(Judges 5:8) The Lord has chosen new wars, and he himself overturns the gates of the enemy. If a shield and a spear appeared among forty thousand Israelites, it is to be understood that he said this as if by swearing an oath, that among forty thousand Israelites neither a shield nor a spear could be found. Therefore, the Lord is said to have chosen new wars, and to have overturned the gates of the enemy because he has made the weak strong and victorious. But it is explained in the previous verse that the Israelites had been despoiled of their weapons by Jabin, king of Canaan, where it is said: And the children of Israel cried to the Lord. He had nine hundred chariots armed with scythes, and for twenty years he severely oppressed them (Judg. IV, 5). He severely and forcefully oppressed them, because it is said that he despoiled them of their weapons: as it is written in the book of Samuel: When the day of battle came, there was no sword or spear found in the hand of all the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, except for Saul and his son Jonathan (1 Sam. XIII, 22).
[AD 420] Jerome on Judges 5:8