Judges 5 gives this same story in poetic form, and it is thought to have been composed in the second half of the 12th century BC, shortly after the events it describes. If that is the case, then this passage, often called "The Song of Deborah", is the early extant Hebrew poetry known. It is also significant because it is one of the, if not the, earliest passages that portrays women in other roles than as victims or as villains.
About Deborah personally little is known; she was married to a man named Lapidoth and she rendered her judgments beneath a palm tree in Ephraim.