Verse 2. - Sold them. See Judges 2:14, note. Jabin king of Hazor. The exact site of Hazor has not been identified with certainty, but it is conjectured by Robinson, with great probability, to have stood on the Tell now called Khuraibeh, overlooking the waters of Merom (now called Lake Huleh), where are remains of a sepulchre, Cyclopean walls, and other buildings. In Joshua 11:1-14 we read of the total destruction by fire of Hazor, and of the slaughter of Jabin, the king thereof, with all the inhabitants of the city, and of the slaughter of all the confederate kings, and the capture of their cities; Hazor, however, "the head of all those kingdoms," being the only one which was "burnt with fire." It is a little surprising, therefore, to read here of another Jabin reigning in Hazor, with confederate kings under him (Judges 5:19), having, like his predecessor, a vast number of chariots (cf. Judges 4:3, 13 with Joshua 11:4, 9), and attacking Israel at the head of a great force (cf. Judges 4:7, 13, 16 with Joshua 11:4). It is impossible not to suspect that these are two accounts of the same event. If, however, the two events are distinct, we must suppose that the Canaanite kingdoms had been revived under a descendant of the former king, that Hazor had been rebuilt, and that Jabin was the hereditary name of its king. Gentiles, or nations, or Goim, as Joshua 12:23, and Genesis 14:1. Whether Goim was the proper name of a particular people, or denoted a collection of different tribes, their seat was in Galilee, called in Isaiah 9:1; Matthew 4:15, Galilee, of the nations, or Gentiles, in Hebrew Goim.

Verse 5. - The palm tree of Deborah. The tree, which was probably still standing in the writer's time, was known as "the palm tree of Deborah," just as a certain oak tree in the forest of Hoxne, in Suffolk, was known for many hundred years as King Edmund's oak.

Verse 6. - Kedesh-naphtali, i.e. Kedesh in the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 19:37), as distinguished from Kedesh in the south of Judah (Joshua 15:23), and others. It still keeps the name of Kades, and lies four miles north-west of Lake Huleh. There are numerous ancient remains. Hath not the Lord, etc. She sneaks as "a prophetess" announcing God s commands, not her own opinions; declaring God's promises, not merely her own hopes or wishes.

Verse 10. - Called, or rather gathered together, as the same word is rendered in ver. 13. Went up, viz., to Mount Tabor, as in vers. 6 and 12. Translate the verse. There went up ten thousand men at his feet, i.e. following him.

Verse 11. - Translate, Now Heber the Kenite had severed himself from the Kenites, viz., from the sons of Hobab, etc. The Kenites, as we read in Judges 1:16, had settled in the wilderness of Judah, south of Arad, in the time of Joshua. Heber, with a portion of the tribe, had migrated later to Naphtali, probably at the time When the Philistines were pressing hard upon Judah, in the days of Shamgar and Jael (Judges 3:31 and Judges 5:5).

Verse 13. - Unto the river (or brook) of Kishon, now the Nahr Mukutta. In the plain of Esdraelon, through which the Kishon flowed into the Mediterranean, there would be room for all his chariots to come into action.

Verse 14. - And Deborah, etc. Observe how throughout Deborah takes the lead as the inspired prophetess.

Verse 15.- The Lord discomfited, etc. Deborah had announced that the Lord was gone out before the host of Barak, and so the victory was not man's, but the Lord's. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

Verse 16. - Barak pursued after the chariots. Barak, supposing Sisera still to be with the chariots, pursued after them, and seems to have overtaken them, as they were embarrassed in the rotten, boggy ground which had been suddenly overflowed by the swollen waters of Kishon. Many were swept away by the flood and drowned, the rest put to the sword while their horses were floundering in the bog (Judges 5:21, 22). But Sisera had meanwhile escaped on foot unnoticed, and fled to the tents of the friendly Kenites.

Verse 18. - With a mantle. Rather, "with the coverlet," such as was always at hand in the nomad tent.

Verse 19. - A little water. Faint and thirsty as he was, he did not ask for strong drink, but only water.

Verse 21. - Then Jael, etc. Sisera, having taken every precaution, had lain him down to rest; not, like David, trusting to the Lord to make him dwell in safety, but confiding in Jael's friendship and his own crafty directions. But no sooner had he fallen into a deep sleep, than the crafty and courageous woman, into whose hands Sisera was to be sold, took a tent pin and the heavy hammer with which they drove the pin into the ground, and with a desperate blow forced it through his temples, and pinned him to the ground. Without a struggle, he swooned and died. Instead of and fastened it into the ground, it is better to translate, that it (the pin) came down to the ground. It is the same word as is translated lighted Joshua 15:18. In the last clause put the full-stop after asleep, and read, So he swooned and died. It is impossible for us to view Jael's act in the same light as her contemporaries did, on account of its treachery and cruelty; but we can admire her faith in the God of Israel, her lave for the people of God, and her marvellous courage and strength of mind in carrying out her purpose, and make allowance for the age in which she lived.