Where was "Meroz"? (Judges 5:23)
23 “Curse Meroz,” said the angel of the Lord.
“Curse its people bitterly,
because they did not come to help the Lord,
to help the Lord against the mighty.”
Judges 5:23
ESV - 23 Curse Meroz, says the angel of the Lord, curse its inhabitants thoroughly, because they did not come to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
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Asked January 12 2020
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Jack Gutknecht
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Tim Maas
To the best of my knowledge, Meroz has not been definitively identified or located, other than apparently being a settlement in northern Palestine (believed by some authorities to have been approximately twelve miles from the later region of Samaria), that was cursed by God speaking through the judge Deborah (as noted in the song of Deborah and Barak following Israel's victory over the king of Canaan (Jabin) and his general Sisera, as recounted in Judges 4:12-22). Meroz was cursed for its failure to send support for Israel's fight against the Canaanites. The curse arose from the fact that other cities in the region (all of which are thought to have surrounded Meroz) actively supported and supplied troops for the struggle against the Canaanites, but Meroz did not.
Jack Gutknecht
Judges 5:23 ‘Curse Meroz,’ said the angel of the LORD. ‘Curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the LORD, to help the LORD against the mighty.’ Meroz, I believe is a city within the plains of Galilee north of Mt. Tabor in Israel which was cursed by the angel of God in the song of Deborah and Barak; whose inhabitants did not come to help the Israelites in battle against Sisera's army. It was cursed, not just as one study Bible said, "because of its refusal to help the army of the Lord," the army of Israel, but because they refused to help "the Lord"! I think Meroz was an Israelite town in Naphtali although we don’t know for sure exactly where it was. Maybe it was near the Kishon River where the battle was fought. The angel of the Lord cursed the people of Meroz. Barak was from the tribe of Naphtali, and so he must have been embarrassed to know that a town in his own tribe had refused to send volunteers to help in this important battle. “Meroz stands for the shirker,” said Philips Brooks in his famous sermon: “for him who is willing to see other people fight the battles of life, while he simply comes in and takes the spoils.” That was a sin. He who can help ought to help.
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