Micah 6:9

The Lord's voice crieth unto the city,.... The Lord having bid his prophet call to the mountains and hills to hear his voice, and the prophet having obeyed his will, and the Lord having by him

The LORD's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. The Lord's voice crieth unto the city - Jerusalem. And the man of wisdom.

The Lord’ s voice; either by his judgments, each of which is the Lord’ s voice, he speaks by them; or rather by his prophets; and whether people hear it, or forbear, the Lord himself is concerned in it. Crieth, as to deaf or to sleepy and secure men, who will not hear the milder and softlier calls; the prophet must cry to them in the loudest manner he can speak. Unto the city; to every city in Israel and Judah, but principally to Jerusalem and Samaria, places of greatest concourse, and where the men of greatest sense may reasonably be supposed to dwell, who should hear and consider. The man of wisdom: man is supplied to make the sense entire, but without that supply the sense might have run plain, and wisdom will hear, which must have been resolved some way like to our translation, and I know none that better fits than that our learned translators have supplied. I know not but that the abstract, used here for the concrete, may express a superlative degree, wisdom, i.e. the wisest, will hear, &c. Shall see my name; rightly apprehend and duly reverence the holiness, justice and necessariness of the proceedings of the Lord with his power and majesty in the execution of his just displeasure on brutish, hardened sinners. Hear; consider well and discern. Ye; citizens both of Jerusalem and Samaria, and every other city in the twelve tribes. The rod; the punishments that God is now sending, by which he will plead his cause. These are called the rod, either because they are from God, who once was, and still would be, a Father to them, or because it is a comprehensive word, which takes in the various punishments inflicted. And who hath appointed it; hath commissioned it, handleth the rod, hath chosen it out, and strikes with it, whether it be Assyrian, or Babylonian, or both, at several times. This is the plain literal sense; others there are, which are omitted because they suit not the design of this work. The Lord’ s voice; either by his judgments, each of which is the Lord’ s voice, he speaks by them; or rather by his prophets; and whether people hear it, or forbear, the Lord himself is concerned in it. And who hath appointed it; hath commissioned it, handleth the rod, hath chosen it out, and strikes with it, whether it be Assyrian, or Babylonian, or both, at several times. This is the plain literal sense; others there are, which are omitted because they suit not the design of this work.

Micah 6:9 The LORD’ S voice crieth unto the city, and [the man of] wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. Ver. 9. The Lord’ s voice crieth unto the city] Or, shall cry, viz. by his prophets. φιλειοθεοςπροσημαινειν, said the heathen. God loves to forewarn, to warn before he woundeth, to foretell a judgment before he inflicteth it. He had shown his people what was good, and what he required of them; but to little purpose, through their unteachableness and stubbornness. He threateneth, therefore, here to take another course with them. And the man of wisdom shall see thy name] Gualther rendereth it, And the man of essence, &c., that is, qui revers vir est, non caudex aut truncus, he that is a man indeed, or not a stock, or trunk (such a one as was that sapless fellow Nabal, in whom all true reason was decayed and faded), will easily see God’ s name, that is, the Divine majesty of the word working powerfully upon his heart, as the sunbeams beat upon Jonah’ s head, and disquieted him. Danaeus rendereth it, And wisdom seeth thy name, that is, wisdom’ s children, as Luke 7:35, which will justify her, when others are either so froward that nothing can please them (neither John fasting, nor Christ eating, Matthew 11:16, &c.), or so dull that nothing can affect them, as these here; the word of God was worse than spilt upon them. Sure it is, that wisdom’ s children are not many. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things," saith Hosea, Hosea 14:9, the very question imports a paucity; see the note there. Though a gun be discharged at a whole flight of birds, there are but a few killed; though the net be spread over the whole pond, but a few fishes are taken. Rari sunt qui philosophantur, saith Ulpian. It is with our hearers as it was with Jonathan’ s signal arrows, two fell short, and but one beyond the mark; so where one shoots home to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus, many fall short. Three sorts of four of those that heard our Saviour were naught, Matthew 13:4-8. And of those that heard Paul at Athens, some derided, others doubted, and but a very few believed; as Dionysius, and Damaris, and some others with them, Acts 17:34. Hear ye the rod] Since ye would not hear the word, and so redeem your own sorrows. All God’ s rods are vocal, they are speaking as well as smiting; they are not mute, but mingled with instructions. They are his free school teachers (Dιδασκαλοιαμισθοι); curst and crabbed, but such as whereby he openeth men’ s ears (till then uncircumcised, and stopped with the superfluity of naughtiness) to discipline, and commandeth them to return from iniquity, Job 36:10. By chastening men God teacheth them out of his law, Psalms 94:12.

(9) Unto the city—i.e., Jerusalem, the metropolis of the wealth and sinfulness of Judah. The man of wisdom shall see thy name—i.e., will regard it. The sentence may be thrown in parenthetically, as in the warning, “Whoso readeth, let him understand.” And he will perceive the hand of God in the visitations for sin.

Verse 9. The Lord's voice crieth unto the city] No man is found to hear; but the man of wisdom will hear, תושיה tushiyah; a word frequent in the writings of Solomon and Job, signifying wisdom, wealth, substance, reason, essence, happiness; any thing that is complete; or that which is substantial, in opposition to vanity, emptiness, mere show, unsubstantiality. When God speaks, the man of common sense, who has any knowledge of God or his own soul, will see thy name; but instead of יראה yireh, will see, the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic, with twelve of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., have read יראי yirey, they that FEAR. The Vulgate reads: - Et salus erit timentibus nomen tuum. "And thou shalt be salvation to them that fear thy name." The Septuagint - Καισωσειφαβουμενουςτοονομααυτου. And he shall save those who fear his name. - This the Arabic copies. The Targum has, "And the teachers shall fear the name." That is, Yehovah. The French Bible is very strange: - Car ton nom volt comme il va de tout. "For thy name sees how every thing goes." The word תושיה tushiyah, mentioned above, which occasions all the difficulty, has been read with an ע ain by the Vulgate and Septuagint, as coming from the root ישע yasha, to be saved; and it is very likely that this was the original reading. The two last letters in the word, יה, might have been easily mistaken in the MS. for the letter ע where I may suppose the word stood thus, תושע, shall be saved; and as several MSS. read יראי yirey, they who fear, instead of יראה yireh, he shall see, the whole clause might have been just what it appears in the Vulgate and Septuagint. It is also necessary to remark that the word in dispute has various forms in some MSS., which is a strong presumption against its authenticity. See Kennicott and De Rossi.

9–16. Jehovah’s indignant Denunciation 9. The Lord’s voice] Because before this it was the prophet who spoke. unto the city] i.e. Jerusalem. the man of wisdom shall see thy name] A very dubious translation. Others render, ‘wisdom is it to fear thy name,’ which is supported to some extent by the ancient versions (‘fear’ for ‘see’ has this important sanction); this requires no alteration of the text (i.e., the consonants), but merely of one of the vowel-points. Caspari’s version of the received reading, ‘Thy name hath wisdom for its object,’ is unnatural. hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it] i.e. hear ye the prophecy of punishment, and hear him who hath ordained the judgment. It is the Assyrian invasion which is referred to; comp. Isaiah 10:5; Isaiah 10:24.

The voice of the Lord crieth unto the city - that is, Jerusalem, as the metropolis of their wealth and their sin, the head and heart of their offending. “Crieth,” aloud, earnestly, intently, so that all might hear.