THE WORD OF THE LORD THAT CAME TO MICAH ... WHICH HE SAW - No two of the prophets authenticate their prophecy in exactly the same way. They, one and all, have the same simple statement to make, that this which they say is from God, and through them. A later hand, had it added the titles, would have... [ Continue Reading ]
HEAR, ALL YE PEOPLE - Literally, “hear, ye peoples, all of them.” Some 140, or 150 years had flowed by, since Micaiah, son of Imlah, had closed his prophecy in these words. And now they burst out anew. From age to age the word of God holds its course, ever receiving new fulfillments, never dying out... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR, BEHOLD, THE LORD COMTH FORTH - that is, (as we now say,) “is coming forth.” Each day of judgment, and the last also, are ever drawing nigh, noiselessly as the nightfall, but unceasingly. “Out of His Place.” Dionysius: “God is hidden from us, except when He sheweth Himself by His Wisdom or Power... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE MOUNTAINS SHALL BE MOLTEN UNDER HIM - It has been thought that this is imagery, taken from volcanic eruptions ; but, although there is a very remarkable volcanic district just outside of Gilead, it is not thought to have been active at times so late as these; nor were the people to whom the... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE TRANSGRESSION OF JACOB IS ALL THIS - Not for any change of purpose in God; nor, again, as the effect of man’s lust of conquest. None could have any power against God’s people, unless it had been given him by God. Those mighty monarchies of old existed but as God’s instruments, especially tow... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE - (literally, “And”) I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard Jerome: “The order of the sin was the order or the punishment.” Samaria’s sins were the earliest, the most obstinate, the most unbroken, bound up with its being as a state. On it then God’s jud... [ Continue Reading ]
AND ALL THE GRAVEN IMAGES THEREOF SHALL BE BEATEN TO PIECES - Its idols in whom she trusts, so far from protecting her, shall themselves go into captivity, broken up for the gold and silver whereof they were made. The wars of the Assyrians being religious wars , the idolatry of Assyria destroyed the... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE I WILL - Therefore I would WAIL - (properly, beat, that is, on the breast). AND HOWL - “Let me alone,” he would say, “that I may vent my sorrow in all ways of expressing sorrow, beating on the breast and wailing, using all acts and sounds of grief.” It is as we would say, “Let me mourn o... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR HER - Samaria’s WOUND - o, (literally, her wounds, or strokes, (the word is used especially of those inflicted by God, (Leviticus 26:21; Numbers 11:33; Deuteronomy 28:59, Deuteronomy 28:61, etc.) each, one by one,) is incurable The idiom is used of inflictions on the body politic (Nahum 3 ult.;... [ Continue Reading ]
TELL IT NOT IN GATH - Gath had probably now ceased to be; at least, to be of any account . It shows how David’s elegy lived in the hearts of Judah, that his words are used as a proverb, (just as we do now, in whose ears it is yearly read), when, as with us, its original application was probably lost... [ Continue Reading ]
PASS YE AWAY - (literally, Pass thou (fem.) away to or for yourselves), disregarded by God and despised by man) pass the bounds of your land into captivity. THOU INHABITANT OF SHAPHIR, HAVING THY SHAME NAKED - better, in nakedness, and shame. Shaphir (fair) was a village in Judah, between Eleuthero... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE INHABITANT OF MAROTH - (bitterness) waited carefully for good She waited carefully for the good which God gives, not for the Good which God is. She looked, longed for, good, as men do; but therewith her longing ended. She longed for it, amid her own evil, which brought God’s judgments upon h... [ Continue Reading ]
O THOU INHABITANT OF LACHISH, BIND THE CHARIOT TO THE SWIFT BEAST - (steed.) Lachish was always a strong city, as its name probably denoted, (probably “compact.” It was one of the royal cities of the Amorites, and its king one of the five, who went out to battle with Joshua Joshua 10:3. It lay in th... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE SHALT THOU GIVE - (bridal) presents to Moresheth Gath Therefore! since Judah had so become a partaker of Israel’s sins, she had broken the covenant, whereby God had given her the land of the pagan, and she should part with it to aliens. The bridal presents, literally the dismissals, were t... [ Continue Reading ]
YET WILL I BRING AN HEIR - (the heir, him whom God had appointed to be the heir, Sennacherib) unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah Mareshah, (as the original form of its name denotes, lay on the summit of a hill. “Its ruins only were still seen,” in the time of Eusebius and Jerome, “in the second mil... [ Continue Reading ]
MAKE THEE BALD, POLL - (literally, shear thee for thy delicate children Some special ways of cutting the hair were forbidden to the Israelites, as being idolatrous customs, such as the rounding the hair in front, cutting it away from the temples , or between the eyes Deuteronomy 14:1. All shearing o... [ Continue Reading ]