Micah 3

11. Having shown (verses 8, 9) that these cavillers against the Lord’s prophets do not “walk uprightly,” and having (verse 10) warned them out of the land as their fit doom, he comes now to describe the sort of prophet they would like and shall have. H. C.

12,13. These verses appear to contain a prophecy of the return from the captivity, expressed in terms which evidently set it forth as the type of the spiritual triumph of the Messiah. They furnish a most characteristic instance of the sudden transitions which mark the style of Micah, as well as of his graphic power. B. C.

The exodus, or going forth, is made prominent here by repeated reiterations as it was there in the historic facts; and, finally, Jehovah puts Himself here at the head of His ransomed people, as then and there in the pillar of fire and of cloud. As to the ultimate significance of these verses, it will be noted that they speak both of Jacob and Israel; but these terms are not distinctive as between the two rival kingdoms. Neither of them is the usual name to designate the kingdom of Judah. It would seem to be no part of the prophet’s intention to regard the distinction of kingdoms which was made by the revolt. The names Jacob and Israel have rather the general sense—the covenant people of God. As to time and circumstances of fulfilment, the passage is altogether general and indefinite. Beyond a doubt it must imply that God will at some future day gather His scattered people of Israel, and put Himself at their head as their Deliverer and King. He will make His earthly kingdom great and glorious. H. C.

13. The breaker is come up before them. He that shall break the bonds of their captivity, or break through all obstacles that hinder their return home. The Jewish commentators generally understand “the breaker,” and “their king” that follows, of the same person—viz., the Messiah; to whom the title of “breaker” may well agree, for His “breaking down” all obstacles, “the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles” (Eph. 2:14). Lowth.

The breaker is come up before them, to break down all opposition, and clear the road for them; and under His guidance they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, the door of escape out of their captivity, and are gone out by it with courage and resolution, having Omnipotence for their vanguard. Their King shall pass before them, to lead them the way, even Jehovah (He is their King), on the head of them, as He was on the head of the armies of Israel, when they followed the pillar of cloud and fire through the wilderness, and when He appeared to Joshua as Captain of the Lord’s hosts. Christ is the Church’s King; He is Jehovah; He heads them; passes before them; brings them out of the land of their captivity; brings them into the land of their rest. He is the Breaker that broke in upon the powers of darkness, and broke through them; that rent the veil, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. H.

3:1 AND I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: 2 is it not for you to know judgement? who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off 3 their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people; and they flay their skin from off them, and break their bones: yea, they chop them 4 in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not answer them: yea, he will hide his face from them at that time, according 5 as they have wrought evil in their doings. Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that bite with their teeth and cry, Peace; and whoso putteth

6 not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him : Therefore it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision ; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine ; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them. And the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded ; yea, they shall all cover their lips : for there is no answer of God. But I truly am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgement, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abnor judgement, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money : yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD in the midst of us ? no evil shall come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

4 : 1 But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills ; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off ; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree ; and none shall make them afraid : for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it. For all the peoples will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.

6. In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven away, and her that I have afflicted ; and I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation : and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth even for ever. And thou, O tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come ; yea, the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why dost thou cry out aloud ? Is there no king in thee, is thy counsellor perished, that pangs have taken hold of thee as of a woman in travail ? Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail : for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and shalt dwell in the field, and shalt come even unto Babylon ; there shalt thou be rescued ; there shall the LORD redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. And now many nations are assembled against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye see its desire upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the LORD, neither understand they his counsel : for he hath gathered them as the sheaves to the threshing-floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion : for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass : and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples : and thou shalt devote their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth. Now shalt thou gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops : he hath laid siege against us : they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.

2. But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth : then the residue of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand, and shall feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God : and they shall abide ; for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be our peace : when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof : and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our border. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from the LORD, as showers upon the grass ; that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, tread- 9 eth down and teareth in pieces, and there is none to deliver. Let thine hand be lifted up above thine adversaries, and let all thine enemies be cut off. 10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of 11 the midst of thee, and will destroy thy chariots: and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and 12 will throw down all thy strong holds: and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and 13 thou shalt have no more soothsayers: and I will cut off thy graven images and thy pillars 14 out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands. And I 15 will pluck up thine Asherim out of the midst of thee: and I will destroy thy cities. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the nations which hearkened not.

Chaps. 3-5. The second division (chaps. 3-5) travels over similar ground, only omitting all mention of Samaria, condensing the threaten- ing, and expanding the delineation of promise. We have, first, an impassioned invective against the nobles and judges, who misuse power, pervert justice, grind down the indi- gent, and drive the needy to desperation. As they showed no mercy, they shall get none from God. Next he scathes with burning irony the hypocritical and venal tribe of prophets that support the corrupt chiefs, and threatens them with the confusion, ignominy and ruin that must come on men whose action is based on external expediency, not founded on the eter- nal laws of truth and justice. Bursting into a conjoint denunciation of corrupt judges, priests, prophets and nobles, who have built a splendid and luxurious capital out of the blood, and tears, and ruin of their country, the prophet reaches the climax of his burden in the terrible declaration that Zion the royal residence, deru- salem the capital, and the temple itself shall be laid in ruins and desolation.

With that a revulsion of feeling ensues. Starting with the crowning element of disas- ter, the seer beholds the restored temple in un- precedented magnificence, accepted as the re- ligious and moral centre of the world, exercising peaceful control over the people, while around it Israel dwells in safety, happy in repossession of more than its ancient Davidic empire. Re- verting again to the second element of disas- ter, the defeat and depopulation of the city, he describes the certainty that this calamity will be followed by restoration, and depicts the in- violable strength of the new community. Elms- tie

Chap. 3. The prophet returns to speak against the sins of the people, dwelling spe- cially in this chapter on the sins of the princes and judges (verses 1-4, 9-11); giving the sin and doom of the false prophets (verses 5-7); and closing with predictions of the desolation of the holy city and of the temple mountain (verse 12).

1-3. So far are they from knowing judg- ment in the practical sense, that they even hate good and love evil, and they show this by their deeds. This description of rapacity and rob- bery is fearfully strong. They not only fleece but flay their victims; not only flay but tear off the flesh and eat it; then go on to the bones; chop them fine for the pot, as if they would boil and eat up the last thing in the poor body of their victims. So with insatiable ex- tortion they strip men of their last right, of their last acre, and of their last farthing. H. C.

6,7. The sun shall go down over the prop- hets, shall go down at noon; all comfort shall depart from them, and they shall be deprived of all hope of it. The day shall be dark over them in which they promised themselves light. Nor shall they only be surrounded with out- ward troubles, but their minds shall be full of confusion, and they shall be brought to their wits’ end; their heads shall be clouded, and their own thoughts shall trouble them; and that is trouble enough. They kept others in the dark, and now God will bring them into the dark. So they shall be silenced, and all their pretensions to prophecy forever shamed. They never had any true vision; and now, the event disproving their predictions of peace, it shall be made to appear that they never had any, that there never was an answer of God to them, but they were cheats and impostors. H.

8. With a strong and full consciousness of honesty, and of being filled with the Spirit of God, Micah puts himself in contrast with those false prophets. His soul is deeply stirred with- in him by his abhorrence of their spirit and life, so that his holy indignation overleaps the restraints of false modesty, and he speaks out fearlessly. H. C.—Knowing that it was in- deed the Spirit of the Lord that was in him and spake by him, that it was a Divine revelation that he delivered, he spake it boldly and as one having authority, knowing he should be justi- fied and borne out in what he said. Those who act honestly may act boldly; and those who are sure that they have a commission from God need not be afraid of opposition from men. H.

12. Mount Zion is far the most conspicuous of the hills on which Jerusalem is built. It rises abruptly to the height of nearly three hundred feet from the valley of Hinnom, sloping down more gradually “on the sides of the north,” where lay the city of the great King. It was a place of remarkable strength, so that the tabernacle, the palace of David, and the other buildings that stood on it were remarkably secure. Part of the hill is now under regular cultivation; thus verifying Micah’s prophecy, that Zion should be “ploughed as a field.” W. G. B.

Chap. 4. The vision of the prophet again changes, and with greater effect. While he had been denouncing the woe soon to fall upon the earthly Zion, his mind had been relieved for a short interval (2 : 12, 13) by a glimpse of a bright prospect, in which the foreseen return from the Captivity served him with figures shadowing forth a greater deliverance in a more remote future. But now that deliverance is distinctly unveiled to his sight. The “last days” appear to him, when the Messiah’s kingdom should be set up. The Lord’s house, no longer to be the temple of Jerusalem, but the Universal Church, was to be established forever higher than the mountains; the spiritual darkness now falling upon Israel was to be dispelled by a light destined to lighten and attract all the nations of the earth; the fearful desolations of war were to be succeeded by peace and plenty.

The prophet introduces the subject to his countrymen with words which are common to him and his elder contemporary, Isaiah. B. C.

The first eight verses are a graphic prediction of God’s restoring mercy to His real Zion; verses 9, 10 resume the subject of the Captivity to Babylon; verses 11-13 note the events of a later period—the Syrian invasion and the heroic deeds of the Maccabees. H. C.

1-3. This passage, with slight literal variations, is the same as Isa. 2 : 2, 3, 4. The question, Which of the two prophets was its author? is a difficult one. A heavy preponderance of critical authority (including Caspari, Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Keil, etc.) is in favor of Micah. Dr. Pusey says, “It is now owned, well-nigh on all hands, that the great prophecy, three verses of which Isaiah prefixed to his second chapter, was originally delivered by Micah.” The connection of the passage with what goes before it and what follows it appears to be natural and intimate in Micah. In

Isaiah it forms the introduction of a new subject, and what follows it has more the aspect of a comment. The best arguments in favor of this view are given by Pusey in his Introduction to Micah, p. 289, and by Delitzsch in his notes on Isaiah 2. B. C.

These words occur substantially in Isa. 2 : 2-4, but appear to be original with Micah. At least it must be admitted that here they fit nicely to the previous context (3 : 12), and also to the following context. In Isaiah the passage has no such close connection with the preceding context. In this passage the relation of thought to what precedes is the first thing to be noted. Zion is seen in ruins; the temple-mountain dishonored and waste—all for the sins of the covenant people. Must it hence be inferred that the kingdom of God among men is crushed down, never to rise? By no means. In the last days this kingdom shall rise in far greater glory than ever before. The temple-mountain—called here “the mountain of the house of the Lord,” though in 3 : 12 it is only “the mountain of the house”—shall be lifted high and firmly set on the tops of the other mountains, and high above all the hills in glory and esteem. Next, “peoples, even all the nations of men, shall flow unto it.” That they shall flow thither implies, not that they are dragged or driven into this worship, but that they come spontaneously, as water moves with the utmost ease under the power of gravitation. Many nations shall come of their free accord. They shall exhort one another to go up to the house of the God of Jacob, to learn of the true God and of all moral duty there. God’s will, as revealed in Zion, they recognize to be the fountain of all law, and they joyfully place themselves under His supreme dominion. Then His peaceful reign over the nations of men begins; they need sword and spear no longer; the culture of the soil supersedes the arts of war, and nation no more lifts up sword against its brother nation. For the law of God is the law of supreme, impartial love, administered under the sway of the Prince of Peace: how then can the result be other than universal tranquillity? Obeyed, it must supplant war forever. Men can no longer “hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Glorious scene! Blissful consummation! And this is no visionary dream. It shall yet be. The days of battles and carnage, the days of fell animosity, satanic ambition, demoniac hate, must cease, and give place to days of blessed peace and good-will

among men. Let the love of the Great Father have the praise for all this! Micah sees it in the distant future. Briefly and in general, he locates it “in the last days.” They are future yet; but they will surely come and (may we not hope and pray?) will not long tarry! H. C.