258 MARK LEUCHTER Israel recounted in the Song of Deborah reflects upon the tension between these populations, motivated on one hand by a desire to carve out a tenable existence in the highlands and, on the other, the persistence of lowland urban groups with designs on holding control over trade routes and arable tracts of land. 1. Mythopoesis in Judg 5 It must be noted from the outset that Judg 4 should be viewed as a separate and secondary accretion, based on Judg 5 but incorporating much material from alternative sources, and not of a high degree of historical reliability 6. Judg 5 should be examined on its own terms; upon abstracting it from a specific (and problematic) historical context conditioned by the account in Judg 4, the poem collapses a number of experiences into a single event, including the mention of locales beyond the highlands such as Taanach and Megiddo (Judg 5,19). The recent study by C.L. Echols is the latest in a long tradition of scholarship to see the poem as originally composed following a specific, decisive v i c t o r y 7 , and the mention of lowland locales would thus ostensibly detract from the poet’s interest in characterizing highland Israelite society. However, there is reason to view Judg 5 not as applying to only one time or place. A specific event may indeed have prompted the original writer to compose the poem, but the composition invokes a number of social and economic factors that characterized a broad expanse of time and communal interaction that characterized most of the Iron Ia period 8. More For the dependence of Judg 4 on Judg 5, see the still compelling 6 discussion of B. HALPERN, “The Resourceful Israelite Historian: The Song of Deborah and Israelite Historiography”, HTR 76 (1983) 379-401. On the additional sources upon which the narrative account is based and the historical inconsistencies involved in its composition, see the insightful study of N. NA’AMAN, “Literary and Topographical Notes on the Battle of Kishon (Judges iv-v)”, VT 40 (1990) 423-436. ECHOLS, “ Tell Me O Muse”. 7 M.Z. BRETTLER, in fact, suggests that the poem was chanted routinely 8 before warfare: The Book of Judges (London – New York 2002) 69, and it is reasonable to see additional socio-economic and military details akin to those noted by Stager incorporated into the poem in successive rehearsals in a redactional manner suggested by Echols, De Hoop and others.