Judges 4:1-7

1) Deborah means bee. could it not also mean a speaker, especially for the role she plays here? Look at an OT text such as B. Anderson, Understanding the OT,ch.6, if you want to get a better handle of this period.

2) Get used to the start of this chapter, a sit is a constant refrain of the cyclical nature of Judges. When does private or public life take on such a predictable pattern, say in marital fights? doing evil seems to refer to falling into the religious beliefs and practices of the surrounding cultures (see 2:11-15,3:7)

3) Note that the prose here is a version of a poetic account in the next chapter, possibly quite old.

4) Lappidoth, now there's a name that needs some new popularity=shining or flaming/burning like a torch

5) As a prophet, does not this affect our easy stereotypes of women being prevented form occupying public power in ancient times? Deborah judges Israel. I assume this is a person who resolves disputes, so it is a public function, another reason I wonder if her name means speaker, given that dabar means word.Judges also had military prowess as well. One could continue reading the grisly story of Jael (notice the name Yah is God)that follows.

6)I assume Jabin rules a city-state in Hazor, on trade routes north of the Sea of Galilee.

7) Some make much out of the mention of chariots of iron and assume Israel did not have that stage of development. Maybe, but that assumes we know when this material was written. Is not the number perhaps more important? "cruelly oppressed" comes from a term, lachats, to press down, to distress, to hold down and chazaq, with force/violence/power. The battle site would be near Megiddo, something that may please rev. Camping or the writers of the Left Behind series.

8) Notice she does not call out for all the tribes, just some northern ones.Look at the following poem about some of the political issues she faced.

9) In part Judges deals with the question of what human beings do with a gift. It is a political replay of the Garden of Eden story.

10) the standard phrase for reacting to oppression is to cry to the Lord. See Patrick miller's book of that name on prayer. That word can mean to shriek, to get at the desperation of crying out from under the heel of oppression