What Does Judges 5:2 Mean?

(2) **For the avenging of Israel.**—The Hebrew word *peraoth *cannot have this meaning, though it is found in the Syriac and implied by the Chaldee. The word only occurs in Deuteronomy 32:42, and there, as here, implies the notion of *leading; *so that the LXX. are doubtless right in rendering it, “In the leading of the leaders of Israel.” God is praised because both *leaders *and people (Judges 5:9; Judges 5:13) did their duty. *Peraoth *is derived from *perang, *“hair”; and whether the notion which it involves is that of *comati, *“nobles, who wear long hair” (comp. Homer’s “long-haired Greeks,” and Tennyson’s “his beard a yard before him, and his hair a yard behind “), or “hairy champions,” or the hair of warriors streaming behind them as they rode to battle (“His beard and hoary hair streamed like a meteor to the troubled air”: Gray), *leadership *seems to be the notion involved. **When the people willingly offered themselves.**—Comp. Psalm 110:3 : “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.”