Micah 7:17

They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee. THEY SHALL LICK THE DUST LIKE A SERPENT - in abject prostration as suppliants (Psalms 72:9, "His enemies shall lick the dust;" cf. Isaiah 49:23, "They (kings and queens) shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet;" Isaiah 65:25, "Dust shall be the serpent's meat"). THEY SHALL MOVE OUT OF THEIR HOLES - as reptiles from their holes, they shall come forth from their hiding-places, or fortresses, to give themselves up to the conquero...

He afterwards adds, _They shall lick the dust as a serpent _He intimates, that however the enemies of the Church may have proudly exalted themselves before, they shall then be cast down, and lie, as it were, on the ground; for to lick the dust is nothing else but to lie prostrate on the earth. They shall then be low and creeping like serpents; and then, _They shall move themselves as worms and reptiles of the ground _The verb רגז, _regez, _as it has been stated elsewhere, means to raise an uproar, to tumultuate, and it means also to move one’s self; and this latter meaning is the most suitable here, namely, that they shall go forth or move themselves from their enclosures; for the word סגר, _sager, _signifies to close up: and by enclosures he means hiding-places, though in the song of David, in Psalms 18:0 :, the word is applied to cit

14-20 When God is about to deliver his people, he stirs up their friends to pray for them. Apply spiritually the prophet's prayer to Christ, to take care of his church, as the great Shepherd of the sheep, and to go before them, while they are here in this world as in a wood, in this world but not of it. God promises in answer to this prayer, he will do that for them which shall be repeating the miracles of former ages. As their sin brought them into bondage, so God's pardoning their sin brought them out. All who find pardoning mercy, cannot but wonder at that mercy; we have reason to stand amazed, if we know what it is. When the Lord takes away the guilt of sin, that it may not condemn us, he will break the power of sin, that it may not have dominion over us. If left to ourselves, our sins will be too hard for us; but God's grace shall be sufficient to subdue them, so that they shall no...

THEY SHALL LICK THE DUST LIKE A (THE) SERPENT - To lick the dust, by itself, pictures the extreme humility of persons who east themselves down to the very earth (as in Psalms 72:9; Isaiah 49:23). To lick it “like the serpent” seems rather to represent the condition of those who share the serpent’s doom Genesis 3:14; Isaiah 65:25, whose lot, viz. earth and things of earth, they had chosen (Rup.): “They shall move out of their holes”, or, better, shall tremble, (that is, “come tremblingly,”) out of their close places , whether these be strong places or prisons, as the word, varied in one vowel means. If it be strong

EXPOSITION MICAH 7:1 § 5. _Israel's penitential acknowledgment of the general corruption._ MICAH 7:1 WOE IS ME! (Job 10:15). Micah threatens no more; he represents repentant Israel confessing its corruption and lamenting the necessity of punishment. I AM AS WHEN THEY HAVE GATHERED THE SUMMER FRUITS; literally, _I am as the gatherings of the fruit harvest. _The point of comparison is only to be inferred from the context. At the fruit. harvest no early figs are to be found, and (in the next clause) after the vintage no more grapes; so in Israel there is none righteous left. The Septuagint gives a plainer exposition, Ἐγενήθην ω

THEY SHALL LICK THE DUST LIKE A SERPENT,.... Whose food is the dust of the earth, according to the curse pronounced on it, Genesis 3:14; and which is either its, natural food it chooses to live on, as some serpents however are said o to do; or, going upon its belly, it cannot but take in a good deal of the dust of the earth along with its food; and hereby is signified the low, mean, abject, and cursed estate and condition of the seed of the serpent, wicked and ungodly men, the enemies of Christ and his people; who wilt be forced to yield subjection to him and his church, and will pretend the most profound respect for them, and the highest veneration of them. The allusion seems to be to the manner of the eastern nations, who, in complimenting their kings and great men, bowed so low to the ground with their faces, as to take up with their mouths the very dust of it. Particularly it is said...

The prophet begins in a sorrowful strain, and there is much that is said in the chapter, yet there is also much of holy confidence in God. Micah 7:1. _Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the first ripe fruit._ It is a terrible thing for a good man to find good men growing very scarce, and to see wicked men becoming more wicked than ever. It makes him feel his loneliness very keenly, and joy seems to be banished from his heart. Micah 7:2. _The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net._ Those were sad times in which Micah lived; and yet, under some aspe

CHAPTER 7 _ 1. The prophet's complaint (Micah 7:1) _ 2. Confession, prayer and thanksgiving (Micah 7:7) Micah 7:1. It is the prophet's voice complaining over the conditions of the people. But he is also the typical representative of the remnant during the time of travail in Zion. It is to be noted that our Lord quotes from this portion of Micah. (See Matthew 10:21, which dispensationally applies to the future remnant.) In the midst of the conditions the prophet describes we read that his refuge was prayer, looking to the Lord with the assurance that He will hear. “Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of m

ISRAEL'S CONFESSION OF FAITH. This undoubtedly post-exilic utterance of Israel's confidence _in._ Yahweh's delivering intervention falls into three portions, probably once distinct, viz. Micah 7:7 (the time of Messianic deliverance will come); Micah 7:11 (Jerusalem will be repeopled); Micah 7:14 (Yahweh will renew His kindness to Israel). The first and third of these have numerous affinities with the Psalter; the second, by its anticipation of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, dates itself between 586 and 444 B.C. Israel proclaims her confidence in the deliverance ( SALVATION) from her heathen oppressors which is about to come from Yahweh ...

LICK THE DUST. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct), for the utmost humiliation, as in Genesis 3:14. Compare Psalms 72:9; Isaiah 49:23. MOVE. come quaking. HOLES. fastnesses. Hebrew. _misgereth._ WORMS. Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 32:24, the same word). Occurs only in these two places....