Micah 7:5

Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. TRUST YE NOT IN A FRIEND - faith is kept nowhere: all to a man are treacherous (Jeremiah 9:2). When justice is perverted by the great, faith nowhere is safe. So, in Gospel times of persecution, "a man's foes (are) they of his own household" (Matthew 10:35; Luke 12:53). PUT YE NOT CONFIDENCE IN A GUIDE - a counseler (Calvin) able to help and advise (cf. Psalms 118:8, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It i...

The Prophet pursues the subject we discussed yesterday, — that liberty, in iniquity, bad arrived to its highest point, for no faithfulness remained among men; nay, there was no more any humanity; for the son performed not his duty towards his father, nor the daughter-in-law towards her mother-in-law; in short, there was then no mutual love and concord. He does not here speak of that false confidence, by which many deceive themselves, who rely on mortals, and transfer to them the glory which belongs to God. Those therefore without any reason, philosophize here, who say, that we ought not to trust in men; for this was not the design of the Prophet. But our Prophet complains of his times according to the tenor of Ovid’s description of the iron age, who says - _“ _—A guest is not safe from his host; Nor a brother-in-law from a son-in-law; and brotherly love is rare: A husband seeks the dea...

1-7 The prophet bemoans himself that he lived among a people ripening apace for ruin, in which many good persons would suffer. Men had no comfort, no satisfaction in their own families or in their nearest relations. Contempt and violation of domestic duties are a sad symptom of universal corruption. Those are never likely to come to good who are undutiful to their parents. The prophet saw no safety or comfort but in looking to the Lord, and waiting on God his salvation. When under trials, we should look continually to our Divine Redeemer, that we may have strength and grace to trust in him, and to be examples to those around us....

Verse Micah 7:5. _TRUST YE NOT IN A FRIEND_] These times will be so evil, and the people so wicked, that all _bonds_ will be _dissolved_; and even the most intimate will betray each other, when they can hope to serve themselves by it. On this passage, in the year 1798, I find I have written as follows: - "_Trust ye not in a friend_. - Several of those whom I have delighted to call by that name have deceived me. "_Put ye not confidence in a guide_. - Had I followed some of these I should have gone to perdition. "_Keep the door of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom_. - My wife alone never deceived me." It is now _twenty-seven_ years since, and I find no cause to alter what I then wrote....

TRUST YE NOT IN A FRIEND - It is part of the perplexity of crooked ways, that all relationships are put out of joint. Selfishness rends each from the other, and disjoints the whole frame of society. Passions and sin break every band of friendship, kindred, gratitude, nature. “Everyone ‘seeketh his own’.” Times of trial and of outward harass increase this; so that God’s visitations are seasons of the most frightful recklessness as to everything but sell: So had God foretold Deuteronomy 28:53; so it was in the siege of Samaria 2 Kings 6:28, and in that of Jerusalem both by the Chaldeans Lamentations 4:3 and by the Romans . When the soul has lost the love of God, all other is but

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

TRUST YE NOT IN A FRIEND,.... This is not said to lessen the value of friendship; or to discourage the cultivation of it with agreeable persons; or to dissuade from a confidence in a real friend; or in the least to weaken it, and damp the pleasure of true friendship, which is one of the great blessings of life; but to set forth the sad degeneracy of the then present age, that men, who pretended to be friends, were so universally false and faithless, that there was no dependence to be had on them: PUT YE NOT CONFIDENCE IN A GUIDE; in political matters, in civil affairs, as civil magistrates, judges, counsellors; or in domestic matters. The Targum renders it, in one near akin. Kimchi interprets it of an elder brother; and Aben Ezra of a husband, who is to his wife the guide of her youth; and in religious matters as prophets, priests who were false and deceitful. It may design a very intim...

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

TRUST (_ See Scofield) - (Psalms 2:12). _...

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