ABSTRACT
This verse of Deborah’s song in the Book of Judges comes from the 1560 text of the Geneva Bible. The line is essentially the same in the 1568 Bishops Bible and in the 1611 King James text. And it is curious. The word “even,” shown in italics in both the Geneva and King James versions, is a word not found in the Hebrew original.1 The Hebrew Bible does emphasize the speaker’s intention to sing, reading, “Hear, O kings! … I will sing, will sing to the Lord” (Judges 5:3).2 The Geneva and King James translators’ instinct to emphasize the speaker’s purpose is a good one and yet the choice of the word “even” to indicate this significance is unsettling.3 Though scholars attending to biblical translation characterize the use of “even” as “an adverb of strong affirmation” (Partridge 117), the phrase “even I” also implies that the speaker’s voice is somehow inappropriate. “Even” suggests a contradiction of expectations, emphasizing “weakened senses as an intensive or emphatic particle ... similar to uses ... of just” (OED V:455).4 Thus, “even I wil sing” potentially conveys an unconfident or incompetent speaker, as if to say, “even I-whose voice is unlikely or insignificant-will announce God’s praise.”
