Does the Hebrew in Judges 4:4 explicitly identify Deborah as a woman?

Question

I have no skill at reading Hebrew, so I was using some tool to try and parse the sentence in Judges 4:4. I noticed that the definition given for the second word (אִשָּׁה) is "woman"; but what I'm unable to figure out is whether it is a modifier of some other word (like prophetess), or whether it stands on its own.

No major English translations seem to retain it as a separate word (i.e. "Deborah, a woman, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she was judging Israel at that time."), suggesting to me that the word is subsumed under "prophetess". However, it also seems from the lexicon that the word for "prophetess" already includes gender.

I realize that the grammars are very different; but are the English translations dropping something that is present in the Hebrew?

Answer 1

According the the NET Bible translator note on the verse:

1 tn Heb “ a woman, a prophetess.” In Hebrew idiom the generic “woman” sometimes precedes the more specific designation. See GKC 437-38 §135.b.

Interestingly, since her husband, Lappidoth, is identified the text must reorient itself to point back to Deborah when talking about her leadership role:

2 tn Heb “she was.” The pronoun refers back to the nominative absolute “Deborah.” Hebrew style sometimes employs such resumptive pronouns when lengthy qualifiers separate the subject from the verb.

The text goes out of it's way to identify her as a woman in this verse by:

• Giving her a feminine name (D@bowrah <01683>)
• Calling her a prophetess (n@biy'ah <05031> is feminine)
• Identifying her husband
• And redirecting the subject to a woman when talking about her national role.

Finally, the translator mentions that her role could either be "leading Israel" or:

3 tn Or “judging.”

Summary

Having a woman in this role was no doubt unusual enough that the text seems to go out of its way to avoid confusion on that point.

Answer 2

Jon Ericson has already given a thorough interpretation, but just to answer the Hebrew query in your question:

וּדְבוֹרָה אִשָּׁה נְבִיאָה, אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת--הִיא שֹׁפְטָה אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּעֵת הַהִיא.

(From Mechon Mamre)

אִשָּׁה (woman) is the feminine form of אִישׁ (man). The other Hebrew words in this passage that are explicitly feminine are: prophetess, wife, she, and judged. (In "woman" and "prophetess" the grammatical marker is the same: the final hei preceeded by the vowel qametz. That's a normal transformation for feminine nouns, though not a guarantee in either direction.)

Answer 3

There is no ambiguity about Deborah’s gender, but I have seen the words usually translated as “wife of Lapidoth” sometimes translated “a fiery woman”.