Judges 5: The Song of Deborah.

This chapter is a song of victory, describing the events of Judges 4 in poetic and exuberant language. Throughout, there is a sense of exhorting the people to turn to the Lord and praise Him for the victory. Singing this kind of song was a customary way for Israel to rejoice after a major victory.

The spiritual meaning of singing has to do with our overall joy and affection for spiritual things: joy for what is true, for the Word, and for everything about the Lord. Affection is not merely knowing spiritual truths; it is our heart’s response to them, which goes far beyond words.

This is why the lyrics of sacred songs such as Judges Chapter 5 are very eloquent and passionate. They are not simply an account of what took place, but more an outburst of praise and gratitude in recounting the story. We experience the same inner ‘music’ when our heart feels a deep spiritual affection, and is stirred up with praise to the Lord. Just as Deborah and Barak sang after a battle, our songs of gratitude will generally be felt after the Lord delivers us from a period of temptation during regeneration (see Swedenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 8265).

The song itself frequently acknowledges the Lord’s part in Israel’s victory:

In verse 4: “Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the field of Edom.”

In verse 11: “There they shall recount the righteous acts of the Lord for his villagers in Israel.”

And in verse 13: “Then the Lord came down for me against the mighty.”

These references serve to remind us that everything is the Lord’s doing. We must do what is good as though our actions make the difference, but we are to affirm that the Lord brings about all that is good. This acknowledgement allows us to act from free will, while still understanding the spiritual truth that all goodness comes from the Lord (Arcana Caelestia 9193).

This is emphasized through the song whenever Deborah praises her own actions, as well as those of Barak and Jael. For example:

In verse 7: “Village life ceased in Israel until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel.”

In verse 12: “Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and lead your captives away, O son of Abinoam!”

And in verses 24-27, when Jael receives full praise for her actions.

Another theme in the song is a lament over those tribes which did not come to the aid of Israel, although only Issachar and Zebulun were called to battle. A town called Meroz is roundly cursed for failing to help. The name ‘Meroz’ comes from a verb meaning “to withdraw” or “to hide” (see Swedenborg’s work, Heaven and Hell 18). This lament reminds us that our intentions to serve the Lord and to fight our spiritual battles can be hindered by our own divided wills.

8878. 'Of those who hate Me' means those who completely reject the Lord's Divinity. This is clear from the meaning of 'those who hate God' as those who are ruled by evil and therefore by falsity. For these are they who reject the Lord's Divinity; and to the extent that they are ruled by evil and therefore by falsity they not merely reject but also hate it. The reason why the Lord's Divinity is what they reject is that those ruled by evil do not see things in heavenly light, only in natural light, and eventually only in the light of sensory awareness provided by the body. In this inferior light these people cannot possibly see the Lord's Human as anything more than human. They are unable to recognize what the Divine Human is, because they have an altogether empty and meaningless notion of the Divine. If they are told that the Divine itself is Divine Love, and that Divine Love is the Essential Being (Esse) of all life; if they are told that by virtue of His conception the Lord was that Love, which was thus the Essential Being of His life, that is, was Jehovah; and if they are told that He glorified, that is, made Divine, His Human to be the likeness of Him, then those of them who are endowed with some intellectual ability may indeed be able to some extent to grasp all this. Even so, they do not believe it; for when they pass from the intellectual light in which they are then seeing things into their natural and sensory light, they sink into complete and utter darkness regarding this truth, and consequently into denial of it.