Add parallel Print Page Options

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, because Sisera[a] had 900 chariots with iron-rimmed wheels,[b] and he cruelly[c] oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

Now Deborah, a prophetess,[d] wife of Lappidoth, was[e] leading[f] Israel at that time. She would sit[g] under the Date Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites would come up to her to have their disputes settled.[h]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Judges 4:3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Sisera) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  2. Judges 4:3 tn Regarding the translation “chariots with iron-rimmed wheels,” see Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands, 255, and the article by R. Drews, “The ‘Chariots of Iron’ of Joshua and Judges,” JSOT 45 (1989): 15-23.
  3. Judges 4:3 tn Heb “with strength.”
  4. Judges 4:4 tn Heb “ a woman, a prophetess.” In Hebrew idiom the generic “woman” sometimes precedes the more specific designation. See GKC 437-38 §135.b.
  5. Judges 4:4 tn Heb “she was.” The pronoun refers back to the nominative absolute “Deborah.” Hebrew style sometimes employs such resumptive pronouns when lengthy qualifiers separate the subject from the verb.
  6. Judges 4:4 tn Or “judging.”
  7. Judges 4:5 tn That is, “consider legal disputes.”
  8. Judges 4:5 tn Heb “for judgment.”