They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water. — This is usually explained to mean that in the time of oppression the shepherds and the women could not go to the wells to draw water without being disturbed by the enemy’s archers; and the construction in that case is changed in the middle of the verse, to remind them that they can now sing God’s praises by the safe well-sides. The meaning is highly uncertain. The “they that are delivered” is a conjectural addition of our version. The Hebrew only has “from the noise.” The Vulgate renders it, “where the chariots clashed together, and the army of the enemy was strangled.” The LXX. (some MSS.) connect the clause with the last verse: “Sing;” or “tell it from (i.e. by) the voice of those who strike up their tunes in the midst of the water-drawers.” The Chaldee is here utterly vague. Ewald renders it, “from the shoutings of the spoil-dividers between the water-troughs.” Amid these uncertainties we have nothing better to offer than the conjecture of our translators.
Righteous acts. — Where these words first occur, the Hebrew is Tsidkôth; but in the second recurrence of the English words, “even the righteous acts towards the inhabitants of the villages” — in which they are guided by the Chaldee Targum — we have only the Hebrew words, Tsidkôth pirzônô. Here, as in Judges 5:7, the versions were perplexed by the word perâzôn; but it is now generally agreed that the meaning is either “the righteous acts of his governance in Israel” (Ewald), or “towards the leaders in Israel” (Rosenmüller, &c.).
Then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates. — After singing the just deeds of God, they resumed their usual pursuits, unabashed and un-terrified.