Footnote 12 – The Song of Deborah—Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not

In the poetic account of Judges 5, the Israelite tribesmen descended upon the Canaanites from the highlands in general, not from Mt. Tabor in particular. Perhaps it was the specific mention of Mt. Tabor and the location of Barak’s home in Kedesh-Naphtali in Judges 4, but not in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), that led to the reduction of the tribes who participated in the battle to just two—the Galilean contingents of Zebulun and Naphtali, tribes already in the north.