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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Micah 6:9 - 6:16
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A Threat of Punishment
v. 9. The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, in announcing His judgment, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name, literally, "Thy name beholds wisdom," that is, it is a matter of true wisdom to fear the name of Jehovah, or, His attention is directed to the true wisdom of life:. hear ye the rod, perceiving the scourge which the Lord threatens, which He has prepared for His apostate people, and who hath appointed it, for the Assyrian hosts were even then getting their war material ready.
v. 10. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked? namely, such as had been gained by wickedness, by oppression and cheating, and the scant measure that is abominable? literally, "and the ephah of leanness, the accursed," for many of the rich had made their money by short-weighing the people.
v. 11. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, when they were daily cheating in trade and business, and with the bag of deceitful weights? with which the scales were made incorrect.
v. 12. For the rich men thereof are full of violence, of criminal wickedness and oppression, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, in willful perversion of the truth, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth, being so full of deceit that it could no longer practice anything but deception.
v. 13. Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, by inflicting a mortal blow, in making thee desolate because of thy sins, the devastation striking the entire country.
v. 14. Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied, on account of the shortage of food following the invasion of the enemy; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee, literally, "and thy emptiness remaineth in thy bowels"; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver, trying to flee with family and goods, but unable to save them; and that which thou deliverest, managing to save it when the enemy attacked, will I give up to the sword. Cf Jer_50:37; Jer_42:16.
v. 15. Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap, the enemy either destroying or robbing the crop; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil, since the enemy would plunder the stores; and sweet wine, the must as pressed from the grapes, but shalt not drink wine, the finished product.
v. 16. For the statutes of Omri, who founded a wicked dynasty of rulers of the northern kingdom, 1Ki_16:25, are kept and all the works of the house of Ahab, the worship of Baal which had then been established, and ye walk in their counsels, in agreement with the idolatry and the abomination introduced by these wicked kings, that, as an actual result of this idolatrous behavior, I should make thee a desolation, an object of astonishment and horror, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing, to be jeered at on every side. Therefore ye shall bear the reproach of My people, the disgrace which is ordinarily heaped upon the people of God if it is delivered into the hands of its enemies. The greater the grace and mercy of the Lord which was upon them, the greater would be their punishment for having rejected His mercy. If people have a form of godliness, but deny its power, then this outward semblance is all the more liable to bring the Lord's reproach upon such hypocrites.