Judges 5:31

31 "May all your enemies perish like this, ADONAI; but may those who love him be like the sun going forth in its glory!" Then the land had rest for forty years.

Judges 5:31 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 5:31

So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord!
&c.] As Sisera and his army did, and be disappointed as his mother and her ladies were; which is not only a wish or prayer that it might be, but a prophecy that so it would be:

but let them that love him;
that love the Lord superlatively and sincerely, with all their heart and soul, and from love serve and fear him:

[be] as the sun when he goeth forth in his might;
in the middle of the day, when its heat and light are the greatest, and in the summer solstice, in the month of June, when the sun is in Cancer, as Ben Gersom and Abarbinel observe, and it is hottest: the sense is, let the true friends of God be as bright and as glorious, and increase in light, lustre, and splendour, as that glorious luminary in midday, and be no more liable to be resisted and stopped by their enemies, and as much out of the reach of them as that is:

and the land had rest forty years;
these are not the words of Deborah, whose song ends with the last clause, but of the writer of this book; which years, according to most, are to be reckoned from the death of Ehud, including the twenty years' bondage under Jabin, as Ben Gersom and Abarbinel; so that strictly speaking the rest was but twenty years; one would think they should be reckoned from the victory obtained over Jabin king of Canaan.

Judges 5:31 In-Context

29 The wisest of her ladies answer her, and she repeats it to herself,

30 'Of course! They're collecting and dividing the spoil a girl, two girls for every warrior, for Sisra booty of dyed clothing, a plunder of colorfully embroidered garments, two embroidered scarves for every soldier's neck.'

31 "May all your enemies perish like this, ADONAI; but may those who love him be like the sun going forth in its glory!" Then the land had rest for forty years.