Awake, Awake: A Summons to Wholehearted Praise

Deborah's repeated cry—"Awake, awake"—in Judges 5:12 demands nothing less than the complete mobilization of human faculties toward the praise of Elohim. Joseph S. Exell, in his 1887 Biblical Illustrator, unpacks this summons with Victorian precision: we must arouse the bodily powers first. The flesh grows sluggish from worldly occupation; the tongue—"the glory of our frame"—must be tuned like David's harp of old. Yet the body alone suffices not. Memory must awaken to recount Yahweh's mercies in days past. Judgment must measure the music; understanding must weigh His hesed (loving-kindness) in scales and balance His goodness against the dust of His mercies. The imagination must gather pictures from all worlds, bidding sun and moon join the new song. Most crucially, the spiritual graces demand arousal: love must strike the keynote, hope must sing of blessings yet to come—the dying hour when Christ shall be present, the resurrection morning when the body leaps from its tomb, the expected advent, and that heaven He has gone before to prepare. Faith must sing of promises sure and certain. This is not cold, weak praise. Energy—the energy of body, mind, and spirit—must be thrown into the exultation of His name. Deborah's cry remains urgent: wholehearted praise requires the awakening of every faculty we possess.