Prophetess in the Bible
Deborah
|
---|
|
Other names
| Debora, Debora, Dvora, Debra
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| Prophetess of God, Fourth Judge of Israel
|
---|
Predecessor
| Shamgar
|
---|
Successor
| Gideon
|
---|
Spouse
| Lapidoth (possibly)
|
---|
According to the
Book of Judges
,
Deborah
(
Hebrew
:
?????????
,
D???r?
) was a
prophetess of Judaism
, the fourth
Judge of pre-monarchic Israel
and the only female
judge
mentioned in the
Hebrew Bible
. Many scholars contend that the phrase, "a woman of Lappidoth", as translated from biblical Hebrew in Judges 4:4 denotes her marital status as the wife of
Lapidoth
.
[1]
Alternatively, "lappid"
[1]
translates as "torch" or "lightning", therefore the phrase, "woman of Lappidoth" could be referencing Deborah as a "fiery woman."
[2]
Deborah told
Barak
, an Israelite general
[1]
from
Kedesh
in
Naphtali
, that God commanded him to lead an attack against the forces of
Jabin
king of
Canaan
and his military commander
Sisera
(Judges 4:6?7); the entire narrative is recounted in
chapter 4
.
Judges 5
gives the same story in
poetic form
. This passage, often called
The Song of Deborah
, may date to as early as the twelfth century BCE,
[3]
and is perhaps the earliest sample of
Hebrew poetry
.
[4]
Bible narrative
[
edit
]
In the
Book of Judges
, it is stated that Deborah was a
prophetess
, a
judge of Israel
and the wife of Lapidoth.
[5]
[6]
She rendered her judgments beneath a
date palm
tree between
Ramah in Benjamin
and
Bethel
in the land of
Ephraim
.
[7]
The
people of Israel
had been oppressed by
Jabin
, the king of
Canaan
, whose capital was
Hazor
, for twenty years. Stirred by the wretched condition of Israel she sends a message to
Barak
, the son of Abinoam, at
Kedesh
in
Naphtali
, and tells him that the Lord God had commanded him to muster ten thousand troops of Naphtali and
Zebulun
and concentrate them upon
Mount Tabor
, the mountain at the northern angle of the great plain of
Esdraelon
. At the same time she states that the Lord God of Israel will draw
Sisera
, commander of Jabin's army, to the
Kishon River
. Barak declines to go without the prophet. Deborah consents, but declares that the glory of the victory will therefore belong to a woman. As soon as the news of the rebellion reaches Sisera, he collects nine hundred chariots of iron and a host of people.
[6]
Then Deborah said, according to
Judges 4:14
:
"Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?" So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him.
As Deborah prophesied,
a battle
is fought (led by Barak), and Sisera is completely defeated. He escapes on foot while his army is pursued as far as
Harosheth Haggoyim
and destroyed. Sisera comes to the tent of
Jael
and lies down to rest. He asks for a drink, she gives him milk and he falls asleep. While he is asleep she hammers a tent-pin through his temple.
[6]
The Biblical account of Deborah ends with the statement that after the battle, there was peace in the land for 40 years (
Judges 5:31
).
The Song of Deborah
[
edit
]
The Song of Deborah is found in
Judges 5:2?31
and is a victory
hymn
, sung by Deborah and Barak, about the defeat of Canaanite adversaries by some of the tribes of Israel. The song itself differs slightly from the events described in
Judges 4
. The song mentions six participating tribes:
Ephraim
,
Benjamin
,
Machir
?a group associated with the
Tribe of Manasseh
?
Zebulun
,
Issachar
and
Naphtali
, as opposed to the two tribes in
Judges 4:6
(Naphtali and Zebulun) and does not mention the role of
Jabin
(king of
Hazor
).
[8]
The song also rebukes three other tribes (
Reuben
,
Dan
, and
Asher
) for their lack of patriotism.
[9]
Michael Coogan
writes that for
the redactors
of the Song of Deborah, that the Canaanite general
Sisera
ends up being murdered by a woman (
Jael
)?the ultimate degradation?"is a further sign that Yahweh ultimately is responsible for the victory".
[10]
Though the presence of victory hymns is conventional in the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Deborah is unusual in that it is a hymn that celebrates a military victory of two women: Deborah, the prophetess and Jael, the warrior.
[11]
Jael?the heroine of the Song of Deborah?shares parallels with the main character of the
Book of Judith
, who uses her beauty and charm to kill
an Assyrian general
who has besieged her city,
Bethulia
.
The Song of Deborah is commonly identified as among the oldest texts of the Bible,
[12]
but
the date of its composition
is controversial. Many scholars claim a date as early as the 12th century BCE,
[3]
while others claim it to be as late as the 3rd century BC. Some hold that the song was written no earlier than the 7th century BC.
[13]
Traditional chronology
[
edit
]
Traditional Jewish chronology
places Deborah's 40 years of judging
Israel
(
Judges 5:31
) from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC.
[14]
The
Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World
claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC to 1124 BC.
[15]
Based on archaeological findings, different biblical scholars have argued that Deborah's war with Sisera best fits the context of either the second half of the 12th century BC
[16]
or the second half of the 11th century BC.
[17]
Gallery
[
edit
]
Artistic depictions of Deborah
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Van Wijk-Bos, Johanna WH.
The End of the Beginning: Joshua and Judges
. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2019.
- ^
Garcia Bachmann, Mercedes L., Ahida E. Pilarski, and Barbara E. Reid. "Judges."
Wisdom commentary
, Liturgical Press, 2018.
- ^
a
b
Coogan, Michael David
(2006).
A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context
. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 216.
ISBN
978-0195139112
.
- ^
Cook, Stanley
(1911).
"Deborah"
. In
Chisholm, Hugh
(ed.).
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 904.
- ^
Judges 4:4
- ^
a
b
c
"Deborah"
,
Jewish Encyclopedia
.
- ^
Judges 4:5
- ^
Nelson, Richard
(2006). "Judges".
The Harper Collins Study Bible
, rev. ed. Eds. Attridge, Harold & Wayne Meeks. New York: HarperCollins, p. 353.
- ^
Singer, Isidore
, ed. (1912).
"Deborah, The Song of"
.
The Jewish Encyclopedia
. Vol. 4 (3 ed.). New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 490.
- ^
Coogan, Michael David
(2006).
A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context
. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 217.
ISBN
978-0195139112
.
- ^
Niditch, Susan (2011).
"Tales of Deborah and Jael, Warrior Women"
.
Judges: a commentary
. The Old Testament Library. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 59?67.
ISBN
978-1611644937
.
- ^
Hendel, Ronald; Joosten, Jan (2018).
How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?: A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study
. Yale University Press. p. 104.
ISBN
978-0-300-23488-6
.
The archaic nature of the Song of Deborah is granted by most scholars. [...] The consilience of linguistic and historical data indicate that this is a very early text, composed in the premonarchical or early monarchical period. It belongs to the oldest age of biblical literature.
- ^
Frolov, S. (2011). "How Old is the Song of Deborah?".
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
.
36
(2): 163?84.
doi
:
10.1177/0309089211423720
.
S2CID
170121702
.
'To be sure, the consensus outlined here is by no means perfect; several publications that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s diverge from it, sometimes in a major way. In particular,
Alberto Soggin
, Ulrike Schorn, and
Barnabas Lindars
see the Song, or at least the bulk thereof, as a product of the early monarchy; Ulrike Bechmann and Manfred Gorg place it in the late pre-exilic period; Michael Waltisberg advocates early post-exilic provenance (fifth to third centuries BC); and B.-J. Diebner shifts the composition's date to the turn of the era.' (p. 165); 'With the text's internal parameters and the external conditions of its existence considered systematically, what we know as Judg. 5.2?31a presents itself as an integral part of the Deuteronomistic oeuvre and should be dated, accordingly, between c. 700 and c. 450 BCE.' (p. 183)
- ^
Jewish History: Deborah the Prophetess
, Chabad.
- ^
Northen Magill, Frank and Christina J. Moose (2003-01-23).
"Deborah"
.
Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World
. Taylor & Francis.
ISBN
978-1-57958040-7
. Retrieved
1 April
2013
.
- ^
Albright, W. F. (1937). "Further Light on the History of Israel from Lachish and Megiddo".
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
.
68
(68): 22?26.
doi
:
10.2307/3218855
.
JSTOR
3218855
.
S2CID
163435967
.
- ^
Mayes, A. D. H. (1969). "The Historical Context of the Battle against Sisera".
Vetus Testamentum
.
19
(3): 353?360.
doi
:
10.2307/1516506
.
JSTOR
1516506
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Bird, Phyllis
(1974).
"Images of Women in the Old Testament"
. In Ruether, Rosemary Radford (ed.).
Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions
. Simon & Schuster.
ISBN
0-671-21692-9
.
- Brown, Cheryl Anne (1992).
No Longer be Silent: First Century Jewish Portraits of Biblical Women: Studies in Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities and Josephus's Jewish Antiquities
. Louisville, KY: Westminster J. Knox Press.
ISBN
0-664-25294-X
.
- Deen, Edith
(1955).
All the Women of the Bible
. New York: Harper & Row.
- Lacks, Roslyn (1979).
Women and Judaism: Myth, History, and Struggle
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
ISBN
0-385-02313-8
.
- Otwell, John H. (1977).
And Sarah Laughed: the Status of Woman in the Old Testament
. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
ISBN
0-664-24126-3
.
- Phipps, William E. (1992).
Assertive Biblical Women
. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
ISBN
0-313-28498-9
.
- Schroeder, Joy A. (2014).
Deborah's Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation
. New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-999104-4
.
- Williams, James G. (1982).
Women Recounted: Narrative Thinking and the God of Israel
. Sheffield: Almond Press.
ISBN
0-907459-18-8
.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Deborah
.
Wikisource
has original text related to this article:
|
---|
People
| |
---|
Locations
| |
---|
Military campaigns
| |
---|
|
---|
|
Pre-modern
figures
| Bible and Talmud
| |
---|
Medieval and
early modern era
| |
---|
| |
---|
Modern figures
| First ordination
by denomination
| |
---|
|
---|
Alternate
rabbinical roles
| |
---|
Organisations
and
midrashot
| |
---|
|