Commentary - Judges 5:31

Bird's-eye view

This final verse of the Song of Deborah is not merely a poetic flourish tacked on to the end of a victory song. It is the theological and moral fulcrum of the entire narrative. It distills the cosmic war described in the song into two stark and eternal alternatives: the destiny of God's enemies and the destiny of His friends. The first line is a prayer of imprecation, a righteous plea that the fate of Sisera would be the fate of all who set themselves against Yahweh. The second is a prayer of benediction, a glorious vision of the future for those who love God, a future as certain and as powerful as the sunrise. The verse concludes with a simple statement of historical fact that is pregnant with theological meaning: God's decisive victory resulted in a generation of tangible peace. This verse, therefore, serves as a capstone, summarizing the lesson of the battle and setting it forth as a timeless pattern of God's dealings with mankind.

In essence, Deborah is teaching Israel, and us, how to think about history. History is not a random series of events; it is a story with a plot, and the plot is this: God's enemies will perish, and God's people will triumph. The song has just celebrated a very particular instance of this truth, and the final verse universalizes it. This is how the world works. The conclusion of peace is not accidental; it is the fruit of God's judgment and salvation. It is the goal toward which His victories always aim.

Outline

Context In Judges

Judges 5:31 comes at the absolute zenith of the book of Judges. The song of Deborah and Barak is one of the oldest pieces of Hebrew poetry in the Bible, and it celebrates a stunning, God-given victory over the technologically superior Canaanite forces of Jabin and Sisera. This victory breaks a twenty-year period of harsh oppression. The song recounts the apostasy of Israel, the cry for deliverance, the raising up of Deborah and Barak, the mustering of the faithful tribes, the cowardice of the unfaithful, the battle itself where God fought from heaven, and the grisly death of the enemy general Sisera at the hands of Jael. This final verse is the conclusion of that celebration. It is followed immediately by the recurring pattern of the book: the land had rest. This period of rest, forty years, is a direct consequence of the events celebrated in the song. This verse provides the theological lens through which to view not only this victory, but the entire cycle of sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance that characterizes the book of Judges.

Key Issues

Two Destinies

The Bible is a book of sharp contrasts: light and darkness, life and death, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the righteous and the wicked. This verse is one of the clearest expressions of this great antithesis. There are only two teams on the field. There are only two ways to live, and consequently, there are only two final ends. Deborah, filled with the Spirit, concludes her song by praying for both outcomes. She prays for the destruction of the one and the glorious success of the other. This is not complicated. Our modern sensibilities, which have been marinated in a sentimental therapeutic soup, recoil from this kind of talk. But this is biblical piety. To love what God loves requires you to hate what God hates. To pray for the success of God's kingdom requires you to pray for the failure of all rival kingdoms.

Verse by Verse Commentary

31a Thus let all Your enemies perish, O Yahweh;

This is an imprecatory prayer, and it is a good and holy prayer. The modern church has grown squeamish about such prayers, but the Bible is filled with them. To pray this way is to align our desires with God's revealed justice. Notice the prayer is addressed to God, and it concerns His enemies. This is not a petty personal vendetta. Deborah is not saying, "Let all my enemies perish." She is saying, "Let all Your enemies perish." Who are God's enemies? They are those who hate His law, who mock His name, who oppress His people, and who set up their own thrones in defiance of His. To pray for them to perish is simply to pray for the establishment of righteousness. It is to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." For God's kingdom to fully come, all rival kingdoms must fall. This is a prayer for the victory of God, and there is nothing more righteous than that.

31b But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might.”

Here is the other side, the glorious benediction. The contrast is absolute. While God's enemies perish, those who love Him flourish. And who are those who love Him? In the biblical context, loving God is not primarily an emotional sentiment; it is a covenantal loyalty. Those who love Him are those who have thrown their lot in with Him, who trust His promises, and who obey His commands. Their destiny is likened to the rising of the sun in its might. This is a magnificent image. The sun does not struggle to rise. Its dawning is inexorable and unstoppable. It banishes all darkness before it. Its power is quiet, steady, and overwhelming. This is a picture of certain and ever-increasing victory. The path of the just is like the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day (Prov. 4:18). This is a promise of progressive victory, of growing influence, of a glory that cannot be contained. It is a profoundly optimistic and postmillennial vision for the people of God. We are not on the losing side of history. We are the sunrise.

31c And the land was quiet for forty years.

Theology is never abstract in the Bible; it always has consequences that you can stub your toe on. The result of this great deliverance, summarized in the prayers of verse 31, was forty years of quiet. The word for quiet here is the Hebrew word for shalom. It means more than just the absence of war. It means peace, wholeness, prosperity, and security. For a full generation, the people of Israel enjoyed the fruit of God's victory. This is crucial. When God's enemies are defeated, His people get to live in peace. The judgment of the wicked and the blessing of the righteous are not just reserved for the eschaton; they are patterns that work themselves out in the fabric of history. Obedience and faith lead to rest. This forty-year rest is a foretaste of the ultimate Sabbath rest that we are promised in Christ, the great Judge and Deliverer who secures a final and everlasting peace for His people.

Application

First, we must recover the practice of righteous imprecation. We live in a world filled with wickedness, with institutionalized rebellion against God. We must learn to pray with biblical clarity against such things. We should pray that God would thwart the plans of the wicked, that He would bring their councils to nothing, that He would break their power. To refuse to pray this way is to be neutral in a war where God has commanded us to fight.

Second, we must grab hold of the profound optimism of the second line. The future does not belong to the secularists, the pagans, or the statists. It belongs to the people of God. Our King has risen from the dead, and He is the true Sun of Righteousness. His kingdom is advancing like the sunrise, and nothing can stop it. When we are tempted to despair because of the morning headlines, we must remember this promise. The destiny of those who love God is to be like the sun in its might. We should therefore live, plan, work, and build with a long-term, victorious confidence.

Finally, we should understand that peace is a byproduct of victory. We all want peace in our lives, our homes, our churches, and our nations. But we often seek it through compromise with the world. The Bible teaches that true shalom comes only after the enemies of God have been dealt with, beginning with the sin in our own hearts. The only path to rest is through the faithful conflict to which God has called us, trusting that He will fight for us and grant us the victory.