Bibelkommentare

Verse 1. - The inscription, or heading of the book, conveying the prophet's authority. The word of the Lord. The expression applies to the whole contents of the book, as in Hosea 1:1 and Zephaniah 1:1. It is often used for some particular message to a prophet, as Jeremiah 1:4, 11; Jeremiah 2:1; Ezekiel 3:16. Micah the Morasthite; i.e. Micah of Moresheth-Gath (ver. 14), a village in the lowland of Judaea, near Eleutheropolis, some twenty miles southwest of Jerusalem (see Introduction, § II.). In the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Thus Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah, though his ministry did not begin as soon or last as long as that prophet's (see Isaiah 1:1); he was a little later than Hosea and Amos, who prophesied under Uzziah, the father of Jotham. Kings of Judah are mentioned because the prophet's mission was to Judah, as the line of election; but, like Amos, he prophesied against Samaria also. However divided, the two nations are regarded as one people. Which he saw. What he saw in vision or by inward illumination he here relates in words. Thus the prophecies of Isaiah, Obadiah, Nahum, etc., are called "visions." Concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Samaria comes first, as being ripe for punishment, and the first to feel the avenger. The capitals of the two kingdoms Israel and Judah stand for the people themselves.

Verses 2-4. - § 1. Introduction to the prophet's address. The nations and earth itself are summoned to attend the solemn announcement. Verse 2. - Hear, all ye people; rather, all ye peoples; Septuagint, λαοί. All nations are summoned to come and witness the judgment, and to profit by the warning. So Micaiah, son of Imlah, the bold denouncer of false prophets in the age of Ahah, had cried, "Hear, ye peoples, all of you" (1 Kings 22:28). So Moses, in his song (Deuteronomy 32:1), calls on heaven and earth to listen to his words (comp. Isaiah 1:2). These expressions are not mere rhetorical figures; they have a special application. Whatever happens to Israel has a bearing on the development of the kingdom of God; the judgments on the chosen people are not only a warning to the heathen, but bring on the great consummation. All that therein is; literally, the fulness thereof; Vulgate, plentitudo ejus; Septuagint, πάντες οἱ ἐν αὐτῇ, "all ye that are therein" (Psalm 24:1). Let the Lord God (the Lord Jehovah) be witness against you. Let God by his judgments against you, viz. Israel and Judah, confirm my denunciation (comp. Deuteronomy 29:24). From his holy temple; i.e. from heaven, as ver. 3 shows (1 Kings 8:30; Psalm 11:4; Habakkuk 2:20).

Verse 3. - Here follows a grand description, in figurative language, of the course of Divine judgment, and of God's awful majesty and resistless power. Out of his place. It is as though the sins of Israel had roused him to action. God is hidden except when he displays his power in judgment and mercy (see note on Zechariah 14:3). Will come down. An anthropomorphic expression, as Genesis 18:21. The high places. As though descending from heaven, God first came upon the tops of the mountains (see note on Amos 4:13; comp. Deuteronomy 32:13). The phrase would imply God's absolute sovereignty over the universe.

Verse 4. - The description of God's advent to judgment is founded on the idea of a terrible storm and earthquake, perhaps accompanied with volcanic eruption, though evidence of such eruptions in the historical period is not forthcoming. The description recalls the awful revelation at Sinai (Exodus 19.). Shall be molten; either by the lightning or the showers of rain that descend from heaven. The mountains, the type of stability and strength, fall away at the presence of the Judge. Septuagint, σαλευθήσεται, "shall be shaken;" Vulgate, consumentur (Judges 5:4, 5; Psalm 18:7, etc.; Psalms 68:8; 97:4, 5; Amos 9:5). Be cleft; Septuagint, τακήσονται, "shall melt." The valleys shall be hollowed out into channels by the force of the water, which falls in torrents. As wax (Psalm 68:2; Psalm 97:5). This belongs to the first clause, "the mountains," etc. As waters. This belongs to the second clause. The cloven plains shall melt away as waters disappear down a precipice. The idea that underlies this description is that the inanimate creation shares in the effects of the judgment on man, and is used as an instrument in his punishment.

Verses 5-7. - § 2. Judgment is denounced on Israel for its sin. Verse 5. - The prophet shows the cause of this punishment. Transgression; better, apostasy, which the people's trangression really was. Jacob. Here the ten tribes and Judah - the whole of the covenant people. In the latter part of the verse the term includes only the ten tribes, called often Israel or Ephraim. All this. The manifestation of God's power and wrath described in vers. 3 and 4. The house of Israel. The ten tribes. Is it not Samaria? She is naught but sin. He names the capitals of the two kingdoms as the source and centre of the idolatry and wickedness which pervaded the whole country. Samaria was built by Omri, a king who "wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him;" and in it his son Ahab erected a temple to Baal (1 Kings 16:32), and it became the chief seat of idolatry in the land. What are the high places? The prophet seems to say that Jerusalem is no longer the Lord's sanctuary, but a collection of unauthorized or idolatrous shrines. These were buildings or altars erected in conspicuous spots, contrary to the enactments of the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 12:11-14), and used more or less for idolatrous worship. With a strange perversity, the Jews mixed the pure service of Jehovah with the rites of heathen deities. Even the best kings of Judah were unable wholly to suppress these local sanctuaries (see 2 Kings 12:3; 2 Kings 14:4, etc.). They were found even in Jerusalem itself (Jeremiah 32:35), especially in the time of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:4). The parallelism of this clause with the preceding being thought defective ("high places" being not parallel with "apostasy"), the Septuagint reads, ἡ ἁμαρτία, "the sin," followed by the Syriac and the Targum. One Hebrew manuscript confirms the reading; but it is probably unauthorized, and has been ignorantly introduced The prophet defines the sins of Samaria and Jerusalem. The sin of the former is apostasy; that of the latter, unauthorized worship. Instead of "what" in both places the Hebrew gives "who," implying that there is a personal cause, the two capitals being personified. Hezekiah's partial reformation had not taken place when this was uttered.

Verse 6. - I will make. This prophecy, therefore, was delivered before the destruction of Samaria in the fourth year of Hezekiah. As an heap of the field; or, into a heap of the field, like a heap of stones gathered off a cultivated field (comp. Isaiah 5:2.) Septuagint, ἰς ὀπωροφυλάκιον ἀγροῦ, "the hut of a fruit watcher." As plantings of a vineyard; into the plantings, etc.; i.e. into mere terraces for vines. Such shall be the utter ruin of the city, that on its site vines shall be planted. The prophet here uses a description of complete destruction which is a regular formula in Assyrian inscriptions, where we read of cities being made into "a rubbish heap and a field." The expression occurs, e.g., in a monument of Tiglath-Pileser (see Schrader, 'Keilinschr.,' p. 449). I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley. Samaria stood on a hilly platform (1 Kings 16:24), with a sheer descent on every side, and when it was overthrown its stones were hurled into the valley surrounding it, as may be seen to this day. "When we looked down," says Tristram ('Land of Israel,' p. 136), "at the gaunt columns rising out of the little terraced fields, and the vines clambering up the sides of the hill once covered by the palaces of proud Samaria, who could help recalling the prophecy of Micah? Not more literally have the denunciations on Tyre or on Babylon been accomplished. What though Sebaste rose, under Herod, to a pitch of greater splendour than even old Samaria, the effort was in vain, and the curse has been fully accomplished. In the whole range of prophetic history, I know of no fulfilment more startling to the eyewitness in its accuracy than this." Will discover; will lay bare (Psalm 137:7; Ezekiel 13:14).

Verse 7. - Graven images. The stone idols (Isaiah 10:10). Septuagint, τὰ γλυπτά. The hires thereof. The word properly means, "the wages of prostitution." Idolatry is viewed as spiritual fornication, and the offerings made to the idol temples are reckoned to be harlot gifts. Hosea speaks in the same way (Hosea 2:5, 8, 12; Hosea 9:1; comp. Isaiah 23:17; Ezekiel 16:31). There may be allusion to the shameful practices consecrated with the name of religion, the proceeds of which went to the support of idolatry (see Baruch 6:43; Herod., 1:199; Strabo, 16:1). Idols; more costly images, made probably of or plated with precious metals. For she gathered it; rather, them, the images and idols, from the offerings made by idolaters, spiritual fornicators, hence called the hire of an harlot. They shall return to the hire of an harlot. The treasures obtained by idolatry shall go to another idolatrous people, viz. the Assyrians; the dedicated offerings in the temples at Samaria shall be carried off to Nineveh to adorn the temples there (comp. Daniel 1:2; Daniel 5:3; Ezra 1:7). The sentence seems to be a kind of proverbial saying, like the Latin, Male parta, male dilabuntur. Sehegg compares the German, Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen, and Unrect Gut that sein Gut. The judgment on Samaria was executed by the Assyrians. Three times in his short reign of less than six years did Shalmaneser IV. invade Israel. Shortly after his accession, having reason to suspect the fidelity of Hoshea, he "came up against him" (2 Kings 17:3), and so overawed him by the exhibition of his superior power that the King of Israel submitted without a struggle, "became his servants and gave him presents," or rendered him tribute. But Hoshea's allegiance was not yet secured. Encouraged by the enterprise and success of the Ethiopian monarch So, or Shebek, who had defeated and slain the Egyptian king, and established himself firmly on the throne of Upper Egypt, Hoshea, in reliance on Egyptian aid, again threw off the yoke of Assyria, and refused the customary tribute. His punishment was speedy and sharp. Shalmaneser had no difficulty in making himself master of his person, "shut him up and bound him in prison." On a fresh act of rebellion, of what nature we are not informed, Shalmaneser made his third attack. This time he was everywhere resisted, and ended by laying siege to Samaria itself. Before this city his forces were detained for more than two years; nor was it till B.C. 722, when apparently his own reign had come to an end, that Samaria was taken, his successor Sargon claiming the conquest as appertaining to his first year (Rawlinson, 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2. ch. 9.).

Verses 8, 9. - 3. Micah mourns because the punishment extends to Judah also. Verse 8. - I will wail. The prophet marks the destruction of Samaria with these outward signs of mourning, in order that he might affect the minds of his own countrymen, and show how he grieved over their sins which should bring like punishment. The word rendered "wail" means "to beat" the breast. Septuagint, κόψεται: Vulgate, plangam. Stripped and naked. The former epithet the LXX. translate ἀνυπόδετος, as if it meant "barefoot;" and they refer the verse to Samaria, not to Micah. The two epithets contain one notion; the prophet assumes the character, not merely of a mourner, who put off his usual garments, but that of a captive who was stripped to the skin and carried away naked and despoiled (comp. Isaiah 20:2-4; Isaiah 47:2, 8). Dragons; Septuagint, δρακόντων: Hebrew, tannim, "jackals" (Job 30:29; Malachi 1:3), whose mournful howling is well known to all travellers in the East. Owls; Septuagint, θυγατέρων σειρήνων, "daughters of sirens;" Vulgate, struthionum. The bird is called in Hebrew bath yaanah, which some explain "daughter of the desert," or else refer to roots meaning either "to cry out" or "to be freed." Doubtless the ostrich is meant. Concerning the fearful screech of this bird, Pusey quotes Shaw, 'Travels,' 2:349, "During the lonesome part of the night they often make a doleful and piteous noise. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies."