Deb'^ora {prop. Debo^ra] {AiPPiopd or AifiPwpa, from thi Heb. Deborah), a woman of Naphtali, moth- er of Tobiel, the &ther of Tobit (Tob. i, 8).
Deborah. See Beb.
Deb'orah (Heb. n^in? [or "defectively" H-jh^, Gen. XXXV, 8; Judg. iv, 14; v, 15], a bee^ as often [comp. the names MiXiofra and MdHUla] ; Sept. Ac- pofJ^ V. r. [in Judg.] AefiP&pa ; Josephus Aifiwpa, Ant. V, 5, 2]), the name of two women. See Debora.
1. The nurse of Rebekah (Gen. xxxv, 8). Nurses held a high and honorable place in ancient times, and especially in the East (2 Kings xi, 2 ; Homer, Od. i, 429 ; Virgil, jEn. vii, 2 ; • * .fineia nutrix ;" Ovid, Met, xiv, 441), where they were often the principal mem* bers of the fomily (2 Chron. xxfl, 11 ; Jahn, Bibl. Arch. § 166). Deborah accompanied Rebekah from the house of Bethuel (Gen. xxiv, 59), B.C. 2028 ; but she is only mentioned by name on the occasion of her burial, un- der the oak-tree of Bethel, which was called in her honor Allon-Bachuth (Gen. xxxv, 8). B.C. 1906.
DEBORAH
lie
DEBORAH
Such spots w«ro nsnallj chosen for tbe purpose (Oen. zziil, 17, 18; 1 Sam. zxxi, 13; 2 Kings xxi, 18, etc.). Many hare been pnxzled at finding her in Jacob' i fun> fly ; it b unlikely that she was sent to summon Jacob from Haran (as Jarchi suggests), or that she had re- turned during the lifetime of Rebekah, and was now coming to visit her (as Abarbanel and others say) ; but she may very well hare returned at Rebekah's death, and that she wu dead is probable from the omission of her name in Gen. xxxv, 27 ; and if, according to tbe Jewish legend, Jacob first heard of his mother's death at this spot, it will be an additional reason fc>r the name of the tre^ and may pouibljf be implied in the expression ^'^^'^^, comforled, A. Y. ** blessed" (Gen. xxzT, 9; Bee,\oo, Ewald, CkmA, i, 890).— Smith,
S.V.
2. A prophetess, ** wife of Lapidoth," who Judged Israel (Judg. iv, ▼) in connection with Barak (q. v.). B.C. 1409-1369. Her name may imply nothing what- ever, being a mere appellative, derived like Rachel (a lamb), Tamar (a palm), etc, from natural objects ; al- though she was (as Com. a Lapide quaintly puts it) tuit meOeOf hottibut acukata. Some, however, see in the name an official title, implying her prophetic au- thority. A bee was an Egyptian symbol of regal power (comp. Callim. Jov, 66, and Et, Mag. s. v. io- <njv) ; and among the Greeks the term was applied not only to poets (more apis mo/tms, Horace), and to those peculiarly chaste (as by the Neoplatonists), but espe- cially to the priestesses of Delphi (xp^V^ fitXiv- <ra c AfX^i?oc, Find. P. iv, 106), Cybele, and Artemis (Creuzer, S^mbolik^ iii, 854, etc.), just as ifftrnv was to the priests (Liddell and Scott, s. v.). In both these senses the name suits her, since she was essentially a vates or seer, combining the functions of poetiy and prophecy (see Stanley, Jewish Churchy i, 348 sq.).
She lived, probably in a tent, under the palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in Mount £ph- raim (Judg. iv, 5), which, as palm-trees were rare in Palestine, is mentioned as a well-known and solitary landmark, and was probably the same spot as that called (Judg. xx, 33) Baal-Tamar, or the sanctuary of the palm (Stanley, Palest, p. 145). Von Bohlen Q). 834) thinks that this tree is identical with Allon-Bach- nth (Gen. xxxv, 8), the name and locality being near- ly the same (Ewald, Gesch. i, 391, 405), although it is nnhistorical to say that this ** may have suggested a name for the nurse" (H&vemick's Tntrod, to PenL p. 201; Kalisch, (r«». ad loc.). Possibly it is again men- tioned as '* the oak of Tabor** in 1 Sam. x, 8 (where Thenius would read M^h^ iat ^iypj). At any rate, it was a well-known tree, and she may have chosen it frxHn its previous associations. See Oak.
She was probably a woman of Ephraim, although, from the expression in Judg. v, 15, some suppose her to have belonged to Issachar (Ewald, Gesch, ii, 489). The expression ni'l'^D^ P^K is much disputed; it is generally thought to mean " wife of Lapidoth,** as in A. V. ; but other versions render it " uxor principis,** or '' FcDmina Lapidothana" ('* that great dame of Lap- idoth,*' Tennyson), or fmdier splendorvm, i. e. one di- vinely illuminated, since mT^ob =lightning8. But the most prosaic notion is that of the Rabbis, who take it to mean that she attended to the tabernacle lamps, from T^ei, lapp^f a lamp ! The fem. termination is often found in men's names, as in Shelomith (1 Chron. X xiii, 9), Koheleth, etc. Lapidoth, then, was probably her husband, and not Barak, as some say. See Lapi- doth.
She was not so much a judge (a title which belongs rather to Barak, Heb. xi, 82) as one gifted with pro- phetic command (Judg. iv, 6, 14; v, 7), and by virtue of her inspiration "a mother in Israel.** Her sex would give her additional weight frrom the peculiarity of the circumstance, as in the instances of Miriam,
Huldah, Anna, Noadlah (2 Kings xxS, 14; H^i 14). Her ofllcial designation probably mtsuMM was the organ of communication betweea Goda^l people, and probably, on aoooont of the iniM authority of her character,. was aooomted msmm as the head of the nation, to whom qusstioa* efM and difilculty were referred for deciska. See Jtm