Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 5:20
They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
20. Render with a slight change of the stop:
From heaven fought the stars:
From their highways they fought with Sisera.
The kings fought The stars fought ] A splendid contrast. Jehovah used the forces of nature as His allies and instruments; cf. Jos 10:11; 1Sa 7:10; Psa 18:14; Jer 23:19. Here it was the tempest ( Jdg 5:4 f.), flooding the Kishon ( Jdg 5:21), which providentially helped the Israelites.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
God fought on the side of Israel, and gave them the victory. Josephus relates that, just as the battle began, a violent tempest came on with a great downfall of rain; and a hailstorm, which, driving full in the faces of the Canaanites, so blinded and benumbed them with cold, that they could neither use their bows with effect nor even hold their swords.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 20. They fought from heaven] The angels of God came to the assistance of Israel: and the stars in their orbits fought against Sisera; probably some thunder storm, or great inundation from the river Kishon, took place at that time, which in poetic language was attributed to the stars. So our poet sung relative to the storms which dispersed the Spanish armada in 1588: –
“Both winds and waves at once conspire
To aid old England-frustrate Spain’s desire.”
Perhaps it means no more than this: the time which was measured and ruled by the heavenly bodies seemed only to exist for the destruction of the Canaanites. There may be also a reference to the sun and moon standing still in the days of Joshua.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Or, they from heaven, or the heavenly host fought, by thunder, and lightning, and hailstones, possibly mingled with fire. Compare Jos 10:11; 1Sa 7:10.
The stars; which raised those storms by their influences, which they do naturally and ordinarily, but now far more, when God sharpened their influences, and disposed the air to receive and improve their impressions.
In their courses, or, from their paths, or stations, or high places. As soldiers fight in their ranks and places assigned them, so did these, and that with advantage, as those enemies do which fight from the higher ground.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. the stars in their coursesfoughtA fearful tempest burst upon them and threw them intodisorder.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
They fought from heaven,…. Either the angels of heaven, afterwards called stars; or the heavens, the elements, fought for Israel, and against Sisera; a violent storm of rain and hail falling at this time, which discomfited Sisera’s army; [See comments on Jud 4:15], or this victory was obtained in such a manner as plainly showed it was not of man, but of God from heaven; so the Targum,
“from heaven war was made with them;”
with the kings before mentioned; God fought against them, and no wonder they were conquered:
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera it seems as if it was in the night that this battle was fought, at least that the pursuit lasted till night, when the stars by their brightness and clear shining favoured the Israelites, and were greatly to the disadvantage of the Canaanites; unless it can be thought, as is by some, that the stars had an influence to cause a tempest of rain, hail, thunder, and lightnings, by which the army of Sisera was discomfited in the daytime, as before observed.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
For not only did the Israelites fight against them, but he powers of heaven also. “ From heaven ” is more minutely defined by “ the stars from their courses.” These words explain the statement in Jdg 4:15, “the Lord discomfited Sisera;” though in our opinion not so clearly as to enable us to define more precisely the natural phenomenon by which God threw the enemy into confusion. In all probability we have to think of a terrible storm, with thunder and lightning and hail, or the sudden 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.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(20) They fought from heaven.The they is impersonalthe powers above. (Comp. Luk. 12:20, Greek, and for the fact, Jdg. 4:22.)
The stars in their courses.This is probably a general reference to the providential storms which had secured the victory to Israel. To understand the stars as meaning angels is a mistaken inference from Job. 38:7. There is a striking parallel in Claudians poem on the Consulship of Honorius:
Oh nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aether
Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.
Similarly, schylus represents water and fire, in ruin reconciled, fighting against the Greek fleet.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. From heaven they fought The elements of nature assisted in the strife. The violent thunder storm on which Jehovah rode over the fields of Edom was so terrible that the very heavens appeared to drop. See on Jdg 5:4 and Jdg 4:15.
The stars from their courses fought This is a more minute defining of the thought in the preceding line. The bursting clouds and darting lightnings are poetically spoken of as if the stars had started from their orbits and mingled in the war of elements.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 5:20-21 a.
“They fought from heaven,
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
The river Kishon swept them away,
That ancient river, the river Kishon.”
Earth and heaven combined to destroy their armies. Compare Jos 10:13. The river Kishon was a river bed that wended its way through the Valley of Esdraelon. But when the rains pelted down in the hills around, and on the plain, it could quickly become a swollen river, overflowing its banks and flooding the plain. Some who have seen it have described the traces of where waters from the hills would make their way into the river in times of heavy rains. It was where Elijah destroyed the worshippers of Baal (1Ki 18:40).
“The stars in their courses (highways).” Deborah may have had in mind the ‘ten thousands of holy ones’ who accompanied Yahweh in Deu 33:2. Or simply that nature was on their side. The stars are usually seen as affecting events by ceasing to shine (Isa 13:10; Eze 32:7; Joe 2:10; Joe 3:15). Thus the idea might be that the skies became so blackened with rainclouds that although it was ‘night’ the stars could not shine. Clearly then they were ‘responsible’ for what happened. The darkness would aid the swift footsoldiers of Israel who knew exactly what they were doing, and who was who. And ‘the ancient river’ may possibly suggest that the river was deified in Canaanite eyes (similar to the Nile to Egyptians). That also fought against them, impeding them and sweeping away any caught up in it.
Jdg 5:21 b
‘Oh my soul, march on with strength.’
For these occasional added comments see Jdg 5:2; Jdg 5:9. Exulted by what she visualises, Deborah encourages her soul to continued strength. If Yahweh has done this, what can He not do?
Jdg 5:22
“Then did the horse hoofs stamp by reason of their prancings,
The prancings of their strong ones.”
As the horses sought to gallop the waters hindered them, causing them to stamp impatiently, and even rear up. And this too would affect the ‘men of strength’ who rode them and tried to drive them on. But they were stamping in defeat. However, if we compare Jer 8:16 the ‘strong ones’ may be the horses themselves. Thus it may mean that the behaviour of the horses affected each other.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 5:20. They fought from heaven This would be rendered more properly, the stars fought from heaven: they fought from their orbits [their paths or courses] against Sisera. See on ch. Jdg 4:14-15. It is no unusual thing for the sacred writers to speak of inanimate things as engaged in war against the enemies of Jehovah. See Hab 3:11. Concerning the river Kishon, mentioned in the next verse, we refer to the note on chap. Jdg 4:6. Some have supposed, that by the stars here are meant the angels, see Job 38:7. Perhaps, as the Canaanites were worshippers of the Host of Heaven, the prophetess may mean to say, that the stars in the firmament, recognizing their great Master, declared at his command for the Israelites; and, in some extraordinary manner, assisted at the discomfiture of their false worshippers. The beautiful energy of the repetition in the next verse scarcely need be hinted, any more than the fine apostrophe at the close; wherein we see, that Deborah was so full of the important subject, that she is no longer able to pursue a regular train, but bursts forth into that elegant exclamation, to which, perhaps, there is nothing superior in the finest writings of the heathen poets.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jdg 5:20 They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
Ver. 20. They fought from heaven. ] Where the Lord of hosts hath his Magnleh cheloth, his upper forces, say the Rabbins, as on earth he hath his Matteh cheloth, his lower forces ready prest. And sins unpardoned can soon raise the posse comitatus, all the armies of God against men.
The stars in their courses.
Fought against Sisera,
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Judges
‘ALL THINGS ARE YOURS’
Jdg 5:20
These two poetical fragments present the same truth on opposite sides. The first of them comes from Deborah’s triumphant chant. The singer identifies God with the cause of Israel, and declares that heaven itself fought against those who fought against God’s people. There may be an allusion to the tempest which Jewish tradition tells us burst over the ranks of the enemy, or there may be some trace of ancient astrological notions, or the words may simply be an elevated way of saying that Heaven fought for Israel. The silent stars, as they swept on their paths through the sky, advanced like an avenging host embattled against the foes of Israel and of God. All things fight against the man who fights against God.
The other text gives the other side of the same truth. One of Job’s friends is rubbing salt into his wounds by insisting on the commonplace, which needs a great many explanations and limitations before it can be accepted as true, that sin is the cause of sorrow, and that righteousness brings happiness; and in the course of trying to establish this heartless thesis to a heavy heart he breaks into a strain of the loftiest poetry in describing the blessedness of the righteous. All things, animate and inanimate, are upon his side. The ground, which Genesis tells us is ‘cursed for his sake,’ becomes his ally, and the very creatures whom man’s sin set at enmity against him are at peace with him. All things are the friends and servants of him who is the friend and servant of God.
I. So, putting these two texts together, we have first the great conviction to which religion clings, that God being on our side all things are for us, and not against us.
Now, that is the standing faith of the Old Testament, which no doubt was more easily held in those days, because, if we accept its teaching, we shall recognise that Israel lived under a system in so far supernatural as that moral goodness and material prosperity were a great deal more closely and indissolubly connected than they are to-day. So, many a psalmist and many a prophet breaks out into apostrophes, warranted by the whole history of Israel, and declaring how blessed are the men who, apart from all other defences and sources of prosperity, have God for their help and Him for their hope.
But we are not to dismiss this conviction as belonging only to a system where the supernatural comes in, as it does in the Old Testament history, and as antiquated under a dispensation such as that in which we live. For the New Testament is not a whit behind the Old in insisting upon this truth. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ‘Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?’ The New Testament is committed to the same conviction as that to which the faith of Old Testament saints clung as the sheet anchor of their lives.
That conviction cannot be struck out of the creed of any man, who believes in the God to whom the Old and the New Testament alike bear witness. For it rests upon this plain principle, that all this great universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos, that all these forces and creatures are not a rabble, but an ordered host.
What is the meaning of that great Name by which, from of old, God in His relations to the whole universe has been described-the ‘Lord of Hosts’? Who are the ‘hosts’ of which He is ‘the Lord,’ and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goeth; and to another, ‘Come!’ and he cometh; and to another, ‘Do this!’ and he doeth it? Who are ‘the hosts’? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who ‘excel in strength,’ because they ‘hearken to the voice of His word’, but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. ‘All are Thy servants; they continue this day’-angels, stars, creatures of earth-’ according to Thine ordinances.’
And if it be true that the All is an ordered whole, which is obedient to the touch and to the will of that divine Commander, then all His servants must be on the same side, and cannot turn their arms against each other. As an old hymn says with another reference-
‘All the servants of our King
In heaven and earth are one,’
II. Note the difficulties arising from experience, in the way of holding fast by this conviction of faith.
The grim facts of the world, seen from their lowest level, seem to shatter it to atoms. Talk about ‘the stars in their courses fighting’ for or against anybody! In one aspect it is superstition, in another aspect it is a dream and an illusion. The prose truth is that they shine down silent, pitiless, cold, indifferent, on battlefields or on peaceful homes; and the moonlight is as pure when it falls upon broken hearts as when it falls upon glad ones. Nature is utterly indifferent to the moral or the religious character of its victims. It goes on its way unswerving and pitiless; and whether the man who stands in its path is good or bad matters not. If he gets into a typhoon he will be wrecked; if he tumbles over Niagara he will be drowned. And what becomes of all the talk about an embattled universe on the side of goodness, in the face of the plain facts of life-of nature’s indifference, nature’s cruelty which has led some men to believe in two sovereign powers, one beneficent and one malicious, and has led others to say, ‘God is a superfluous hypothesis, and to believe in Him brings more enigmas than it solves,’ and has led still others to say, ‘Why, if there is a God, does it look as if either He was not all-powerful, or was not all-merciful?’ Nature has but ambiguous evidence to give in support of this conviction.
Then, if we turn to what we call Providence and its mysteries, the very book of Job, from which my second text is taken, is one of the earliest attempts to grapple with the difficulty and to untie the knot; and I suppose everybody will admit that, whatever may be the solution which is suggested by that enigmatical book, the solution is by no means a complete one, though it is as complete as the state of religious knowledge at the time at which the book was written made possible to be attained. The seventy-third psalm shows that even in that old time when, as I have said, supernatural sanctions were introduced into the ordinary dealings of life, the difficulties that cropped up were great enough to bring a devout heart to a stand, and to make the Psalmist say, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped.’ Providence, with all its depths and mysteries, often to our aching hearts seems in our own lives to contradict the conviction, and when we look out over the sadness of humanity, still more does it seem impossible for us to hold fast by the faith ‘that all which we behold is full of blessings.’
I doubt not that there are many of ourselves whose lives, shadowed, darkened, hemmed in, perplexed, or made solitary for ever, seem to them to be hard to reconcile with this cheerful faith upon which I am trying to insist. Brethren, cling to it even in the darkness. Be sure of this, that amongst all our mercies there are none more truly merciful than those which come to us shrouded in dark garments, and in questionable shapes. Let nothing rob us of the confidence that ‘all things work together for good.’
III. I come, lastly, to consider the higher form in which this conviction is true for ever.
I have said that the facts of life seem often to us, and are felt often by some of us, to shatter it to atoms; to riddle it through and through with shot. But, if we bring the Pattern-life to bear upon the illumination of all life, and if we learn the lessons of the Cradle and the Cross, and rise to the view of human life which emerges from the example of Jesus Christ, then we get back the old conviction, transfigured indeed, but firmer than ever. We have to alter the point of view. Everything always depends on the point of view. We have to alter one or two definitions. Definitions come first in geometry and in everything else. Get them right, and you will get your theorems and problems right.
So, looking at life in the light of Christ, we have to give new contents to the two words ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and a new meaning to the two words ‘for’ and ‘against.’ And when we do that, then the difficulties straighten themselves out, and there are not any more knots, but all is plain; and the old faith of the Old Testament, which reposed very largely upon abnormal and extraordinary conditions of life, comes back in a still nobler form, as possible to be held by us amidst the commonplace of our daily existence.
For everything is my friend, is for me and not against me, that helps me nearer to God. To live for Him, to live with Him, to be conscious ever of communion with Himself, to feel the touch of His hand on my hand, and the pressure of His breast against mine, at all moments of my life, is my true and the highest good. And if it is true that the ‘river of the water of life’ which ‘flows from the Throne of God’ is the only draught that can ever satisfy the immortal thirst of a soul, then whatever drives me away from the cisterns and to the fountain, is on my side. Better to dwell in a ‘dry and thirsty land, where no water is,’ if it makes me long for the water that rises at the gate of the true Bethlehem-the house of bread-than to dwell in a land flowing with milk and honey, and well watered in every part! If the cup that I would fain lift to my lips has poison in it, or if its sweetness is making me lose my relish for the pure and tasteless river that flows from the Throne of God, there can be no truer friend than that calamity, as men call it, which strikes the cup from my hands, and shivers the glass before I have raised it to my lips. Everything is my friend that helps me towards God.
Everything is my friend that leads me to submission and obedience. The joy of life, and the perfection of human nature, is an absolutely submitted will, identified with the divine, both in regard to doing and to enduring. And whatever tends to make my will flexible, so that it corresponds to all the sinuosities, so to speak, of the divine will, and fits into all its bends and turns, is a blessing to me. Raw hides, stiff with dirt and blood, are put into a bath of bitter infusion of oak-bark. What for? For the same end as, when they are taken out, they are scraped with sharp steels,-that they may become flexible. When that is done the useless hide is worth something.
‘Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.’
Everything is a friend to the man that loves God, in a far sweeter and deeper sense than it can ever be to any other. Like a sudden burst of sunshine upon a gloomy landscape, the light of union with God and friendship with Him flooding my daily life flashes it all up into brightness. The dark ribbon of the river that went creeping through the black copses, when the sun glints upon it, gleams up into links of silver, and the trees by its bank blaze out into green and gold. Brethren! ‘Who follows pleasure follows pain’; who follows God finds pleasure following him. There can be no surer way to set the world against me than to try to make it for me, and to make it my all They tell us that if you want to count those stars that ‘like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid’ make up the Pleiades, the surest way to see the greatest number of them is to look a little on one side of them. Look away from the joys and friendships of creatural things right up to God, and you will see these sparkling and dancing in the skies, as you never see them when you gaze at them only. Make them second and they are good and on your side. Make them first, and they will turn to be your enemies and fight against you.
This conviction will be established still more irrefragably and wonderfully in that future. Nothing lasts but goodness. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ To oppose it is like stretching a piece of pack-thread across the rails before the express comes; or putting up some thin wooden partition on the beach on one of the Western Hebrides, exposed to the whole roll of the Atlantic, which will be battered into ruin by the first winter’s storm. Such is the end of all those who set themselves against God.
But there comes a future in which, as dim hints tell us, these texts of ours shall receive a fulfilment beyond that realised in the present condition of things. ‘Then comes the statelier Eden back to man,’ and in a renewed and redeemed earth ‘they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain’; and the ancient story will be repeated in higher form. The servants shall be like the Lord who, when He had conquered temptation, ‘was with the wild beasts’ that forgot their enmity, and ‘angels ministered unto Him.’ That scene in the desert may serve as a prophecy of the future when, under conditions of which we know nothing, all God’s servants shall, even more markedly and manifestly than here, help each other; and every man that loves God will find a friend in every creature.
If we take Him for our Commander, and enlist ourselves in that embattled host, then all weathers will be good; ‘stormy winds, fulfilling His word,’ will blow us to our port; ‘the wilderness will rejoice and blossom as the rose’; and the whole universe will be radiant with the light of His presence, and ringing with the music of His voice. But if we elect to join the other army-for there is another army, and men have wills that enable them to lift themselves up against God, the Ruler of all things-then the old story, from which my first text is taken, will fulfil itself again in regard to us-’the stars in their courses will fight against’ us; and Sisera, lying stiff and stark, with Jael’s tent-peg through his temples, and the swollen corpses being swirled down to the stormy sea by ‘that ancient river, the river Kishon,’ will be a grim parable of the end of the men that set themselves against God, and so have the universe against them. ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
fought. Figure of speech Prosopopoeia. App-6. Compare Jos 10:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
fought: Jos 10:11, 1Sa 7:10, Psa 77:17, Psa 77:18
the stars: Jdg 4:15
courses: Heb. paths
Reciprocal: Exo 14:14 – the Lord Exo 14:27 – Lord 2Sa 18:8 – General 2Sa 22:14 – thundered Psa 66:3 – How terrible Psa 76:8 – didst Psa 119:91 – all are Jer 46:15 – thy
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 5:20. They fought from heaven The prophetess, having in the foregoing verse mentioned who were the allies and helpers of Jabin, does here, in a very magnificent manner, represent who were the allies and helpers of Israel. They fought from heaven on this side; namely, the very angels of God themselves, the hosts of heaven, the armies of the Almighty. The very stars in their courses fought for Israel against Sisera The elements, by the order of God, came to their assistance. The air and waters ranged themselves on their side; the rivers, even the small streams, lift up themselves and swept away their enemies. This is the magnificent and tremendous idea which the prophetess gives us of this victory over Sisera: see on Jdg 4:15. In the poetical scriptures, thunder and lightning are represented as the artillery of heaven. The Prophet Habakkuk, speaking of the defeat of the confederate kings of Canaan by Joshua, where there is no mention of thunder and lightning in the history, thus addresses Jehovah, Hab 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;
By their light thine arrows went abroad;
And by their shining thy glittering spear.