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.…