Micah 2:3

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil. BEHOLD, AGAINST THIS FAMILY - against the nation, and especially against those reprobated in Micah 2:1. DO I DEVISE AN EVIL - a happy antithesis between God's dealings and the Jews' dealings (Micah 2:1). Ye "devise evil" against your fellow-countrymen, "I devise evil against" you. Ye devise it wrongfully, by righteous retribution in kind. FROM WHICH YE SHALL NOT REMOVE YOUR NECKS - as ye have done from the law. The yoke which I shall impose shall be one which ye cannot shake off. They who will not bend to God's "easy yoke" ...

The Prophet shows now that the avaricious were in vain elevated by their frauds and rapacity, because their hope would be disappointed; for God in heaven was waiting his time to appear against them. Though they had anxiously heaped together much wealth, yet God would justly dissipate it altogether. This is what he now declares. _Behold, _he says, _thus saith Jehovah, I am meditating evil against this family _(81) There is here a striking contrast between God and the Jews, between their wicked intentions and the intentions of God, which in themselves were not evil, and yet would bring evil on them. God, he says, thus speaks, Behold, I am purposing; as though he said, “While ye are thus busying yourselves on your beds, while ye are revolving many designs while ye are contriving many artifices, ye think me to be asleep, ye think that I am all the while meditating nothing; nay, I have my tho...

1-5 Woe to the people that devise evil during the night, and rise early to carry it into execution! It is bad to do mischief on a sudden thought, much worse to do it with design and forethought. It is of great moment to improve and employ hours of retirement and solitude in a proper manner. If covetousness reigns in the heart, compassion is banished; and when the heart is thus engaged, violence and fraud commonly occupy the hands. The most haughty and secure in prosperity, are commonly most ready to despair in adversity. Woe to those from whom God turns away! Those are the sorest calamities which cut us off from the congregation of the Lord, or cut us short in the enjoyment of its privileges....

Verse Micah 2:3. _AGAINST THIS FAMILY_ (the Israelites) _DO I DEVISE AN_ _EVIL_] You have _devised_ the evil of _plundering_ the upright; I will devise the evil to you of _punishment_ for your conduct; you shall have your _necks_ brought under the yoke of servitude. Tiglath-pileser ruined this kingdom, and transported the people to Assyria, under the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah; and Micah lived to see this catastrophe. See on Micah 2:9....

Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as one continuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers of evil. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought; by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They do it. But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was one unbroken course of acting. And so he also uses the form, in which the Hebrews spoke of uninterrupted habits, They have coveted, they have robbed, they have taken. Now came God’s part. THEREFORE, THUS SAITH THE LORD - Since they oppress whole families, behold I will set Myself against this whole family ; since they devise iniquity, behold I too, Myself, by Myself, in My own Person, am devising. Very awful is it, that Almighty God sets His own Infinite Wisdom against the devices of man and employs it fittingly to punish. “I am devising no common pun...

EXPOSITION MICAH 2:1 § 6. _The prophet justifies his threat by recounting the sins of which the grandees and guilty._ MICAH 2:1 The prophet, himself one of the people, first inveighs against the sins of injustice and oppression of the poor. DEVISE … WORK … PRACTISE. A gradation. They are not led into these sins by others; they themselves conceive the evil purpose in their own heart; then they prepare and mature their scheme by reflection; then they proceed to execute it. Work evil; _i.e._ prepare the means for carrying out their conception (comp Isaiah 41:4). UPON THEIR BEDS. At night, the natural time for reflection (comp.

THEREFORE THUS SAITH THE LORD, BEHOLD, AGAINST THIS FAMILY DO I DEVISE AN EVIL,.... Because of those evils of covetousness, oppression, and injustice, secretly devised, and deliberately committed, the Lord, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, declares, and would have it observed, that he had devised an evil of punishment against the whole nation of Israel, the ten tribes particularly, among whom these sins greatly prevailed; even an invasion of their land by the Assyrians, and the carrying of them captive from it into foreign parts: FROM WHICH YE SHALL NOT REMOVE YOUR NECKS; that is, they should not be able to deliver themselves from it; they would not be able to stop the enemy in his progress, having entered their land; nor oblige him to break up the siege of their city, before which he would sit, and there continue till he had taken it; and being carried captive by him, they would never...

CHAPTER 2 _ 1. The guilt and punishment of Israel (Micah 2:1) _ 2. The future restoration (Micah 2:12) Micah 2:1. In the first two verses the special sins of Israel are mentioned, the same as in Amos--idolatry, covetousness and oppression. Therefore punishment is to fall upon them. There would be a doleful lamentation: “We be utterly spoiled: he changeth the portion of my people; how does he take it away from me!” Their fields would be divided. Nor did they listen to the true prophets; they gave ear to the false prophets who flattered them. It is interesting to note that the sentence, “Prophesy ye not, thus they prophesy,” literally translated is, “Do not sputter, thus they sputter.” They did not give out the

SOCIAL INJUSTICE AND ITS PENALTY. The prophet denounces those for whom might is right (Psalms 36:4; and work evil seems a thoughtless scribal addition), who acquire property by illegal or inequitable process (Isaiah 5:8). Against such plans Yahweh declares His own to bring this family (_i.e._ Israel as a whole, Amos 3:1) under the foreign yoke (Jeremiah 27:12). A lament shall be made over Israel, whose land shall be given to the heathen (Micah 2:4, _mg._ 1; but text is doubtful here, and often to end of...

THE LORD. Hebrew. _Jehovah._ App-4. BEHOLD. Figure of speech _Asterismos._ App-6. THIS FAMILY. Compare Amos 3:1. I DEVISE. The contrast to Micah 2:1. EVIL. calamity Hebrew. _ra'a'._ App-44....