Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

13 Then came down a remnant of nobles of the nation; Jehovah came down to me among the heroes. 14 Of Ephraim, whose root in Amalek; Behind thee Benjamin among thy peoples. From Machir came down leaders, And from Zebulun marchers with the staff of the conductor. 15a And princes in Issachar with Deborah, And Issachar as well as Barak, Driven into the valley through his feet. Looking back to the commencement of the battle, the poetess describes the streaming of the brave men of the nation down from the mountains, to fight the enemy with Barak and Deborah in the valley of Jezreel; though the whole nation did not raise as one man against its oppressors, but only a remnant of the noble and brave in the nation, with whom Jehovah went into the battle. In Jdg 5:13 the Masoretic pointing of ירד is connected with the rabbinical idea of the word as the fut. apoc. of רדה: "then (now) will the remnant rule over the glorious," i.e., the remnant left in Israel over the stately foe; "Jehovah rules for me (or through me) over the heroes in Sisera's army," which Luther has also adopted. But, as Schnurr. has maintained, this view is decidedly erroneous, inasmuch as it is altogether irreconcilable with the description which follows of the marching of the tribes of Israel into the battle. ירד is to be understood in the same sense as ירדוּ in Jdg 5:14, and to be pointed as a perfect ירד. (Note: The Cod. Al. of the lxx contains the correct rendering, τότε κατέβη κατάλειμμα. In the Targum also ירד is correctly translated נתת, descendit, although the germs of the rabbinical interpretation are contained in the paraphrase of the whole verse: tunc descendit unus ex exercitu Israel et fregit fortitudinem fortium gentium. Ecce non ex fortitudine manus eorum fuit hoc; sed Dominus fregit ante populum suum fortitudinem virorum osorum eorum.) "There came down," sc., from the mountains of the land into the plain of Jezreel, a remnant of nobles. לאדּירים is used instead of a closer subordination through the construct state, to bring out the idea of שׂריד into greater prominence (see Ewald, 292). עם is in apposition to לאדּירים, and not to be connected with the following word יהוה, as it is by some, in opposition to the accents. The thought is rather this: with the nobles or among the brave Jehovah himself went against the foe. לי is a dat. commodi, equivalent to "for my joy."