About Deborah the Nurse there is very little information. Strangely, all we know about her comes from her obituary. Why the tree was so named is not stated. There is no previous mention of her existence prior to this death notice, suggesting that portions of her story were omitted in transmission. The bible provides two different accounts of her story, a prose version in Judges 4 and a poetic version in Judges 5.
Most biblical scholars consider the poetic version to be much older than the prose.
In fact, they consider the poetic version to be one of the oldest original texts in the bible, perhaps contemporary with the twelfth century events that it describes. There are some differences between the two, however. If thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. Deborah agrees to accompany him, but prophesies that despite his journey, he will not achieve glory for his victory. Instead, she predicts that Sisera will be killed by a woman.