Abstract
The Song of Deborah in the Book ofJudges records a stunning victory won by a coalition of Israelite tribes under Deborah and Barak over a powerful army led by the Canaanite Sisera.' The Song is widely viewed by biblical scholars as among the most ancient of all the biblical material;2 by its own terms, it describes a period very early in the history of the Israelite occupation of the Promised Land, a time when, there being no king in Israel,' the common life of the tribes was organized in a loose confederacy under the guidance of judges-inspired leaders who would rise up to rescue the Israelites when they faced aggression from other peoples.4 Deborah was one of these judges-and unusually, a woman as well. This Article applies tools of legal-economic analysis to understand the function of the Song of Deborah in the life of Ancient Israel.5 I argue that the text served a number of important norm-
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