Commentaires bibliques

“Therefore wilt thou have none to cast a measure for the lot in the congregation of Jehovah.” With lâkhēn (therefore) the threat, commenced with lâkhēn in Micah 2:3, is resumed and applied to individual sinners. The whole nation is not addressed in לך , still less the prophet, as Hitzig supposes, but every individual among the tyrannical great men (Micah 2:1, Micah 2:2). The singular is used instead of the plural, to make the address more impressive, that no one may imagine that he is excepted from the threatened judgment. For a similar transition from the plural to the singular, see Micah 3:10. The expression, to cast the measure b e gōrâl , i.e., in the nature of a lot (equivalent to for a lot, or as a lot), may be explained on the ground that the land was divided to the Israelites by lot, and then the portion that fell to each tribe was divided among the different families by measure. The words are not to be taken, however, as referring purely to the future, as Caspari supposes, i.e., to the time when the promised land would be divided afresh among the people on their return. For even if the prophet does proclaim in Micah 2:12, Micah 2:13 the reassembling of Israel and its restoration to its hereditary land, this thought cannot be arbitrarily taken for granted here. We therefore regard the words as containing a general threat, that the ungodly will henceforth receive no further part in the inheritance of the Lord, but that they are to be separated from the congregation of Jehovah.

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