Judges 5:18

18 Zebulun is a people that readily risked death; Naphtali too in the high countryside.

Judges 5:18 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 5:18

Zebulun and Naphtali were a people
These two tribes were chiefly concerned in this war; out of them were the 10,000 men that followed Barak, who willingly offered themselves, and were the most active and vigorous:

[that] jeoparded themselves unto the death;
exposed them to the utmost danger, fearless of death itself: or reproached F11 their lives; were careless of them, valued them not; they were not dear to them, but were ready to part with them freely, in the cause of liberty in which they were engaged:

in the high places of the field;
on the top of Mount Tabor, where they were mustered, and from whence they beheld the vast host of Sisera surrounding them; and yet, with an undaunted bravery and courage, descended the hill to fight with them. The Vulgate Latin version reads, "in the country of Merome"; in the plains and fields of it, near which were the waters of Merom, where Joshua fought Jabin, a former king of Canaan, and supposed by some to be the same with Kishon here, ( Joshua 11:5 ) ( Psalms 83:9 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F11 (Prx) "probris affecit", Pagninus; so the Targum.

Judges 5:18 In-Context

16 "Why did you stay back among the sheep pens, listening to the music for the flocks?" For the clans of Reuben there was deep soul-searching.
17 Gilead stayed on the other side of the Jordan, and Dan, why did he remain with the ships? Asher stayed by the seacoast, camping at his harbors.
18 Zebulun is a people that readily risked death; Naphtali too in the high countryside.
19 Kings came and made war; the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by Megiddo's waters, but they captured no spoils of silver.
20 The stars fought from the sky; from their orbits they fought against Sisera.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible