Deborah

Deborah or Dvora (דברה "Bee", Standard Hebrew Dəvora, Tiberian Hebrew Dəḇōrāh) was the fourth judge and only female judge of pre-monarchy Israel in the Old Testament and the Tanakh. Her story is told twice in chapters 4 and 5 of Judges. The first account is prose, relating the victory of Israelite forces led by General Barak, whom Deborah called forth but prophesied would not achieve the final victory over the Canaanite general Sisera himself. That honor went to Jael, the wife of Heber, a Kenite tentmaker. Jael killed Sisera by driving a tent peg through his head as he slept.

Judges 5 gives this same story in poetic form, and it is thought to have been composed in the second half of the 12th century BC, shortly after the events it describes. If that is the case, then this passage, often called "The Song of Deborah", is the early extant Hebrew poetry known. It is also significant because it is one of the, if not the, earliest passages that portrays women in other roles than as victims or as villains. The poem may have been included in the "book of the wars of Yahweh" mentioned in Numbers' xxi. 14.

About Deborah personally little is known; she was married to a man named Lapidoth and she rendered her judgments beneath a palm tree in Ephraim.

In the Aegean world, the "bee-woman" is Merope.

Preceded by: Shamgar

Judges of Israel

Succeeded by: Barak