a fierce woman with a dark purpose, and refers to the wild and weird character of the Kenites her people, as showing the instincts of a fierce race. To her every other consideration was nothing, so that she might avenge Israel, and destroy their great enemy.” If this were Jael’s real character, we do not see how it is possible for the Spirit of inspiration to have held her up, as one to be blessed by all future generations.
Far otherwise are we disposed to think of Jael and of her act. At the first glance of the case, it does appear surprising, that so many able and judicious writers should, when speaking of this case, have represented Jael as little better than a monster of wickedness, while Sisera is virtually assumed to be an unfortunate and very ill-used man. Even if Jael’s act had been one of bloodthirstiness (which we decidedly believe it was not), are we to determine her character from that one act, done in a moment, under very peculiar circumstances, to have been ferocious and fiendish, while we pass over, and drop only a word of pity for her victim, though he had been guilty of bloodshed and atrocities of all kinds for the long period of twenty years, and that too over the breadth of a whole nation. True, the fact that Sisera should have committed a thousand murders does not justify Jael in committing one. But we protest against an unbroken current of condemnation coming down on the head of Jael for this one act, while not a syllable is said of a just retribution for the frightful villanies committed wholesale, by the wretch whom Jael now crushed.
Many considerations require to be taken into account in order to form a just estimate of Jael’s conduct; some general, and some particular:—
I. General considerations.
1. The character of the times in which Jael lived. They were stern times; when in private life men had to “scorn delights and live laborious days,” and in more public life it was customary to use bloody hands, and to look on with unpitying eyes. It was a time when oppression, cruelty, and murder were rampant in the land, and human life had lost half its value. “The ear was pained, the soul was sick with every day’s report of wrong and outrage, with which earth was filled.” And stern times lead to stern deeds. It was Israel’s “iron age,” and the “iron had entered into the soul.” “Desperate evils lead to desperate remedies.”
These Old Testament times were also days, when as yet the great means of propitiating the Divine anger had not been found, and when, in consequence, a certain aspect of severity characterised all God’s dealings with men. The whole tone of life was more stern.
2. No breach of God’s moral law can, under any circumstances, be permitted Right and wrong have certain fixed boundaries in all ages, which are not removable. It can never be right to deceive, or to utter what is false. It must always be wrong to do murder. Treachery cannot at any time be justified. We dare not “do evil, that good may come.” Neither can we act on the principle, that “no faith is to be kept with heretics.” Nor may any creature of himself usurp the prerogative, of taking vengeance on a man for his sins against his God, however glaring they may seem, unless he is specially commissioned by God to do so. It may be as clear as the sun, that the man is sinning with a high hand against his God, and deserves to be cut off for his sins, but his neighbour has no right, out of zeal for his God, to take the punishment of that man into his own hand. “Vengeance is mine! I will repay saith the Lord.” The question is not, what does the man deserve? but, to whom is he responsible?
3. Look now at—The special character of Sisera’s sin. That Sisera was counted a great sinner before God, and that his tragic death was a retribution sent upon him for his sin, there can be no manner of doubt. But what was the particular phase of his conduct that made his sin so heinous? It was not merely that he was a tyrant and an oppressor. It must always be remembered that the standard by which things are judged, in this stirring history of the times of the Judges, is not what is commonly used between rival nations when they have their victories or their defeats. Everything in the history of this people of Israel, was connected with the honour of Jehovah before all the nations of the earth. They were the people of Jehovah. By them and their history His name was known. To touch them for wanton mischief was to lay unhallowed bands on His sacred property. It was to meddle with His jewels—those whom He was bound to protect, as being employed to set forth the glory of His name in all the earth.
Of this the nations were fully apprised, from the days of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage onward. They were all duly informed by the wonderful history which God gave to that people, that His name and their name were inseparably bound up together, that what was done to them was done to Him, and that any act of dishonour, oppression, or cruelty shown to them, He, as the head feels for the suffering members, felt as done to Himself. That this people had many sins, and that for these sins, they deserved chastisement was indeed most true. But that did not alter the obligation of the nations to look on them as a sacred people to Jehovah, while He Himself so regarded them. If the jewels had got rusted, and required to pass through a process of refining, that was a matter for their owner himself to decide. But for others to oppress, and grind them to the dust, while they were regarded by Jehovah as His own people, and while they had the honour of His name to maintain on the earth, was to provoke Him to anger and awaken His jealousy for His Holy name.
Hence Sisera’s sin consisted in the fact, that he, though fully warned as to the character of the God of Israel, and of the relation in which this people stood to their God, did yet, to serve wicked passions or wicked purposes of his own, dare to act as an enemy to Israel and therefore to their God, under whose protection they lay; he dared to touch God’s property, God’s jewels, God’s children; he dared to give the worst of treatment to a people so sacred in the eyes of their God, to treat them with cruelty, oppression, and spoliation, and that for the long period of twenty years—and all this he did out of enmity to the God of Israel, and in bitter hatred to His name.
4. Another general consideration was that this was the day of final decision. The time of Israel’s chastisement was over. They had been brought to repentance and renewed trust in their God; and, according to His promise, God arose for their deliverance. In the Person of the Angel-Jehovah, He takes His place at the head of Israel and their army. A summons is given to all to take their sides. Israel’s God and His people are on the one side; Sisera and his large army are on the other. All who opposed Israel this day also opposed the God of Israel, and were counted by Him as His enemies.
Through all Israel it was known that this was a day for taking sides. From one end of the land to the other the call was heard, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” There was an express command for ten thousand men to follow Barak out of Naphtali and Zebulun, yet many more went of their own accord, for all volunteers were accepted. Nay, many who did not volunteer were reproved and put in the list of dishonour for their neutrality or indifference. But Sisera and his army stood in direct opposition. To sympathise with Sisera, therefore, or in any way to help him this day, by allowing him to escape, or otherwise, was to succour the enemy of the God of Israel when he was taking vengeance on him for his sins. It was, indeed, to take the side of God’s enemy against God, when He was vindicating the glory of His great name. Hence the conduct of the people of Meroz was most daring. They allowed God’s enemy to escape, while He was in the act of vindicating His character against His enemies.
II. These general remarks will prepare us for now looking at the special considerations and motives by which Jael was guided in acting the part which she did on this important occasion:—
1. She deeply felt the responsibility of her circumstances. She could appreciate the fact, that the battle was not merely between two human captains, but was really between the Angel-Jehovah and His enemies. She knew that God had now returned to His people, and that, through Deborah, He had given directions about the whole of this battle. She had heard of the terrific thunderstorm, and the mighty movement of the elements of nature against Sisera’s host, the very “stars in their courses fighting against Sisera;” and now here was the very man put in her way, against whom all this artillery of the Divine anger had been directed—could she, dared she, let him go in peace? It was no longer the day of forbearance; it was the day of the Lord’s reckoning with His enemies, when He was “laying judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet,” when every loyal subject of His government, as well as every element in nature, was expected to act as an instrument in His hand to do the part assigned him to do in accomplishing the Lord’s purpose.
Jael felt that she was now solemnly called on to make her decision, whether for the Lord, or for His enemy. This was, at the moment, the supreme consideration which overshadowed all other thoughts, and she felt that whatsoever sacrifices might have to be made, all other things must give way before it. In reply to the question thus imperiously put before her—Be for the Lord, or for His enemy—she goes wholly in for the name, and the people of her God, at the expense of violating the ordinary rules of hospitality, of having abuse poured on her name for the commission of a tragic deed, and of running the terrible risk of awakening the wrath of so powerful a king as Jabin, with whom too her house was at peace. But where the honour of her God was concerned, all other considerations were of no account. For this is she so highly commended. She did not seek this position; it was a most trying one; but it was forced upon her; the alternative was put sharply before her, without the possibility of her avoiding it. The circumstances had to her the force of a call of duty, and she nobly rose with the occasion. But this was only one element in the case. We believe that—
2. She felt she was commissioned by God to put Sisera to death. It is not so expressly said in the narrative; but many things must have taken place which are not expressly mentioned in the account given. It is the principle on which Scripture narrative is told, to give it in a very abridged form, with many details left out. The circumstance, therefore, of its not being mentioned in the narrative, is no proof that Jael was not commissioned of God to do as she did. On the other hand, had she not been so commissioned, her act must have been one of murder; and had it been so, it could never have been held up to the admiration of posterity, as this deed undoubtedly has been. Jael’s act also corresponds with the now well known fact, that the Lord would “deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Now when he had been thrown in her way, it may have seemed to her as if this was the finger of God’s Providence pointing out her duty. That alone, however, could not have been regarded as a commission, it was but a confirmation going along with other things. Sisera’s day was now come. It was the Lord’s reckoning day with him for his oppression of His people. And all the arrangements made are of the Lord. The sword of Barak is turned against him, and all the instruments that might be of use in his destruction, all along the course which he took, are turned against him. The hailstorm, the lightnings, the winds, the waters of the district, especially the swelling of the brook Kishon, and now the house of a friendly tribe. Jael then felt she was obeying a Divine command in acting as she did. She must have been instigated by some “instinctu Dei arcano.” to put Sisera to death.
3. She knew that Sisera was now devoted by Israel’s God to destruction, at the hands of Israel. Sisera’s destruction was synonymous with Israel’s deliverance. It was really God’s answer to their prayers. But it was also God’s reckoning with His own enemy. The oppression and cruelty which this proud heathen had exercised towards Israel, though made use of by God for the chastisement of His people, was really meant in a very different sense by the oppressor. His only purpose was to bring down to a state of degrading servitude, or to entire destruction, a people whom he hated both in themselves and in their God. And this was done in the face of all the warnings which Jehovah had given to the nations, not to touch this people. At first God reserved His judgments. He made use of Sisera, first as a scourge to chasten His people; but now the time was come to deal with him as an enemy. The day of retribution for his great sin had come, and he must now know what it is to have the God of Israel for his enemy. Hence the announcement made to Barak was, “I will draw unto thee Sisera and his multitude, and I will deliver him into thine hand.”
This was virtually saying, that his life was now forfeited to Israel by God’s own arrangement. It was not like the case of a man taking his chances of the battle in the open field. Sisera was now brought forth by God, that he might die for his crimes against Israel and their God. It was in some respects like the position of Cain, when he felt that everyone around him was at liberty to slay him. It is clear, that it could not have been wrong in Barak to put Sisera to death. But Barak only represented the nation, and what was said to him was virtually said to the whole of the oppressed people. What, therefore, was not wrong for Barak to do, could not be wrong for any Israelite to do. Sisera was now fighting against the whole nation, and their God. How could it be wrong in the nation, or any one in the nation, to fight against him? It was acting in self defence to do so, when his purpose was to reduce every Israelite to a state of bondage or death. Had Jael now spared him, how much future oppression and cruelty might have resulted to Israel from the act!
But though every Israelite had some justification, in taking action against Sisera on this occasion, on the ground of self-defence, the chief consideration which justified Jael’s deed, was that Sisera was doomed to destruction for the public dishonour he had poured on Jehovah’s name, by the treatment he had given to His people. This was a deeper criminality than that of common murder. It was a defiance of the God of Israel, a profanation of the great name—Jehovah, and treating with insult and cruelty wholesale the people who represented Him on the earth. Murder is taking the life of a fellow worm, but Sisera’s conduct was an attempt to rob the great “I am” of His holy name! For this, sentence was virtually passed on Sisera by the Ruler of Providence, and he was delivered into the hands of Israel to receive a fit retribution for his sins.
4. We believe then that Jael’s principal motive in this deed, was to vindicate the honour of Jehovah’s name, and serve the interests of His Church in the world, by setting His people free from the yoke of the oppressor. Her act was done not to wreak any private vengeance of her own, but strictly in obedience to a Divine commission given to her, so that she was not at liberty to harbour Sisera, or to do otherwise than she did, for it was the day of the Lord’s vindication of his own glory in the sight of the heathen. The very existence of God’s cause on the earth seemed to require the death of this man, for had he lived and carried out his schemes successfully, the issue would have been the annihilation of that cause. Preferring the God of Israel to all other gods, she felt that by obeying the commission given to her, she was striking a blow for the redemption of His great and Holy name.
One question still remains—Did Jael mean to deceive Sisera? Why did she go out to meet him, and receive him in so friendly a manner into her tent? She must have known it was Sisera, and that he was a fugitive from the battlefield. For she must have watched with intense interest how the day went, and had the earliest information that could be supplied. She must have known it was Sisera, from having seen him on former occasions, and now he would very likely have given the information himself. Why did she bid him welcome to her tent, and even encourage him not to fear? Nay, why did she act so decidedly in showing him the rites of hospitality, and give him the best which her house could afford; and so offer the strongest assurance, which the member of a nomad tribe could give, that he was safe while under her roof? The chief difficulty is, that all these circumstances are detailed along with the tragic act, and on the whole put together, the blessing seems to be pronounced. Was all this really sanctioned by the Spirit of God, that now rested on Deborah? How can we possibly justify Jael in saying what she did not mean, or speaking falsely to gain the confidence of a man, when she meant to take his life.
If the narrative had been given in full, doubtless the difficulties would have been greatly relieved, if not entirely removed. As it is, some explanations may be given.
(1.) It is not said that she agreed to tell the lie that Sisera put into her mouth, in Jdg_4:20. She made no reply to his request.
(2.) She acted according to the custom of her race in receiving him into her tent. It was a fixed custom with the Arab races to show hospitality to strangers, especially when in very needy circumstances. “No one can repel with honour from the tent a stranger who claims hospitality, nor usually does anyone desire so to do.” [Pict. Bible in loco.] But she seems to have impressed on his mind that he was secure while under her roof. How does this consist with her intention to put him to death? The only explanation is to suppose that—
(3.) No intention to put him to death was yet formed in her mind. This is not only possible but probable. How many surprises come upon her all at once! How proudly Sisera went forth in the morning! What a huge bannered host gathered around him! What a small army lay on Mount Tabor in opposition! How hopeless for them to cope with such a formidable host as those now collected by the waters of Megiddo! Yet but a few hours pass, and that mighty force of men ranged in battle array, the image of incalculable strength, melts away like the baseless pictures of a dream. A hundred elements as in a moment, come down upon them from all quarters, and a frightful and rapid destruction takes place. The army is utterly ruined, and the general is now a solitary fugitive, flying across the hills for his life. Now he appears full of terror, without a solitary attendant, hungry, weary, and athirst, glad to enter the most humble dwelling for refuge. What a series of striking surprises must Jael have experienced; first to have heard so much of the terrible disaster, and then to have seen the renowned captain of the great army himself at her very threshold in such fearful plight? Is it at all likely, that she should, in a moment, with those mighty rocking changes going on around her, have formed any plot at all in her mind? Had she any time to weigh in her mind what was the best course to pursue in such unparalleled and altogether unexpected circumstances? Is it not far more probable that she would take the usual course adopted towards strangers first, and invite Sisera into her tent, giving him the usual rites of hospitality, and afterwards reflect more at leisure as to what was her duty to do. Having got a little time to reflect, all the circumstances, as we have described them, would rise quickly to her view, pointing to the death of Sisera—the enemy of the Lord and his people, “by the hand of a woman,” as an event arranged by God Himself to take place in connection with the issue of the battle. At the same moment, by some Divine impulse, a commission may have been given her by God to execute the Divine sentence. This thought, that she was now under Divine command, would supersede all other considerations and lead her with calm purpose to inflict the fatal blow.
There seems, in fact, to have been no premeditation to bring about this death; and it is only in this way that we acquit Jael of treachery in her conduct. But, however we explain it, we believe that she herself felt at the time, there were overpowering reasons urging her to act as she did.
MAIN HOMILETICS.—Jdg_5:23-31
CONTRASTS IN THE DAY OF THE LORD
I. Special days of the Lord are needed.
“Days of the Lord”—a phrase so often used by the prophets—are different from common days. They are days when God makes some striking manifestations of His true character, in correction of the erroneous and defective views into which men are ever falling, from the remarkable forbearance which he usually exercises towards them in his Providential rule. By some strong act or acts, God rises up and declares what is due to His own Holy name. Though on ordinary, as well as special occasions, He hates sin with a great hatred, He is by nature so “slow to wrath,” that even when men sin against Him many times, and that, too, with a high hand, there are for a long while no signs that He is angry, or likely to inflict threatened punishment. He acts as one asleep; though all the time the motive is one of the richest mercy. He has no delight in the destruction, or the misery of His creatures. “He wills not that any should perish.” His inclination is to give pardons to the penitent, rather than retribution to the incorrigible. Hence He waits long, without measuring out their due deserts to the wicked.
But men misinterpret the Divine silence, and wax bolder in sin. They begin to imagine that God is such an one as themselves, and is practically indifferent to their sins. They begin to regard His threatenings as a dead letter, or that, if they are still to be looked at, His mercies are so great, that they will not allow Him to proceed very far with the work of judgment. Thus they go on adding sin to sin, until the fear of God becomes dissipated before their eyes. There is a letting down of what is due to the name of God. Men get settled down in the idea, that God does not practically feel towards sin, as in His written word He declares He does; and, in their interpretation of the threatened penalty, they either greatly minimise its meaning, or cast it aside altogether.
Days of the Lord are thus needed for the vindication of the Divine character. His Providence must sometimes visibly go as far as His word. It must be seen that He makes no abatement of His claims, because of His long silence, while His character must be cleared from the gross misconceptions which men have formed of it, from the long toleration extended to them in the past.
In the present case, a Day of the Lord was needed—
1. To bring men back to just views of what is due to God. (a.) For the Israelites, the long oppression of the Canaanites under Jabin, was a day of the Lord. Then God exhibited practically in His Providence, what He had long told His people so emphatically in His word, that He is a Jealous God, and is much displeased with the sin of their having any other God. He then showed that He could cast them off, notwithstanding His covenant; that He could go over to the side of the enemy, and fight against them, until they were not only defeated, but humiliated and crushed. Yet His faithfulness did not fail, for on their coming back to Him in penitence, He remembered His holy covenant. The end however was gained. They felt at last, and acknowledged it fully, that it was a terrible evil to depart from the living God, that He alone was to be feared and held in reverence, that all the gods of the nations were but dumb idols, while the God of Israel’s favour was to them all in all. Their ideas of the sacred character of their God, of His majesty, holiness, loving-kindness, truth and justice, became raised to the old standard of highest reverence; and they owned, that His claims on the love and obedience of the whole heart, were His simple due.
(b.) The oppressors also had to pass through a very rigid discipline, in getting a rectification of their views of Israel’s God. Long had they railed at His name, mocked His weakness, sneered at His laws and observances, and persecuted at will His people. But now what God so great in power as the Ruler of Israel, who is served by the very thunder and lightnings of heaven, by the sweeping whirlwind, and the rushing mighty waters! In the swift, overwhelming, and irremediable overthrow of the mightiest army which Canaan could produce, and that too through means of a mere handful of patriots, aided by the elements of nature, a grand demonstration was made of the fact, that Jehovah was the only true God, and that He was infinitely superior to all other gods which the nations worshipped. Then men learned to say, “Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth, by whom the actions of men are weighed.” “Let the God of Israel but arise, and His enemies shall be scattered; as smoke is driven, so are they driven; as wax melted before the fire, so do they perish. He cutteth off the spirit of princes; He is terrible to the kings of the earth.”
(c.) For all spectators of that generation, how greatly was the standard of the fear of God raised! The shock of this mighty act was felt, not only through all Israel, but among all the surrounding nations. The God of Jacob whom they had begun so generally to despise, now rose up before all as the one great reality, amid a countless number of empty nothings. The whole earth kept silence before Him. There was no God that could deliver after this manner. With what a weight of sanction was the name Jehovah surrounded henceforth for all the men of that age! The shadow of the events of this day extended over forty years. Psa_9:20; Psa_83:18; Psa_94:15; Psa_78:65-66; Psa_73:20.
2. Such a day was needed to grant the promised deliverance to His people. The standing promise of Jehovah to Israel was, that He would be their God, and on this footing would secure them in possession of the land. For their sins, He acted for a time, as if he had forgotton this promise, and allowed the enemy to overrun the country, and practically to dispossess Israel of their own territory. But now they were penitent and earnest suppliants at His footstool, and it was in the spirit of the covenant, that He should return to them, when they returned to Him (Lev_26:40-45; Deu_30:15). Hence a special time was needed to make a public display of the Divine favour for this people, to prove that they had not been cast off, but that their God was faithful as ever to act the part of their Divine Protector, and deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. “Though he visit transgression with the rod, yet He will not suffer His faithfulness to fail.”
II. Contrasts of character and destiny in the day of the Lord.
1. Those guilty of indecision on the day of decision. The day of the Lord’s decision was virtually a day when all things were taken according to the strict rule of justice. The acts or decisions made this day determined their character, and as they now showed themselves, so would they receive treatment in the future. The first case set before us in the paragraph is that of Meroz, who were specially noted this day as holding their hand, when they were called on in the most solemn manner to join in the discomfiture of the enemies of the Lord. They draw back undecided in the day of decision; and by that step they had their character fixed for the future. Though so strongly urged to decide, they yet showed no disposition to do anything; which proved in the most decisive manner, that they were not on the Lord’s side in heart (see pp. 284, 285).
The destiny of such is to have the curse of the Lord resting on them—or to be “cursed with a curse”—i.e. emphatically cursed. As the effect of this curse, the city has long since ceased to be. Its very site is unknown. Its name has become unknown in history; and the only vestige of it which remains to tell that once it was, is this curse of the angel of the Lord, announcing that it should no longer continue to exist in God’s world. Such is the fate of those who, however urgently dealt with by argument, yet doggedly refuse to devote themselves to His service. These people virtually turned their backs on the call which the God of Israel now made to them. And the higher the cause is which is to be served, the blacker is the treason which abandons it. Like the cursed fig tree, Meroz began at once to dwindle away.
2. Those who are zealous for God at all risks. This we believe was the spirit which Jael now exhibited. The principal motive, which influenced her to do the deed, was the Divine commission given her, and the end which she sought to gain was the glory of the Lord, in the breaking of the fetters upon His people, and the establishment of the reign of righteousness in the land. For this motive and end, kept steadily amid, doubtless, a conflict of many other motives, is she marked out for pre-eminent honour. It was at a moment of great peril that she decided, and this increased the virtue of her meritorious act. In any case, we dare not curse those whom the Lord has blessed.
The destiny of those who are ready to risk everything for God is, to have a special Divine blessing resting on them. As Jael highly honoured God by her conduct, so she is now highly honoured of Him. For the stand she made this day, her name has been preserved for everlasting honour, in the one really immortal Book of Time. Among all nations shall it become known, and wherever it is known, it will be with blessings heaped upon it. “Them that honour me will I honour.” For the sake of one noble act, how many names have found a niche of honour in the Book of God! The good king Melchizedeck, who shows himself for one short hour, and then retires to the darkness; the unselfish Onesiphorus, who did the office of a faithful friend to Christ’s servant in prison; the God-fearing Obadiah, who acted similarly by the Lord’s prophets, in the perilous times of the wicked Jezebel; or, to take one case somewhat similar to that of Jael, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, who, by one stern act, in a time of public sin, turned away the wrath of God from the people, so that they were not all slain (Gen_14:18-20 : 2Ti_1:16-18 1Ki_18:13; Num_25:7-8).
3. Defiant enemies of the Lord, and their sympathisers. Such were Sisera and his mighty host, together with Sisera’s household, who awaited his return. They all had a common sympathy in the humiliation of Israel, and in showing contempt for Israel’s God. In Psalms 83 there is mention made of God’s enemies combining together against His name, and His people alike—to cut off the latter, so that the very name of this people might cease (Jdg_5:4), and in doing this, they really wished to show their hatred against Israel’s God. (Jdg_5:2-5; Jdg_5:12). Among these enemies, or rather as a parallel case to theirs, are mentioned Sisera and Jabin at the brook Kishon (Jdg_5:9-10). The kingdom over which Jabin ruled had already felt the power of Jehovah’s arm in the past, when Hazor and its king were utterly destroyed in the days of Joshua (Jos_11:10-11). Besides this crushing blow inflicted on themselves, there was the long series of similar blows inflicted on all the other nations of the Canaanites, North and South, so that the true character of the God of Israel could not be misunderstood by them. Yet they dared to attack the people of God, among whom God had set His name, and wickedly treated them as slaves and the very refuse of the earth. Their custom probably was, and long had been, to blaspheme the name of Israel’s God and strive to root it out of the earth. And now, on this special day, when it was given forth by public proclamation, that Israel’s God was risen up out of His place to deliver His people, and that He was about to put Himself at their head to fight their battle, Sisera shows himself a defiant enemy to the last, by mustering a huge host to join issue with Israel’s mighty king.
All such are necessarily doomed to destruction. They have decided to treat God as their enemy, and after due warning given, and forbearance exercised, the only possible issue of such a conflict is, to bring down the Divine wrath upon them. God sets His face against them, for a moment, and they are ruined. For who can stand before His anger? “He looketh on the earth and it trembleth; He toucheth the hills and they smoke. All that were now gathered against the Lord and His anointed, were driven like chaff before the whirlwind.” “The enemies of the Lord became as the fat of lambs; they were consumed; into smoke did they consume away.” (Psa_7:11-17; Psa_11:6). Sisera fled from the sword of Barak, and the nail in the hand of Jael did strike him through. (Job_20:24).
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS.—Jdg_5:23-31
I. Crucial Testing-days are hastening on for all.
(1.) In this world there are certain times, when God in His Providence applies to every man’s character a crucial test; when he is searched as with lighted candles, and the hidden state of his heart is made manifest. The very channels along which his thoughts flow, are seen and known by himself, if not by others, and he stands discovered before his own eye, as to the secret motives by which his conduct is regulated. All props are taken away, and he is left to stand solely on the foundation which he has really chosen. Then it is known whether he has really determined to be for God at all hazards, and whether he has cast in his lot with the Saviour, at the expense of having to renounce all other friends and refuges. Such a time occurs when he is visited with some dangerous illness, which brings him to the borders of the eternal world, and he feels how helpless fellow-creatures are, in view of possible death. It is also a testing season, when he meets with some severe reverse of fortune, when his worldly prospects are dashed, if not altogether blighted, and when his bright sunny hopes all fade like a dissolving view. Also, when for the first time he makes a public profession of religion, and begins to wear Christ’s Name. Also, when he is called on to choose his appropriate companionships—religious or irreligious. And once more, the time when he feels he must decide what habits he will form, those which imply self-denial and the fear of God, or those which include self-indulgence and love of the world, but without Christ and with the loss of a good conscience.
(2.) In the great future. We are informed that “after death is the judgment”—that when dead the beggar “was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom,”—and that “the rich man in hell lifted up his eyes being in torment.” We are also told, that the penitent thief was at death to “go with the Saviour into paradise,” while of Judas we are told, that when he committed suicide “he went to his own place.” Thus, it would appear, that at the moment of quitting this world, the soul has its sentence passed upon it, according to its character for good or evil. Also at the end of time, we are assured that “all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body,” etc. Then “the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”
II. The prosperity of the wicked is short.
It seemed a great triumph for the King of Hazor to grind to the dust that once mighty people, who under Joshua, caused all the nations of Canaan to tremble, and all but annihilated the Hazor of that day. Now he could wreak his vengeance upon them at will, for many years, and doubtless looked forward to their final extinction under the iron rule of Sisera. “But He that sitteth in the heavens did laugh, the Lord had them in derision.” How soon is “the candle of the wicked put out.” “He was great in power, and did spread himself like a green bay tree.” The day of the Lord comes round. “And he has passed away, and lo, he is not; yea he is sought for, but he cannot be found.” “How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.” Yet these men but yesterday were “compassed about with pride as a chain, their eyes did stand out with fatness, and they did set their mouth against the heavens.”
When they think themselves secure from evil then suddenly destruction comes. They do not “watch” nor “number their days.” Witness Belshazzar, Herod, and “the fool” in Christ’s parable. How quickly did Abel’s blood cry for vengeance! and that of Naboth in Jezreel the moment that Ahab went to take possession! Jeroboam was stricken while he spoke (1Ki_13:4). “The pleasures of sin are but for a season.”
It is a remarkable fact that in the history of Rome, beginning with the period after the Augustan era, over 500 years, as many as 74 emperors came to the throne, of whom only 19 died a natural death and 55 were murdered—having an average reign of 6½ years only for each!
“The prosperity of fools destroys them.” It is because some men are so prosperous, that their life is more brief than otherwise it would be. Prosperity exposes to envy and hatred; and to this cause more than to any other did the wearers of the Imperial Purple at Rome hold their short tenure of office. Sometimes the same man will touch the greatest height of prosperity, and the lowest depth of misery, within the space of a few hours. Henry the Fourth of France, when in the zenith of his power, was struck by a blow from a traitorous hand, and despatched in his coach; while his bloody corpse was forsaken even by his servants, and lay exposed an unseemly spectacle to all. There seemed indeed, but a moment between the adorations, and the oblivion, of that great prince, “all flesh is grass.”
Prosperity also often leads to habits of self-indulgence, which speedily terminate in death. Thus Alexander the Great, could conquer the world, but could not subdue his own evil passions, and quickly they conquered him. We knew a man who was accustomed to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow for many years. Suddenly, through the death of a friend, he came into the possession of a large fortune. He gave up his habits of industry, got into the hands of evil companions, who led him rapidly on the down hill path, and, though in the prime of life, within two years, he was laid in his grave.
III. His supreme folly.
How inexpressibly foolish is it for a man, who has the power of casting his thoughts into the future, and foreseeing the consequences of his acts, to spend a short career of some twenty years like Sisera, in acting the part of a proud tyrant over a helpless people, at the risk of incurring the wrath of that terrible God, who he knew, if it pleased Him, could at any moment rise from His place and consign him to irremediable destruction! “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!” How can it fare with him that striketh against a rock, but that his bones should be broken, and his purpose utterly fail? “Who hath hardened himself against God and hath prospered?” What infatuation is it for men, when they get a brief moment of power, to rush against the “thick bosses of the Almighty’s buckler!” With one ray of that supernatural glory with which He was surrounded, could the ascended Jesus, now at the helm of universal government, and having infinite power at His command, have consumed the proud horseman that was on his way to Damascus to persecute those whom the Saviour loved. Yet the worm dares to rear itself against an Omnipotent arm! In tones of pity it is whispered to Him that it is hard to strike against the solid rocks!
In the grey mist of an early summer morning, a troop of horse are seen stealing over a stretch of Scottish moorland, among the moss-hags and wild heath, when suddenly they came on the object of their search. John Brown, of Priesthill, had just finished earnest and fervent prayers with, and for, his family circle, showing more than usual of the wrestling spirit, and had gone to a little distance from his home to begin work for the day. He was taken back to his house, and in the presence of those most dear to him, was told by the bloody Graham of Claverhouse to go to his prayers, for instantly he must die. The most in-offensive of men, most loyal to his God, most just and true in his dealings with his fellow men, with nothing to lay to his charge, but the one circumstance that he dared to worship God according to his own conscience, is told by a representative of law and order, that, for this great offence, he must die, and at a moment’s notice! The command was given to fire—but not a hand was moved to do the work. The callous-hearted leader then himself walked up to his victim, and shot him through the head! The cruelly-used widow put to him the stinging question—“How will you answer in the future for this day’s work?” to which he replied—“To men I can easily answer, and as for God, I shall take Him in my own hand!” We mention this incident, because the names of Sisera and of Claverhouse are fit to be associated together on the same page; and to show the supreme infatuation of both in running such a monstrous career of wickedness, and raising fearful clouds of wrath against them in the future, with scarcely even a shadow of recompense in the present.
IV. His present misery. We cannot think that Sisera could have been a happy man, even at the head of his magnificent army, with myriads of warriors ready to obey his word of command. There was always the consciousness that he was engaged in the work of bloodshed, or trampling down the rights of others—that he was carrying bitter grief or absolute desolation into the homes of a nation, and that he was running up a fearful reckoning with the God of the Hebrews, if He should ever rise up and call him to account. It is impossible to have any pure happiness within a man’s inner nature, while there is a giving way to the darker and viler passions of the heart. Hence it is said, “there is no peace to the wicked.” Even at the best, there are snares in all their mercies; curses, also, and crosses attend all their comforts; and the curse of God follows them in every avenue of wickedness. They carry about with them their prison wherever they go, so that they are always in chains. And when any sudden flash crosses their path, or when any threatening sound makes itself heard in their ears, they feel as if the messenger were on their track, that is sent to summon them to appear at the bar of the Judge. It is but a troubled happiness which the wicked man has at the best: he draws it from impure springs, and he is liable to be robbed of it, at any moment, by forces over which he has no control.
V. His preparation for future misery.
(1.) He lives in the neglect of the great end of life. He has no aim in life but that of living for his own pleasure or profit. There is no ever-present conviction with him, that he has to spend his time chiefly for God, and that he is responsible for doing the many duties which God has set before him in His word.
(2.) He is every day provoking God to anger. By direct and positive acts of sin, or by many omissions in the discharge of duty. By forgetfulness of God, casting off His fear, and in many ways by listening to the world, instead of diligently hearkening to the voice of His word. By banishing God from his thoughts, as far as may be, and giving his affections to a thousand other objects rather than to the greatest, kindest, and best of Beings.
(3.) By delaying to take up the great question of the soul’s reconciliation with God. Every hour’s delay of this great matter is a slight put on the infinite sacrifice which God has made on men’s behalf. It is making light of the offer of boundless love. It is this, which under the name of unbelief, or not believing, is said to form the main ground of men’s condemnation in the gospel record.
(4.) Because he is always adding to his account before God, without in any way reducing it. Though, as time passes, he begins to forget the old sins, not one of them is really disposed of, while he hesitates to accept of God’s terms of reconciliation. When a man is hard pressed for money, and is on the verge of bankruptcy, he gets his bill renewed, but he well knows, that this is not a real payment; and, if it should be renewed again and again, there is still no payment made but only more interest added to the capital, making the debt larger and larger. Thus is it always till the Saviour is really embraced, and the debt is finally and really paid, on condition that the sinner gives himself entirely into His hands.
(5.) Because he is wasting on trifles the time which should be given to the saving of his soul. It is as if a man were to cut down, into chips, a strong oaken plank which is thrown to him to enable him to get across a yawning gulf, when there is no other means of escape. Is it wise for a man to busy himself in painting the door, when the house is on fire? or to spend much time at the toilet, when he is not sure whether his head shall stand on his shoulders another day? Is it fit that he should spend all his care in deciding what kind of dress he should wear, and to neglect a deadly cancer that has already begun to eat into his vitals?
(6.) Because he puts worldly enjoyment in the place of the enjoyment of God. Of worldlings it is said, “they take the timbril and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ; they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.” But there is “no fear of God before their eyes,” and no love of God in their hearts. “They do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.” “The world is in their hearts.” God will not dwell in hearts where the world is on the throne. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” By allowing a usurper to reign over them, the wicked thus banish God from their presence, and when they cross the boundary line between the present and the future world, that condition becomes fixed, and so they remain for ever under the misery of being banished from God, the fountain of all life and joy.
Thus he carries with him the seeds of future misery wherever he goes, in his ungodly habits and preferences, superadded to his acts of transgression, or his omissions of the performance of duty. His only future must be to be deprived of all the smiles of his God, and to lie under His frown. This is misery.
VI. The wicked’s fearful end. “I saw the wicked buried,” says the wise moralist—and he might have added
(1.) I thought of his fair beginning—the good start he made in life; a bright morning, full of promise; a buoyant heart and mind full of joyful anticipations.
(2.) Next of his brilliant opening career. How he made several decided successes, as he entered into public life; how the world came around him with its smiles; how the tide of good fortune flowed to him; how he was flattered on every side, and marks of distinction were freely conferred.
(3.) Then I thought of the insidious influence of so many smiles and flatteries; of the danger of carrying so full a cup of temporal good things; of the many snares that Satan planted in his path; and of the persistent temptations with which on all sides he was surrounded.
(4.) I thought how, a little farther on in his career, he had already become the slave of “divers lusts and passions which war against the soul;” how he had turned a deaf ear to the warning voice of wisdom; how he had forsaken the uphill path which conducts to life and to God, and had chosen to turn aside into the by-paths and flowery meadows of sin, while fortune yet showered her favours upon him with lavish hand. And finally
(5.) I thought how rapidly he had descended from a lofty height into the valley of years, to fall among the thorns and quagmires that lie at the close of a worldling’s life. I thought of his desertion by the world, his abandonment by God, his being “held by the cords of his sins,” his being the prey of an accusing conscience, and at last entering the dark Jordan, without any provision made to save himself from foundering in the sullen waters.
1. At the best his career ends in vanity.
In some form or other, he substitutes the world for God, which in the nature, of the case, must terminate in vanity.
“’Tis no hyperbole, O man, if thou be told
You delve for dross, with mattocks made of gold.
Affections are too costly to bestow
Upon the fair-faced nothings here below.
The eagle scorns to fall down from on high
(The proverb saith) to pounce upon a silly fly;
And can a Christian leave the face of God
T’embrace the earth and dote upon a clod?”
“The Romans painted Honour in the temple of Apollo, as representing the form of a man, with a rose in his right hand, a lily in his left, above him a marigold, and under him, wormwood, with the inscription (Levate) ‘consider.’ The rose meant that man flourishes as a flower, and soon withers; the lily denoted the favour of man, which is easily lost. The marigold showed the fickleness of prosperity. The wormwood indicated that all delights of the world are sweet in execution, but bitter in retribution. Consider what a lesson of vanity is here?”
“What a deal of pains doth the spider take in weaving her web to catch flies! She runneth much, and often up and down, hither and thither; she wastes her own body to make a curious cabinet, and when she hath finished it, in the twinkling of an eye, the sweep of the besom brings it to the ground, destroying herself and it together, with one stroke. Thus it is with worldly men. They carp and care, toil and moil in this world, which they must soon leave for ever. They waste time and strength to add heap to heap, when quickly all perishes, and they, too, often along with it.”—Swinnock.
2. Often it ends in anguish.
(1.) It comes unexpectedly. “As a thief in the night—while they are saying, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh.” While the mind is weaving webs of schemes, while many agencies are set to work, and a great object in view is on the point of attainment; while a great acquisition is about to be made, and a higher platform is almost gained—at this particular moment, when least expected, the last messenger brings His summons, “Thou fool! this night thy soul is required of thee.” “At midnight a cry was made, Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him.”
A bright morning broke for Sisera over the hills of Israel. Expectation rose high as he surveyed all the plain covered with masses of troops—sword and spear, helmet and buckler, the image of colossal strength. The subject nation would become more prostrate than ever; never would victory be more easily won. There was only one issue possible, when such a huge host were to be met by only a handful of undisciplined volunteers under a man who was no general. Golden dreams of new accessions to former glory filled the brain of the great commander, as he marshalled his troops along the banks of the Kishon, while the sun rose high in the heavens. three or four hours elapse, and that magnificent spectacle of living power becomes one vast Aceldama, while the vaunting general himself is reduced to the plight of running as a fugitive before the pursuing foe, and escaping death on the battlefield only to meet it more ignominiously, at the hands of a woman!
The unexpected character of this end reminds us of the capricious cruelty of the insignificant puppet, who ruled over the millions of ancient Persia (Xerxes), who sometimes crowned his footmen in the morning, and beheaded them in the evening of the same day. Also, the Greek Emperor, Andromachus, who crowned his admiral in the morning, and took off his head in the afternoon! “How are they brought unto desolation as in a moment? They are utterly consumed with terrors.”
(2.) It comes irresistibly. God is Almighty to punish the incorrigible, as well as to pardon the penitent. “The sinner has not a friend on the bench on the day when he is summoned to the highest tribunal. Not a single attribute will be his friend. Mercy itself will sit and vote with its fellow-attributes for his condemnation.” When his time is come, “the wicked is driven away in his wickedness.” “He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found; yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.” No more power has he to keep back his spirit in the day when God requireth it of him, than has the dry leaf power to defend itself against the rushing tempest. When death comes his soul is forced from him by power of law. “His soul is required of him.” “As a disobedient debtor he is delivered to pitiless exactors; or as a ship which is dragged by some fierce wind from its mooring, and driven furiously to perish on the rocks.”—Theophylact.
“In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement,
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help,
But shrieks in vain! how wistfully she looks
On all she’s leaving, now no longer hers!
O might she stay to wash away her stains,
And fit her for her passage! But the foe,
Like a staunch murd’rer steady to his purpose,
Pursues her close through every lane of life,
Nor misses once the track, but presses on;
Till forc’d at last to the tremendous verge,
At once she sinks to everlasting ruin!”
“Terrors take hold on him as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place. For God shall cast upon him and not spare. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.” On this occasion, Sisera was “chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.”
(3.) It makes a mockery of hopes. “Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations: they call their lands after their own names.” “But the expectation of the wicked shall perish. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them. Their breath goeth forth and they return to the earth; in that very day their thoughts perish.” What a mockery did the act of Jael make of all the hopes cherished by the proud leader of the myriads that deployed on the plain of Jezreel! As dreams of the night they vanished away. Like the illusions of the mirage with its visions of silver streams and laden fruit trees, which disappear the moment the enchantment is broken, so is it with the miserable worldling, whom Satan has duped with the hopes of the honours and joys of earth in days to come. Every hope perishes. Bitter “disappointment remains their only comforter.” “Dust is the serpent’s meat,” and the same fare have all the serpent’s seed.
How can it be otherwise? To the wicked man who clings to his wickedness,
“No ray of hope
Dispels the involving gloom; a Deity,
With all the thunder of dread vengeance ’round him
Is ever present to his tortured thoughts.”
Notwithstanding all the diligence and cost, all the art and industry, which the wicked put out in order to perpetuate their names, their hope is, like the spider’s web, which at one stroke of the besom is brushed away, and in a moment it comes to nothing. “A great king, feeling that he was about to be approached by a greater monarch than himself—the king of Terrors—gave orders that when he died he should be put into a royal position, sitting in the attitude of a ruling monarch. In a mausoleum specially erected for the purpose, and in a tomb within this, he was placed upon a throne. The Gospel narratives were laid upon his knees; by his side was his celebrated sword; on his head was an imperial crown; and a royal mantle covered his lifeless shoulders. So it remained for 180 years! At length the tomb was opened. The skeleton form was found dissolved and dismembered; the ornaments were there, but the frame had sunk into fragments, and the bones had fallen asunder. There remained, indeed, the ghastly skull wearing its crown still—the only sign of royalty about this vain pageant of death in its most hideous form.”
(4.) There is no mixture of comfort with misery in their death. When death comes to the wicked the day of mercy closes, and with it all that mitigated the bitter cup of life is taken away. God ceases to smile, and all creature sources of happiness become as wells dried up. In God’s frown the whole universe joins, for all are His servants. Sometimes, on this side of time, the dark shadow of the eclipse steals over a man; and, as in the case before us, we see him entering the turbid waters without a single reliable friend to lean on, and without a ray of hope to lighten the gloom. The day of forbearance lasted long; it is now over, and there is no longer mercy mingled with justice. He who would contend with the Almighty at all risks, must now accept the results of his own decision. “The wicked man must now eat of the fruit of his own way, and be filled with his own devices.”
Those who abuse the day of mercy often die without a single friend to whisper peace at their pillow, or to supply a single consolation in the hour of need. There is no Christian friend to point them to the Saviour, to offer up prayer to Him who is able to save from death and all its consequences—to show marks of sympathy, to close the eyes in death, and take charge of the poor body when the spirit has fled. And yet this is but a trifling element in the case, compared with that which is implied in doing the office of a mediator, when the spirit quits its clay tenement to answer in the presence of the Judge for the deeds done in the body. It will then be every thing for a man to have provided a “Day’s-man” to answer to God for him, and to produce reconciliation between an offended God and His offending creature. It is the highest wisdom now to make this provision without the least delay. “The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself.”
(5.) It comes with marks of dishonour and degradation. That the most renowned warrior of his age should die at all when he had so many legions to defend him—that he should not be able to fight a stroke on the battlefield—that he should die as a fugitive, all alone without any of his chosen friends near him, in the dwelling of a supposed friend but a real enemy, above all, that he should die a tragic death at the hands of a woman!—all this indicated a marked degree of dishonour and degradation in his death. “Save me from the horrors of a jail,” were almost the dying words of one of the most gifted men of genius. A profligate nobleman in England, who long stood on a lofty pinnacle in the world of fashion, and was master of an income of the value of £50, 000 per annum, became at length reduced to the deepest distress by his vice and extravagance, and breathed his last moments in a miserable inn, forsaken and forgotten by his former companions. In a similar manner died one of the greatest statesmen whom England ever produced—in a small country inn, without a single attendant or comforter, though at one time whole nations were entranced by his eloquence. Now, in this humble dwelling, with none to care for him, or sympathise with his sorrows, he dies of a broken heart! Another bright genius, who long gained the most flattering distinctions in society, writes in old age, “I am absolutely undone and broken hearted. Misfortunes crowd on me, and I die haunted by fears of a prison. Forsaken by my gay associates, dispirited and world-weary, I close my eyes in gloom and sorrow.”
“Life ebbs, life ebbs, and leaves me dry,
As the hot desert, empty as the wind,
And hungry as the sea.”
How many leave the world thus “fallen, fallen from their high estate,” who have lived without God, and without Christ while they did live! “Shame shall be the promotion of fools.” At the last “some shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt,” and even during the present life there are not wanting illustrations.
(6.) It comes as an absolute ruin. It is the hour when every thing that a man has becomes lost, finally and absolutely lost—his property, his friends and relatives, his fame, his character, his works in this life, and all his prospects for the life to come! He stands between two worlds, a ruined and helpless man, no friend near, and an angry God for his enemy—all brought upon him by himself It is of all sights the most wretched. Warning was given that the “judgment though long deferred lingered not, and the damnation slumbered not.” And now he is in the hands of irresistible forces, which inflict upon him a terrible humiliation and utter ruin. God sets his face against him in vindication of His holy law, which he has so deeply transgressed; and now rebukes him in the fearful but just language of Pro_1:24-30.
His end is ruin. Every thread of life’s schemes is broken; warp and woof together are all torn to shreds. Not a vestige of life’s doings remains to serve as a memorial of the past—nothing save what may serve as material for an accusing conscience. Now the “rains have descended, the floods have come, the winds have blown and beaten against such a man’s house; it has fallen and great is the fall of it!” There was no foundation of rock. He tries to lean on the house which he has built on the sand, but it does not stand; he holds it fast, but it does not endure. It is like a man standing upon ice, or on slippery, shelving rocks. It is now discovered, that during life the wicked man had been carrying omens of sad import in his breast; that, though he stood well before men, he was like a book that is well bound externally, but when opened was found to be full of tragedies.
What a frustration of plans and purposes do we see in the example before us! How many webs were being spun in the loom of fancy, at the time when the awful catastrophe took place! How many vain hopes were buried in that unknown grave! The greatest warrior lies down as the beasts that perish; and there is no blessed resurrection. The name is forgotten, or lives to rot above ground as a warning to others. His destiny otherwise is to be forgotten. (Ecc_8:10; Psa_37:10; Psa_37:36; Psa_37:38; Psa_49:19; Pro_24:20.)
Melancholy as are these examples of spiritual shipwreck, they will, we believe, form but a small minority in the whole population of the globe at the end of time. If the number of the saved did not greatly exceed the number that shall perish, where would be the victory of “the Son of God in coming to destroy the works of the Devil?” Also, now that a highway has been opened, clear of all obstruction for sinful man to come back to God, where would be the broad evidence that “God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth?” Meantime the Saviour Himself warns every man to strive earnestly for his own salvation, rather than enquire curiously about the number of the saved. (Luk_13:23-24).
N. B.—The Church in every age has its songs.
The bow of hope that is set over its future is the bow of an everlasting covenant, and gives assurance against devastation in the future. The well whence its contents are drawn is deeper than can ever dry up. The army that is engaged to defend it night and day is incomparably mightier than the united force of all that are in league against it. When faith is strong, its bright days always exceed in number those that are dark; in the hardest struggle it is never more than brought to its knees, and in the end it never fails to come off “a conqueror, and more.”
Much of its vocation, therefore, even in this world is to sing; and its songs are lyrics rather than elegies. Its days are never so dark as to be altogether without stars, and therefore not without songs. In the times of Genesis, the Church was scarcely yet old enough to have a history, but the Book does not close until we have a prophetic song on the brightness of her future career (Genesis 49). Then says Wordsworth, “We have a song of victory in Exodus (chap. 15); we have a song of victory in Numbers (chaps. 23 and 24); we have a song of victory in Deuteronomy (chap. 32); we have this song of victory in Judges; we have a song of victory in the First Book of Samuel (chap. 2); we have a song of victory in the Second Book of Samuel (chap. 22); we have also the song of Zacharias, that of the Virgin, that of Simeon, in the gospel narrative; and all these songs are preludes to the new song, ‘the song of Moses and of the Lamb,’ which the saints of the Church glorified from all nations, will sing at the crystal sea, when all the enemies of the Church shall have been subdued, and their victory assured for ever” (Revelation 14, 15). He might have added that from the days of David more than one-half of all the sacred writings of the Church of God is in the language of song—David and others in the Psalms, and Isaiah and others in the writings of the Prophets. If the subject is not that of victory, it is for the most part that of victory in the days to come, as not less certain than if it had been already accomplished.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv20, 31 Jdg 5:20. - Job 5:23.
Judges
‘ALL THINGS ARE YOURS’
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Jdg 5:20. - Job 5:23.
These two poetical fragments present the same truth on opposite sides. The first of them comes from Deborah’s triumphant chant. The singer identifies God with the cause of Israel, and declares that heaven itself fought against those who fought against God’s people. There may be an allusion to the tempest which Jewish tradition tells us burst over the ranks of the enemy, or there may be some trace of ancient astrological notions, or the words may simply be an elevated way of saying that Heaven fought for Israel. The silent stars, as they swept on their paths through the sky, advanced like an avenging host embattled against the foes of Israel and of God. All things fight against the man who fights against God.
The other text gives the other side of the same truth. One of Job’s friends is rubbing salt into his wounds by insisting on the commonplace, which needs a great many explanations and limitations before it can be accepted as true, that sin is the cause of sorrow, and that righteousness brings happiness; and in the course of trying to establish this heartless thesis to a heavy heart he breaks into a strain of the loftiest poetry in describing the blessedness of the righteous. All things, animate and inanimate, are upon his side. The ground, which Genesis tells us is ‘cursed for his sake,’ becomes his ally, and the very creatures whom man’s sin set at enmity against him are at peace with him. All things are the friends and servants of him who is the friend and servant of God.
I. So, putting these two texts together, we have first the great conviction to which religion clings, that God being on our side all things are for us, and not against us.
Now, that is the standing faith of the Old Testament, which no doubt was more easily held in those days, because, if we accept its teaching, we shall recognise that Israel lived under a system in so far supernatural as that moral goodness and material prosperity were a great deal more closely and indissolubly connected than they are to-day. So, many a psalmist and many a prophet breaks out into apostrophes, warranted by the whole history of Israel, and declaring how blessed are the men who, apart from all other defences and sources of prosperity, have God for their help and Him for their hope.
But we are not to dismiss this conviction as belonging only to a system where the supernatural comes in, as it does in the Old Testament history, and as antiquated under a dispensation such as that in which we live. For the New Testament is not a whit behind the Old in insisting upon this truth. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ‘Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?’ The New Testament is committed to the same conviction as that to which the faith of Old Testament saints clung as the sheet anchor of their lives.
That conviction cannot be struck out of the creed of any man, who believes in the God to whom the Old and the New Testament alike bear witness. For it rests upon this plain principle, that all this great universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos, that all these forces and creatures are not a rabble, but an ordered host.
What is the meaning of that great Name by which, from of old, God in His relations to the whole universe has been described-the ‘Lord of Hosts’? Who are the ‘hosts’ of which He is ‘the Lord,’ and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goeth; and to another, ‘Come!’ and he cometh; and to another, ‘Do this!’ and he doeth it? Who are ‘the hosts’? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who ‘excel in strength,’ because they ‘hearken to the voice of His word’, but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. ‘All are Thy servants; they continue this day’-angels, stars, creatures of earth-’ according to Thine ordinances.’
And if it be true that the All is an ordered whole, which is obedient to the touch and to the will of that divine Commander, then all His servants must be on the same side, and cannot turn their arms against each other. As an old hymn says with another reference-
‘All the servants of our King
In heaven and earth are one,’
and none of them can injure, wound, or slay a fellow-servant. If all are travelling in the same direction there can be no collision. If all are enlisted under the same standard they can never turn their weapons against each other. If God sways all things, then all things which God sways must be on the side of the men that are on the side of God. ‘Thou shalt make a league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.’
II. Note the difficulties arising from experience, in the way of holding fast by this conviction of faith.
The grim facts of the world, seen from their lowest level, seem to shatter it to atoms. Talk about ‘the stars in their courses fighting’ for or against anybody! In one aspect it is superstition, in another aspect it is a dream and an illusion. The prose truth is that they shine down silent, pitiless, cold, indifferent, on battlefields or on peaceful homes; and the moonlight is as pure when it falls upon broken hearts as when it falls upon glad ones. Nature is utterly indifferent to the moral or the religious character of its victims. It goes on its way unswerving and pitiless; and whether the man who stands in its path is good or bad matters not. If he gets into a typhoon he will be wrecked; if he tumbles over Niagara he will be drowned. And what becomes of all the talk about an embattled universe on the side of goodness, in the face of the plain facts of life-of nature’s indifference, nature’s cruelty which has led some men to believe in two sovereign powers, one beneficent and one malicious, and has led others to say, ‘God is a superfluous hypothesis, and to believe in Him brings more enigmas than it solves,’ and has led still others to say, ‘Why, if there is a God, does it look as if either He was not all-powerful, or was not all-merciful?’ Nature has but ambiguous evidence to give in support of this conviction.
Then, if we turn to what we call Providence and its mysteries, the very book of Job, from which my second text is taken, is one of the earliest attempts to grapple with the difficulty and to untie the knot; and I suppose everybody will admit that, whatever may be the solution which is suggested by that enigmatical book, the solution is by no means a complete one, though it is as complete as the state of religious knowledge at the time at which the book was written made possible to be attained. The seventy-third psalm shows that even in that old time when, as I have said, supernatural sanctions were introduced into the ordinary dealings of life, the difficulties that cropped up were great enough to bring a devout heart to a stand, and to make the Psalmist say, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped.’ Providence, with all its depths and mysteries, often to our aching hearts seems in our own lives to contradict the conviction, and when we look out over the sadness of humanity, still more does it seem impossible for us to hold fast by the faith ‘that all which we behold is full of blessings.’
I doubt not that there are many of ourselves whose lives, shadowed, darkened, hemmed in, perplexed, or made solitary for ever, seem to them to be hard to reconcile with this cheerful faith upon which I am trying to insist. Brethren, cling to it even in the darkness. Be sure of this, that amongst all our mercies there are none more truly merciful than those which come to us shrouded in dark garments, and in questionable shapes. Let nothing rob us of the confidence that ‘all things work together for good.’
III. I come, lastly, to consider the higher form in which this conviction is true for ever.
I have said that the facts of life seem often to us, and are felt often by some of us, to shatter it to atoms; to riddle it through and through with shot. But, if we bring the Pattern-life to bear upon the illumination of all life, and if we learn the lessons of the Cradle and the Cross, and rise to the view of human life which emerges from the example of Jesus Christ, then we get back the old conviction, transfigured indeed, but firmer than ever. We have to alter the point of view. Everything always depends on the point of view. We have to alter one or two definitions. Definitions come first in geometry and in everything else. Get them right, and you will get your theorems and problems right.
So, looking at life in the light of Christ, we have to give new contents to the two words ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and a new meaning to the two words ‘for’ and ‘against.’ And when we do that, then the difficulties straighten themselves out, and there are not any more knots, but all is plain; and the old faith of the Old Testament, which reposed very largely upon abnormal and extraordinary conditions of life, comes back in a still nobler form, as possible to be held by us amidst the commonplace of our daily existence.
For everything is my friend, is for me and not against me, that helps me nearer to God. To live for Him, to live with Him, to be conscious ever of communion with Himself, to feel the touch of His hand on my hand, and the pressure of His breast against mine, at all moments of my life, is my true and the highest good. And if it is true that the ‘river of the water of life’ which ‘flows from the Throne of God’ is the only draught that can ever satisfy the immortal thirst of a soul, then whatever drives me away from the cisterns and to the fountain, is on my side. Better to dwell in a ‘dry and thirsty land, where no water is,’ if it makes me long for the water that rises at the gate of the true Bethlehem-the house of bread-than to dwell in a land flowing with milk and honey, and well watered in every part! If the cup that I would fain lift to my lips has poison in it, or if its sweetness is making me lose my relish for the pure and tasteless river that flows from the Throne of God, there can be no truer friend than that calamity, as men call it, which strikes the cup from my hands, and shivers the glass before I have raised it to my lips. Everything is my friend that helps me towards God.
Everything is my friend that leads me to submission and obedience. The joy of life, and the perfection of human nature, is an absolutely submitted will, identified with the divine, both in regard to doing and to enduring. And whatever tends to make my will flexible, so that it corresponds to all the sinuosities, so to speak, of the divine will, and fits into all its bends and turns, is a blessing to me. Raw hides, stiff with dirt and blood, are put into a bath of bitter infusion of oak-bark. What for? For the same end as, when they are taken out, they are scraped with sharp steels,-that they may become flexible. When that is done the useless hide is worth something.
‘Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.’
And whatever helps me to that is my friend.
Everything is a friend to the man that loves God, in a far sweeter and deeper sense than it can ever be to any other. Like a sudden burst of sunshine upon a gloomy landscape, the light of union with God and friendship with Him flooding my daily life flashes it all up into brightness. The dark ribbon of the river that went creeping through the black copses, when the sun glints upon it, gleams up into links of silver, and the trees by its bank blaze out into green and gold. Brethren! ‘Who follows pleasure follows pain’; who follows God finds pleasure following him. There can be no surer way to set the world against me than to try to make it for me, and to make it my all They tell us that if you want to count those stars that ‘like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid’ make up the Pleiades, the surest way to see the greatest number of them is to look a little on one side of them. Look away from the joys and friendships of creatural things right up to God, and you will see these sparkling and dancing in the skies, as you never see them when you gaze at them only. Make them second and they are good and on your side. Make them first, and they will turn to be your enemies and fight against you.
This conviction will be established still more irrefragably and wonderfully in that future. Nothing lasts but goodness. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ To oppose it is like stretching a piece of pack-thread across the rails before the express comes; or putting up some thin wooden partition on the beach on one of the Western Hebrides, exposed to the whole roll of the Atlantic, which will be battered into ruin by the first winter’s storm. Such is the end of all those who set themselves against God.
But there comes a future in which, as dim hints tell us, these texts of ours shall receive a fulfilment beyond that realised in the present condition of things. ‘Then comes the statelier Eden back to man,’ and in a renewed and redeemed earth ‘they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain’; and the ancient story will be repeated in higher form. The servants shall be like the Lord who, when He had conquered temptation, ‘was with the wild beasts’ that forgot their enmity, and ‘angels ministered unto Him.’ That scene in the desert may serve as a prophecy of the future when, under conditions of which we know nothing, all God’s servants shall, even more markedly and manifestly than here, help each other; and every man that loves God will find a friend in every creature.
If we take Him for our Commander, and enlist ourselves in that embattled host, then all weathers will be good; ‘stormy winds, fulfilling His word,’ will blow us to our port; ‘the wilderness will rejoice and blossom as the rose’; and the whole universe will be radiant with the light of His presence, and ringing with the music of His voice. But if we elect to join the other army-for there is another army, and men have wills that enable them to lift themselves up against God, the Ruler of all things-then the old story, from which my first text is taken, will fulfil itself again in regard to us-’the stars in their courses will fight against’ us; and Sisera, lying stiff and stark, with Jael’s tent-peg through his temples, and the swollen corpses being swirled down to the stormy sea by ‘that ancient river, the river Kishon,’ will be a grim parable of the end of the men that set themselves against God, and so have the universe against them. ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v23 (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
angel
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31 The Kishon River swept them away
The Kishon River swept them away
Because of the heavy rain the river flooded quickly causing the chariots to be stuck in the mud and drowning many soldiers. AT: "The Kishon River flooded and swept away Sisera's soldiers" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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Kishon
See how you translated this in Judges 4:6.
March on my soul, be strong
Here "soul" refers to the whole person. The word "my" refers to Deborah. AT: "I tell myself to march on and to be strong" (See: Synecdoche)
Then came the sound of horses' hooves—galloping, the galloping of his mighty ones
This describes the sound of many horses running away from the battle. AT: "Then I heard the sound of horses running away. Sisera's mighty horses were running away" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
galloping
running quickly
translationWords
sweep
soul
horse
hoof
might
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.