The Cursed and the Blessed (Judges 5:23-27).
“Curse you Meroz, said the angel of Yahweh,
Curse you bitterly (literally ‘curse cursing') its inhabitants,
Because they came not to the help of Yahweh,
To the help of Yahweh against the mighty.'
Meroz is cursed because it was of the tribe of Naphtali. Meroz alone of Naphtali refused to contribute to the action, probably because they feared reprisals from Hazor. But thereby they brought a curse on their own heads, and probably vengeance as well.
Meroz was probably a town a few miles (kilometres) north of Kedesh-naphtali from which Barak came. Note the mention of the angel of Yahweh to demonstrate how closely Yahweh was involved in the action (and how the angel of Yahweh appears distinguished from Yahweh). The expression also indicates Deborah's source of inspiration.
“Blessed above women shall Jael be,
The wife of Heber the Kenite.
Blessed shall she be,
Above women in the tent.”
In stark contrast to Meroz, the native born Israelites who refused help to Israel, was Jael the Kenite, who gave that help. Indeed she will be blessed above all women who live in tents, that is, semi-nomadic women. Or it may mean that in a tent of women she will be exalted because of what she did.
“He asked water, and she gave him milk,
She brought him yoghurt in a lordly dish.”
This may just be describing how she treated him right royally, but it may be metaphorical for what follows. That was milk indeed! ‘A lordly dish' - a dish fit for a lord.
“She put her hand to the nail,
And her right hand to the workmen's hammer,
And with the hammer she smote Sisera,
She smote through his head.
Yes she pierced and struck through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay.
At her feet he bowed, he fell.
Where he bowed, there he fell down spoiled (become a spoil).”
The picture is triumphant. The nail in the left hand, the hammer in the right, she smote it through his head, yes, she pierced and struck through his temples. And like a beaten foe he fell at her feet (perhaps metaphorically - although it is possible that in his death throes he staggered up and then collapsed). Note the stress ‘she smote -- she smote', ‘he bowed -- he bowed'. She had taken her spoil. No woman of her time would have doubted that this man, who violated her tent, deserved what he received, for all would read the implications behind it. There was no law of hospitality that catered for a situation like this.
Possibly significant are the verbs used. To ‘bow' over a woman was to have intercourse with her (Job 31:10) and ‘to lay' was used of rape (Deuteronomy 22:23; Deuteronomy 22:25; Deuteronomy 22:28). Perhaps there is here the suggestion of vengeance for previous rape, what he had done to her being connected with his fall. Note how rape is also prominent in Judges 5:30.