Deborah
A prophetess who judged Israel in the hill country of Ephraim. She summoned Barak to fight the Canaanite commander Sisera at Mount Tabor, and the victory song in Judges 5 bears her name.
Judges introduces Deborah as a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, who sat under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, where the Israelites came to her for judgment (Judges 4:4–5). She summoned Barak in the Lord’s name to gather the men of Naphtali and Zebulun on Mount Tabor. She went with him at his request, and told him that the honour of the day would go to a woman (Judges 4:6–10). It was she who gave the word to attack Sisera’s chariots (Judges 4:14–16).
The song of Judges 5, which she and Barak sing, calls her “a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:1, 7). After the victory, the book says, the land had rest for forty years (Judges 5:31). Her story is told in the Age of the Judges.
In the timeline
- c. 1375 or c. 1200 – c. 1050 BC, traditional dateThe Age of the Judges
After Joshua, Israel lives in its tribes without a king. The book of Judges tells of a repeated turn to other gods, foreign oppression, and rescue by leaders called judges, among them Deborah, Gideon and Samson.