Discovery BoxJudges 5:19 
Context5:19 Kings came, they fought;
the kings of Canaan fought,
at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, 1
but 2 they took no silver as plunder.
Judges 5:21
Context5:21 The Kishon River carried them off;
the river confronted them 3 – the Kishon River.
Step on the necks of the strong! 4
1 map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.
2 tn The contrastive conjunction “but” is interpretive.
3 tn Possibly “the ancient river,” but it seems preferable in light of the parallel line (which has a verb) to emend the word (attested only here) to a verb (קָדַם, qadam) with pronominal object suffix.
4 tn This line is traditionally taken as the poet-warrior’s self-exhortation, “March on, my soul, in strength!” The present translation (a) takes the verb (a second feminine singular form) as addressed to Deborah (cf. v. 12), (b) understands נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in its well-attested sense of “throat; neck” (cf. Jonah 2:6), (c) takes the final yod (י) on נַפְשִׁי (nafshiy) as an archaic construct indicator (rather than a suffix), and (d) interprets עֹז (’oz, “strength”) as an attributive genitive (literally, “necks of strength,” i.e., “strong necks”). For fuller discussion and various proposals, see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 270-71.
