Hebrew Hussies and Hellcats, from which this poem was taken, in now available in our bookstore.
The Song of Deborah (Judges 5)
This the song Deborah chanted
on the day Yael killed Sisera.
Israel’s princes fought
in a battle trance, as if more than mortal,
when Israel’s folk offered themselves
as an ecstatic sacrifice
to the chance of battle,
for the glory of God.
Hear me, kings and leaders
of all the neighboring lands,
I sing to the Lord, to God,
to Israel’s God!
When the Lord led our exodus
up through Sinai,
from the desert through Edom’s farmlands
south of Israel, near the Dead Sea,
Edom opposed them, barred their way.
Thunder made the land shudder,
heavy fell the raindrops,
heaven let fall its water
sent waterfalls pouring
down the mountainsides,
announcing the approach of God
at the head of Israel’s host,
the God who showed himself on Sinai!
It was in the days of Shamgar son of Anath,
in the Days of Yael—
heroes, he and she, defenders of our people
against their Arab enemies
in the days before Israel had a king;
but their courage wasn’t enough,
no caravans dared pass,
those who had to travel the disputed lands
took winding, roundabout paths.
Israel’s people, as if beaten, acquiesced,
until I stood up, Deborah,
a prophet and more than a prophet,
a leader in war and more,
a mother, a mother in Israel,
as brave and inspired
as only a mother who fights for her child.
Our people curried favor with their haters,
“Accept us, we worship the same gods as you.”
They compromised, apologized
till battering rams were slamming the gates,
and even then, not a spear or a shield
was raised by thousands of slavish Jews.
My heart is with those princes
and people of Israel
who made themselves war offerings,
glad sacrifice, trusting the Lord.
Let the wealthy, who ride white donkeys,
seated on sumptuous saddles,
and those who make their way on foot,
and those who line up to draw from the well,
let all who talk to pass the time
acknowledge: the Lord does right by his people,
God is true and sure!
The people ran down to the city gates,
the gates of the city, where news is exchanged
where the elders sit to give judgement,
(those gates are a middle-east city’s heart!)
There the people rushed with this summons,
“Rouse now our people, Deborah,
with a God-inspired song;
follow her, Barak, son of Abinoam,
bring captives and booty back home in parade.”
Then a people of refugees
defeated those grown arrogant from unearned wealth;
few and weak, the people of God
beat the many and strong.
From Israel’s middle came the tribe of Ephraim,
whose territory stretches to Jaffa on the coast,
bringing with them Amelekites,
(an allied Canaanite tribe);
then the tribe of Benjamin, sceptred chieftains
who dwell between Jerusalem and Jericho,
and the tribe of Manasseh, who live alongside these:
their lands together form a band
from Jordan to Mediterranean shores—
from the river to the sea,
forever God-givenly Israel’s!
Zebulon came from the Galilee
with their north-country neighbors, Issachar,
joining forces with Deborah and Barak,
they trooped down from the mountains,
on foot, by familys, by clans,
to fight for Israel in the river Kishon’s plain.
Reuben, on the Dead Sea’s eastern shore
convoked a high council, deliberated long,
declared—they’d stay home and tend their sheep.
Gad, east of the Jordan, in the hills of Gilead,
likewise remained to watch their flocks
playing their flutes in a coward’s pastorale.
Reuben too did some deep soul searching,
resolved to take it easy back with Gad.
Asher never left their ports along the coast,
from Acco to Tyre, all the way to Lebanon,
they harbored themselves in their own safe bays.
But Zebulon and Naphtali up north,
by the shores of the Sea of Galilee,
they didn’t dread death, weren’t scared of life:
theirs the hard life of hillfolk in Israel’s north!
An alliance of Canaanite kings
warred against us at the base of the Galilean hills,
along the shores of the river Kishon,
but they didn’t manage to sack our cities,
Ta’anach and Megiddo,
they carried home no booty.
Sisera commanded the Canaanites,
but the stars in their courses warred against them,
pouring down bad luck and disaster,
the river Kishon swept away their chariots
as fast as they tried to flee across it.
March on, my violent soul!
Our horses’ hooves pounded the ground,
our stallions galloped, the angel of God
thundered encouragement from above.
A curse on the city of Meroz,
whose people just watched our soldiers march past!
A curse upon those traitors who stood idly by,
wouldn’t help the Lord God’s heroes.
Now look upon Yael, regard her with awe,
Yael, the wife of Heber,
Heber of the nomad Kenite clan,
our allies. Praise her, noble and sole
among the women who waited at home
the women who kept to their tents.
Sisera, fleeing, begged her for refuge;
he asked for water, she gave him milk,
rich whole milk in a princely bowl.
She let him rest. While he slept outstretched
her left hand went for the tent-peg, her right
took hold of a workman’s heavy hammer,
she staked his head to the ground where he lay,
his head between her knees, she drove it home,
through from temple to temple, crushing skull.
The man of war was felled where he lay,
between a woman’s triumphant legs.
Sisera’s mother look out her window,
peeped through the lattice of the women’s quarters,
“Why is Sisera so late?
Where’s the clatter of his chariot wheels?”
The wisest of her ladies in waiting suggested
words which his mother repeated herself,
“They must still be sharing out the booty,
divvying up so much plunder,
the prettiest women as slaves for the chieftains.
Sisera’s choosing cloth finely dyed
to take home for his sisters, trying to decide
which embroidered robe will flutter from his shoulders
when he rides in triumph home.”
So perish all your enemies, O God!
Those who love you, sun-glorious, shall rise!
The land was then at peace for forty years.