What Does Judges 5:1 Mean?
Then Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,THE KEY
The verse makes remembrance a shared sound: the day becomes something two voices can carry together.
THE MEANING
Deborah and Barak make the day speakable in a song they voice together. The reader encounters a turning point that can move beyond a private moment and become a shared voice, carried by more than one person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A decisive moment belongs to one person’s voice alone; here Deborah sings with Barak, and the response is shared.
THE ROOT
וַתָּשַׁר
vat-tashar
GROWS FROM
שיר
Shir: to sing, make or voice a song.
The root שיר (shir, to sing or make a song) holds the act of singing beside the song itself. The verse’s וַתָּשַׁר (vat-tashar, “and she sang”) grows from the same root as שִׁיר (shir, “song”) and שִׁירָה (shirah, “song, poem”): what happens becomes something a community can voice and carry.
ALSO GROWS
shir: Song
שִׁיר
The noun shares the root שיר with the act of singing, joining the voice to what it makes.
shirah: Song, poem
שִׁירָה
This form names a shaped song, showing how an event can become words people return to and share.
THE PATTERN
A shared song gives a community a voice for what it receives and remembers.
Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.Let the word of the Anointed One settle in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in plucked songs, in hymns, and in songs of breath, singing with favor in your hearts to God.THE THREAD
Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and said, I will sing to the LORD, for he has risen high, risen high; horse and rider he has hurled into the sea.Both verses join a decisive day to a shared song: Judges gives the voice to Deborah and Barak, while Exodus gives it to Moses and Israel. The same Hebrew root שיר names singing and song, making a moment into a voice people can carry together.
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