Their is a difference.

Please note, in entire of git, their are ONLY 2 commands which 'talk' to the remote (which means github.com public repo).

This talk helps sync, and check differences in local dir and remote

the commands are -

->git pull

->git push

_>git pull talks with remote. It checks for differences.

whereas, merge, does no talk with remote.

pull is a command, which executes code in git bash, and talks with remote.

merge is a command, which executes code in git bash, does 'no talk' with remote. It executes code locally only.

merge ->locally merges your current changes/divergence with 'last downloaded/pulled remote setup'

pull -> refreshes that 'remote setup'.