Literally it says, Now Deborah, a woman [who was] a prophetess, who was the wife of Lappidoth, she was governing Israel at that time.
So the verse begins by introducing Deborah as 1) a woman, 2) a prophetess, and 3) a wife. And then comes the shocking information, and the word order here is significant: she (with the personal pronoun she
being placed before the verb for emphasis, as Hebrew normally has verb-subject-object) was judging Israel. How shocked the reader will be to learn that a woman is filling a man’s role! The statement here does compel us to ask, “Why was a woman judging? Were not any men available to accomplish this typically male task? Had the Calebs, Othniels, and Ehuds all disappeared?... The situation is definitely less than ideal.”1
4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.