The song summons Israel to remember

Deborah and Barak sing the LORD's march and Israel's emptied roads

Then sang Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam on that day. The song blesses the LORD for those who took the lead and for a people who offered themselves willingly. Kings are told to hear. The LORD goes out from Seir; the earth trembles, heavens drop, mountains melt before the LORD, even Sinai.

In the days of Shamgar and of Jael, highways were unoccupied; travellers walked through byways. Villages ceased in Israel until Deborah arose, a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; then was war in the gates. Neither shield nor spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel. The poem remembers collapsed public life, not only a battlefield.

Mother in Israel is protective public authority

Deborah's title in the song is not a reduction to domestic motherhood. It names public, protective leadership that coincides with restored roads, wells, and gathering. Riders on white asses, people who sit in judgment, and those who walk by the way are told to rehearse the LORD's righteous acts, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages. The people of the LORD go down to the gates.

Judges 5 is difficult archaic poetry. Words like 'avenging' and several village and animal lines have serious alternatives. Rest theology on the song's movement, not on one disputed noun. Praise here does not make every war sacred, and calling Deborah a mother does not confine women leaders to maternal roles.