Judges 5:14 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Out of Ephraim, &c. The prophetess, having directed their praises to the Author of their deliverance, proceeds to speak with commendation of the instruments of it, and gives us the muster of those tribes which freely offered themselves to battle. She assigns the first place to the tribe of Benjamin; the second to those of her own tribe who were settled in Amalek; the third to the Manassites beyond Jordan; the fourth to the tribe of Zebulun; and the last to the tribe of Issachar. There was a root of them against Amalek This translation is very obscure, and therefore it might be better rendered, and more agreeably to the Hebrew, Out of Ephraim came down those who were planted, or whose rest was in Amalek; meaning some of the tribe of Ephraim, who were settled in or about the mount of Amalek. See Judges 12:15. And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer Mr. Green has observed, and with great reason, that there is a manifest impropriety in penmen coming down to a battle; and that the word שׁבשׂ, shebet, which is here translated a pen, never signifies so throughout the Scriptures, but always a sceptre, or staff of command; and therefore he thinks our translation has mistaken the meaning here, and that it ought to be translated, And out of Zebulun those that rule or lead with the sceptre. The word ספר, soper, rendered writer, he thinks belongs to the next verse, and should be translated numbered. This certainly would make that verse more plain and significant. It would then be, And the princes of Issachar were numbered with Deborah; that is, these princes, together with Barak the general, were mustered along with Deborah herself.