THE SORCERESS

On the slender thread of the story of Deborah in Judges 4-6, Nathaniel Weinreb has reconstructed another segment of Old Testament history and character. There was for this reader less of the sense of novelty of reconstruction than in The Babylonians but nonetheless this ranks far above most books of its type in pace of story and quality of background. This is a tale of the Israelites, captive people under Jabin of Canaan, of isolated instances of rebellion, of Dael (later known as Barak) and Deborah, woman judge, thought a sorceress by the Canaanites, and of how together they led their tribes to unity and victory over the mighty hosts of Sisera and the iron chariots. The story stops with Israel's terms of peace, and of Deborah and Dael standing together as victors in the name of their God Jehovah. One has a sense of immediacy in the portrait of the times. Weinreb shares the results of his research without making one feel an artificiality of attemping to reproduce an ancient way of life, in language and thought.