Judges 5:3, commentary and pictures

The verse is part of the song sung with Barak and Israel's leaders after the Lord's victory over their enemies, ascribing all the glory of deliverance to the Lord God of Israel and bidding His people praise Him for His wonderful works. Its call to kings and princes is a summons to the rulers of the surrounding nations to hear what God had wrought for Israel and take warning, showing that honor and power belong to God and not to men or to their idols. It celebrates deliverance from a mighty enemy, the overthrow of Sisera's army and freedom from Jabin king of Canaan after twenty years of oppression, after which the Canaanites were subdued and the land had rest forty years. The praise belongs with willing leadership joined by willing service, when leaders take the lead and the people offer themselves willingly, and Jehovah is to be blessed. Sung publicly by Deborah the prophetess, it shows God using women in public testimony to His glory, proving that the command for women to keep silence in the churches does not forbid them from bearing testimony for Christ and proclaiming His truth.

Song's Setting and Meaning

The verse belongs to the song of Deborah, sung with Barak and Israel's leaders after the Lord's victory over their enemies to praise the LORD God of Israel. It ascribes all the glory of deliverance to God and bids the people praise Him for His wonderful works. The song is a song of deliverance celebrating Israel's triumph and deliverance from a mighty enemy.

Its opening call to hear, O ye kings, and give ear, O ye princes, is a summons to the kings and princes of the surrounding nations to hear what God had wrought for Israel. They are to take warning not to harm them, for honor and power belong to God and not to men or to their idols. The praise to the LORD, the God of Israel, thus accompanies the leaders' initiative joined by the people's willing service.

The deliverance celebrated is victory over Sisera's army and deliverance from Jabin king of Canaan after twenty years of oppression. The song recounts Jael's part in that deliverance. Afterward the Canaanites were effectually subdued and the land had peace forty years, though prosperity did not bring Israel nearer to God.

It sets before Israel their helpless and distressed condition under the oppression of their enemies together with the history of their deliverance. It portrays the awful exhibitions of divine power and majesty displayed at Sinai. As literature it is a triumph poem and part of the earliest poetry of Israel.

It was composed in both words and music to memorialize a great event in Israel's history. It rose among the Galilean hills after Barak of Naphtali triumphed over the Canaanites, showing the intellectual vigor and mental freshness and force of the Galilean people. Its music was not copied or borrowed from the surrounding nations but was an original expression of the individual and national life of God's chosen people.

In its canonical setting Judges 5 stands to be read with Judges 6 and Psalm 99. Judges 3 to 17 together form one composite record of backsliding from God and consequent suffering, oppression, captivity and servitude, and of returning to God with forgiveness and deliverance. That record shows the perversity and unbelief of the people against the long-suffering and goodness of God amid the awful moral surroundings and demoralizing influences of the tribes permitted to remain in the land of promise.

Prophetic and Historical Significance

The song belongs to the days of Deborah and Barak and recounts Barak's victory over the Canaanites, one of the great battles fought at Megiddo. That victory gave the Israelites their first possession of the Plain of Jezreel, a strategically important plain that later became a continual cause of strife. The battle of Megiddo so recounted serves as an object lesson for the final gathering of the nations at Armageddon under the sixth plague, in connection with the sixth and seventh plagues. The account of Barak and Deborah to which the verse belongs stands as an example of a scriptural event or character with prophetic significance.

Leadership, Worship and Ministry

The summons for kings and princes to listen frames singing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel, as the response to willing leadership joined by willing service. For the leaders taking the lead in Israel and for the people offering themselves willingly, Jehovah is to be blessed, with the heart turned toward the governors of Israel who offered themselves willingly among the people. This united effort is seen when conference presidents, committees, union officials, church officers, and visiting ministers and workers lead out together in practical missionary work and believers join them willingly. Such inspiration arouses enthusiasm and home missionary zeal in every church and isolated company of believers.

Deborah's song of praise after the Lord's victory was a public declaration of God's triumph by one who led Israel, who is called a prophetess and a mother in Israel. The song of Deborah and Barak is an example of God using women in a public capacity to His glory. It is an example of a woman serving and speaking for God, as a prophetess who helped Barak. Deborah's public singing of praise to the LORD God of Israel proves that the command for women to keep silence in the churches does not forbid women from bearing testimony for Christ, helping in His work, and proclaiming His truth in womanly, Christian ways. Bearing public testimony is not forbidden to women.

Deborah placed prominence upon sacred song in earlier Hebrew history, alongside Miriam. The verse means worship of the Lord God of Israel through singing praise. It belongs to the progressive growth of the Hebrew ritual of divine worship that was later more minutely formulated in the musical ritual at Jerusalem. That ritual was then extended to become all-comprehending under the Christian dispensation.