Jehovah's advent Conditions before the battle Present causes for thanks giving The rally about Deborah and Barak I myself will sing to Jehovah, I will praise Jehovah, Israel's God. 4Jehovah when thou wentest forth from Seir, The heavens also dripped, Yea, the clouds dropped water. "The mountains quaked before Jehovah, "In the days of Shamgar, Anath's son, Until thou didst arise a mother in Israel. 'My heart is with the commanders of Israel, 10 You who ride on tawny asses, Who sit on rich saddle-cloths, And you who walk by the way, proclaim it. Let them rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, Then Jehovah's people went down to the gates: Arise, arise, strike up the song! Arise, Barak, be strong, Take thy captives, son of Abinoam!' 13So a remnant went down against the powerful, And from Zebulun those who carry the marshal's staff. 15 And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; And Naphtali was even so with Barak, By Reuben's brooks great were the resolves! GREAT VICTORY OVER THE CANAANITES Listening to the pipings of the flocks? By Reuben's brooks great were the questionings! 17 And Gilead remained beyond the Jordan; Why does Dan stay aloof by the ships? Asher sits still by the sea shore, And remains by his landing places. 18Zebulun was a people that faced death, And Naphtali on the heights of the open field. 19 Kings also came, they fought; They fought, the kings of Canaan, At Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; 20 From heaven fought the stars, From their courses fought against Sisera. 21The River Kishon swept them away, The ancient river, the River Kishon. O my soul, march on with strength! 22 Then did the horse-hoofs resound With the galloping, galloping of their steeds. 23 Curse Meroz, said the Messenger of Jehovah, For they came not to the help of Jehovah, 24Blessed above women shall Jael be, Even her right hand to the workman's hammer; She shattered, she pierced his temple. 27 He bowed at her feet, he fell, he lay still, At her feet he bowed, he fell; Where he bowed, he fell a victim slain. 28 Through the window she peered and cried, The cowards who remained at home The battle by the river Kishon The cowardly people of Meroz Jael's brave act The anxiety in Sisera's palace A woman or two for each warrior, 31 aSo perish all thine enemies, O Jehovah! § 4. The Victory over the Philistines, I Sam. 187 I Sam. 18 "The women sang to each other as they danced: And David his tens of thousands. II TRADITIONAL ORACLES Gen. 314b-19, 925b-27, 122, 3, 492-27, Dt. 33, Nu. 243b-9, 15b-19, 237b-10, 18b-22, 24, § 5. The Curse upon Serpent-kind, Gen. 314b, 15 Gen. 3 14bCursed shalt thou be above all animals, And above all the beasts of the field. §4 The occasion was the great victory of the Hebrews over the Philistines, which, according to I Sam. 17, was inaugurated by the slaying of Goliath by David. This particular fragment of the triumphal song was remembered because it marked the passing of popular favor from Saul to the youthful David, which aroused the bitter jealousy of Israel's first king. Traditional Oracles.-Among the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans (especially during the imperial period), and among most peoples of antiquity, oracles were very common and highly appreciated. The primitive ancestors of the Hebrews, like the early Arabs, undoubtedly often resorted to the priest or prophet in order to determine what was the divine will before undertaking an important enterprise. For an interesting example of the Heb. oracle, cf. I Sam. 30. The answer was probably from earliest times cast in poetic form, as it was by Delphic priestess or Arabian kahin. The common basis of all these oracles was the universal psychological motive which impels men to seek to ascertain from the god or gods what the future is destined to bring forth. The poetic form was employed because it was deemed the more impressive and appropriate way of expressing the divine will. Early in Israel's history the oracle became the model of a peculiar type of literature. Starting with some striking fact in nature, as the peculiar habits of serpents, or in history, as the Heb. conquest of the early Canaanites, the poet-prophet presented the popular or prophetic explanation of these facts in the form of an oracular curse or blessing put in the mouth of Jehovah or some early ancestor like Noah or Jacob. As in Cranmer's prediction of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in Shakespeare's Henry VIII, act V, scene 5, the poet writes with a detailed knowledge of the event but assumes a point of view antedating it. Sometimes he incorporated ancient proverbs or tribal songs, perhaps already attributed by tradition to some early saint. It is often difficult to determine whether the oracles originated with the prophet, who has given them their present setting, or were derived by him from some earlier source. Usually they are earlier poems, as, for example, the description of the different tribes in Gen. 49. These ancient traditional oracles are the literary prototypes of the later Jewish apocalypses such as are found in the books of Enoch, Daniel, and Revelation. Some of them also employ obscure language and the symbolism of animals, as do the later forms of this same peculiar literature. Some of them, like those in Gen. 49, throw light upon recondite events in the early history of the tribes. Others reflect the primitive faith of the early Hebrews; but their chief value lies in the light which they throw upon the motives and aspirations of the Israelites and the philosophy of life which guided them in the earliest stages of their national and religious development. § 5 For the setting of this oracle, cf. Vol. I, § 2. This ancient curse represents the prophetic explanation of why serpents, unlike ordinary animals, were compelled to go wriggling through the dust, the mortal enemies of men and the object of their constant attack. THE CURSE UPON SERPENT-KIND On thy belly shalt thou go, All the days of thy life. 15 Enmity will I set between thee and the woman, He shall bruise thee on the head, And thou shalt wound him on the heel. § 6. The Divine Judgment upon Womankind, Gen. 316 Gen. 3 16I will make thy pain great in thy pregnancy, § 7. The Divine Judgment upon Man, Gen. 317b-19 Gen. 3 17b Cursed shall the ground be because of thee, And thou shalt eat the herb of the field. 19By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat, And to dust shalt thou return. § 8. The Noah Oracle, Gen. 925b-27 Gen. 9 25bCursed be Canaan, May he be a servant of servants to his brothers. 26 Blessed of Jehovah be Shem; Let Canaan also be a servant to him. 27God enlarge Japheth, Of the unceasing warfare between man and serpentkind Expla- Explanation of man's painful lot The fortunes of the Canaanites Of the And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; § 6 The natural basis of this oracle is the pain which woman had to bear as mother and Oriental wife. As in the immediately preceding and following oracles, all pain and misfortune and discomfort are traced back to sin as the cause. $8 Canaan in this ancient oracle represents the Canaanites, whom the Hebrews, the descendants of Shem, conquered and enslaved. Japheth is probably here to be identified with the Phoenicians. It possibly also included their colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean. The underlying historical fact, which this oracle formulates, is that the rich, opulent, highly civilized Canaanites were subjugated and completely absorbed by the semi-barbarous nomadic Israelites, who, in turn, as in the days of David and Solomon, made close commercial alliances with the Phoenicians. Primitive thought apparently explained this strange event in the terms of this oracle, which is equivalent to saying that it was thus divinely decreed. The prophet, however, who has incorporated the oracle in its present setting, goes deeper and presents the true explanation: it was because of the moral depravity of the Canaanites and the superior moral and religious sense of the Hebrews that the latter attained the ascendency over the decadent and immoral Canaanites. Cf. Vol. I, § 5. Of their neigh bors The pros perity promised to the Hebrews Exordium Reuben ruled by ungovernable passions § 9. Jehovah's Blessing upon Abraham's Descendants, Gen. 122, ▾ Gen. 12 2I will make thee a great nation, And I will bless thee and magnify thy name, So that thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless thee, And him that curseth thee will I curse, So that all the families of the earth Shall invoke a like blessing for themselves." § 10. Jacob's Blessing upon the Tribes, Gen. 492-27 Gen. 49 2Assemble, O sons of Jacob, Reuben thou art my first-born,d My strength and the first-fruit of my manhood, § 9 This is the oldest early Judean version of that divine promise to the Israelitish race through Abraham which is repeated in fourfold form in Gen. 15 and 17. Cf. Vol. I, § 16. It embodies those early hopes and aspirations of which the days of David and Solomon were the historical basis. Vs. 3 voices the attitude toward the outside world that was dominant until the experiences of the exile opened the eyes of certain prophets to the idea of unselfish service. Cf. Gen. 2523, Vol. I, § 28, for the brief Jacob-Esau birth oracle; Gen. 2727b-29, Vol. I, § 30, for Isaac's blessing upon Jacob; Gen. 2739b, 40, Vol. I, § 30, for Isaac's blessing on Esau; and Gen. 4815. 16, Vol. I, § 55, for Jacob's blessing upon Ephraim and Manasseh. a123 The current translation, shall be blessed, is not supported by the Heb. nor the parallel passages. Cf. Vol. I, § 12, note f. §10 To Jacob, the traditional father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the different oracles relating to them were appropriately attributed, just as to Isaac were assigned the Jacob-Esau oracles. This traditional ascription is embodied not only in the present early Judean prophetic setting, vs. 1, but also in the introduction to the oracle itself, 2. Thus the evidence is strong that the tendency to attribute anonymous writings to certain prominent characters of a preceding age was very early, for the present poem in its completeness apparently antedates the division of the Hebrew Empire. It is, indeed, the national song of united Israel and may well come from a court poet in the days of David, who collected the earlier tribal songs and added the exordium and the exuberant description of the conquest and rule of Judah under the leadership of the great king from Bethlehem, 8-12. After the division and the events which followed he would not, in all probability, have sung: The scepter shall not pass from Judah, Nor the royal staff from between his feet. Nowhere are these later calamities reflected. The tone of the poem is critical and the guilty tribes are condemned; but the spirit in general is jubilant, and there is no evidence that the poet wrote later than the middle of the reign of David or that of Solomon. This conclusion is also confirmed by the vocabulary and literary style which are primitive. The same is true of the institutions and religious ideas. It is evident that many popular songs, some describing the situation, some the characteristics, and some the striking experiences of the different tribes have here been woven together. Several of them evidently, e. g., those regarding Zebulun and Issachar, anticipate conditions antedating the union of the tribes or even the situation reflected in Judg. 5. Some contain allusions to incidents recorded in the traditions of Gen., e. g., 34, and others to prehistoric events. In the suggestions which it furnishes regarding the earliest beginnings of Israel's life, the ancient poem is of great historical value. With only a very few doubtful exceptions, the three-beat measure prevails throughout these poems. The ideas are simple and the literary style is crude but vigorous. They record the first beginnings of philosophical thinking. There are traces also of a didactic purpose: in the opening stanzas, for example, the poet is seeking to formulate the principles illustrated by the bitter experience of the tribes. b492 And hear has apparently been added by mistake, for the same verbal idea is found in the next line. 492 Cf. the introductions to the later prophetic messages, Is. 110, 2814, 329, Mic. 11. d493 Lit., first of my strength; Gk., the first of my children. Cf. Dt. 2117, Ps. 10536, Hos. 123b. Reuben was probably regarded as the first-born because this tribe was the first to settle in its eastJordan home. |