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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Micah 1:8 - 1:8
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The judgment will not stop at Samaria, however, but spread over Judah. The prophet depicts this by saying that he will go about mourning as a prisoner, to set forth the misery that will come upon Judah (Mic 1:8, Mic 1:9); and then, to confirm this, he announces to a series of cities the fate awaiting them, or rather awaiting the kingdom, by a continued play upon words founded upon their names (Mic 1:10-15); and finally he summons Zion to deep mourning (Mic 1:16). Mic 1:8. “Therefore will I lament and howl, I will go spoiled and naked: I will keep lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches. Mic 1:9. For her stripes are malignant; for it comes to Judah, reaches to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.” עַל־זֹאת points back to what precedes, and is then explained in Mic 1:9. The prophet will lament over the destruction of Samaria, because the judgment which has befallen this city will come upon Judah also. Micah does not speak in his own name here as a patriot (Hitzig), but in the name of his nation, with which he identifies himself as being a member thereof. This is indisputably evident from the expression אֵילְכָה שֵׁילָל וְעָרוֹם, which describes the costume of a prisoner, not that of a mourner. The form אילכה with י appears to have been simply suggested by אֵילִילָה. שֵׁילָל is formed like הֵידָד in Isa 16:9-10, and other similar words (see Olshausen, Gramm. p. 342). The Masoretes have substituted שֹׁלָל, after Job 12:17, but without the slightest reason. It does not mean “barefooted,” ἀνυπόδετος (lxx), for which there was already יָחֵף in the language (2Sa 15:30; Isa 20:2-3; Jer 2:25), but plundered, spoiled. עָרוֹם, naked, i.e., without upper garment (see my comm. on 1Sa 19:24), not merely vestitu solido et decente privatus. Mourners do indeed go barefooted (yâchēph, see 2Sa 15:30), and in deep mourning in a hairy garment (saq, 2Sa 3:31; Gen 37:34, etc.), but not plundered and naked. The assertion, however, that a man was called ̀ârōm when he had put on a mourning garment (saq, sackcloth) in the place of his upper garment, derives no support from Isa 20:2, but rather a refutation. For there the prophet does not go about ‛ârōm veyâchēph, i.e., in the dress of a prisoner, to symbolize the captivity of Egypt, till after he has loosened the hairy garment (saq) from his loins, i.e., taken it off. And here also the plundering of the prophet and his walking naked are to be understood in the same way. Micah's intention is not only to exhibit publicly his mourning fore the approaching calamity of Judah, but also to set forth in a symbolical form the fate that awaits the Judaeans. And he can only do this by including himself in the nation, and exhibiting the fate of the nation in his own person. Wailing like jackals and ostriches is a loud, strong, mournful cry, those animals being distinguished by a mournful wail; see the comm. on Job 30:29, which passage may possibly have floated before the prophet's mind. Thus shall Judah wail, because the stroke which falls upon Samaria is a malignant, i.e., incurable (the suffix attached to מַכּוֹתֶיהָ refers to Shōmerōn, Samaria, in Mic 1:6 and Mic 1:7. For the singular of the predicate before a subject in the plural, see Ewald, §295, a, and 317, a). It reaches to Judah, yea, to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, as the capital, is called the “gate of my people,” because in it par excellence the people went out and in. That עַד is not exclusive here, but inclusive, embracing the terminus ad quem, is evident from the parallel “even to Judah;” for if it only reached to the border of Judah, it would not have been able to come to Jerusalem; and still more clearly so from the description in Mic 1:10. The fact that Jerusalem is not mentioned till after Judah is to be interpreted rhetorically, and not geographically. Even the capital, where the temple of Jehovah stood, would not be spared.