One that was wiser than the rest of his wives, returned this answer to her mother in law:

Her wisest ladies make answer, nay, she gives answer to herself,

The wise ones, her princesses, answer her, Yea, she returneth her sayings to herself:

Her wise women gave answer to her, yes, she made answer again to herself,

The wisest of her princesses answer her, Yea, she returneth answer to herself:

Her wise ladies answered her; indeed, she answers herself,

One who was wiser than the rest of his wives responded to her mother-in-law with this:

Her wise ladies answered her, yea, (t) she returned answer to herself,
(t) That is, she comforted herself.

Her wise ladies answered her,.... Every one in their turn endeavouring to comfort her and make her easy. The Vulgate Latin version is,"one that was wiser than the rest of his wives;''but they seem rather to be her maids of honour, or ladies of her acquaintance, who were come to pay her a visit, and share in the pleasing sight they expected to have of Sisera:
yea, she returned answer to herself; before they could well give theirs, she soon recollected herself what might be, and must be, the occasion of this delay; and this, according to the Targum, she made in her wisdom, what her great wisdom quickly suggested to her was certainly the case, and with which she comforted and quieted herself.

her wise ladies--maids of honor.

The princesses in attendance upon Sisera's mother sought to console her with the remark, that Sisera would have to gather together rich booty, and that his return was delayed in consequence. In the expression "the wisest of her princesses" (see Ges. 119, 2), the irony is very obvious, as the reality put all their wise conjectures to shame. תּעננּה, third pers. plur. fem. for תּענינה. The second hemistich of Judges 5:29 contains a clause inserted as a parenthesis. אף־היא is adversative: "but she;" אף is only an emphatic copula; the antithesis lies in the emphatic change of subject indicated by היא. אמריה השׁיב, lit. to bring back her words, i.e., to repeat. להּ is used in a reflective sense, "to herself." The meaning is: But Sisera's mother did not allow herself to be quieted by the words of her wise princesses; on the contrary, she kept repeating the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay his coming? In Judges 5:30 there follows the answer of the wise princesses. They imagine that Sisera has been detained by the large amount of booty which has to be divided. הלא, nonne, is he not, in the sense of lively certainty. They will certainly discover rich booty, and divide it. רחם, uterus, for puella. "A girl (or indeed probably) two girls to the head of the man," i.e., for each man. צבעים, coloured things, cloths or clothes. רקמה, worked stuff, or garments worked in divers colours (see the remarks on Exodus 26:36), is attached without the vav cop. to צבעים, and is also dependent upon שׁלל. The closing words, שׁלל לצוּארי, "for the necks," or (as the plural is also frequently used to signify a single neck, e.g., Genesis 27:16; Genesis 45:14) "for the neck of the booty," do not give any appropriate sense, as שׁלל neither signifies animals taken as booty nor the taker of booty. The idea, however, that שׁלל is used for שׁלל אישׁ, like הלך in 2-Samuel 12:4 for הלך אישׁ, viator, and חתף in Proverbs 23:28 for חתף אישׁ, seems inadmissible, since שׁלל ecni has just before been used three times in its literal sense. There is just the same objection to the application of שׁלל to animals taken as booty, not to mention the fact that they would hardly have thought of having valuable clothes upon the necks of animals taken as booty. Consequently the only explanation that remains, is either to alter לצוּארי into לצוּארו or לצוּאריו, or else to change שׁלל into שׁגל, the royal spouse. In the former case, שׁלל would have to be taken as in apposition to רקמתים צבע: a variegated cloth, two worked in divers colours for his (Sisera's) neck as booty, as the lxx have rendered it (τῷ τραχήλῳ αὐτοῦ σκῦλα). Ewald and Bertheau decide in favour of the second alteration, and defend it on the ground that שׁלל might easily find its way into the text as a copyist's error for שׁגל, on account of שׁלל having been already written three times before, and that we cannot dispense with some such word as שׁגל here, since the repetition of שׁלל three times, and the threefold use of ל, evidently show that there were three different kinds of people among whom the booty was to be distributed; and also that it was only a fitting thing that Sisera should set apart one portion of the booty to adorn the neck of his wife, and that the wisest of the noble ladies, when mentioning the booty, should not forget themselves.