Judges 4–5
One battle, a story and a song
Judges 4 tells the victory over Sisera in prose; Judges 5 sings it as poetry. They differ in which king, which tribes, how the enemy was routed and how Sisera died. They are two compositions, not two manuscripts of the same text.
Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Prose and poem
- Enemy
- Ch. 4: Jabin of Hazor and his general Sisera. Ch. 5: "the kings of Canaan"; Jabin is not named.
- Tribes
- Ch. 4: Zebulun and Naphtali. Ch. 5: six tribes join, four stay away, Meroz is cursed.
- The rout
- Ch. 4: the LORD throws Sisera into panic. Ch. 5: stars fight and the Kishon floods.
- Sisera's death
- Ch. 4: asleep, a peg through his temple. Ch. 5: struck while drinking, he sinks at Jael's feet.
- Age
- The poem is often thought older; others date it later (Frolov 2011).
Every witness, in order
Unknown (debated)
Original Judges
No original survives.
Translated c. 2nd century BC
Septuagint (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Le torrent de Cison les a balayés (5:21)
The torrent of Kishon swept them away
Both chapters present. One Greek text via Giguet's French; Greek A and B not checked separately.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Torrens Cison traxit cadavera eorum (5:21)
The torrent Kishon dragged their corpses
Both chapters present.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
נַחַל קִישׁוֹן גְּרָפָם (5:21)
the torrent Kishon swept them away
Both chapters present.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
The river of Kishon swept them away (5:21)
Follows the Hebrew.
What changed, and why
Ancient Israel paired prose and song for the same event (Exodus 14 and 15). Differences between them are expected of two genres, and do not by themselves show that either is mistaken.
What the evidence shows
- Judges 4 and 5 differ in several details.
- Judges 5 is older than Judges 4.
Source: S. Frolov, "How Old Is the Song of Deborah?" JSOT 36 (2011) ↗
Sources
Related lessons
- Deborah, Barak and Jael →Deborah, prophetess and judge, sits under her palm tree and summons Barak to fight Jabin's general Sisera and his 900 iron chariots. Barak will go only if she goes. At the Kishon the chariots are routed, and Sisera flees on foot to the tent of Jael, who kills him with a tent peg.
- The Song of Deborah →Deborah and Barak sing the victory: God marches from Seir, the earth trembles, the tribes are summoned and some stay home, the stars fight, the Kishon sweeps the enemy away, Jael is blessed, and Sisera's mother waits at her window for a son who will not return. It may be one of the oldest poems in the Bible; scholars disagree.
- Journey of a Passage: Ancient Judges Texts →A guide to the passages in Judges where ancient copies and translations differ, or where the difference is between two compositions rather than two copies. Each has its own passage page with the witnesses laid out side by side.