Commentaria in Judices
WHO (Barac) THREW HIMSELF HEADLONG INTO DANGER, AS ONE THAT GOETH INTO A PIT.—For he seemed to rush with a few unarmed men upon the countless and best-armed forces of Sisara, as into certain destruction, but God, rewarding his faith and fortitude, turned destruction into triumph. In Hebrew, sent into the valley with his strong men; the Septuagint, sent his footmen into the valley, as if to say: Barac, giving himself and his men to the danger of battle, seemed to precipitate himself with them into a valley, and into the deep pit of destruction and sepulchre.
RUBEN BEING DIVIDED AGAINST HIMSELF, THERE WAS FOUND STRIFE OF STOUT-HEARTED MEN.—In Hebrew: in the divisions of Ruben great thoughts of heart; Vatablus, disagreements of heart. Ruben seems to be praised, says Serarius, because, neglecting the care of their flocks and goods, they took part in the war. But others passim think that the Rubenites are here blamed because, intent on their own pursuits and advantages, they were divided among themselves; and not agreeing in that war, preferred to sit among the bleatings of their sheep and the folds: or because they awaited the outcome of the war, that if Sisara conquered, they might say to him: We are thine; but if Barac conquered, they might join themselves to him, says the Chaldee. The sense is, then, as if to say: While the Rubenites dispute among themselves whether they will join themselves to Barac as allies in the war, or keep at home, and accordingly send no help to Barac, those stout-hearted soldiers who offered themselves to Barac as companions to the danger, seeing it, wondered, and disputed among themselves, and said: Why do the Rubenites keep at home? why do they not send us auxiliary forces? why do they shrink from the common danger which we undergo? This will appear more in the next verse, as if to say: The Rubenites by their sloth have become a byword and a reproach to the Nephtalite soldiers and victors.
16. WHY DWELLEST THOU BETWEEN TWO BORDERS, THAT THOU MAYEST HEAR THE BLEATINGS OF THE FLOCKS?—As if to say: Why, O Ruben, dost thou dwell idly in thy land, which lies between two borders, that is, between Moab and Chanaan this side of the Jordan? or rather, as the Chaldee: Why, O Ruben, hast thou wished to have peace both with me and with Sisara, and, as is commonly said, why, born between two waters, dost thou hear the bleatings of the flocks, as if to say: Thou preferest to feed thy flocks, and to hear their bleating and the whistling of the shepherds, rather than the sound of my trumpet: thou preferest the quiet of the farm to the labour and hazard of battle. He blames therefore their inertia, fear and faint-heartedness, that they preferred to be free for country life than for fighting.
RUBEN BEING DIVIDED AGAINST HIMSELF, THERE WAS FOUND STRIFE OF STOUT-HEARTED MEN,—already explained in verse 15. This half-verse is repeated as an intercalary refrain, for elegance, one letter alone being changed; for in verse 15 there is chikkekei lev, that is, thoughts or disputations of the heart; but here it is said chikrei lev, that is, investigations or searchings of the heart. But the sense comes to the same.
17. GALAAD RESTED BEYOND THE JORDAN, AND DAN WAS INTENT ON HIS SHIPS, ASER DWELT ON THE SEA SHORE.—The Galaadites, Danites and Aserites are taxed because, following their private advantages, they preferred to sit idle in their own land, and there to be free in quiet for agriculture, navigation and trade, rather than to undergo the common danger of war for the country against Sisara; for this sloth was not to be borne.
18. BUT ZABULON AND NEPHTALI DEVOTED THEIR LIVES (souls) TO DEATH (to the peril of death) IN THE REGION OF MEROME,—which adjoins mount Thabor, where the battle was fought against Sisara. So Adrichomius. The Septuagint take Merome as an appellative, and render, on the heights of the field: because, namely, in the high and broad plain of mount Thabor this war was waged.
19. THE KINGS CAME (petty kings and princes confederate with Sisara and Jabin king of Asor) AND FOUGHT: THE KINGS OF CHANAAN FOUGHT IN THANACH BY THE WATERS OF MAGEDDO.—For these places are near Thabor, or the place of the battle.
20. FROM HEAVEN WAR WAS MADE AGAINST THEM: THE STARS REMAINING IN THEIR ORDER AND COURSES FOUGHT AGAINST SISARA.—Rupert, the Gloss, Vatablus, and others by stars understand Angels, as though this were said poetically, and signified nothing else than that, God and the Angels fighting for the Hebrews, even the stars, obeying God, seemed to have shone and fought with Him and for Him. So also Francis Valesius, Sacred Philosophy chap. 31, by stars understands Angels, whose course is said to be that assiduous and continual operation by which they guard and govern men. So Apoc. 12:4, the dragon is said to have drawn with his tail the third part of the stars, that is, of the Angels, and cast them to the earth. More plainly take the stars themselves, but moved, impelled and directed by their Angels. The sense is, as if to say: The stars from heaven fought for the Hebrews against the Sisarians, hurling at them hail, winds, storms, lightnings, thunders, fires, and falling stars, which struck and destroyed them, as happened to Josue fighting against the Chanaanites, chap. 10, verse 11. For the Angels, flowing by the stars into clouds of themselves gathered and duly disposed in their manner, caused storms and lightnings, which the Angels so directed that they were borne not upon the Hebrews but upon the Sisarians. Philo the Biblical says that God, Debbora praying, commanded the stars: “Descend, ye stars, and set fire to my enemies, that they may know my power. And the stars descended, and stormed their camp.” And before: “When,” he says, “Debbora and Barac went to fight with the enemies, God disturbed the motion of his stars, and said to them: Make haste and go, and disturb the arms of the enemies, and crush the strength of their heart, for I have come that my people may have dominion: and the stars set out as was commanded them, and set fire to their enemies.” Understand that the stars did not descend by local motion from heaven, but by their power and efficiency, because, namely, they hurled fires and lightnings from heaven upon the Sisarians.
Finely here the name of the Leader alludes. For Barac signifies lightning: to the lightning-like Barac, therefore, God thundering supplied his lightnings. So Mars is said by the Poets to lighten, and Ptolemy was called Ceraunus, that is, lightning-like. Josephus agrees, book V, chap. 6: “The battle,” he says, “being joined, a violent rain mixed with hail came on, which the wind, bearing it into the faces of the Chanaanites and taking away their sight, rendered their darters and slingers useless, and even searching with hands stiff with cold their swords…”
So of Clodovaeus you will find many like things in Gregory of Tours, book II of the History of the Franks, chap. 30. St. Augustine writes that the army of Honorius by a divine miracle won an incredible victory over the Goths, book V On the City of God, chap. 26. The martyr St. Sabinus covered the leader Ariulf with his shield near Spoleto and protected him in battle, says Paul the Deacon, book IV, chap. 17. Robert the monk, books VI and VII On the Holy War, relates that St. Gregory, Maurice and Demetrius were often seen fighting in our camps. St. George, for the Aragonese in the war of Huesca, struck down the greatest army of the Agarenes, as Carbonellus narrates, book I, and in the war of Valencia often brought our men help. St. James the Apostle, patron of the Spains, appeared to King Ramiro of Leon, his army being nearly conquered and laid low, on the hill which is called Clavijo, in Spanish Clavijo, and promised victory, which the next day he obtained from the Moors, as is plain from the royal privilege of the same Ramiro, on the 9th of the Kalends of June, in the era 972; and Calixtus II relates it, in his book On the Miracles of St. James, and Vincent of Beauvais, book XXVII of the Mirror of History, chap. 31. See more in Thomas Bozius, tome II On the Signs of the Church.
THE STARS REMAINING IN THEIR ORDER AND COURSE, AGAINST SISARA FOUGHT,—as if to say: The stars, which at Josue’s command stood motionless with the sun and moon, that victory might be carried through to the issue of the Israelites, now helped Barac by their uninterrupted course.
But how did they fight against Sisara? Rabbi Solomon answers that the stars glowed from heaven, and so heated the mud of the roads that the hoofs of Sisara’s horses, loosened by the excessive heat, fell off, by which hindrance he could not fight.
Secondly, Rabbi David Kimchi says that the stars so heated Sisara’s soldiers that, when they wished to cool themselves in the torrent Cison, they perished in it; which he thinks is signified by those words: “The torrent of Cison dragged away their carcasses.”
Thirdly, Abulensis thinks that the stars remaining in their order are said to fight against Sisara because the heavenly bodies seemed, kindled, to fall upon the army of Sisara, comets evidently and lightnings being hurled at it. For so the chariots, thrown into confusion, were borne headlong, and with soldiers struck from heaven the death of the Chanaanites wandered before their eyes, the Hebrews meanwhile suffering no harm.