Deborah: A Prophetess Like Moses

See, e.g., Esther J. Hamori, Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge, Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).

^{בבלי מגילה יד.} דְּבוֹרָה, דִּכְתִיב: ״וּדְבוֹרָה אִשָּׁה נְבִיאָה אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת״, מַאי ״אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת״? שֶׁהָיְתָה עוֹשָׂה פְּתִילוֹת לַמִּקְדָּשׁ.

^{b.Meg. 14a} [Of] Deborah it is written: “Now Deborah, a woman, a prophetess, a woman of flames” (Judg 4:4). What is “a woman of flames”? [It means] that she used to make wicks for the Sanctuary.

Unless otherwise noted, translations are the author’s.

According to Shimon Bar-Efrat, “it can be assumed that the author identifies fully with the prophet.” See Shimon Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (London: T&T Clark, 1989), 84.

On characterization in Hebrew narrative, see Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 34–40. The narrative and poetic accounts of chapters 4 and 5 have independent compositional histories, but the characterization of Deborah in the final form of the text is the subject of this analysis.

Paul Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, trans. and rev. by T. Muraoka, 2 vols, (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1991), §161c.

In both Septuagint traditions (Codex Alexandrinus [A] and Codex Vaticanus [B]) Deborah herself is commanding Barak to do what he presumably had already been commanded by YHWH. Thus, her prophetic role is diminished, but her authority to directly command Barak is highlighted.

In both Septuagint traditions (Codex Alexandrinus [A] and Codex Vaticanus [B]) Deborah herself is commanding Barak to do what he presumably had already been commanded by YHWH. Thus, her prophetic role is diminished, but her authority to directly command Barak is highlighted.

Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, §123i.

Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible, 81–82.

In her first prophecy to Barak, YHWH says of Sisera, “I will give him (netattihu) into your hand,” but here, YHWH will “sell” (yimkor) Sisera into a woman’s hand. When YHWH “sells” Israel into another’s hand, it refers to Israel being subjugated to her enemies by divine judgment (Judg 2:14; 3:8; 4:2; 10:7). Deborah could subtly be stating that this unnamed woman will undo the subjugation brought upon Israel by divine judgment.

This speech repeats the original prophecy that YHWH will give Sisera into Barak’s hand. Jacob L. Wright has persuasively argued that verses 8–9, including Deborah’s prophecy of Sisera being sold into a woman’s hand, are a later addition to the narrative that further highlight YHWH’s sovereignty. See Jacob L. Wright, “Yael and the Subversion of Male Leaders in Judges,” TheTorah (2018). He also suggests that the redactor consciously left the reference to YHWH giving Sisera into Barak’s hand in verse 14 unchanged so as to build the reader’s expectation that Barak would kill Sisera, but Deborah would receive the honor. Meir Sternberg, however, explains Deborah’s reversion to her original prophecy as an effort to encourage Barak, thus “diplomatically forgetting the revised oracle that his ultimatum provoked.” See Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 276. Deborah could also be using “Sisera” as a metonym representing Sisera’s army, which YHWH does in fact give to Barak.

See the discussion of this repetition in Wright, “Yael and the Subversion of Male Leaders in Judges.” Editor’s note: On the use of such repetitions as a literary strategy, see Zev Farber, “The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme),” TheTorah (2013).

Berlin identifies three types of contrast that can indirectly shape a character: contrasts between characters, contrasts with expected norms, and contrasts within the same character’s speech or action (Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, 40). Deborah’s actions are consistent with her words, but the narrative does draw on the first two types of contrasts.

NJPS, with modifications.

Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 283.

Carol Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), esp. 143–146; Victor H. Matthews, Social World of the Hebrew Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), 25.

The pro-David and anti-Saul perspective that is discernable through the characterization of the tribes and individuals from Judah and Benjamin, as well as intertextual allusions to particular features of the Saul-David story, has received more attention. See, for example, Martin A. Sweeney, “Davidic Polemics in the Book of Judges, VT 47/ 4 (1997): 517–529.

Most of these are adapted from Bruce Herzberg’s excellent article “Deborah and Moses,” JSOT 38/1 (2013): 27.

Editor’s note: On the Exodus episode, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “YHWH Battles the Egyptians with a Fiery Cloud,” TheTorah (2022).

The judges that follow Deborah have increasingly fewer Moses-like traits and are even sometimes characterized as anti-Moses figures. The stories of Ehud (3:12–30) and Jephthah (10:17–12:7), for example, echo the Moses narrative in that both confront an enemy king and defeat their enemies by a body of water. Gideon, like Moses, is hesitant and asks for signs in his calling to be a deliverer, yet he is an anti-Moses in key ways, including his harsh treatment of the Israelites and his failure the properly worship YHWH (6:1–8:28). (Editor’s note: For a comparison of the call narratives of Gideon and Moses, see Deena Grant, “Questioning God’s Call: Moses Versus Gideon,” TheTorah [2020].) As another anti-Moses, Samson is motivated by personal pride and vengeance, rather than a desire to deliver the Israelites, when he achieves his greatest Philistine defeat by figuratively drowning them under the rubble of their own idolatrous temple (chs. 13–16).

In these ways, she is quite unlike the judges who follow her, who fall increasingly short of that ideal. This characterization follows the pattern of increasing faithlessness in the book of Judges. See, e.g., the discussions in Marc Brettler, “The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics,” JBL 108 (1989): 395–418; Gordon K. Oeste, “Butchered Brothers and Betrayed Families: Degenerating Kingship Structures in the Book of Judges,” JSOT 35 (2011): 295–316; and Yigal Levin, “Ideology and Reality in the Book of Judges,” in The Ancient Near East in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History. Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the University of Haifa, 2–5 May, 2010, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 392 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2012), 309–326.

NJPS, with modifications.

Sifrei Deuteronomy goes even further in declaring that Balaam surpassed Moses in several respects:

^{ספרי דברים שנ״ז} אלא יש הפרש בין נבואתו של משה לנבואתו של בלעם: משה לא היה יודע מי מדבר עמו, ובלעם היה יודע מי מדבר עמו, שנא' נאם שומע אמרי אל ויודע דעת עליון; משה לא היה יודע מי מדבר עמו עד שנדבר עמו, ובלעם היה יודע אימתי היה מדבר שנא' ויודע דעת עליון; משה לא היה מדבר עמו עד שהוא עומד, שנ' ואתה פה עמוד עמדי, ובלעם היה מדב' עמו כשהוא נופל, שנ' מחזה שדי יחזה נופל וגלוי עינים. משל למה הדבר דומה? לטבחו של מלך, ויודע כמה הוצאות יוצאות למלך על שולחנו.

^{Sif. Deut. 357} Yet there is a difference between the prophecy of Moses and that of Balaam: Moses did not know who was speaking to him [out of the burning bush], whereas Balaam did know who was speaking to him, as it is said, “the oracle of one who hears the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High” (Num 24:16). Moses did not know when God would speak to him, whereas Balaam did know, as it is said, “and knows the knowledge of the Most High” (Num 24:16). Moses was spoken to by God only while he was standing, as it is said, “But you, stand here by me” (Deut 5:28), whereas Balaam was spoken to when he was fallen down, as it is said, “who sees the vision of the Almighty, who falls down but with eyes uncovered” (Num 24:4). To what may this be likened? To the parable of the king’s butcher who knows what the king’s expenses are for supplying his table.

Text accessed via Sefaria. Translation, with modifications, from Reuven Hammer’s Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). Editor’s note: On Balaam as a prophet like Moses, see Seth Sanders, “Balaam and the Problem of Other People’s Revelation,” TheTorah (2014).