Song of Deborah as Polemic 3 What these differences seem to indicate is that, even if one readily accepts the classification of both as a victory song, the Song of Moses and the Song of Deborah appear to be two very different kinds of victory song. And while the Song of Moses seems to conform by and large to what one would typically expect of a hymn praising YHWH for a spectacular victory against an enemy, the same cannot be said of the Song of Deborah. For there, not only does the otherwise spectacular but only briefly-described military victory seem not to be a central focus of the song, the involvement of YHWH in that victory is also alluded to in only two (Judg 5,4-5) out of thirty verses that make up the song. Instead, a significant portion of the song seems to concern the action or inaction of different individuals and groups on the Israelite side, and some of those singled out for attention did not even contribute to the victory supposedly being celebrated. This therefore raises the possibility that the Song of Deborah may not first and foremost have been intended purely to be a song celebrating a military victory, but that its author may have taken advantage of the occasion to craft a song that appears to be celebratory but that in reality is intended for a very different purpose. As shall be argued in the remainder of this article, it is my contention that the Song of Deborah may in fact be a piece of political polemic dressed up as a victory song, the ultimate goal of which is to discourage non- participation in a war for YHWH’s cause by praising those who took part and censuring those who did not. 2. The Song of Deborah as Polemic: A Structural Argument To make a case for such an understanding, I will focus primarily on the rhetorical structure of the Song of Deborah. The underlying assumption is that apart from words, the rhetorical structure of a literary composition — that is, the way various component parts are carefully arranged within that composition — often serves also as a significant conveyor of meaning. For not only does structure facilitate comprehension by clarifying unit boundaries that mark off subsections of a larger literary work, very often within each subsection, the arrangement of material can also help clarify the main focus of that section (6). (6) For examples of how the analysis of structure can contribution to the task of interpretation, see, for example, R. MEYNET, Rhetorical Analysis. An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric (JSOTSS 256; Sheffield 1998) 19-36; G.T.K. WONG, “Is There a Direct Pro-Judah Polemic in Judges?”, SJOT 19 (2005) 90-98.