Commentaria in Judices
Chapter 4. Synopsis of the Chapter
Debbora and Barac rout Sisara, general of king Jabin, on mount Thabor. Sisara flees, and while sleeping is slain by Jahel with a nail driven through his temples. The fourth Judge of Israel was therefore Barac, whose deeds are here recounted.
1. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, after the death of Aod: 2. and the Lord delivered them up into the hands of Jabin the king of Chanaan, who reigned in Asor: and he had a general of his army named Sisara, and he dwelt in Haroseth of the Gentiles. 3. And the children of Israel cried to the Lord: for he had nine hundred chariots armed with scythes, and for twenty years had grievously oppressed them. 4. Now there was a prophetess, Debbora, the wife of Lapidoth, who judged the people at that time. 5. And she sat under a palm tree, that was called by her name, between Rama and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel went up to her for all judgment. 6. Who sent and called Barac the son of Abinoem out of Cedes Nephtali, and she said to him: The Lord the God of Israel hath commanded thee: Go, and lead an army to mount Thabor, and thou shalt take with thee ten thousand fighting men of the children of Nephtali, and of the children of Zabulon. 7. And I will bring unto thee, in the place of the torrent Cison, Sisara, the general of Jabin’s army, and his chariots, and all his multitude, and will deliver them into thy hand. 8. And Barac said to her: If thou wilt come with me, I will go: if thou wilt not come with me, I will not go. 9. She said to him: I will go with thee indeed, but at this time the victory shall not be attributed to thee, because Sisara shall be delivered into the hand of a woman.
Debbora therefore arose, and went with Barac to Cedes. 10. And he called unto him Zabulon and Nephtali, and went up with ten thousand fighting men, having Debbora in his company. 11. Now Haber the Cinite had some time before departed from the rest of the Cinites, his brethren, the sons of Hobab, the kinsman of Moses: and had pitched his tents unto the valley, which is called Sennim, and was near Cedes.
12. And it was told Sisara that Barac the son of Abinoem was gone up to mount Thabor: 13. and he gathered together nine hundred chariots armed with scythes, and all his army from Haroseth of the Gentiles to the torrent Cison. 14. And Debbora said to Barac: Arise, for this is the day wherein the Lord hath delivered Sisara into thy hands: behold he is thy leader. And Barac went down from mount Thabor, and ten thousand fighting men with him. 15. And the Lord struck a terror into Sisara, and all his chariots, and all his multitude, with the edge of the sword, at the sight of Barac: insomuch that Sisara leaping down from his chariot fled away on foot, 16. and Barac pursued the flying chariots, and the army, unto Haroseth of the Gentiles, and all the multitude of the enemies was utterly destroyed. 17. But Sisara fleeing came to the tent of Jahel the wife of Haber the Cinite: for there was peace between Jabin the king of Asor, and the house of Haber the Cinite. 18. And Jahel went out to meet Sisara, and said to him: Come in to me, my lord, come in, fear not. He went into her tent, and being covered by her with a cloak, 19. said to her: Give me, I beseech thee, a little water, for I am very thirsty. She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him to drink, and covered him. 20. And Sisara said to her: Stand before the door of the tent, and when any shall come and inquire of thee, saying: Is there any man here? thou shalt say: There is none. 21. So Jahel the wife of Haber took a nail of the tent, and taking also a hammer: and going in softly and with silence, she put the nail upon the temple of his head, and striking it with the hammer, drove it through his brain fast into the ground: and so passing from deep sleep to death, he fainted away and died. 22. And behold Barac came pursuing after Sisara: and Jahel went out to meet him, and said to him: Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, he saw Sisara lying dead, and the nail fastened in his temple. 23. So God that day humbled Jabin the king of Chanaan before the children of Israel: 24. who grew daily stronger, and with a mighty hand overpowered Jabin king of Chanaan, till they quite destroyed him.
2. JABIN KING OF CHANAAN, WHO REIGNED IN ASOR.—Josue chap. 11:10 and following, took and burned Asor, but the Chanaanites soon rebuilt it.
AND HE HAD A GENERAL OF HIS ARMY NAMED SISARA.—Josephus, book V of the Antiquities, chap. 6, calls him Susares and Sisares. Susares in Hebrew is the same as horse-seeing. For sus is a horse; Sisares is moth-seeing. For in Greek ses is a moth. Alcinius, book VI, chap. 15, asserts that Sisara was a giant: and a king, that is, a petty king or prince.
Tropologically Origen, hom. 4: Sisara, he says, is interpreted Sight of a horse; for he is the animal man, not the spiritual, who sees nothing but the things that are of the animal: he is his sight, he his gaze, until Debbora is raised up for the soul that calls upon God; that according to the grace of prophecy it may be governed, and learn to savour not the things of the flesh, but the things of the spirit.
AND HE (Sisara rather than Jabin) DWELT IN HAROSETH OF THE GENTILES,—where, namely, was the concourse and confluence of nations, both those which had been driven from their seats by Josue, says Arias, and any others whatever, says Serarius. Haroseth in Hebrew signifies a workshop or a wood (as our Vulgate renders, 1 Kings 23:15, and 2 Paral. 27:4). Hence Adrichomius thinks it was so called from a neighbouring wood, and places it at the lake Samochonitis, which was very woody and pleasant. Others more probably think it was so called from smiths and workmen (for charash signifies to work), because in it the nine hundred scythed chariots of Sisara were made, and he had in it his armoury. Hence the Chaldee renders, in the fortress of the strongholds of the nations.
3. FOR HE HAD NINE HUNDRED CHARIOTS ARMED WITH SCYTHES,—of which I spoke on Josue 17:16.
4. NOW THERE WAS A PROPHETESS, DEBBORA, THE WIFE OF LAPIDOTH, WHO JUDGED THE PEOPLE AT THAT TIME.—Debbora in Hebrew is the same as bee, because she, like a bee, was chaste, industrious, laborious, divine. So of St. Cecilia the Church sings: “Cecilia thy handmaid, O Lord, serves thee like a busy bee.” For she poured forth the honey of pious words, by which she converted to Christ Valerian her spouse, Tiburtius, Maximus and four hundred other unbelievers. Moreover the bee is a symbol of wisdom, as I showed on Prov. 24:13 and following.
Hear St. Jerome, epist. 10 to Furia: “For us it will be named for this reason that she was a Prophetess, and is reckoned in the order of the Judges. And since she could say: How sweet are thy words to my palate! more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth; she received the name of bee, fed on the flowers of the Scriptures, steeped in the odour of the Holy Spirit, and with prophetic mouth compounding the sweet juices of ambrosia.”
Moreover Debbora was a bee, honeyed to her own, but stinging and thunderous to enemies, because through Barac, as a thunderbolt leaping upon them, she slew them. So St. James, bishop of Nisibis, by his prayer, with bees sent by God, put to flight and destroyed the Persians besieging Nisibis, as Theodoret relates in the Philotheus: for bees, enraged into fury, are driven, and fly upon enemies like a thunderbolt; with their buzzing they thunder as it were, with wings and stings they lighten. So here Debbora instilled into Barac the lightning-like ardours of war, by which he might lighten upon Sisara; evidently: “The bee, rival of the sun, lights her torches.”
A PROPHETESS.—“This affords,” says Origen, hom. 5, “consolation to the sex of women, that they may not despair of being able to become capable of the grace of prophecy; but may understand and believe that purity of mind, not difference of sex, merits this grace.” So the spirit of prophecy was had by Holda, wife of Sellum, 4 Kings 22:14; Mary, sister of Moses, Exodus chap. 15; Elizabeth, wife of Zachary and mother of St. John the Baptist, Luke chap. 1; Anna, daughter of Phanuel, Luke 2; St. Bridget, St. Hildegard, St. Mathilda and many others. “I think,” says Theodoret, Question 11, “that Debbora obtained the gift of prophecy to the shame of the men. For when none of the men was found worthy to merit the Holy Spirit, she obtained the gift of the most holy Spirit.” “In upright persons,” says Cicero, book I of Offices, “this is most ready to hand, if such a thing may be said:
“For you, young men, bear a womanly spirit, and she, that maid, a man’s.”