Judges: A Commentary (The Old Testament Library) 0664213685, 0664223214, 9780664213688

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ABBREVIATIONS
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE

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j ALBERTO SOGGIN JUDGES

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THE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRARY General Editors

PETER ACKROYD, University of London JAMES BARR, Oxford University BERNHARD W. ANDERSON, Princeton Theological Seminary jmrn BRIGHT, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia Advisory Editor

JAMES L. MAYS, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia

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]. ALBERTO SOGGIN

JJUDuAoL, i.e. alien elements to the community, for reasons that we do not know. 'Shamgar', a name which also appears in 5.6 (where it has a chronological function, a sign that this must have been a relatively well known person), cf. also Samgar in Jer. 39.3 for a Babylonian, though the text is corrupt and should probably be read differently, cf. the commentaries. The majority consider the name to be of Hurrian origin; however, it could also be West Semitic, derived from the lapel of the root miigar, 'submit', in which case it would be

ev

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theophoric: 'the deity makes X submit'. The root mgr appears in a theophoric name in a seal published recently: 1 bn-mgr'l.

The brief narrative of Shamgar hen Anath - 'both the episode and the figure are obscure' U. Gray*, 1967) - is here inserted into the list of judges, though in a somewhat doubtful form. If it is in fact true that the present context makes him the successor of Ehud as judge ('after him came' or 'he was succeeded by'), it is also true that 4.1 follows after the death of Ehud, jumping over the pre~ent passage. From a stylistic point of view, too, it has little in common with the other passages ofJudges, whether those concerning the 'major' judges or those concerning the 'minor' judges. As far as the former are concerned, he certainly 'saves' Israel, but only by smiting and killing the Philistines, who are not in fact said to have already been oppressing the Israelites; the only parallel with the latter which is at all clear is that of Samson with the jawbone of an ass, 15.14-17 (see below); in both cases we have the theme of the heroic effort with inadequate weapons. Mention of him here therefore seems justified only because he is used for the purposes of dating in 5.6. Stylistically, this mention has, however, an obvious parallel with the list of David's mighty men (II Sam. 23.8ff.). For that reason it is difficult to say who inserted the hero into the present context: the characteristic Dtr framework is lacking; besides, the insertion was made at a late stage if 4. lff in fact follows on directly from Ehud. Of course, in itself the note might go back to an ancient tradition. There are also a large number of foreign names in the list of David's mighty men, but as I have indicated,. in this case a West Semitic origin cannot be excluded, especially in the light of the recently discovered seal, even if it does not seem to be Hebrew. According to Craigie's analysis, ben 'anat appears in texts from Mari, U garit and Egypt, and indicates either the origin of the person in question (in Mari, 'from Hanat' means coming from the sanctuary of Anat, connected with the seminomadic Hanaeans), or the person's art or craft: 'son of Anat' can be someone dedicated to the military life, as the deity Anat 10n the Hurrian origin of the name Shamgar see W. Feiler, 'Hurritische Namen im Alten Testament', ZA 45, 1939, 216-29: 219; for the root mgr, P. Bordreuil and A. Lemaire, 'Nouveaux sceaux hebreux, arameens et ammonites', Semitica 26, Paris 1976, 44-63: no. 33, and F.L. Benz, Personal Names in the PMenician and Punic Inscriptions, Studia Pohl, 8, Rome 1972, 339f., record a name mgr'l. I am grateful to my assistant at the University of Rome, Dr Felice Israel, for these references.

CHAPTER 3.31

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was the goddess of war. Both these explanations are possible in the Old Testament, and are not mutually exclusive: in fact we find places which bear the name bit 'anat or 'anatot. And in this connection Danelius notes that in Josh. 17. 7 we have the reading il'llAavaO ii ECTTLV KaTa 1TpoCTW1TOV uCwv 'AvaO in the LXX text; 2 this place would therefore be on the central plateau, near Shechem; however, the name could apply to the person also if we consider his exploit in the military sphere. 3 Here, then, we would have a Canaanite lordling who fought against the Philistines: in this sense he could have 'saved' Israel, even ifJudg.5.6 then presents him as one of the oppressors. This statement therefore has. a certain logic about it, even if it is deduced from some doubtful elements: after all, here were two peoples who were trying to wrest the region from its inhabitants: Israel and the Philistines, and it would not be strange if one allied itself with the other, depending on the situation. So here we would have a Canaanite allied with Israel against the Philistines, while in Judg. 5 a Philistine is at the head of the antiIsraelite coalition. In this sense, then, the redactors wanted to indicate that Israel is saved by someone who will soon be their enemy par excellence, by the work of a person of doubtful historicity, probably not even an Israelite.

2Not

listed by me in Joshua, ad loc. explanation is better than the one proposed by j.T. Milik, 'An Unpublished Arrow-Head with Phoenician Inscription of the I Ith-10th Century', BASOR 143, 1956, 3-6, and taken up by Y. Aharoni**, 1967, 244 n. 180. 3This

CHAPTERS 4-5

Deborah and Barak as Judges

The most salient facts of the judgeship of Deborah and Barak are narrated in chs. 4 and 5, two texts with very different forms: the first is a prose narrative and the second a heroic poem, now considered the oldest Israelite poem that has come down to us. Chapter 4 shows the usual pattern: vv. I-3, the Dtr 'framework'; vv. 4-10, Deborah and Barak; v. I I, the Kenites; vv. 12-I6, the battle; vv. I 7-22, the escape and death of Sisera; vv. 23f., the Dtr conclusion. The chronological notes, however, are at the end of ch. 5, a sign that the redactors wanted to take the two compositions together.

(a) Chapter 4 Bibliography: W.F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, Baltimore 3 1953, l l 7ff., 227; id., The Archa.~ology of Palestine, Harmondsworth 4 1960, 117; A. Alt, 'Megiddo im Ubergang vom kanaanaischen zum israelitischen Zeitalter', ZAW 60, 1944, 67-85 = K!Schr I, 1953, 256-73; S. Yeivin, 'The Israelite Settlement in Galilee and the Wars with Yabin of Hazor', in Melanges bibliques. . en l'honneur de Andre Robert, Paris [1957], 95-104; E. Taubler**, 1958, 142-69; K.-D. Schunck, Berifamin, BZAW 86, 1963, 49ff.; W. Richter**, 1963, 29ff., 11 lff.; G. Wallis, 'Die Jakob~radition und Geschichte', WZ(H) 13, 1964, 427-40 = Geschichte und Uberlieferung, Berlin and Stuttgart 1968, 13-44 : 437=39ff.; A.D.H. Mayes, 'The Historical Context of the Battle against Sisera', VT 19, 1969, 353-60; Mayes**, 1974, ch. III; P. Weimar, 'Die Jahwekriegserzahlungen in Exodus I4, Josua IO, Richter 4 and I Samuel 7', Bib! 57, 1976, 38-73, esp. 51-62. On v. 2: A. Malamat, 'Razor, "The Head of all those Kingdoms" ', }BL 79, I960, 12-59; V. Fritz, 'Das Ende de.! Spatbronzezeitlichen Stadt Hazor Stratum XIII und die biblische Uberlieferung in J osua I I und Richter 4', UF 5, 1973, 123-39. On v. 11: A. Malamat, 'Mari and the Bible', JAOS 82, 1962, 143-50: 145; W.F. Albright, 'Jethro, Hobab and Reuel in Early Hebrew Tradition', CBQ 25, 1963, 1-11; G. Fohrer, Uberlieferung und Geschichte des Exodus, BZAW 91, 1964, 25ff.; F.C. Fensham, 'Did a Treaty between the Israelites and the Kenites exist?',

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BASOR 175, 1964, 51-4; B. Mazar, 'The Sanctuary of Arad and the Family of Hobab the Qenite', JNES 24, 1965, 297-303; J. A. Soggin, 'Heber der Qenit', VT 31, 1981, 89-92. On v. 21: B. Crossfield, 'A Critical Note on Judges 4,21 ', ZAW 85, 1973, 348-51; E.W. Nicholson, 'The Problem of ~n~', ZAW 89, 1977, 259-66.

(a) Deuteronomistic introduction (vv. 1-3) 4 1 The Israelites began to do what Yahweh thought to be evil, after Ehud died; 2and Yahweh gave them into the power of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth, the place of the 'pagans'. 3The Israelites cried out to Yahweh because he had nine hundred chariots of iron. He oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. (b) Deborah and Barak (vv. 4-10) 4 At that time Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judge over Israel. 5 She used to sit under 'the palm of Deborah', between Ramah and Bethel, in the 'Mountain of Ephraim', and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6But one day she sent a message to Barak, son of Abinoam, from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him: 'It is certain that Yahweh, God oflsrael, has commanded you: Go and take up a position on Mount Tabor, having with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulon. 7And I will put in position against you, by the river Kishon, Sisera, leader of the army of Ja bin, and all his troops, mounted and on foot, and I will deliver them into your hands.' 8 Barak replied: 'If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go either. I do not in fact know the day when Yahweh will lead me, with his angel at my side.' 9She replied: 'I will surely go with you; but know that the road on which you are going will not bring you any glory, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.' Then Deborah arose and went to Barak at Kedesh, 10where Barak called to arms all Zebulon and Naphtali; from there he went up on to Mount Tabor, in command of his troops: ten thousand men. Deborah also went up with him. (c) The Kenites (v. 11) 11 The Kenite group, who had parted from Qayin, one of the descendants of Hobab, a kinsman of Moses, had pitched their tents near to the 'oak of the caravanners' (?), i.e. at Kedesh. (d) The battle (vv. 12-16) 12 The moment they reported to Sisera that Barak, son of Abinoam, had gone up on Mount Tabor, 13 he called out all his mounted forces: nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the men on foot, his own following, from Harosheth, the place of the 'pagans', to the river Kishon. 14Then Deborah said to Barak, 'Have courage! This is the day

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on which Yahweh has giveri Sisera into your hands. Indeed, Yahweh himself will go at your head!' And Barak came down from Mount Tabor and the ten thousand men with him. 15 And Yahweh routed Sisera, his chariots and all his army before Barak, and Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. 16And Barak went in pursuit of the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth, the place of the 'pagans'. Thus all the army of Sisera fell to the edge of the sword; not a man of them was left.

(e) The flight and death of Sisera (vv. 17-22) 17 Sisera continued his flight as far as the tent of Jael, a woman of the Kenite group, because there were friendly relations betweenJabin, king of Hazor, and the Kenite group. 18And Jael came out to meet Sisera, and said to him, 'Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me, have no fear!' And he turned aside to her in the tent, j with a curtain. and she j covered him l with a covering. t wrapped him in a sheet. 19 Then he said to her; 'Give me, please, a little water, because I am thirsty.' She opened the skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up again. 20Then he said to her, 'Keep watch at the entrance to the tent, and if anyone comes and asks you, "Is anyone here?", say no.' 21 But Jael, a woman in the group, took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went silently to him and drove the peg into his temple, so that it went down to the ground, while he was sleeping deeply from weariness. So he died. 22 Meanwhile, Barak continued the pursuit. J ael came out to receive him and said to him, 'Come and look: the man whom you are seeking is here.' And he went into the tent and saw Sisera lying there dead, with the teng peg in his temple! (/) Deuteronomistic conclusion (vv. 23-24) 23 So on that day God subdued Jabin, king of Canaan, before the people of Israel, 24and their hand bore increasingly heavily on Jabin king of Canaan, until they succeeded in destroying all the Canaanites.

[I] The reference to Ehud is omitted by LXXA, perhaps in an attempt to make the interpolation of3.31 less obvious. I have therefore left it as a lectio difficilior. [2] The title 'king of Canaan' never existed, cf. also vv. 23f.: the region never enjoyed any political unity, apart from a brief period in the empire of David and Solomon; however, David and Solomon were never given this title. The construct state which governs a proper name prohibits what might seem the most obvious translation, 'A king of Canaan': 1 thus Burney*, 1919, thinks 1Cf.

R. Meyer, § 97.3b.

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of the city states in the north of the country and Vincent*, 1958, of those in the plain ofjezreel. It is possible that Malamat is on the right lines (1960): the term refers to the fact that the kings of Razor were the only people to bear this title (Akkadian farru) in the cuneiform texts, cf. also his article of 1962. Another possibility is that the figure of Jabin, associated with Razor, remained alive in the tradition for a long time after the destruction of the place, J osh.11. lff., so that the whole passage here is anachronistic, see J. Gray*, 1967. We shall find other traditio-historical details in the commentary. 'Sisera' is the real protagonist in chs. 4-5. The name is not Semitic, but it does not seem to be Inda-European, Illyrian, or Hurrian either. 2 It is increasingly accepted, rather, that this is a Luvian name; 3 in any case, it could be connected with the 'sea peoples' and thus with the Philistines, even though these are not mentioned in the battle. It is certain that the name appears among those who return from Babylon in the sixth century BC, cf. Ezra 2.53//Neh. 7.55, so that it could be a name of foreign origin, which in the course of time had become Canaanized. ~arofet (= woody?) is shown as an ethnically mixed area, like Galilee in Isa.8.23 (EVV 9.1; a text which is in fact corrupt); and on the basis of what has just been said, it could have been a colony of the 'sea peoples'. Its location is uncertain, and most scholars attempt to identify it as a consequence of v. 7 and the development of the battle. The majority now tend to locate it on tell el- 'ama, at the foot of the eastern slope of Mount Carmel, in the vicinity of the Kishon and the disused narrow-gauge railway which was once a branch of the hef,iaz route, near the abandoned Arab village (the land of which has been incorporated into the qibbu~ fa'ar ha" maqim, coord. 161-237), which has kept a similar name: ~arif.fyeh;4 this theory is, however, forthrightly challenged by Y. Aharoni, 5 who thinks rather of the forests of Galilee, on the basis of the etymology of the Assyrian ~urfanu(m), '(wooded?) mountain', cf. KB 3 and the LXX rendering in v. 16; such an identification would also be reflected in the mention of the 'pagans', perfectly in place in Galilee: the basis of the theory had already been put forward, with slight variants, by Burney, but was rejected by Simons for reasons which I would consider valid: the scene of the battle, the flight and the killing of Sisera (vv. l 7ff.) presuppose a series of places situated around the plain of Jezreel. Of course there remains the problem of the different locations of the battle in chs. 4 and 5, which 0

'Against: C. F. Burney*, 1919, and J. Gray*, 1967; the latter thinks in terms of a Hittite origin. Cf. M. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung, BWANT IIl.10, 1928, 64, and A. Alt, art. cit., 78 = 266 n. 3. 3Thus W .F Albright, 'Prolegomenon' to C. F. Burney*, 1919, and recently G. Garbini, 'II cant!co di Debora', La parola del passato 178, Naples 1978, 5-31. 4Cf. E. Dhorme*, A. Penna*, J. Gray*, A. Vincent*, Y. Kaufmann* and J. Simons, GTT, 288f., for whom this identification is problematical. 5 Y. Aharoni**, 1967, 20lff.

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we shall deal with in due course {p. 68 below). [3] 'Chariots of iron': the meaning is that they are covered and armed with iron, cf. above on 1.19. The number 'nine hundred', which would carry at least 1800 cavalry, is legendary, not to say extravagant. [4] 'Deborah' means 'bee', 'Lappidoth' are 'torches', perhaps 'lamps', while 'Barak' is 'lightning'. There is no kinship between the protagonists on the Israelite side in the neighbourhood, though this has often been conjectured. [5] 'Used to sit': where she exercised her office as a judge, this time in the forensic sense of the term. The root yafab is primarily 'sit', 'live', but the meaning here is the context of her particular task. 'The palm ... ', Hebrew tamer, only here and in Jer. 10.5, where it means 'post' or 'scarecrow', instead of the usual tamar: -perhaps it is a polemical vocalization with the vowels of boset, often used for people or elements connected with the Canaanite cult (A. Penna*, 1963). This connection does not seem improbable (as it might appear at first sight), given that the palm tree does not normally grow on the highlands; it could therefore be regarded as a special palm, a sacred tree. The 'oak of Deborah', Rebecca's nurse, Gen. 35.8, is also located in the same area. Despite the homonymy, there does not seem to have been any connection between the two trees, which differ in both species and in function. It should also be noted that the 'judgeship' of Deborah seems to have been used for reckoning time, as we shall see in considering the 'minor judges', cf. below on 10.1-5. 'Ramah' and 'Bethel' are both north of Jerusalem, near the present trunk road between Jerusalem and Nablus: the former is about nine kilometres along the route, probably the present-day er-ram (coord. 172-140); for the latter cf. on l .22ff. Thus the two places are no more than a few hours' journey apart. For the 'Mountain of Ephraim' cf. on 3.27; here, too, the region seems more extended than the Solomonic district of the same name (cf. I Kings 4.8, 18), in that it includes parts of Benjamin. :Justice': Hebrew lammifpa{; R.G. Boling*, 1975, suggests that this should be understood as replies to specific questions and demands; however, there docs not seem to be any reason why it should not be taken as the administration of justice in general and all the problems connected with it. [6] 'Kedesh': of Naphtali, to the north of Lake Huleh, reclaimed towards the end of the 1950s (coord. 202-280), attested in Josh. 19.37 and elsewhere. 'It is certain .. .': the particle h"lo' is usually translated, 'Is it not that ... ?', i.e. as a rhetorical question expecting the answer 'yes'; however, this interpretation seems excluded here, unless we accept that Barak had already received, but rejected, a divine calling, something about which the text says nothing. Otherwise it is obvious that Deborah is announcing a divine vocation to him which Barak could not have known before it was communicated. Thus it would seem better to suppose that here we have an emphatic, asseverative lamed. This grammatical form was already known to trad-

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itional Hebrew grammar, cf. GesK § l50e, and appears frequently in Ugaritic; it is still little known in Hebrew, where there is some uncertainty as to its meaning and functions. 'Commanded ': LXX has CTOL EVE'TELAO'.TO, i.e. lek-lekii.. 'Take position' : root mii.fak, literally 'extend (the ranks)', French deployer, cf. Vg due exercitum; in Hebrew the word is a military technical term, also 'line up': LXX did not understand: a'lTEAEUCTTI, 'leave'. 'Mount Tabor' is the well-known height about five km. east of Nazareth, Arab gebel eHiir (coord. 137-232), under which ran (and still runs) the main line of communications from southern Galilee to northern Galilee and Damascus. Whereas the reference to Naphtali and Zebulon is historically probable, the figure 10,000 is evidently an exaggeration; nor docs it seem possible that here we have mention of 'military units', as G.E. Mendenhall proposed in 1958,6 of varying kinds. It seems obvious that the epic narrative tends rather to exaggerate figures; for another exaggeration see on v. 3, where it cannot be a matter of 'military units'. [7] The subject of the direct speech is always Yahweh. Note how Hebrew makes a different use of direct speech, far superior to ours: for us, it is meant to refer to the ipsissima verba of the person speaking, whereas in Hebrew it is more often used for any kind of speech, resulting sometimes in what we find to be the weighty constructions of successive clauses of direct speech, one within the other. 'I will put in position against you .. .': cf. the previous verse for thi:; rendering of mii.fak, except that the subject is now God. Some scholars would prefer to render it 'draw out', but in that case the root would have a basically different meaning from the one that it has in the previous verse, which is at least suspect. The 'Kishon' flows into the Mediterranean north-east of Haifa, having crossed the central plain and skirted the eastern part of Carmel. During the dry summer season, it is completely dried up. Note 'a' in BHK3 is inaccurate. [8] 'I do not know ... ' is a phrase not very well translated from a Hebrew original which LXX adds at the end of the verse; for the text see BHS. It has its real sequel in Deborah's remark in v. 14. [9] 'Know': thus LXX 'YLVWCTKE, Hebrew da'. 'To': 'im, translated EL(for I and 0 we have the readings TWV opwv and opouc; respectively; the problem here is whether they either simply transliterated Hebrew which they did not understand, or presuppose the variant Palestinian reading). Furthermore, the expression seems to presuppose the present MT. As a result of this we can understand how many commentators have wanted to correct the expression or even to delete it. However, the term ma'0 leh, as well as meaning 'tribune' or 'podium', always signifies 'the ascent' of some kind, whereas 38Cf. B. Chiesa, L 'Antico Testamento ebraico, secondo la tradizione palestinese, Turin 1978, 163, 294f.

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we have seen that Mres is Horus, cf. 1.35 (har Mres) and 2.9 (timnat 4eres). (However, for one still unsolved problem of this identification, see below.) Mittmann supposes that the descent was made by the pass which, though steep, is easy and quick, especially on the way down; it was also used later by the Roman road; it has the advantage of leading directly to tell deir 'alla, which is in all probability Succoth (see the square 210-215/175-180 on the map) instead of Penuel, which Gideon and his followers would have reached first had they returned by the same route. [14] It does not seem necessary to transpose the atna4, as BHK-3 and BHS would like. The difficulty presented by the verse is that we do not know the exact meaning here of the term na'ar. Usually it means 'young man', but it often has other meanings: 'companion', 'shieldbearer' (cf. 7.10), 'servant', 'champion' (cf. II Sam. 2.14ff.), etc. The problem, then, is whether we have an ordinary young man, in which case the fact that he knew how to write would indicate a high general level of literacy, or whether he is a 'servant', someone employed in the area and therefore a scribe who by the very nature of his work was able to read and write. The majority of scholars decide for the first alternative: there was evidently widespread literacy in Israel in premonarchical times, if it is the case that any young man, picked up on the road, was able to write. 39 However, there are very few substantial pieces of evidence to support this first theory: first of all, it is not in fact certain that Succoth was an Israelite city at this time, and Y. Aharoni**, 1967, 24lff., says that we do not know what kind of inhabitants would have lived in the cities in this area. He goes on to say that the context strongly suggests that this was a Canaanite enclave in the region of Gad-Gilead; in any case it would be unwise to use this evidence to draw any conclusions about the situation in Israel; besides, we would need to know whether the man wrote himself or whether what he said was written down by a scribe (which is the conclusion of the important, but little noted study by Leveen), not to mention the possibility, in general, of inferring information of this importance from a casual remark such as this. Even in the eighth century, Isa. 29.12 is aware of the existence of illiterates who seem to be as numerous as those who know how to read and write (and even that would indicate a high literacy rate for this period), so that it would seem absurd to suppose that literacy was on a very high level as early as this. These reasons seem sufficient for us to accept the second suggestion for 39See the books and articles by M. Noth, D. Diringer and R. de Vaux cited above; for the second alternative see already K. Galling, 'Ein Stuck judaischen Bodenrechtes in Jesaja 8', ZDPV 56, 1933, 209-18, esp. 215 n.l; J. Leveen and H.-J. Hermisson; 0. Eissfeldt and A. Penna give the two positions without taking sides. See recently K. A. D. Smelik, Saul. De voorstellingen van Israels erste koning in de Masoretische text van het Oude Testament, Amsterdam 1977, 34f.

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interpreting the episode. Note finally the distinction made in the text between 'princes' (perhaps chiefs in the military sense) and 'elders' (probably those responsible for the government of the city'. 40 But it also seems rash to seek to derive exact information about the government of the city from the information given here. [15] This is an almost verbal repetition of v. 6, probably to stress the retributory character of the cruel measure. [16] 'Threshed': read wayyados, with all the commentaries, instead of the incomprehensible wayyoda', 'and taught them ... ', with LXXB 'Y}AOTJO'EV EV aihot~ (sc. the thorns), whereas LXXA has a notably longer text which could be the original version and whic}l I adopt in the text: for the Greek see the apparatus of BHS; the Hebrew would then be wayyiqqa4 'et