Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Micah 1:1 - 1:7
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Ephraim's Destruction Threatened
v. 1. The word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Morasthite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem, the two capitals being named as representative of the respective nations.
v. 2. Hear, all ye people, Cf 1Ki_22:28; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is, Cf Isa_1:2; and let the Lord God be witness against you, in testifying to their transgressions, the Lord from His holy temple, that is, from heaven; Cf Psa_11:4.
v. 3. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place, as one getting ready to execute His vengeance, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, on the mountains, as the places where He has revealed Himself to His people in more than one instance.
v. 4. And the mountains shall be molten under Him, dissolving before His almighty power, and the valleys shall be cleft, cleaving asunder before His majesty, as wax before the fire and as the waters that are poured down a steep place, tearing down the abysses and causing a general dissolution of the entire surface of the earth.
v. 5. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, as a due recompense for the wickedness of the covenant people, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? The sin of idolatry had reached such a climax in Samaria that it was part and parcel of the life of the people. And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? The inhabitants of Jerusalem had also become so guilty of idolatry that its hills were entirely devoted to the worship of idols.
v. 6. Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, as ruins that fall into dust and finally become a part of the soil, and as plantings of a vineyard, that is, places where vineyards may be planted; and I will pour down the stones thereof, those which King Omri had used in building the city, into the valley, and I will discover, lay bare, the foundations thereof, destroying it to the very ground.
v. 7. And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces and all the hires thereof, namely, those of spiritual harlotry, the consecrated offerings placed on the idol altars, shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate, making them a wilderness; for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, by her spiritual adultery, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot, for the rich treasures were taken away by the enemies and devoted to their own idols. The vanity of false worship, also in this respect, seems rarely to strike the consciousness of idolaters.