bursting of a cloud, which is poetically described as though the stars of heaven had left their courses to fight for the Lord and His kingdom upon earth.
Verse 21
The kings of Canaan could do nothing against these powers. They were smitten; the brook Kishon washed them (i.e., their corpses) away. The meaning “to wash away” is well established by the dialects and the context, though the verb itself only occurs here. As the battle was fought between Taanach and Megiddo, i.e., to the south of the brook Kishon, and the smitten foe fled towards the north, many of them met with their death in the waves of the brook, which was flowing over its banks at the time. The brook is called קדוּמים נחל, i.e., the brook of the old world or the olden time (according to the lxx Cod. Vat. χειμάῤῥους ἀρχαίων), as the stream that had been flowing from time immemorial, and not, as the Chaldee interprets it, the stream that had been celebrated from olden time on account of the mighty acts that had been performed there. The meaning suggested by Ewald and others, “brook of attacks, or slaughters,” is not well sustained, although קדּם is sometimes used to denote a hostile encounter. The last clause interrupts the description of the slaughter and the victory. Borne away by the might of the acts to be commemorated, Deborah stimulates her soul, i.e., herself, to a vigorous continuation of her song. תּדרכי is jussive, and עז an accusative governed by the verb, in strength, vigorously; for she had still to celebrate the glorious results of the victory. This is done in the third part of the song (Jdg 5:22-31), the first strophe of which (Jdg 5:22-24) describes in brief drastic traits the flight of the foe, and the treatment of the fugitives by the people of the land.
Verses 22-24
Jdg 5:22-24 22 Then did the hoofs of the horses stamp
With the hunting, the hunting of his strong ones. 23 Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord;
Curse ye, curse ye the inhabitants thereof!
Because they came not to the help of Jehovah,
To the help of Jehovah among the mighty. 24 Blessed before women be Jael,
The wife of Heber the Kenite,
Blessed before women in the tent!
The war-chariots of the enemy hunted away in the wildest flight (Jdg 5:22). The horses stamped the ground with the continuous hunting or galloping away of the warriors. דהרה, the hunting (cf. דּהר, Nah 3:2). The repetition of the word expresses the continuance or incessant duration of the same thing (see Ewald, §313, a.). אבּירים, strong ones, are not the horses, but the warriors
