Micah 7:5

Trust ye not in a friend,.... This is not said to lessen the value of friendship; or to discourage the cultivation of it with agreeable persons; or to dissuade from a confidence in a real friend; or

Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. Trust ye not in a friend - faith is kept nowhere: all to a man are treacherous (Jeremiah 9:2-6).

Trust ye not in a friend: most prodigiously treacherous were the people of that age, and since none upright, all lay in wait for blood, and were turned hunters of brethren, it is but necessary caution that they trust no friendship. A guide; either a governor, who ought to guide; or equal, who being of intimate familiarity usually do guide; or a husband, as the word imports. Keep the doors of thy mouth; watch thy words, let not thy tongue discover any secret or utter any words which may be danger to thyself, or give an advantage to thine enemy. From her that lieth in thy bosom; a periphrasis of a wife in honest times; but whether in debauched times, as these are of which the prophet did speak, it may not import somewhat like that , I will not say: a wife, one may rationally suppose, will never disclose a husband’ s secrets to ruin him; yet such were the treacheries of that corrupt age, that it would be imprudence to trust a with. Trust ye not in a friend: most prodigiously treacherous were the people of that age, and since none upright, all lay in wait for blood, and were turned hunters of brethren, it is but necessary caution that they trust no friendship. From her that lieth in thy bosom; a periphrasis of a wife in honest times; but whether in debauched times, as these are of which the prophet did speak, it may not import somewhat like that , I will not say: a wife, one may rationally suppose, will never disclose a husband’ s secrets to ruin him; yet such were the treacheries of that corrupt age, that it would be imprudence to trust a with.

Micah 7:5 Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.Ver. 5. Trust ye not in a friend] Friends (said Socrates), there is no friend: and a friend is a changeable creature, saith another (ζωονευμεταβλητον); all in changeable colours as the peacock, as often changed as moved. Besides, many friends are not more fickle than false, like deep ponds, clear at the top, and all muddy at the bottom. Fide ergo: sed cui vide. Try before you trust; and when you have tried your utmost, trust not overly far, lest you cry out at length, as Queen Elizabeth did, In trust I have found treason; or as Julius Caesar, when stabbed by Brutus among others, What thou, my son Brutus? He was slain in the senate house, with 23 wounds, given, in the most part, by those whose lives he had preserved. Put ye not confidence in a guide] Potenti et pollenti consilio et auxilio. Be he never so potent or politic, beyond thousand others, as the word importeth: and as the people said to David, "But now thou art worth ten thousand of us," 2 Samuel 18:3, thou art the light of Israel, thou art the breath of our nostrils; so that if thou miscarry, we shall all breathe out our last. All which notwithstanding, princes are not to be trusted, Psalms 62:7; Psalms 118:8-9; Psalms 146:3, for either they may die, or their affections may die; all their golden thoughts may perish. Great men’ s words, saith one, are like dead men’ s shoes; he may go barefoot that waiteth for them. Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom] From thy wife, thine ακοιτις, called the wife of thy bosom, because she should be as dear unto thee as the heart in thy bosom. Be not too open hearted to her, lest she tell all, as Samson’ s wife; or as Fulvia, in Sallust, who declared all the secrets of Cneius, a noble Roman, her foolish lover. A fool telleth all, saith Solomon, Proverbs 29:11, he is as little able to keep as to give counsel. He is full of chinks, and leaks every way; the doors of his mouth are seldom kept shut; you may know him by his gaping: fools are called by Aristophanes and Lucian, κεχηνοτες; gapers. "But a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards," Proverbs 29:11; Tacitus he holds to be the best historian; and keeps his mouth with a bridle, as David did, Psalms 39:1, and as the poets feign of Pegasus, that he had a golden bridle put upon him by Minerva, their goddess of wisdom. God and nature have taught us by the site of the tongue in a man’ s mouth, to take heed to it, and to keep the doors of it; and when all is done, to pray God to keep that door, Psalms 141:3.

(5, 6) Trust ye not . . .—All is now distrust and suspicion. The households are divided each against itself, and the relationships which should mean mutual confidence and support have become the occasion of the most bitter hostility. Our Lord adopts these words to express the strife and division which, He foresaw, would defile Christianity. (Comp. Matthew 10:35; Mark 13:12; Luke 12:53.)

Verse 5. Trust ye not in a friend] These times will be so evil, and the people so wicked, that all bonds will be dissolved; and even the most intimate will betray each other, when they can hope to serve themselves by it. On this passage, in the year 1798, I find I have written as follows: - "Trust ye not in a friend. - Several of those whom I have delighted to call by that name have deceived me. "Put ye not confidence in a guide. - Had I followed some of these I should have gone to perdition. "Keep the door of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. - My wife alone never deceived me." It is now twenty-seven years since, and I find no cause to alter what I then wrote.

Micah 7:1-6. These verses should be read in connexion with Chap. 6.

Trust ye not in a friend - It is part of the perplexity of crooked ways, that all relationships are put out of joint. Selfishness rends each from the other, and disjoints the whole frame of society.

OF THE NATION’S , Micah 7:1-6.Scholars are not agreed on the person of the speaker in these verses; some think of the prophet, some of Zion, some of the “true Israel,” that is, Israel after the spirit.