A Riposte Form in The Song of Deborah
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Description
The Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges records a stunning victory won by a coalition of Israelite tribes under Deborah and Barak over a powerful army led by the Canaanite Sisera (Judg. 5.1-31). The Song is widely viewed as among the most ancient of all the biblical material; by its own terms, it describes a period early in the history of the Israelite occupation of the Promised Land, a time when, there being 'no king.. .in Israel' (Judg. 19.1), the common life of the tribes was organized under a loose confederacy under the guidance of 'judges'—inspired leaders who would rise up to rescue the Israelites when they faced aggression from other peoples. Deborah was one of these judges—and, unusually, a woman. This paper analyzes the Song of Deborah as a riposte form in a literature influenced by norms of honor. A riposte was a form of retaliation against an insult circulated in the culture by a rival group. Characteristic of the riposte is the fact that the insult could not simply be denied or ignored, because its substance had achieved widespread credibility in the broader culture. The riposte deals with this problem by accepting part of a stereotype as true, but reversing the honor-value of the attribution and returning the insult, with interest, to the group from which it originated. Riposte forms can be found at several points in the early biblical texts, and thus may represent a rhetorical form that has not been fully recognized by critical analysis. This paper proposes that the Song of Deborah responds to a negative stereotype about the people of the hill country of Canaan (i.e. the Israelites) that may have enjoyed popularity among their city-dwelling neighbors (i.e. the Canaanites). The stereotype was to the effect that the hill people lacked social graces and refinement, and that their women behaved like men. This appears to be a common cultural stereotype that people of the towns and the plains have used against the uncouth hill people in other times and places. The Song of Deborah accepts the essential attributes of the stereotype, but reverses their honor value by demonstrating that it is good to have nature on your side, that cultural refinement is an empty promise when stacked up against wily resourcefulness, and that any group should be glad to be led by women when the result is a victory as spectacular as the one secured by Deborah and her general. The Song then returns the insult to sender: the sophisticated war machine of the Canaanite forces is swept away by the forces of nature that are allied with the Israelites, and the Canaanite commander is feminized, raped, and vanquished by a woman allied with the Israelite forces. This paper is structured as follows. Part I discusses some of the prior literature on Judges, and argues that the characterization of the story as a riposte is new in the literature. Part II outlines a theory of verbal feud and places the riposte form within a broader typology of honor stories. Part III illustrates the nature of the riposte in the Song of Deborah. I end with a brief conclusion.
Source Publication
Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
Source Editors/Authors
Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson, Tikva Frymer-Kensky
Publication Date
1998
Recommended Citation
Miller, Geoffrey P., "A Riposte Form in The Song of Deborah" (1998). Faculty Chapters. 2036.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2036
