What Does Judges 5:23 Mean?

(23) **Curse ye Meroz.**—The guilt of Meroz was worse than that of the tribes which held aloof, because, whatever may have been its exact site, it was evidently in the very heart of the country which had been thus inspired to strike a blow for freedom. Possibly it would have been in the power of the inhabitants at least to cut off the retreat of the enemy. We may conjecture, from the ban thus laid on Meroz, that it felt the vengeance of the victorious Israelites, and was destroyed or punished like Succoth and Penuel. Their crime was *detrectatio militiae, *which the ancients regarded with special indignation. The case of Jabesh Gilead, in Judges 21:9-10, may account for the difficulty of ascertaining the site of the town; it is not mentioned elsewhere. By some it is identified with Kefr Musr, a village to the south of Tabor (5 Raumer); by others with Marussus, north of Bethshean. It has been conjectured that the true reading may be Merom, and Dr. Thomson identifies it with Marom, as Eusebius alludes to it under the name Merran, and Jerome calls it Merrom. They, however, place it near Dothan, twelve miles from Shechem—a very unlikely locality. **Said the angel of the Lord.**—The *Maleak Jehovah, *as in Judges 3:1. Here, as in that passage, some (referring to Haggai 1:13; Malachi 2:7) suppose that Deborah is herself the angel or messenger of the Lord. However that may be, she certainly speaks as the mouthpiece of Jehovah’s messenger (Judges 4:4).