Judges 5:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

From the noise of archers From the triumphant noise and shouts of archers, rejoicing when they met with their prey. Together with the princes, judges, and merchants, she would have the shepherds praise the Lord every time they came to water their flocks; remembering how they were formerly disturbed by the archers lurking in the woods or thickets, who shot whole quivers of arrows at them and their cattle, whereby they were put to great difficulty and danger in watering their cattle, which now they brought safely to the pits or springs. There shall they rehearse, &c. When they come to those places with freedom and safety, which before they could not approach but with extreme danger, they shall rehearse the righteous and gracious acts of the Lord, who had taken a just vengeance on their oppressors, and most graciously delivered them from their tyranny. Toward the inhabitants of his villages She would have the meanest peasants bear them company in the praises of God; for now they lived as quietly in their open villages as if they had been in the strongest cities. Then shall the people go down to the gates The great prophetess sums up all in these words, that the whole country was bound to praise the Lord, every man having liberty to go down safely to the gates of his own city, from whence, undoubtedly, many had been driven by the Canaanites, and forced to wander abroad. The gates of their cities, it must be observed, were the chief places to which both city and country resorted for public business and matters of justice, from both of which they had been debarred by their oppressors, but which would now resume their wonted course, and the people have free access and passage, either in or out of their gates, as their affairs required. And they who had been compelled to leave their cities would now return in peace and triumph.