Judges 5:2

Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) For the avenging of Israel.—The Hebrew word peraoth cannot have this meaning, though it is found in the Syriac and implied by the Chaldee. The word only occurs in Deuteronomy 32:42, and there, as here, implies the notion of leading; so that the LXX. are doubtless right in rendering it, “In the leading of the leaders of Israel.” God is praised because both leaders and people (Judges 5:9; Judges 5:13) did their duty. Peraoth is derived from perang, “hair”; and whether the notion which it involves is that of comati, “nobles, who wear long hair” (comp. Homer’s “long-haired Greeks,” and Tennyson’s “his beard a yard before him, and his hair a yard behind “), or “hairy champions,” or the hair of warriors streaming behind them as they rode to battle (“His beard and hoary hair streamed like a meteor to the troubled air”: Gray), leadership seems to be the notion involved.

When the people willingly offered themselves.—Comp. Psalm 110:3 : “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.”

Benson Commentary

Jdg 5:2. Praise ye the Lord, &c. — This verse seems to be no more than the exordium, or preface to the song, expressing the subject or occasion of it, namely, the avenging of Israel, or the deliverance of them from Canaanitish slavery, and the people’s willingly offering themselves to battle. Houbigant renders the verse thus —

“Because the leaders of Israel undertook the war,

Because the people willingly offered themselves,

Praise ye the Lord.”

And Dr. Kennicott supposes that the first line was sung by Deborah: that Barak answered her in the second, and that they both joined in the last, which, according to the Hebrew, he more properly translates, Bless ye Jehovah.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-5. No time should be lost in returning thanks to the Lord for his mercies; for our praises are most acceptable, pleasant, and profitable, when they flow from a full heart. By this, love and gratitude would be more excited and more deeply fixed in the hearts of believers; the events would be more known and longer remembered. Whatever Deborah, Barak, or the army had done, the Lord must have all the praise. The will, the power, and the success were all from Him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Render "For the leading of the leaders in Israel (the princes), for the willingness of the people (to follow them) bless ye the Lord." See Deuteronomy 32:42 note, and compare Judges 5:9 and Judges 5:13, where the nobles and the people are again contrasted.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2, 3. The meaning is obscurely seen in our version; it has been better rendered thus, "Praise ye Jehovah; for the free are freed in Israel—the people have willingly offered themselves" [Robinson].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Praise ye the Lord; give him the praise who hath done the work.

For the avenging of Israel; or, for taking vengeance, to wit, upon his and their enemies, by Israel, or for Israel, for Israel’s benefit, or for the injuries and violences offered by them to Israel. The people; chiefly Zebulun and Naphtali, below, Judges 5:18 4:6, and others hereafter mentioned.

Willingly offered themselves, when neither Deborah nor Barak had any power to compel them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel,.... The injuries done to Israel by any of their enemies, and particularly what wrongs had been done them by Jabin, king of Canaan, for twenty years past; though some understand it of the vengeance God took on Israel for their sins; and though praise is not given directly for that, yet inasmuch as, when that was the case, there were some whose spirits were stirred up to engage voluntarily in the deliverance of them from the oppression of their enemies, it was matter of praise:

when the people willingly offered themselves: to go and fight for Israel against their enemies, particularly those of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, Judges 5:18; though not excluding others that joined, who could not have been forced to it, had they not freely offered themselves; and which was owing to the secret influence of divine Providence on their hearts, moving and drawing them to this service; and therefore praise was due to the Lord on this account, who works in the hearts of men both to will and to do, as in things spiritual and religious, so in things natural and civil.

Geneva Study Bible

Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the {a} people willingly offered themselves.

(a) That is, the two tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. The translation, after the LXX. cod. A, gives a good parallelism (leaders and people as in Jdg 5:9), but it rests on slender support. The noun rendered leaders has this meaning among others (such as abundant hair, in Arabic), but in Hebrew the verb ‘took the lead’ properly means to loosen Exodus 5:4, especially to let the hair go loose Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 13:45, and the noun is used of the long locks of the Nazirites Numbers 6:5. Wearing the hair long was the mark of a vow not to do certain things until a specified object had been attained; the practice was observed not only by the Nazirites but by warriors bent upon vengeance; for an illustration from Arabic see Wellhausen, Reste Arab. Heidenthums2, p. 123 n., and cf. Psalm 68:21. Hence we may transl. when the locks grew long in Israel i.e. when the warriors took the vow of vengeance: this may be the meaning of the same word in Deuteronomy 32:42 ‘from the long-haired heads of the foe.’ Offered themselves willingly, of volunteering for battle, only again in 2 Chronicles 17:16, cf. Psalm 110:3; usually of offerings to the Temple in Chr., Ezr., Neh. The translation For that … For that … Bless ye is contrary to usage, which rather requires When … When, as in Jdg 5:4 where the same construction occurs; but this does not agree with Bless ye. The exact sense of the verse is doubtful.

2, 3. Exordium.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Her first feeling was one of patriotic joy that her countrymen had been roused to the venture of war, and of gratitude to God that it was so. "For the bold leading of the leaders of Israel, for the willing following of the people, praise ye the Lord. Judges 5:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

2 That the strong in Israel showed themselves strong,

That the people willingly offered themselves,

Praise ye the Lord!

The meaning of פּרע and פּרעות is a subject of dispute. According to the Septuagint rendering, and that of Theodot., ἐν τῷ ἄρξασθαι ἀρχηγοὺς ἐν Ἰσραήλ, many give it the meaning to begin or to lead, and endeavour to establish this meaning from an Arabic word signifying to find one's self at the head of an affair. But this meaning cannot be established in Hebrew. פּרע has no other meaning than to let loose from something, to let a person loose or free (see at Leviticus 10:6); and in the only other passage where פּרעות occurs (Deuteronomy 32:42), it does not refer to a leader, but to the luxuriant growth of the hair as the sign of great strength. Hence in this passage also פּרעות literally means comati, the hairy ones, i.e., those who possessed strength; and פּרע, to manifest or put forth strength. The persons referred to are the champions in the fight, who went before the nation with strength and bravery. The preposition בּ before פּרע indicates the reason for praising God, or rather the object with which the praise of the Lord was connected. וגו בּפרע, literally "in the showing themselves strong." The meaning is, "for the fact that the strong in Israel put forth strength." התנדּב, to prove one's self willing, here to go into the battle of their own free will, without any outward and authoritative command. This introduction transports us in the most striking manner into the time of the judges, when Israel had no king who could summon the nation to war, but everything depended upon the voluntary rising of the strong and the will of the nation at large. The manifestation of this strength and willingness Deborah praises as a gracious gift of the Lord. After this summons to praise the Lord, the first part of the song opens with an appeal to the kings and princes of the earth to hear what Deborah has to proclaim to the praise of God.