The Word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite Micah 1:1-2 Divine revelation Homilist. I. IT IS THE WORD OF THE LORD. What is a word? 1. A mind manifesting power. In his word a true man manifests himself, his thought, feeling, character. His word is important according to the measure of his faculties, experiences, attainments. Divine revelation manifests the mind of God, especially the moral characteristics of that mind — His rectitude, holiness, mercy, etc. 2. A mind influencing power. Man uses his word to influence other minds, to bring other minds into sympathy with his own. Thus God uses His Word. He uses it to correct human errors, dispel human ignorance, remove human perversities, and turn human thought and sympathy into a course harmonious with His own mind. II. IT IS MADE TO INDIVIDUAL MEN. It came to Micah, not to his con temporaries. Why certain men were chosen as the special recipients of God's Word is a problem whose solution must be left for eternity. III. IT IS FOR ALL MANKIND. God did not speak to any individual man specially that the communication might be kept to himself, but that he might communicate it to others. He makes one man the special recipient of truth that he may become the organ and promoter of it. God's Word is for the world. ( Homilist. ) Moresheth Geo. Adam Smith, D. D. This was a place in the Shepbelah, or range of low hills which lie between the hill country of Judah and the Philistine plain. It is the opposite exposure from the wilderness of Tekoa, some seventeen miles away across the watershed. As the home of Amos is bare and desert, so the home of Micah is fair and fertile. The irregular chalk hills are separated by broad glens, in which the soil is alluvial and red, with room for cornfields on either side of the perennial, or almost perennial streams. The olive groves on the braes are finer than either those of the plain below or of the Judaean table land above. There is herbage for cattle. Bees murmur everywhere, larks are singing, and although today you may wander in the maze of hills for hours without meeting a man, or seeing a house, you are never out of sight of the traces of human habitation, and seldom beyond the sound of the human voice — shepherds and ploughmen calling to their flocks and to each other across the glens. There are none of the conditions, or of the occasions, of a large town. But, like the south of England, the country is one of villages and homesteads, breeding good yeomen — men satisfied and in love with their soil, yet borderers with a fair outlook and a keen vigilance and sensibility. The Shephelah is sufficiently detached from the capital and body of the land to beget in her sons an independence of mind and feeling, but so much upon the edge of the open world as to endue them at the same time with that sense of the responsibilities of warfare, which the national statesmen, aloof and at ease in Zion, could not possibly have shared. Upon one of the westmost terraces of the Shephelah, nearly a thousand feet above the sea, lay Moresheth itself. ( Geo. Adam Smith, D. D. ) For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place Micah 1:3-7 God's procedure in relation to sin Homilist. This is a highly figurative and sublime representation of the Almighty in His retributive work, especially in relation to Samaria and Jerusalem. He is represented as leaving His holy temple, coming out of His place, and marching with overwhelming grandeur over the high places of the earth, to deal out punishment to the wicked. "The description of this theophany," says Delitzsch, "is founded upon the idea of a terrible storm and earthquake, as in Psalm 18:8 . The mountains melt ( Judges 5:4 , and Psalm 68:9 ) with the streams of water which discharge themselves from heaven ( Judges 5:4 ), and the valleys split with the deep channels cut out by the torrents of water. The similes 'like wax,' etc. (as in Psalm 68:3 ), and 'like water' are intended to express the complete dissolution of mountains and valleys. The actual facts answering to this description are the destructive influences exerted upon nature by great national judgments." The reference is undoubtedly to the destruction of the king of Israel by Shalmaneser, and the invasion of Judah by the armies of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, by the latter of whom the Jews were carried away captive. The passage is an inexpressibly grand representation of God's procedure in relation to sin. I. As it APEARS TO THE EYE OF MAN. The Bible is eminently anthropomorphic. 1. God, in dealing out retribution, appears to man in an extraordinary position. "He cometh forth out of His place." What is His place? To all intelligent beings, the settled place of the Almighty is the temple of love, the pavilion of goodness, the mercy seat. The general beauty, order, and happiness of the universe give all intelligent creatures this impression of Him. But when confusion and misery fall on the sinner, the Almighty seems to man to come out of His "place," to step aside from His ordinary procedure. Judgment is God's strange work. He comes out of His place to execute it. 2. God, in dealing out retribution, appears to man in a terrific aspect. He does not appear as in the silent march of the stars or the serenity of the sun; but as in thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions. "The mountains shall be molten under Him," etc. II. As it AFFECTS A SINFUL PEOPLE. In God's procedure in relation to sin what disastrous effects were brought upon Samaria and Jerusalem! 1. God, in His procedure in relation to sin, brings material ruin upon people. Sin brings on commercial decay, political ruin; it destroys the health of the body, and brings it ultimately to the dust. 2. God, in His procedure in relation to sin, brings mental anguish upon a people. A disruption between the soul and the objects of its supreme affections involves the greatest anguish. The gods of a people, whatever they may be, are these objects, and these are to be destroyed. Conclusion — Mark well that God has a course of conduct in relation to sin, or rather, that God, in His beneficent march, must ever appear terrible to the sinner, and bring ruin on his head. It is the wisdom as well as the duty of all intelligent creatures to move in thought, sympathy, and purpose, as God moves — move with Him, not against Him. ( Homilist. ) God's way of taking vengeance George Hutcheson. The justice of God taking vengeance on enemies is further described from the way of manifesting thereof, which is slowly but certainly; the Lord forbearing, neither because He purposes to give, nor because He wants power; as may appear from His majesty and state, when He appeareth environed with whirlwinds and tempests raised by His power. Doctrine — 1. The Lord, even toward enemies, is long suffering, and slow in executing of anger, that their destruction may be seen to be of themselves, that in His holy providence they may stumble more upon His indulgence, and fill up their measure; and that His Church's faith and patience may be tried. 2. When the Lord spareth His enemies, it is not because He is not able to meet with them, nor ought we to judge from any outward appearance that they are invincible; for, how unlikely soever the destruction of enemies may be in the eyes of men, yet the Lord who is "slow to anger" is also "great in power." 3. As the Lord is able to reach His enemies when He pleaseth, so His forbearing of them is no evidence that they shall be exempted altogether; but He will undoubtedly give proof of His power, in dealing with them as their way deserveth. 4. The Lord is able by His power speedily to bring to pass greatest things, and can, when He pleaseth, overturn, confound, and darken all things which appeared to be stable, well ordered, and clear. 5. The Lord, manifesting Himself in His great glory, doth but, so to say, obscure Himself in respect of our infirmity, which cannot comprehend His glory in its brightness; for so much doth His manifestation of Himself environed with dark storms or tempests and thick lowering clouds teach. 6. God's dispensations, even when they are most dreadful and terrible in effects, may yet be deep and unsearchable, and His purpose and counsel in them hard to discern; for so much doth His way in whirlwinds, storms, and clouds (which involve and darken all) teach. ( George Hutcheson. ) For her wound is incurable Micah 1:8, 9 Moral incurableness Homilist. Samaria and Jerusalem were, in a material and political sense, in a desperate and hopeless condition. I. MORAL INCURABLENESS IS A CONDITION INTO WHICH MEN MAY FALL. 1. Mental philosophy shows this. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that the repetition of an act can generate an uncontrollable tendency to repeat it; and the repetition of a sin deadens altogether that moral sensibility which constitutionally recoils from the wrong. The mind often makes habit, not only second nature, but the sovereign of nature. 2. Observation shows this. That man's circle of acquaintance must be exceedingly limited who does not know men who become morally incurable. There are incurable liars, incurable misers, incurable sensualists, and incurable drunkards. No moral logician, however great his dialectic skill, can forge an argument strong enough to move them from their old ways, even when urged by the seraphic fervour of the highest rhetoric. 3. The Bible shows this. "Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words." "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes." We often speak of retribution as if it always lay beyond the grave, and the day of grace as extending through the whole life of man; but such is not the fact. Retribution begins with many men here. II. IT IS A CONDITION FOR THE PROFOUNDEST LAMENTATION. "Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like the dragons and mourning as the owls." Christ wept when He considered the moral incurableness of the men of Jerusalem. There is no sight more distressing than the sight of a morally incurable soul. There is no building that I pass that strikes me with greater sadness than the Hospital for "Incurables"; but what are incurable bodies, compared to morally incurable souls? There are anodynes that may deaden their pains, and death will relieve them of their torture; but a morally incurable soul is destined to pass into anguish, intense and more intense as existence runs on, and peradventure without end. The incurable body may not necessarily be an injury to others; but a morally incurable soul must be a curse as long as it lives. ( Homilist. ) An incurable wound The late Dr. A.J. Gordon gave the following anecdote in one of the last sermons he preached: "Dr. Westmoreland, an eminent army surgeon, tells of a soldier who was shot in the neck, the ball just grazing and wounding the carotid artery. The doctor knew that his life hung on a hair, and one day as he was dressing the wound the walls of the artery gave way. Instantly the surgeon pressed his finger upon the artery, and held the blood in check; and the patient asked, 'What does this mean?' 'It means that you are a dead man,' answered the doctor. 'How long can I live?' 'As long as I keep my hand on the artery.' 'Can I have time to dictate a letter to my wife and child?' 'Yes.' And so the letter was written for him, full of tender farewell messages, and when all was finished he calmly closed his eyes and said 'I am ready, doctor.' The purple tide ebbed quickly away and all was over. What a parable is here of a far more solemn fact. Oh, unsaved one, you are by nature 'dead through trespasses and sins'! But God keeps His hand upon your pulse, preserving your life that you may have an opportunity to repent and be saved." Bind the chariot to the swift beast Micah 1:13 Be quick Homilist. These words are addressed to the inhabitants of Lachish. Our subject is promptitude in action. I. BE QUICK IN YOUR MATERIAL ENGAGEMENTS. The distinction between the secular and the spiritual is not real but fictitious. A man should be quick in all his legitimate temporal engagements, whatever they may be. By quickness is not meant the hurry of confusion, but adroit expertness, skilful promptitude. As Shakespeare said, "What the wise do quickly, is not done rashly." 1. The quicker you are the more you will accomplish. An expert man will accomplish more in an hour than a slow man in a day. 2. The quicker you are, the better for your faculties. The quick movement of the limb is healthier than the slow; the quick action of the mental faculties is more invigorating than the slow. As a rule, the quick man is in every way healthier and happier than the slow. 3. The quicker you are, the more valuable you are in the market of the world. The skilful man who cultivates the habit of quickness and despatch increases his commercial value every day. II. BE QUICK IN YOUR INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. You have an enormous amount of mental work to do, if you act up to your duty, and discharge your mission in life. 1. The quicker you are, the more you will attain. The more fields of truth you will traverse, the more fruits you will gather from the tree of knowledge. Some men in their studies move like elephants, and only traverse a small space. Others, like eagles, sweep continents in a day. The quick eye will see what escapes the dull eye, the quick ear will catch voices unheard by the slow of hearing. 2. The quicker you are, the better for your faculties. It is the brisk walker that best strengthens his limbs, the brisk fighter that wins the greatest victories. It is by quick action that the steel is polished and that weapons are sharpened. Intellectual quickness whets the faculties, makes them keen, agile, and apt. "Bind the chariot to the swift beast." III. Be quick in your SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS. 1. Morally you have a work to do for your own soul. The work is great and urgent. 2. Morally you have a work to do for others. There are souls around you demanding your most earnest efforts, etc. (1) Be quick; the work must be done during your life here, if ever done. (2) Be quick; your life here is very short and uncertain. (3) Be quick; the longer you delay the more difficult it is to do. ( Homilist. ) Promptitude in action Sunday companion. An officer of high rank in the British Army relates how he won the first step of the ladder to recognition and promotion, He was then a young sub-lieutenant of engineers in Ceylon. One morning, while at a quiet game in the amusement room, unaware that any duty was being neglected, the governor of the island saw him. "What are you doing here, youngster?" said his chief. "I thought you would have been at Negombo by this time! What to do there, sir? What! Have you not received your orders? Go to the quartermaster-general at once." But it was nearly one o'clock before the young fellow could find that officer. When found, his instructions were to proceed to Negombo, an old fort twenty-three miles north, make a plan of the barracks there, and note various important details. But the sub-lieutenant was vexed; for that evening he was obliged to attend a dinner party at the Government House, and there was not much time to spare. However, he saddled his Arab horse, that could do almost anything except fly, and covered the twenty-three miles in two hours. Next, field book and tape line in hand, he made the necessary measurements and calculations, sketching plans, and writing down facts and figures. Having drafted an accurate report, he remounted his faithful steed, and was back in Colombo before the dinner hour. Walking in quietly with the other guests, the governor saw him, and exclaimed: "You here, sir! What were your orders? Why are you not attending to them? Be off at once!" "My orders were to go to Negombo, sir," replied the young officer, repeating the instructions. "Then, what do you mean by neglecting them?" "I have not," was the answer. "The report is finished, and will be laid before you tomorrow morning." The governor showed his delight by the glow of satisfaction on his face. He detailed the matter to his staff, dwelling on the smart and accurate obedience manifested, and from that day the young man rose steadily in his profession. ( Sunday companion. )

Benson Commentary Micah 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Micah 1:1 . In the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah — Micah is thought to have prophesied about sixteen years in Jotham’s time, as many under Ahaz, and fourteen under Hezekiah: in all, forty-six years. And he survived the captivity of Israel ten years, which he lamented as well as foretold. Which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem — Concerning both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whereof Samaria and Jerusalem were the capital cities. It is said, Which he saw, &c., because the prophets having the general name of seers, every kind of prophecy, in whatever way delivered, seems to have been generally called a vision. Micah 1:2 Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. Micah 1:2-4 . Hear, all ye people — All ye of Israel and Judah. Hearken, O earth — Or, O land, [of Israel:] and all that therein is — That is, all its inhabitants. Let the Lord be witness against you — “I call him to witness, that I have forewarned you of the judgments that hang over your heads, unless you speedily repent. And he himself will become a witness against you, and convince you of your sins in such a manner that you shall not be able to deny the charge.” The Lord from his holy temple — Heaven, his holy habitation. The Lord cometh forth out of his place — God is said, in Scripture, to come out of his place, or heaven, when he makes his judgments or mercies to be remarkably conspicuous, by visible effects on the earth. And will tread upon the high places of the earth — He will cause places of the greatest strength to be destroyed, and men of the highest rank to be brought down. And the mountains shall be molten under him, &c. — An allusion to God’s coming down upon mount Sinai, when thunder and lightning shook the mountain, and violent rains, which accompanied this tempest, made the hills look as if they were melted down. Or the words may be referred to the general judgment, of which all particular judgments are an earnest, when the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved at Christ’s appearing. Micah 1:3 For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. Micah 1:4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. Micah 1:5 For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? Micah 1:5 . For the transgression of Jacob — That is, of the sons of Jacob; for the many transgressions committed among them; is all this — All these many, great, and irresistible judgments of God foretold and executed. What is the transgression of Jacob — Where is the chief cause of Israel’s sin and apostacy? Is it not Samaria — Is it not in that city, the chief seat of the kingdom, the residence of the king and his princes, who have set up the idolatry of the golden calves, and made it the established religion of the kingdom? What are the high places of Judah, &c. — Doth not the idolatrous worship, practised in the high places of Judah, receive its chief encouragement from the city of Jerusalem, even from Ahaz, and the great men who there join with him in that idolatry? Micah 1:6 Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. Micah 1:6-7 . Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap — A heap of ruins. And as plantings of a vineyard — As in planting vineyards men dig the earth, and cast it up in hillocks, so shall they make this city. The Vulgate reads, I will make Samaria as a heap of stones in a field, when a vineyard is planted. I will pour down the stones thereof, &c. — The stones of it shall be tumbled down, from the lofty eminence on which it is situated, into the valley beneath, and shall leave the foundations thereof naked and bare. All this, and what follows, was fulfilled by Shalmaneser, who made a conquest of Samaria. And all the graven images thereof — Whether made of gold, silver, brass, wood, or stone; shall be beaten to pieces — Shall be pulled out of their chapels, shrines, or repositories, by their conquering enemies, and shall be trampled upon and broken, either out of contempt, or that the rich materials of which they are made may be carried away. And all the hires thereof shall be burned with fire — The rich gifts, given for the honour and service of the idols by the deceived idolaters, shall be consumed. This seems to be spoken of the gifts sent to their temple by the Assyrians, whose worship they imitated. For she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, &c. — She got it by the gifts of idolaters, and it shall return to those idolaters again. Micah 1:7 And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot. Micah 1:8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. Micah 1:8-9 . Therefore I will wail and howl — I will mourn and lament. I will go stripped and naked — That is, without an upper garment; or with garments rent and torn. This would fitly denote the naked condition to which the ten tribes were to be reduced by their enemies. I will make a wailing like dragons — The word rendered dragons, according to Pocock on the place, may “signify a kind of wild beast like a dog, between a dog and a fox, or a wolf and a fox, which the Arabians, from the noise which they make, call Ebn Awi, (filius Eheu,) and our English travellers jackals; which, abiding in the fields and waste places, make in the night a lamentable, howling noise:” see Encycl. Brit. And mourning as the owls — Or rather, ostriches: see note on Job 30:29 . “It is affirmed by travellers of good credit,” says Pocock, “that ostriches make a fearful, screeching, lamentable noise.” Shaw also observes, that “during the lonesome part of the night, they often make a very doleful and hideous noise;” and that he had “often heard them groan, as if they were in the greatest agonies.” For her wound is incurable — The wound of Samaria and Israel, namely, their own sins and God’s just displeasure: the calamities coming upon them will end in their destruction: nothing can prevent it. It is come even unto Judah — The contagion of her sins, and the indignation of God against them, have reached to Judah also, yea, to Jerusalem. This was accordingly fulfilled: for a few years after the Assyrians had destroyed Samaria, and spoiled all the land of Israel, their conquering army, led by Sennacherib, entered the kingdom of Judah, and took all the fenced cities; and a part of it, termed a great host, was sent up to the gates of Jerusalem, as is related, 2 Kings 18:17 . Micah 1:9 For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. Micah 1:10 Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust. Micah 1:10-12 . Declare ye it not in Gath — Lest the Philistines triumph. The words seem to be taken out of David s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, 2 Samuel 1:20 , where see the note. Weep ye not at all — Or, weep ye not with loud weeping, as Archbishop Newcome renders it. Do not make any loud lamentations, lest the evil tidings be spread. In the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust — Or, wallow in the ashes, as was commonly practised in times of great mourning. The word Aphrah signifies dust; and the prophet, it is likely, puts it here for Ophrah, a town in the tribe of Benjamin, that the name might better suit their present condition. Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir — Houbigant says that Eusebius places this city, the name of which signifies fair, or elegant, in the tribe of Judah, between Eleutheropolis and Askelon. Some think, however, that Saphir is not a proper name, and that there was no place so called in Judea; but that the clause ought to be rendered, Pass away, thou inhabitant of a delightful place, that is, Samaria, which was very pleasantly situated. The prophet here threatens the inhabitants of that place that they should go into captivity, in a way very unsuitable to their former softness and luxury, even stripped by the conquering enemy, and without so much as a covering to hide their nakedness. The inhabitant of Zaanan — A place in the tribe of Judah, called Zenan, Joshua 15:37 ; came not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel — “There was no burial of her dead with solemn mourning out of the precincts of her city, but she was besieged and put to the sword.” — Newcome. Or, the meaning may be, the inhabitants of Zaanan were so much concerned to provide for their own safety, that they took no notice of the mournful condition of their near neighbour Beth-ezel, which seems to have been a place near Jerusalem, termed Azal, Zechariah 14:5 . Grotius, however, supposes Zaanan to denote Zion, and Beth-ezel to signify Beth-el, called here by another name, importing the house of separation, because it was the principal seat of idolatrous worship. He shall receive of you his standing — The standing, or encamping of an army against the city; that is, the enemy shall encamp among you, shall stand on your ground, so that you will have no opportunity of coming out to the help of your neighbours. For the inhabitant of Maroth — A town in Judea, (the same probably that is called Maarath, Joshua 15:59 ,) waited, &c. — Or rather, as the words may be translated, Although the inhabitant of Maroth waited for good, yet evil came, &c., unto the gate of Jerusalem — Such a calamity as stopped not at Maroth, but reached even to Jerusalem. By Maroth, which signifies bitterness, or trouble, Grotius understands Ramah, or, expressed as it often is in the plural, Ramoth, a place in the tribe of Benjamin, near Beth-lehem, and not far from Jerusalem. Micah 1:11 Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Bethezel; he shall receive of you his standing. Micah 1:12 For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem. Micah 1:13 O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee. Micah 1:13-15 . O thou inhabitant of Lachish — This was a strong fortress in the tribe of Judah: see Joshua 15:39 . Bind the chariot to the swift beast — In order to flee from the approaching enemy. Lachish was one of the first cities that Sennacherib besieged, when he invaded Judea. She is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion — She was the first among the cities of Judah which practised those idolatries which the kings and people of Israel had begun. Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth-gath — Or, to Moresheth of Gath; that is, to the Philistines of that country, either to defend thee against the enemy, or to receive thee under their protection. The houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel — The word Achzib signifies a lie. There was a town of that name in the tribe of Judah, mentioned Joshua 15:44 . This place, the prophet here foretels, will answer its name, and disappoint the kings of Israel that depended upon its strength and assistance: see 2 Chronicles 21:3 ; and 2 Chronicles 28:19 . Israel is sometimes used for Judah, and so it may probably be taken here. Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah — This was another town belonging to Judah, mentioned Joshua 15:44 . The name signifies an inheritance; so here, by way of allusion, it is said, that a new heir or master should come and take possession of it, namely, a conquering enemy. He shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel — Or, The glory of Israel shall come to Adullam; the Assyrians, whom Israel once gloried in as their ally, shall come to Adullam. This was a town in Judah not far from Lachish: see Joshua 15:35 . Some think the meaning of this clause is, that the chief men of Israel should be forced to hide themselves from their enemies in the cave of Adullam, as David did when he fled from Saul, 1 Samuel 23. Micah 1:14 Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moreshethgath: the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. Micah 1:15 Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel. Micah 1:16 Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee. Micah 1:16 . Make thee bald — O Judah and Israel, tear off thy hair; and poll thee — Shave what thou canst not tear off; for thy delicate children, &c. — For the loss of them, some being slain, others starved or swept away by pestilence, and the residue carried into captivity. Cutting the hair, or shaving it close, were expressions of mourning and lamentation anciently used among most nations. Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle — When she moults her feathers; for they are gone into captivity, &c. — By these phrases the prophet signifies, that the calamity would be so great as to deserve the strongest expressions of grief. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Micah 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. MICAH THE MORASTHITE Micah 1:1-16 SOME time in the reign of Hezekiah, when the kingdom of Judah was still inviolate, but shivering to the shock of the fall of Samaria, and probably while Sargon the destroyer was pushing his way past Judah to meet Egypt at Raphia, a Judean prophet of the name of Micah, standing in sight of the Assyrian march, attacked the sins of his people and prophesied their speedy overthrow beneath the same flood of war. If we be correct in our surmise, the exact year was 720-719 B.C. Amos had been silent thirty years. Hoses hardly fifteen; Isaiah was in the midway of his career. The title of Micah’s book asserts that he had previously prophesied under Jotham and Ahaz, and though we have seen it to be possible, it is by no means proved, that certain passages of the book date from these reigns. Micah is called the Morasthite. { Micah 1:1 , Jeremiah 26:18 } For this designation there appears to be no other meaning than that of a native of Moresheth-Gath, a village mentioned by himself. { Micah 1:14 } It signifies Property or Territory of Gath, and after the fall of the latter, which from this time no more appears in history, Moresheth may have been used alone. Compare the analogous cases of Helkath (portion of-) Galilee, Ataroth, Chesulloth, and Iim. In our ignorance of Gath’s position, we should be equally at fault about Moresheth, for the name has vanished, were it not for one or two plausible pieces of evidence. Belonging to Gath, Moresheth must have lain near the Philistine border: the towns among which Micah includes it are situated in that region; and Jerome declares that the name-though the form, Morasthi, in which he cites it is suspicious-was in his time still extant in a small village to the east of Eleutheropolis or Beit-Jibrin. Jerome cites Morasthi as distinct from the neighboring Mareshah, which is also quoted by Micah beside Moresheth-Gath. Moresheth was, therefore, a place in the Shephelah, or range of low hills which lie between the hill country of Judah and the Philistine plain. It is the opposite exposure from the wilderness of Tekoa, some seventeen miles away across the watershed. As the home of Amos is bare and desert, so the home of Micah is fair and fertile. The irregular chalk hills are separated by broad glens, in which the soil is alluvial and red, with room for cornfields on either side of the perennial or almost perennial streams. The olive groves on the braes are finer than either those of the plain below or of the Judean tableland above. There is herbage for cattle. Bees murmur everywhere, larks are singing, and although today you may wander in the maze of hills for hours without meeting a man or seeing a house, you are never out of sight of the traces of ancient habitation, and seldom beyond sound of the human voice-shepherds and ploughmen calling to their flocks and to each other across the glens. There are none of the conditions or of the occasions of a large town. But, like the south of England, the country is one of villages and homesteads, breeding good yeomen-men satisfied and in love with their soil, yet borderers with a far outlook and a keen vigilance and sensibility. The Shephelah is sufficiently detached from the capital and body of the land to beget in her sons an independence of mind and feeling, but so much upon the edge of the open world as to endue them at the same time with that sense of the responsibilities of warfare, which the national statesmen, aloof and at ease in Zion, could not possibly have shared. Upon one of the west-most terraces of this Shephelah, nearly a thousand feet above the sea, lay Moresheth itself. There is a great view across the undulating plain with its towns and fortresses, Lachish, Eglon, Shaphir, and others, beyond which runs the coast road, the famous war-path between Asia and Africa. Ashdod and Gaza are hardly discernible against the glitter of the sea, twenty-two miles away. Behind roll the round bush-covered hills of the Shephelah, with David’s hold at Adullam, the field where he fought Goliath, and many another scene of border warfare; while over them rises the high wall of the Judean plateau, with the defiles breaking through it to Hebron and Bethlehem. The valley-mouth near which Moresheth stands has always formed the southwestern gateway of Judea, the Philistine or Egyptian gate, as it might be called, with its outpost at Lachish, twelve miles across the plain. Roads converge upon this valley-mouth from all points of the compass. Beit-Jibrin, which lies in it, is midway between Jerusalem and Gaza, about twenty-five miles from either, nineteen miles from Bethlehem, and thirteen from Hebron. Visit the place at any point of the long history of Palestine, and you find it either full of passengers or a center of campaign. Asa defeated the Ethiopians here. The Maccabees and John Hyrcanus contested Mareshah, two miles off, with the Idumeans. Gabinius fortified Mare-shah. Vespasian and Saladin both deemed the occupation of the valley necessary before they marched upon Jerusalem. Septimius Severus made Beit-Jibrin the capital of the Shephelah, and laid out military roads, whose pavements still radiate from it in all directions. The Onomasticon measures distances in the Shephelah from Beit-Jibrin. Most of the early pilgrims from Jerusalem by Gaza to Sinai or Egypt passed through it, and it was a center of Crusading operations, whether against Egypt during the Latin kingdom or against Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Not different was the place in the time of Micah. Micah must have seen pass by his door the frequent embassies which Isaiah tells us went down to Egypt from Hezekiah’s court, and seen return those Egyptian subsidies in which a foolish people put their trust instead of in their God. In touch, then, with the capital, feeling every throb of its folly and its panic, but standing on that border which must, as he believed, bear the brunt of the invasion that its crimes were attracting, Micah lifted up his voice. They were days of great excitement. The words of Amos and Hosea had been fulfilled upon Northern Israel. Should Judah escape, whose injustice and impurity were as flagrant as her sister’s? It were vain to think so. The Assyrians had come up to her northern border. Isaiah was expecting their assault upon Mount Zion. The Lord’s Controversy was not closed. Micah will summon the whole earth to hear the old indictment and the still unexhausted sentence. The prophet speaks:- "Hear ye, peoples all; Hearken, O Earth, and her fullness! That Jehovah may be among you to testify, The Lord from His holy temple! For, lo! Jehovah goeth forth from His place; He descendeth and marcheth on the heights of the earth." "Molten are the mountains beneath Him, And the valleys gape open, Like wax in face of the fire Like water poured over a fall." God speaks:- "For the transgression of Jacob is all this, And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Sarnaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? is it not Jerusalem? Therefore do I turn Samaria into a ruin of the field, And into vineyard terraces; And I pour down her stones to the glen And lay hare her foundations. All her images are shattered, And all her hires are being burned in the fire; And all her idols I lay desolate, For from the hire of a harlot they were gathered, And to a harlot’s hire they return." The prophet speaks:- "For this let me mourn, let me wail. Let me go barefoot and stripped (of my robe), Let me make lamentations like the jackals, And mourning like the daughters of the desert, For her stroke is desperate; Yea, it hath come unto Judah! It hath smitten right up to the gate of my people. Up to Jerusalem." Within the capital itself Isaiah was also recording the extension of the Assyrian invasion to its walls, but in a different temper. { Isaiah 10:28 } He was full of the exulting assurance that, although at the very gate, the Assyrian could not harm the city of Jehovah, but must fall when he lifted his impious hand against it. Micah has no such hope: he is overwhelmed with the thought of Jerusalem’s danger. Provincial though he be, and full of wrath at the danger into which the politicians of Jerusalem had dragged the whole country, he profoundly mourns the peril of the capital, "the gate of my people," as he fondly calls her. Therefore we must not exaggerate the frequently drawn contrast between Isaiah and himself. To Micah also Jerusalem was dear, and his subsequent prediction of her overthrow { Micah 3:12 } ought to be read with the accent of this previous mourning for her peril. Nevertheless his heart clings most to his own home, and while Isaiah pictures the Assyrian entering Judah from the north by Migron, Michmash, and Nob, Micah anticipates invasion by the opposite gateway of the land, at the door of his own village. His elegy sweeps across the landscape so dear to him. This obscure province was even more than Jerusalem his world, the world of his heart. It gives us a living interest in the man that the fate of these small villages, many of them vanished, should excite in him more passion than the fortunes of Zion herself. In such passion we can incarnate his spirit. Micah is no longer a book, or an oration, but flesh and blood upon a home and a countryside of his own. We see him on his housetop pouring forth his words before the hills and the far-stretching heathen land. In the name of every village within sight he reads a symbol of the curse that is coming upon his country, and of the sins that have earned the curse. So some of the greatest poets have caught their music from the nameless brooklets of their boyhood’s fields; and many a prophet has learned to read the tragedy of man and God’s verdict upon sin in his experience of village life. But there was more than feeling in Micah’s choice of his own country as the scene of the Assyrian invasion. He had better reasons for his fears than Isaiah, who imagined the approach of the Assyrian from the north. For it is remarkable how invaders of Judea, from Sennacherib to Vespasian and from Vespasian to Saladin and Richard, have shunned the northern access to Jerusalem and endeavored to reach her by the very gateway at which Micah stood mourning. He had, too, this greater motive for his fear, that Sargon; as we have seen, was actually in the neighborhood, marching to the defeat of Judah’s chosen patron, Egypt. Was it not probable that, when the latter was overthrown, Sargon would turn back upon Judah by Lachish and Mareshah? If we keep this in mind we shall appreciate, not only the fond anxiety, but the political foresight that inspires the following passage, which is to our Western taste so strangely cast in a series of plays upon place-names. The disappearance of many of these names, and our ignorance of the transactions to which the verses allude, often render both the text and the meaning very uncertain. Micah begins with the well-known play upon the name of Garb; the Acco which he couples with it is either the Phoenician port to the north of Carmel, the modern Acre, or some Philistine town, unknown to us, but in any case the line forms with the previous one an intelligible couplet: "Tell it not in Tell-town; Weep not in Weep-town." The following Beth-le-’Aphrah, "House of Dust," must be taken with them, for in the phrase "roll thyself" there is a play upon the name Philistine. So, too, Shaphir, or Beauty, the modern Suafir, lay on the Philistine Region. Sa’anan and Bethesel and Maroth are unknown; but if Micah, as is probable, begins his list far away on the western horizon and comes gradually inland, they also are to be sought for on the maritime plain. Then he draws nearer by Lachish, on the first hills, and in the leading pass towards Judah, to Moresheth-Gath, Achzib, Mareshah, and Adullam, which all lie within Israel’s territory and about the prophet’s own home. We understand the allusion, at least, to Lachish in Micah 1:13 . As the last Judean outpost towards Egypt, and on a main road thither, Lachish would receive the Egyptian subsidies of horses and chariots, in which the politicians put their trust instead of in Jehovah. Therefore she "was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion." And if we can trust the text of Micah 1:14 , Lachish would pass on the Egyptian ambassadors to Moresheth-Gath, the next stage of their approach to Jerusalem. But this is uncertain. With Moresheth-Gath is coupled Ach-zib, a town at some distance from Jerome’s site for the former, to the neighborhood of which, Mareshah, we are brought back again in Micah 1:15 . Adullam, with which the list closes, lies some eight or ten miles to the northeast of Mareshah. The prophet speaks:- "Tell it not in Gath, Weep not in Aeco. In Beth-le-’Aphrah roll thyself in dust. Pass over, inhabitress of Shaphir, thy shame uncovered! The inhabitress of Sa’anan shall not march forth The lamentation of Beth-esel taketh from you its standing. The inhabitress of Maroth trembleth for good, For evil hath come down from Jehovah to the gate of Jerusalem. Harness the horse to the chariot, inhabitress of Lachish, That hast been the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion"; "Yea, in thee are found the transgressions of Israel Therefore thou givest to Moresheth-Gath The houses of Aehzib shall deceive the kings of Israel. Again shall I bring the Possessor [conqueror] to thee inhabitress of Mareshah; To Adullam shall come the glory of Israel. Make thee bald, and shave thee for thy darlings; Make broad thy baldness like the vulture, For they go into banishment from thee." This was the terrible fate which the Assyrian kept before the peoples with whom he was at war. Other foes raided, burned, and slew: he carried off whole populations into exile. Having thus pictured the doom which threatened his people, Micah turns to declare the sins for which it has been sent upon them. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.