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26-595: Sisera is described as having had nine hundred iron chariots with which he fought the Israelites. In Judges 5 , the mother of Sisera is poignantly described looking from a window, presumably in Harosheth Haggoyim, and asking "Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?" when he does not return from the battle where his army was defeated by the Israelites , and he

52-413: A linchpin from the wheel of a war chariot belonging to a high-ranking person. It would have appeared on the side of a chariot in much the position as a modern hubcap. Zertal explained the significance of the discovery, “This identification enhances the historical and archaeological value of the site and proves that chariots belonging to high-ranking individuals were found there. It provides support for

78-468: A position of legal pronouncements. Cyrus H. Gordon argued the shophetim may have come from among the hereditary leaders of the fighting, landed, and ruling aristocracy, like the basileis or kings of Homer . Coogan says that they were most likely tribal or local leaders, contrary to the Deuteronomistic historian's portrayal of them as leaders of all of Israel, but Malamat pointed out that in

104-702: Is one of the oldest extant Israelite literary compositions dating to around the 12th century BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the period of time it depicts. Comparable to earlier works of the Canaanites discovered at Ugarit, the composition is characterized by a 'parallelistic variety of repetition whereby imagery unfolds in a beautifully layered or impressionistic style' so that 'the parallel line adds colour, nuance, or contrast to its neighbouring description'. The lines (in bicola or tricola) are generally about parallel in length. The content itself draws upon traditional Israelite media of expression, also employed by others in

130-639: The Codex Cairensis (895), Aleppo Codex (10th century), and Codex Leningradensis (1008). Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint (originally was made in the last few centuries BCE) include Codex Vaticanus ( B ; G {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}} ; 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus ( A ; G {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}} ; 5th century). A linguistic study by Chisholm reveals that

156-614: The Hebrew Bible , primarily in the Book of Judges , were individuals who served as military leaders of the tribes of Israel in times of crisis, in the period before the monarchy was established. A cyclical pattern is regularly recounted in the Book of Judges to show the need for the various judges: apostasy of the Israelite people, hardship brought on as divine retribution , and crying out to Yahweh for rescue. The story of

182-498: The Israelite tribes may have formed a loose confederation. No central government would have existed in this conception, but in times of crisis, the people would have been led by ad hoc chieftains known as shophetim. However, some scholars are uncertain whether such a role existed in ancient Israel. The book is generally too problematic to use as a historical source. [...] Two points relating to history, however, can be made about

208-685: The area, places the chariot base in the Valley of Jezreel , between Taanach and Megiddo . Judges 5 Judges 5 is the fifth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible . According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel , but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History , which spans the books of Deuteronomy through Kings , attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during

234-473: The biblical tradition. The structure of the Song of Deborah is as follows: The call to hear this song contains parallel terms and syntax with the formulaic introduction 'hear/give ear' (cf Deuteronomy 32:1; Isaiah 1:2), to state that YHWH , both the muse and victor, is the ultimate source and receiver of the song. Verses 24–27 present another version of the tale of Jael in wonderfully economic style, with

260-521: The book of Judges: first, the picture of a tribal society without a unified leadership engaging in uncoordinated local actions seems to fit the society of the hill country in IA I , as evidenced by the archaeology….Secondly, perhaps the one exception to the historical ambiguity of the text is the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 (cf. Knauf 2005b). Working with the chronology in Judges , Payne points out that although

286-610: The central part in the Book of Judges (Judges 3:7–16:31) can be divided into two panels based on the six refrains that state that the Israelites did evil in Yahweh's eyes: Panel One Panel Two Furthermore from the linguistic evidence, the verbs used to describe the Lord's response to Israel's sin have chiastic patterns and can be grouped to fit the division above: Panel One Panel Two The victory song attributed to Deborah in this chapter

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312-496: The coming of Sisera with the spoils of war, it was Sisera himself who has been despoiled at the hands of a warrior woman. The abrupt burst by which the song ends depicts the completeness of the overthrow, causing it to be long remembered as an example of Israel's triumph over God's enemies ( Psalm 83 :9–10; Psalm 83:12–15). Hebrew Bible judges The judges (sing. Hebrew : שופט , romanized :  šōp̄ēṭ , pl. שופטים šōp̄əṭīm ) whose stories are recounted in

338-541: The conquest to the fifteenth century BCE. There is also doubt among some scholars about any historicity of the Book of Judges. In the Hebrew Bible , Moses is described as a shophet over the Israelites and appoints others to whom cases were delegated following the advice of Jethro , his Midianite father-in-law. The Book of Judges mentions twelve leaders who are said to "judge" Israel: Othniel , Ehud , Shamgar , Deborah , Gideon , Tola , Jair , Jephthah , Ibzan , Elon , Abdon , and Samson . Ehud , described in

364-521: The figures given in Judges (years of oppression, years the judges led Israel, years of peace achieved by the judges) are treated as consecutive, then the total duration of the events described in Judges is 410 years. If we accept a date of 1000 BCE for the beginning of David's reign over all Israel, which puts the beginning of Eli's leadership of Israel at about 1100 BCE, then the judges period would begin no later than 1510 BCE–impossible even for those who date

390-726: The fortifications, walls, passageways in the walls and rounded huts is very different from Canaanite cities of the era, leading Zertal to propose that the site may have been occupied by the Shardana , one of the Sea Peoples who invaded the Levant in the Late Bronze Age. Zertal based his 2010 Hebrew language Sisera’s Secret, A Journey following the Sea-Peoples and the Song of Deborah , (Dvir, Tel Aviv) on this theory. Among

416-498: The judges seems to describe successive individuals, each from a different tribe of Israel, described as chosen by God to rescue the people from their enemies and establish justice. While judge is a literalistic translation of the term shophet used in the Masoretic Text (as well as by other Canaanitic-speaking societies), the position as described in Judges 12 :7–15 is an unelected non-hereditary leadership rather than

442-556: The more intriguing objects uncovered by the El-Ahwat dig is a small, round, bronze relief measuring about 2 cm. in diameter and 5 mm. thick. The bronze shows the "face of a woman wearing a cap and earrings shaped as chariot wheels." It was found inside a structure identified by the archaeological team as the “Governor’s House”. It is clear that the bronze was once the finial or end of an "elongated object" from which it had been broken off in antiquity. It has now been identified as

468-578: The more recent find of a fancy chariot linchpin by archaeologist Oren Cohen seems to corroborate this hypothesis. The site was excavated from 1993-2000 by teams from the University of Haifa and the University of Cagliari in Sardinia . The dig was headed by Professor Zertal. The dig revealed a fortified place dating to the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (13th-12th centuries BCE). The style of

494-457: The possibility, which has not yet been definitively established, that this was Sisera’s city of residence and that it was from there that the chariots set out on their way to the battle against the Israelite tribes, located between the ancient sites of Taanach and Megiddo .” Anson Rainey , on the basis of the place name ("farmland"), the need for lowland (rather than wooded hilly terrain) for chariots, and other records of military encampments in

520-408: The repetition that underscores the violent turn in the action as Jael is described as one who strikes, crushes, shatters, and pierces, as she at the same time seduced and slaughtered the enemy. In contrast to Jael as a tent-dwelling woman, the mother of Sisera is an noblewomen peering from a house with lattice-work windows (cf. 2 Kings 10:30), accompanied by ladies-in-waiting, but instead of expecting

546-589: The story of Abimelech , an illegitimate son of Gideon, who was appointed as a judge-like leader by the citizens of the city of Shechem . He was later overthrown during a local conflict, and the classification of Abimelech as a judge is questionable. The biblical text does not generally describe these leaders as "a judge", but says that they "judged Israel", using the verb שָׁפַט ( š-f-t ). Thus, Othniel "judged Israel forty years" ( Judges 3 :11), Tola "judged Israel twenty-three years" ( Judges 10 :2), and Jair judged Israel twenty-two years ( Judges 10 :3). According to

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572-457: The text between Othniel and Shamgar , is usually included as a judge because the history of his leadership follows a set pattern characteristic of five of the others. The First Book of Samuel mentions Eli and Samuel , as well as Joel and Abiah (two sons of Samuel). The First Book of Chronicles mentions Kenaniah and his sons. The Second Book of Chronicles mentions Amariah and Zebadiah (son of Ishmael). The Book of Judges also recounts

598-490: The text, their authority is described as being recognized by local groups or tribes beyond their own. The term is sometimes rendered as "chieftain," although Robert Alter cautions that this misrepresents shophetim as a normal leadership structure. The biblical scholar Kenneth Kitchen argues that from the conquest of Canaan by Joshua until the formation of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah ( c.  1150–1025 BCE ),

624-515: The time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in the 7th century BCE. This chapter records the activities of judge Deborah , belonging to a section comprising Judges 3:1 to 5:31 . This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language . It is divided into 31 verses. Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes

650-439: The timescale of Judges is indicated by Jephthah's statement (Judges 11:26) that Israel had occupied the land for around 300 years, some of the judges overlapped one another. Claiming that Deborah's victory has been confirmed as taking place in 1216 from archaeology undertaken at Hazor , he suggests that the period may have lasted from c.  1382 to c.  1063 . Bill T. Arnold and Hugh G. M. Williamson wrote: all

676-523: Was killed by the Biblical heroine Yael . In the late 19th century, Victor Guérin identified the southern Lebanese village of Hariss with Harosheth, a location with which the PEF 's Survey of Western Palestine seems to agree. Archaeologist Adam Zertal of the University of Haifa proposed that the site of El-Ahwat , between Katzir-Harish and Nahal Iron , is the site of Harosheth Haggoyim, and

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