Nearly all of our destructive critics have something to say about the prophetess Deborah, and all with little respect for her and little credit to themselves. The latest example which has fallen under my eye is found in the March number of the Biblical World, and in an essay by Prof. L. B. Paton, of the Hartford Theological Seminary. It bears the heading, "Deborah's Conception of Yahweh." The essay opens with the following paragraph:

      Notice first the similarity of Deborah to the prophets and prophetesses of other ancient peoples. She "used to sit under the palm-tree of Deborah," doubtless the same sacred tree that is mentioned in Gen. 35:8. Presumably she drew her responses from the rustling of its leaves, as other Semitic seers were accustomed to do. The children of Israel came to her for "decision," no doubt on such trivial matters as later were referred to Samuel (1 Sam. 9:6). Her wide influence she used to stir up hostility against the Canaanites, and she marched at the head of the army like an ancient German prophetess.

      It would be hard to find a paragraph in what has been written by the most radical skeptics against Deborah, more disparaging to her, or more replete with evidences of the writer's ignorance of his subject.

      She "used to sit under the palm-tree of Deborah;" and what woman out of doors in a hot country, or what man, as to that, would not sit under a tree rather than in the broiling sun? But this tree was "doubtless the same sacred tree that is mentioned in Gen. 35:8." The [365] reference is to the oak-tree under which the Deborah who had been Rebekah's nurse was buried. That oak was doubtless a somewhat conspicuous tree at the time, yet it was "doubtless the same tree" under which the second Deborah used to sit, though she lived more than five hundred years later. It "doubtless" became a very old tree. But its old age was not the most surprising thing about it, for in the course of those five hundred years and more it had changed from an oak-tree to a palm-tree. I suppose this was evolution. The first Deborah was buried under an oak-tree, and the second Deborah sat under a palm-tree, but with this learned professor in a theological seminary it was "doubtless the same sacred tree." And why call it a sacred tree? The first Deborah was buried under an oak, not because it was a sacred tree; neither did the second Deborah sit under a palm because it was a sacred tree. Not a word is said in either passage about the sacredness of the tree, and such things as sacred trees, though the minds of the modern critics are full of them, are not known to the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. I would not be surprised if we should next hear from some crack-brained critic that the tree in which Absalom was suspended was a sacred tree, and that his mule, through gratitude that he was not killed in the battle, ran under the tree and left Absalom hanging there as a thank-offering to the god of the tree. A man whose brain has not been addled by the subtleties of crooked criticism would say that the first Deborah was buried under a tree in order that any of Jacob's family, who might afterward pass that way, might easily find the grave of the good old nurse; and that Deborah the second sat under a tree when the people gathered about her because her house was not commodious enough to receive them. [366]

      But, with Professor Paton, Deborah had another and very different reason for sitting under the tree: "Presumably she drew her responses from the rustling of its leaves, as other Semitic seers were accustomed to do." This puts her on a par with heathen fortune-tellers; and the next sentence has the same import: "The children of Israel came to her for 'decision,' no doubt on such trivial matters as later were referred to Samuel (1 Sam. 9:6);" that is, such matters as telling where to find stray asses. The rustling of the leaves of the tree would tell her where the stray asses could be found. And we are to suppose, also, that it was the rustling of the leaves which told her to call Barak with ten thousand men to Mount Tabor, after which Sisera with Jabin's army would come down and Jehovah would deliver him into Barak's hand. Finally, this professor and Ph. D. forgets the Scripture, and draws on his imagination to tell us that Deborah "marched at the head of the army like an ancient German prophetess." Of course he knows that she did this, for the text says not a word about it.

      If good old Lappidoth, the husband of Deborah, should happen back in this world again, and hear how such men as Professor Paton are smutting the reputation of his wife, I think his wrath would be kindled as of old, and somebody would be in danger from the toe of his boot.

[SEBC 365-367]