Bible Review

Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), p. 380. For a detailed study of the Urim and Thummim, see Cornelius Van Dam, The Urim and Thummim: A Means of Revelation in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997).

James S. Ackerman (“Prophecy and Warfare in Early Israel: A Study of the Deborah-Barak Story,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220 [1975], p. 11, following Robert G. Boling, Judges/Introduction, Translation and Commentary [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975], pp. 81, 95) has argued convincingly that the action described in v. 5 represents an exposition on v. 3a, “the Israelites cried out (s\aµ‘aq) to Yahweh.”

See Block, “‘Israel’-‘Sons of Israel’: A Study in Hebrew Eponymic Usage,” Studies in Religion 13 (1984), pp. 301–326.

For a detailed comparison of Samuel and Deborah, see Block, “Deborah Among the Judges,” pp. 237–238.

This is an expression used by Marc Brettler (“The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics,” Journal of Biblical Literature 108 [1989], p. 407).

Deleting v. 5 as secondary, Moore found the weight of this evidence so convincing that he argued for translating hiÆ’sûoµpeát\aÆ ‘et yisŒraµ’eµl as “she delivered Israel” (Judges, p. 114).

This is an abbreviated and modified version of an earlier, more detailed study: Block, “Deborah Among the Judges: The Perspective of the Hebrew Historian,” in Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context, ed. Alan R. Millard, James K. Hoffmeier and David W. Baker (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 229–253.

For a bibliography, see Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999), pp. 185–186.

George Foote Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1895), pp. 112–113.