Debo'rah

Debo'rah (Hebrew, 'bee'), the 'Mother in Israel,' a Hebrew prophetess, wife of Lapidoth, judged Israel under a palm-tree on Mount Ephraim between Ramah and Bethel. Through her patriotism the Hebrews were delivered from the yoke of the Canaanites, under which they had lain for twenty years. She united several of the tribes of northern Israel under Barak (= Carthaginian Barca, 'lightning'), who completely destroyed a great army of the Canaanites at Taanach in the plain of Esdraelon on the brook Kishon. Sisera, the Canaanite leader, fled, and was murdered in his sleep by Jael. 'The land had rest forty years.' The song of Deborah (Judges, v.) is an inspired utterance of the most joyful enthusiasm. See Ewald, Die poetischen Bücher des alten Testaments (vol. i. new ed. 1865), and the eloquent passage on 'this Hebrew Boadicea' in Coleridge's Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.