Bible Strands
Judges 5:31
So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.” And the land had rest for forty years.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Deborah (with Barak) speaks this as the closing doxology of the victory song in Judges 5, immediately after the taunt to Sisera's mother (vv. 29–30). The land's forty years of rest is appended as the narrative consequence.
The words — יֹאבְד֤וּ (yoe.Du) is jussive, "may they perish," a wish directed at God rather than a declaration of fact. The image כְּצֵאת הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ (ke.tset ha.shemesh) is literal "as the going-out of the sun," i.e. the sun at full ascent, not a metaphor for general brightness.
The thread — The sun-as-justice image recurs in Psalms 37:6 (righteousness like the dawn, justice like the noonday sun) and 2 Samuel 23:4 (the king's rule like morning light). The binary "enemies perish / lovers shine" is a standard doxological formula in Hebrew poetry.
Why it lands — The verse forces a binary: the reader is either in the perishing group or the shining one; there is no neutral position. The jussive mood means this is still a prayer, not a settled outcome — the rest of the land is the answer, not the premise.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.
Cross-references
- Psalms 37:6 He will bring forth your righteousness like the dawn, your justice like the noonday sun.
- 2 Samuel 23:4 is like the light of the morning at sunrise of a cloudless dawn, the glistening after the rain on the sprouting grass of the earth.’
- Psalms 19:4 their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun.
- Psalms 91:14 “Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him.
- 1 Corinthians 8:3 But the one who loves God is known by God.
- James 1:12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.
- 1 Peter 1:8 Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,
- Psalms 83:9 Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the River Kishon,
- Psalms 89:36 his offspring shall endure forever, and his throne before Me like the sun,
- Psalms 97:10 Hate evil, O you who love the LORD! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.