Deborah: Words, Women and War

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This painting is about Deborah the prophetess, the fourth Judge (Shofet) of Israel. She is uniquely the only female Shofet, and is also, exceptionally, the only Judge in Tanach who is not only a savior but indeed a working legal Judge.

Israel, once again strayed by praying to false gods, and hence God punished them by selling them to the Canaanites who were ruled by King Jabin. The king’s strength emanated from and relied primarily upon his chief General, Sisera, who with 900 iron chariots easily lorded over the technologically inferior Israelites. Not only did he oppress Israel mightily, he thoroughly emasculated them by confiscating their simple armamentarium, including every shield and spear in their possession. The humbled Israelites after twenty years of oppression, regretted their actions, and cried out to God. Divine help emerged through the powerful guiding force of Deborah, Materna Israelitus.

The dual and mirror-image themes of this story are actually about male emasculation on the one hand, and female actualization, on the other. These parallel motifs might superficially seem to have a contemporary ring to them , but in actuality the moral of this story is most likely meant to be an insulting cautionary tale to the Israelites about how their sins against God can bring them to great heights of humiliation by a thorough gender reversal within their patriarchal structured universe; a fate almost worse than death. Although this story might be anachronistically interpreted to be one of the earliest historical exemplary feminist tracts, considering the context and era within which this story was written, this interpretation is highly unlikely. All this will be elaborated upon and established below.

Deborah, wife of Lapidot, and her General, Barak son of Avinoam are illustrated on the far left of the painting atop their respective horses. It is known that the Canaanites had horses and chariots. It is known that the Israelites had no chariots; however this painting is based on the presumption (without one hundred percent accuracy) that the Israelites had access to some horses, atop of which their military leaders strode.

Deborah is depicted as an anthropomorphized palm tree. The text describes her as sitting under a palm tree where people came to her for judgment. She judges on the hills of Ephraim and is an Ephraimite. The palm tree in Jewish tradition is a symbol of beauty, fertility and righteousness (“A tzaddick -a righteous person- blossoms like a palm tree”; Psalms), and is also the tribal totem of Joseph. Joseph is referred to in Jacob’s death-bed prophesy/blessing as a vine near a fountain whose branches (literally the daughters of the vine; feminine branches) are overflowing. This prophesy concerning the spreading feminine branches can be applied to Deborah ,from the tribe of Ephraim, the Jacobean favored child of Joseph, whose branches in this painting cover her people, and whose extended influential branches to the right and lower left of the painting encapsulate and guide the ultimate fate of this story.

The meaning of the name Deborah can be derived from the constituent Hebrew root words of her name; “Debur Yah” meaning “the words (or speech) of God”. Being a prophetess, she spoke the word(s) of God. The contemporary Modern Hebrew definition of Deborah is a “bee”. This definition must have been visually evoked from the synesthetic, homophonic and onomatopoeic similarity between the buzzing sounds of bees and the distant humming sounds of human speech (debur).

She is also called “Eshet Lapidot”, “the wife of Lapidot”. In contemporary Hebrew the word Lapidot means torch, possibly implying a fiery woman. However, if we parse “Lapidot” into its two root constituent Hebrew words we get “Lapi”- “according to the mouth”, of “Dot” - “faith” or depending on its pronunciation- “knowledge”. Hence this appellation would be almost synonymous with the name Deborah meaning “According to the mouth of knowledge and /or faith” which speaks via “Deborah” i.e. “with the words of God”.

The name Deborah also connects her to her ancestor Jacob/Israel via Jacob’s mother’s (Rebecca’s) nurse, the first woman in the Bible named Deborah, who accompanied Jacob on his life’s journey. That “Deborah” served as Jacob’s surrogate mother, and was so important to him, that the Bible mentions her death and burial which took place underneath a tree. In Tanach (Judges), it is mentioned that Deborah the prophetess sat and judged under the “Deborah palm tree”. The text is referring to “Deborah the nurse’s tree”, thereby historically and metaphorically connecting the surragate mother of the patriarch Israel to the present prophetess of the people of Israel, Deborah, who is the acting surrogate uber - mother of Israel’s descendants.

Deborah summons her General, Barak, to chastise and tell him, “hasn’t God commanded you to go to Mount Tabor, and take ten thousand troops from Naphtali and Zevulon, and that he will draw you to the Brook of Kishon, and he will deliver Sisera into your hands?” The rhetorical nature of this rebuke implies that Barak has been completely aware of this mission for quite some time, and had and continues to shy away from it. Hence Deborah summons him, and wants to know why he hasn’t accomplished it yet. Barak, not a courageous man, shamelessly answers, “if you will come with me, I will go, if you don’t, I won’t”.

Barak of the tribe of Naftali in this painting is portrayed as an anthropomorphized male deer (stag). This is based on Jacob’s blessing/prophesy of Naftali who is compared to a hind (prophetically a female -emasculated male- deer) let loose. The Medrash maintains that this was a prophesy alluding to Barak’s (Naphtali’s descendant) swift military action in this story.

“Barak” in Modern Hebrew means “lightening”, which could be synonymous with his tribe’s blessing, “swift as a deer”. I believe that the true meaning of Barak in this story is derived from the parsing of the constituent Hebrew root words of his name ; “ Buh” –“with” and “Rak”- which means “on condition that”, “but”, “ only”, or contextually “I will only go to war with the (“buh”) condition (rak) that Deborah comes with me”. “Rak” also means “thin” “soft”, “weak”, as in “the seven thin weak cows in Pharaoh’s dream” that ate the seven healthy cows.

Hence within this context Barak lives up to the definitions of his name. He is a weak and soft man who will only conditionally go to war if accompanied by a strong woman. As a punishment for this behavior Deborah answers him, “O.k. I’ll come with you, but realize that because of your conditional cowardice, the ultimate prize and booty of war, capturing and killing Jabin, which was initially promised to you by God, will now go to a woman (the real man) and not you. Hence Deborah prophesies Barak’s current and continuing humiliating historical emasculation. He had one last chance to redeem his masculinity, but he didn’t take it. Male and Female gender roles are now totally flip-flopped.

Let us now turn to the battle scene illustrated in this painting. The details of the battle are discussed twice; once in its original context, and again as retold in “the Song of Deborah”. This painting is based on the cumulative details of both these stories.

Deborah and Barak ascend Mount Tabor shown on the left of this painting. Sisera hears about the gathering Israeli troops and so gathers his iron chariots and cavalry to engage in battle, heading towards Kishon.

Deborah prophetically chooses the day of battle and commands Barak to descend from Mount Tabor and attack, guaranteeing that upon this day, God will deliver the enemy into their hands. In this painting the Israeli battalion descends a star laden blue heavenly path.

Depicted on the lower left of this painting are the five tribes of Israel that participated in this battle. They are from left to right; Naphtali, Zebulon, Ephraim, Binyamin and Issachar. The total troop number is 10,000. Each tribe represents a 2000 troop contingent. In the original story it appears that only Naphtali and Zebulon participated in battle. But the Song of Deborah mentions the participation of the other three tribes as well. Hence it can be assumed that all five tribes engaged in battle, but Naphtali and Zebulon fought the most ferociously and valiantly.

Deborah chastises all the other seven tribes for not contributing to this existential battle. Based on the map of Israel during this era, the five participating tribes dwelled in territories stretching from North to South through the middle swath of the land of Israel. Most likely these tribes were the ones most affected and threatened by Jabin’s rule, and hence felt the urge and need to fight. Unfortunately, it appears that the other seven tribes abandoned their brothers in their time of need. Necessity and practicality apparently trumped loyalty in this battlefield of alliances. This mirrors the future division of Israel, along different tribal and geographical lines in the future (Nothing ever changes).

In this painting each fighting tribe is anthropomorphically represented by their individualized totems. Written in Hebrew on each of their respective spears is Jacob’s prophetic blessing for each of them. On the far left, we have Naphtali, Barak’s tribe, represented as an anthropomorphized stag. On his spear is written, “Naftali, like a hind let loose, he speaks kindly words”. To the right of him is Zebulon, the anthropomorphized boat-man alluding to the Jacobean prophesy which is written on his spear, “Zebulon will dwell on the shores of the sea, and he will be a shore for ships”. To his right is Ephraim, who like Deborah is an anthropomorphized palm tree which is based on his father’s, Joseph’s blessing, which is written on his spear, “Joseph is a fruitful vine by the fountain whose branches run over the wall”. This blessing is continued on Deborah’s neck collar, a female Ephraimite, “Blessed with breasts and wombs” which is that part of the Jacobean prophesy with a high probability of alluding to Deborah.

To the right of Ephraim is Binyamin, an anthropomorphized wolf based on Jacob’s prophesying which is written on his spear “Binyamin is a wolf who tears his prey in the mourning “… “In the evening he divides his spoil (not written in the painting)”. To his right is Issachar, an anthropomorphized Donkey, which is based on the Jacobean prophesy which is written on his spear “Issachar is a large boned ass crouching (down by the sheepfolds)”.

The Israeli warriors have clearly regained and/or reconstructed their shields and spears. The details of this retrieval are not recorded. They may have stealthily been preparing for this day for the past twenty years. Written from right to left on their shields are individual Hebrew letters which spell out “Israel”.

To the right of the painting is The Brook of Kishon. According to the rendition in the Song of Deborah, because of rain and inclement weather , the brook flooded over when the Canaanites under Sisera’s leadership were crossing over it, leaving the terrain muddy and their heavy technologically superior iron chariots stuck in the mud and useless. The tribes of Israel descended upon them and killed them to the last man. In this painting, Canaanite soldiers, horses and chariots are seen drowning in the turbulent blood-tinged waters.

Sisera, the famed and feared ferocious General escapes by foot (his chariots utterly useless) and passes by Yael’s tent who is the wife of a Kenite (presumably an ally) tentmaker. Yael tells Sisera “turn in to me my lord, turn into me” offering him refuge and hiding. Yael’s tent is portrayed in the upper right of the painting. Sisera asks her for water, but instead she gives him milk, a soporific. He falls down asleep between her legs. She takes a tent pin, and with her right hand drives it through his temples, killing him, the last surviving soldier of the Canaanite army”.

After Sisera’s death, and this miraculous victory of the weak Israelites against the strong Canaanites, Jabin loses control, and Israel is once again independent. “There is peace (the land is quiet) for forty years” written in Hebrew on the mountain underneath Sisera and Yael, on the right hand side of the painting.

Barak gives chase after Sisera. When Barak approaches Yael’s tent in hot pursuit, she shows him the mangled corpse of the man who she so easily defeated single- handedly fulfilling Deborah’s prophesy that Sisera will be felled by a woman, snatching victory from the jaws of Barak. What’s the expression Barak? Ah yes, No guts, no glory.

The Yael-Sisera story is a parallel Canaanite tale of male emasculation and female actualization, mirroring the Israelite Deborah- Barak relationship. This portion of the story is quite erotically charged and demonstrates in yet another vein this story’s complete and total gender reversal.

When Sisera and his manly troops do not yet return from the battlefield, Sisera’s mother, pining by the latticed window to see her son, is comforted by the thought that he is most likely delayed because he is happily pillaging and raping Israelite virginal vessels. Of course, based on historical precedent, she is confident he and his army must be ravaging “two damsels for every one soldier”.

Unbeknownst to Sisera’s mother, the tables are now reversed. Yael treacherously seduces Sisera saying “turn (come) into me my lord, turn into me”. She then gives him milk (breasts), then takes a tent pin (phallic weapon) and sodomizes his head from behind, penetrating and piercing it through his two ear orifices. The tent pin goes in one ear, through his head, and then out through the other ear (refer to painting, upper right). Thus in a sense Yael, a single damsel, perforates (ravages) two male damsels (ear orifices) completely reversing the Canaanite gender universe, standing it on its head. Yael is functionally transformed into the male soldier rapist attacking with her tent peg (pseudo-male organ), and Sisera is functionally transformed into the female (receiving perforating end) ravaged damsel(s). Sisera then dies between her legs, during this twisted sex/murder act. No doubt, many women died similarly between Sisera’s legs.

Illustrated on the right in this painting is Yael on top of Sisera on his back pounding the tent pin through his temples. His sword is falling down from one hand, and his bottle of milk from the other. Milk is gushing out of the vessel onto the mountain. He is lying face down on Yael’s bed. Underneath his head, written in Hebrew, are the seductive words “turn in, turn in to me my lord”. Her name Yael is written on her dress in Hebrew which means “she will ascend” which she does both physically and spiritually. The name Sisera, written on his clothing, almost sounds like “soos rah” or “bad horse” alluding to his evil horses and chariots.

Yael’s victory is not only humiliating to Jabin and Cannan, it is yet further humiliation for Israel. Israel was subjected for twenty years by a man who was so easily defeated by the wiles of a simple Canaanite woman, making Israel’s subjugation to this weak, easily conquerable man, all the more pitiful and humiliating. The moral of the story is, if Israel strays from God, they will be weakened and emasculated to the point that they will need to be protected and saved from equally weakened and emasculated men, by their own women who will have no choice but to take on their roles as men, because the men can’t and won’t.

Illustrated on the bottom right of the painting are the drowning Canaanites in the bloodied Brook of Kishon, along with their horses, chariots and spears. To the left of the mountain above the Kishon Brook, you can trace Sisera’s brown footsteps up the mountain to Yael’s tent.

This water based victory is analogous to the victorious Israelites crossing the Red Sea, and the Egyptians drowning in the river when the sea engulfs them. Both historical victories were commemorated in Song; the first, in the “Song of Miriam”, and the latter in the “Song of Deborah”. Thus Deborah is historically linked with yet another strong mother image in Israel, Miriam, Moses’ brother. These complementary events/songs are paired in the weekly Sabbath readings of the Torah and Haftorah (Prophets and Writings) portions.

Deborah is portrayed in this painting going out to war as a very active participant, leading on her horse, brandishing a sword of Justice in one hand and a scale of Justice in the other. On her Scales of Justice, descending on the right scale is the image of Sisera’s mother who is portrayed in the text as “through the window she looked forth and peered through the lattice”. These words are written in yellow Hebrew on the scale beneath her.

“Why is his chariot so long in coming?” She laments. The latticed window through which she peers has been fused with the chains which are attached to the Justice scale. Her eyes do not see Sisera; they are looking in the opposite direction. Perhaps she sees but does not want to see. Her head sitting atop the scale represents her son’s head which was judged and condemned to piercing. The heartfelt longing for her son and her plight at the thought of losing him is told with such profound sadness and touching irony that it is a testament to the true empathy projected by the people of Israel onto the very people who wish to annihilate them. Sisera’s mother also represents the surrogate Mother of Canaan, and is thus linked to Deborah in a parallel universe, who is the surrogate mother of Israel.

Atop Deborah’s rising left Justice scale is a bright rising shining sun with extending rays, representing Israel who won the battle by returning to God, and is therefore described in Deborah’s Song as “those who love God (Israel) are like the rising sun in all its glory”. This is written in yellow Hebrew on the blue scale upon which the sun rests.

Thus Deborah goes out to war brandishing Israel’s physical and moral victory over Canaan. It is possible and likely that the image of Lady Justice found in courtrooms in America and Europe who is portrayed as an attractive woman with a sword in one hand and a scale in the other, which is theoretically based on Greek and Roman iconography, is more likely based on this vision of Deborah which preceded the Greek and Roman versions by at least half a millennium.

In this painting, written on Deborah’s sword are a series of Hebraic cross-word puzzles and anagrams. In the middle of the sword, written vertically from top to bottom , read from right to left are the words “mother (in red) within Israel (in blue)”. Reading horizontally the same word combinations from top down are the words “Esh Mar”, or “masculine (Aramaic) fire”.

If we now read from the top letter B, diagonally from left to right, we get the name “Barak”. Now read right to left from the “K” of “Barak” , we get “KM” or “arose”, which connects to the cross word from top down to the word “Tamar” or “palm tree”, which reads “a palm tree (Deborah ) arose( to go to war)”. If we continue from the last letter (L) of the middle word “Israel”, towards the bottom of the sword, it continues in red lettering from top down reading “Lapi dat”, as mentioned above meaning “according to the mouth of faith”. This is interconnected diagonally and horizontally with two other words, read from right to left “Ashet (blue) - the wife of” (Lapidot), and Shaddi (the name of God), respectively.

Written on Barak’s shield in Hebrew are some of the words of Deborah’s Song “And so sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Avinoam on that day. Listen oh Kings and hear oh Princes, I am for God, I will sing and praise God, the God of Israel… From the heavens the stars in their courses fought with Sisera. The Brook Kishon swept them away. Oh my soul treads them down with strength”.

The song continues on the sails of Zebulon’s boat beneath Barak’s shield in black Hebrew, “Mountains quaked with fear before God… even Sinai quaked before God, the Lord of Israel”. Incorporated in this painting are the purple Mount Tabor on the left, and the yellow brown mountain on the right ,on top of which, is perched Yael’s tent, which quake before God.

The overall dominant color theme of this painting is pink, representing the powerful feminine spirit which moves the story and reigns supreme. Deborah is mounted on her pink horse. In the dark moonlit sky are the pinkish feminine stars in the heavens which help her fight against Sisera. Yael is wearing a pink dress. Also in the background are pink female birds which sweep down to aid Deborah and the Israelites in battle. This represents the feminine forces of nature on the side of the Israelites. They also have the appearance of swarming bomber airplanes about to rout the Canaanites with bombs, but rather scare them by their sheer numbers, force, formation, might and intent.

Deborah is the first and last powerful independent female Jewish Ruler in Biblical history. There are powerful women with important roles before and after her, but none could be considered independent leaders, prophets or Queens of nation-states. Other future candidates include Queen Jezebel and Queen Esther. Jezebel reigned through her husband and son, but was absolutely evil and hence was not a legitimate leader. Queen Esther became a Persian, not an Israelite leader, who saved the Jews, but essentially was the surrogate of Mordechai, her uncle, the true Jewish leader, and the spouse of King Achesverosh, the true Persian leader. In modern history, it would be Golda Meir to whom the torch (Lapidot) and mantle of female Israelite political and military leadership was passed unto from Deborah.