Sign Up My Profile
A painting of Deborah as a young woman with long dark hair, seated on a stone wall. She wears a crown of laurel leaves, a white dress and a red cloak, and looks up to one side with her hand on her heart. Her other hand holds a tall gold harp. Behind her a fire burns on a stone altar, beside a young palm.
People of the Bible

Deborah

The time of the Judges · Between Ramah and Bethel, in Ephraim

A prophetess who judged Israel under a palm tree. She sent Barak against 900 iron chariots, went with him, and sang the victory.

Picture: Debora, Johanna Unger, before 1871. Oil on canvas. Public domain.

Who was Deborah?

Deborah was a prophetess and a judge of Israel, in the time of the Judges. People came to her for judgment under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel. When Jabin of Canaan had oppressed Israel for twenty years, she sent Barak to war and went with him. After the victory they sang the song of Judges 5.

at a glance

Her path, in order

  1. ProphetessThe wife of Lappidoth
  2. JudgeUnder her palm tree, near Bethel
  3. Caller to armsShe sent for Barak
  4. SingerShe sang the song of Judges 5

in numbers

  • Iron chariots against Israel900
    • Sisera commanded them for Jabin, king of Canaan
    • The River Kishon swept them away
    Judges 4:3, 13; 5:21
  • Men who came down Mount Tabor10k
    • From the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun
    • Barak led; she went with him
    Judges 4:6-14
  • Years of rest after her song40
    • After 20 years under Jabin, king of Canaan
    • Then 7 years under the Midianites
    Judges 4:3; 5:31; 6:1

did you know?

Home
Under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. The Israelites came up to her there for judgment.
Husband
Lappidoth. Judges gives nothing about him but his name.
Work
A prophetess, who spoke the LORD's word, and a judge of Israel, who heard the people's cases.
Her enemy
Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor, and Sisera, the commander of his army.
The battle
From Mount Tabor down to the River Kishon. Her song places it “at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo”.
Also called
Debbora, in older Catholic Bibles and the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Died
Judges does not say. Josephus says that she and Barak died at about the same time.
Remembered
By the Orthodox, on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers in mid-December. No Western church keeps a day for her.
In the New Testament
Not named. Hebrews 11 names Barak among the faithful.
In art
Under her palm tree, judging; or singing her song, crowned with laurel, as in the painting at the top. A French engraving of 1647 shows her in armour.
Other Deborahs
Rebekah's nurse, buried under an oak below Bethel (Genesis 35:8), and Tobit's grandmother, in the book of Tobit (1:8).
A painting of Deborah enthroned under a palm tree, a book open beside her, pointing as she gives an order. Barak stands before her in armour and a red cloak, holding a spear. Soldiers with a banner wait behind him, and angels look down from the clouds.
In artDeborah sends Barak to war, under her palm tree. Francesco Solimena of Naples painted it. Public domain.
An engraving of Deborah standing in armour, a plumed helmet over her long hair. She raises a sword in her right hand and rests her left on a tall shield. A palm tree and a crowd of people are small in the background.
Deborah in armour, from La Galerie des femmes fortes (Paris, 1647), a French book of heroic women. Her palm tree stands behind her. Engraved by Gilles Rousselet after Claude Vignon. CC0.
A medieval painting in bright blue, orange and gold. Deborah, bareheaded, in a blue cloak over an orange gown, rides a dappled grey horse among knights in chain mail and points ahead.
Deborah rides out with the army, in a French picture Bible of about 1250. The Latin on the page tells how she went out with Barak and defeated Jabin's army and all his chariots. Public domain.

what others said of her

Her own song, a Jewish historian, the Church Fathers and a later retelling, in their own words.

Awake, awake, O Deborah! Awake, awake, sing a song!
The people of the LORD, in her songJudges 5:11-12
thus was this victory gained by a woman, as Deborah had foretold.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, in about AD 93, after telling how Jael killed SiseraJosephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 5, chapter 5
Deborah, a woman, waged war
Cyril of Jerusalem, teaching new Christians about the Holy Spirit, in about 350. He names her among the judges who acted “In the might of this Spirit”.Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 16
Women have preserved whole nations; for Deborah and Judith exhibited successes worthy of men
John Chrysostom, in a sermon on John's Gospel, on the good that wise women doJohn Chrysostom, Homilies on John, Homily 61
It is not sex, but valour which makes strong.
Ambrose of Milan, in Concerning Widows, 377. He took her for a widow and Barak for her son, which Judges does not say.Ambrose, Concerning Widows, chapter 8
Behold, a mother is perished out of Israel, and an holy one that bare rule in the house of Jacob
Israel's lament at her death, in the Biblical Antiquities, a Jewish retelling of the Bible written after AD 70. Judges does not tell of her death. This book says the people mourned her for 70 days.Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities, chapter 33

her life in six moments

  1. Between Ramah and Bethel

    Twenty years under Jabin

    The Palm of Deborah

    Israel again did evil, and the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. His commander Sisera had nine hundred chariots of iron. For twenty years Jabin “harshly oppressed the Israelites”, and they cried out to the LORD. At that time Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She would sit under the Palm of Deborah in the hill country of Ephraim, “where the Israelites would go up to her for judgment.”

    Judges 4:1-5

  2. Kedesh in Naphtali

    The summons

    She sends for Barak

    She summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and gave him the LORD's command. He was to take ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun to Mount Tabor. The LORD would draw Sisera, his chariots and his troops to the River Kishon, “and I will deliver him into your hand.”

    Judges 4:6-7

  3. Kedesh

    Before the march

    If you go, I will go

    Barak would not go alone. “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Deborah agreed at once. But she told him the honour would not be his, for the LORD would sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. She went with him, and ten thousand men of Zebulun and Naphtali followed him.

    Judges 4:8-10

  4. Mount Tabor

    The day of battle

    Down from Tabor

    Sisera heard that Barak was on Mount Tabor, and brought all nine hundred iron chariots out to the River Kishon. Deborah told Barak that this was the day. He came down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men behind him. “And in front of him the LORD routed with the sword Sisera, all his charioteers, and all his army.” Sisera left his chariot and ran on foot. Barak chased the army as far as Harosheth-hagoyim, and “not a single man was left.”

    Judges 4:12-16

  5. The tent of Jael

    The same day

    Into the hand of a woman

    Sisera ran to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, whose clan was at peace with Jabin. She welcomed him in, gave him milk and covered him with a blanket. As he slept from exhaustion, she drove a tent peg through his temple. When Barak arrived, she showed him the man he was looking for. Deborah's word had come true. “On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites.”

    Judges 4:17-23

  6. Israel

    On that day

    The song

    After the battle, Judges says: “On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song”. The song fills Judges 5: the LORD marching out from Seir, the tribes who came and the tribes who stayed home, the stars fighting from heaven, Jael's blow, and Sisera's mother waiting at her window. The chapter ends, “And the land had rest for forty years.” More of the song follows below.

    Judges 5

her song

Judges tells the victory twice: in prose in chapter 4, and as a song in chapter 5. Britannica calls the song “perhaps the oldest section of the Bible”, a glimpse of Israel in the 12th century BC.

A mother in Israel

Deborah's song looks back on the bad years. The highways were empty, and travellers kept to the byways. Village life had stopped. Then she arose.

“Life in the villages ceased; it ended in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel.”
Judges 5:6-7

Who came, and who stayed home

Deborah's song calls the roll of the tribes. Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Zebulun, Issachar and Naphtali came. Reuben could not make up its mind, Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan, Dan lingered by the ships and Asher by the coast. The town of Meroz is cursed for not coming at all.

“Zebulun was a people who risked their lives; Naphtali, too, on the heights of the battlefield.”
Judges 5:14-18, 23

The stars fought

Deborah's song tells what the prose account in Judges 4 leaves out. The heavens poured out rain, and the River Kishon swept Sisera's army away. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in about AD 93, tells of a great storm of rain and hail that the wind blew into the Canaanites' faces.

“From the heavens the stars fought; from their courses they fought against Sisera.”
Judges 5:4, 20-21; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 5, chapter 5

Sisera's mother at the window

Near its end, Deborah's song moves far from the battle, to the enemy commander's mother. She watches at the lattice for a chariot that will not come. Her wisest ladies tell her he is only late because he is dividing the spoil.

“Why is his chariot so long in coming? What has delayed the clatter of his chariots?”
Judges 5:28-30

Like the sun

Deborah's song closes with a prayer. Then Judges adds that the land had rest for forty years.

“So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.”
Judges 5:31

her words

Judges records her words in chapter 4. She sang the song of chapter 5 with Barak. Outside the section on where the Bible figure quiz places her, every Bible line on this page is from the Berean Standard Bible.

At Mount Tabor, the day of battle

Arise, for this is the day that the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the LORD gone before you?

Sisera's nine hundred chariots had come out to the River Kishon, in the valley below.

Judges 4:12-14
Surely the LORD, the God of Israel, is commanding you: Go and march to Mount Tabor, taking with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun.
Her summons to Barak.Judges 4:6
the road you are taking will bring you no honor, because the LORD will be selling Sisera into the hand of a woman.
When Barak would not go without her. She began, “I will certainly go with you.”Judges 4:9
I will sing to the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel.
Near the start of her song, which she sang with Barak.Judges 5:3
My heart is with the princes of Israel, with the volunteers among the people. Bless the LORD!
From the song, on those who came to fight of their own free will.Judges 5:9

often misquoted

Often said

Deborah killed Sisera.

What the sources sayJael did, in her tent. Deborah foretold only that the LORD would sell Sisera “into the hand of a woman”. The Catholic Encyclopedia puts it plainly: the prophecy “refers not to Debbora herself, but to Jahel”.

Judges 4:9, 17-22; Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908
Often said

Hebrews 11 names Deborah among the heroes of faith.

What the sources sayIt names Barak: “Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets”. Samuel's farewell speech names Barak too. No other book of the Bible names her.

Hebrews 11:32; 1 Samuel 12:11

friends, family and rivals

Barak

Son of Abinoam, from Kedesh in Naphtali. He led ten thousand men down Mount Tabor, but only with her beside him. Hebrews 11 names him among the faithful.

Judges 4:6-16; Hebrews 11:32
Lappidoth

Her husband. Judges gives only his name. A later rabbinic story makes him Barak himself.

Judges 4:4; Jewish Encyclopedia, 1903
Jael

The wife of Heber the Kenite. Sisera fled to her tent, and she killed him there. Deborah's song calls her “most blessed of tent-dwelling women.”

Judges 4:17-22; 5:24
Sisera

The commander of Jabin's army, from Harosheth-hagoyim. He fled the battle on foot and died in Jael's tent. Psalm 83 still prays, “Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the River Kishon”.

Judges 4:2, 15-21; Psalm 83:9
Jabin

King of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor and oppressed Israel for twenty years. After the battle the Israelites' hand “grew stronger and stronger against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.”

Judges 4:2-3, 23-24

is she a saint?

The Orthodox honour her as Righteous Deborah, on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. No Catholic or Protestant calendar keeps a day for her.

  • OrthodoxRighteousSunday of the Holy Forefathers, 11 to 17 December
  • CatholicNo feast dayNot in the Mass calendar or the 1916 Martyrology
  • ProtestantNo feast dayELCA Lutherans name her in a prayer for the saints

The Orthodox Church in America lists Righteous Deborah among those remembered on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. It falls between 11 and 17 December, so she has a Sunday rather than a date. Her whole entry sends the reader to Scripture: “Information about the holy Prophetess and Judge Deborah may be found in the Book of Judges 4:5-14, and also chapter 5.”

Rome's book of martyrs, in its 1916 edition, has no day for her, and nor does the calendar used at Mass today. The Church of England, the Episcopal Church and the Missouri Synod Lutherans keep none either.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), the book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, names her, with Gideon, in its prayer of thanks for the saints of old.

what to read first

Judges 4

The Book of Judges

The story in prose, from the palm tree to Jael's tent.

Read it free

Judges 5

The Book of Judges

Her song, which may be the oldest passage in the Bible.

Read it free

Concerning Widows, chapter 8

Ambrose of Milan

His praise of her, and of what she shows about courage.

Read it free

Biblical Antiquities, chapters 30 to 33

Pseudo-Philo, tr. M. R. James

A first-century Jewish retelling of her story, with her farewell to Israel.

Read it free

where the quiz places her

The record, drawn

Pace no lean Voice Says it Lead Out in front Conflict Confronts Reasons no lean Plans no lean
Each arm is one axis: how far out you sit is how strongly you lean, and the colour is which way. The hatched middle is the band where the quiz names neither pole.

Each arm is one axis; length is how far from the centre the recorded acts sit. An axis the text does not place Deborah on has no arm.

In the quiz's own words

Says it, out in front, quick to confront

The six axes

In the hatched middle the quiz names neither pole.

Pace not shown in the text

Acts firstWeighs first

Voice 70% toward Says it

Says itHolds it

Lead 70% toward Out in front

Out in frontAlongside

Conflict 30% toward Confronts

ConfrontsReconciles

Reasons not shown in the text

Asks whyTakes it on trust

Plans not shown in the text

Plans aheadMeets the day

The moments behind each axis

Each line is one recorded act and the reference it is taken from. The sentence says what the person did; where it is in quotation marks it is verbatim from the World English Bible British Edition. An act listed here is evidence of how this person moved, not approval of it; read the passage for how it was received. On 3 of the six the text does not show this, and that axis is left out of the match rather than filled in.

Pace Acts first Weighs first

not shown in the text

The text does not show this. Nothing in the record puts Deborah at either end of this axis, so it is left out when a reader is matched, rather than counted as a position in the middle.

  1. No record

    The text does not show this.

Voice Says it Holds it

says it

  1. Judges 4:6-7 toward Says it

    She told Barak the mountain, the tribes, the number of men and where Sisera would be drawn.

  2. Judges 5:1 toward Says it

    She and Barak sang on that day.

Lead Out in front Alongside

out in front

  1. Judges 4:4-5 toward Out in front

    She judged Israel under the palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgement.

  2. Judges 4:14 toward Out in front

    She told Barak to go down, and ten thousand men went after him.

    Go; for this is the day

Conflict Confronts Reconciles

quick to confront

  1. Judges 4:9 toward Confronts

    When Barak said he would go only if she went, she said she would go, and told him the journey would not be for his honour.

Reasons Asks why Takes it on trust

not shown in the text

The text does not show this. Nothing in the record puts Deborah at either end of this axis, so it is left out when a reader is matched, rather than counted as a position in the middle.

  1. No record

    The text does not show this.

Plans Plans ahead Meets the day

not shown in the text

The text does not show this. Nothing in the record puts Deborah at either end of this axis, so it is left out when a reader is matched, rather than counted as a position in the middle.

  1. No record

    The text does not show this.

Nearest on the map

Distance between two sets of coordinates across every axis, on the same scale a reader's answers are measured on. No number is shown against a person, and nearness is not likeness: two people can land in the same band for different reasons.

  1. David Closest
  2. Peter
  3. Moses
  4. Gideon
  5. Martha
  6. Paul

Suggest a correction. Corrections that are applied are recorded in the public changelog.

Quiz Who in the Bible are you most like? Answer eighteen plain statements about you, none of them about the Bible, and see how near you land to Deborah. Start Quiz Christian Personality Test Which of eight types are you? Find your own. Start

people like her

Hannah

Her prayer became a song of victory: “My heart rejoices in the LORD.” The Talmud counts both women among Israel's seven prophetesses.

1 Samuel 2:1-10 Judith

Another woman who saved Israel and led its song of thanks. John Chrysostom named the two together.

Judith 16 Esther

She saved her people at the risk of her own life: “And if I perish, I perish!” The Talmud names her among the seven prophetesses too.

Esther 4:16

sources

Her life, and her words

Reference

Calendars

Pictures