I. Many persons would say that this curse was merely a splenetic utterance of an angry woman against a town. And yet that curse was carried out completely. If then in wrath God doomed a city to punishment, yet even in that doom there is mercy, for in the curse pronounced by Deborah there was a warning to the inhabitants of the city to return from their faithlessness.
II. What, then, was the reason of the curse pronounced on Meroz? Of what was Meroz guilty? (1) The omission of a plain and positive duty. They did not join with the enemy, but they refused to help the people of God. (2) A sin of lukewarmness and carelessness. (3) Meroz let slip an opportunity; neglected a crisis in her history.
III. From the conduct of the people of Meroz we may take three great warnings: (1) Against sins of omission. (2) Against the sin of lukewarmness. (3) Against the letting slip of opportunities.
C. Hook, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 42.
Notice, first of all, that the sin for which Meroz is cursed is pure inaction. There are in all our cities a great multitude of useless men and of men perfectly contented with their uselessness. Consider some of the various points which uselessness assumes.
I. The first source of the uselessness of good men is moral cowardice. The vice is wonderfully common. The fear is concentrated on no individual, but is there not a sense of hostile or contemptuous surroundings that lies like a chilling hand upon what ought to be the most exuberant and spontaneous utterance of life? Men do not escape from their cowardice by having it proved to them that it is a foolish thing to be afraid. Nothing but the knowledge of God's love, taking such possession of a man that his one wish and thought in life is to glorify and serve God, can liberate him from, because it makes him totally forget, the fear of man.
II. The second cause of uselessness is false humility. Humility is good when it stimulates, it is bad when it paralyses, the active powers of a man. If conscious weakness causes a man to believe that it makes no difference whether he works or not, then his humility is his curse. Remember: (1) that man judges by the size of things, God judges by their fitness; (2) that small as you think you are, you are the average size of moral and intellectual humanity; (3) that such a humility as yours comes, if you get at its root, from an over-thought about yourself, an over-sense of your own personality, and so is closely akin to pride.
III. The third cause of uselessness is indolence. There is only one permanent escape from indolence and self-indulgence; the grateful and obedient dedication to God through Christ, which makes all good work, all self-sacrifice, a privilege and joy instead of a hardship, since it is done for Him.
Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord,p. 287.
I. The sin of Meroz was that it was found wanting on a great occasion, as it could not have been found wanting had it been sound at heart. (1) It failed first of all in the duty of patriotism. (2) It failed in duty towards its religion. For the cause of Israel against Jabin was not merely the cause of the country; it was the cause of the Church.
II. Meroz is never unrepresented in history. "Curse ye Meroz." The words still live. May they not be heard within the soul when a man has consciously declined that which conscience has recognised as a plain duty? A deliberate rejection of duty cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously, the clearness of our mental vision.
H. P. Liddon, University Sermons,2nd series, p. 264.
References: Judges 5:23. W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life,p. 70; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 289; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 335.