Micah 2 commentary

MICAH 2 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Human Plans and God’s Plans
1 Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
BAR ES. "The prophet had declared that evil should come down on Samaria and
Jerusalem for their sins. He had pronounced them sinners against God; he now speaks
of their hard unlovingness toward man, as our Blessed Lord in the Gospel speaks of sins
against Himself in His members, as the ground of the condemnation of the wicked. The
time of warning is past. He speaks as in the person of the Judge, declaring the righteous
judgments of God, pronouncing sentence on the hardened, but blessing on those who
follow Christ. The sins thus visited were done with a high hand; first, with forethought:
Woe - All woe, woe from God ; “the woe of temporal captivity; and, unless ye repent,
the woe of eternal damnation, hangeth over you.” Woe to them that devise iniquity. They
devise it , “they are not led into it by others, but invent it out of their own hearts.” They
plot and forecast and fulfill it even in thought, before it comes to act. And work evil upon
their beds. Thoughts and imaginations of evil are works of the soul Psa_58:2. “Upon
their beds” (see Psa_36:4), which ought to be the place of holy thought, and of
communing with their own hearts and with God Psa_4:4. Stillness must be filled with
thought, good or bad; if not with good, then with bad. The chamber, if not the sanctuary
of holy thoughts, is filled with unholy purposes and imaginations. Man’s last and first
thoughts, if not of good, are especially of vanity and evil. The Psalmist says, “Lord, have I
not remembered Thee in my bed, and thought upon Thee when I was waking?” Psa_
63:6. These men thought of sin on their bed, and did it on waking. When the morning is
light, literally in the light of the morning, that is, instantly, shamelessly, not shrinking
from the light of day, not ignorantly, but knowingly, deliberately, in full light. Nor again
through infirmity, but in the wantonness of might, because it is in the power of their
hand , as, of old, God said, “This they begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained
from them which they have imagined to do” Gen_11:6. Rup.: “Impiously mighty, and
mighty in impiety.”
Lap.: See the need of the daily prayer, “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without

sin;” and “Almighty God, who hast brought us to the beginning of this day, defend us in
the same by Thy mighty power, that we may fall into no sin, etc.” The illusions of the
night, if such be permitted, have no power against the prayer of the morning.
CLARKE, "Wo to them that devise iniquity - Who lay schemes and plans for
transgressions; who make it their study to find out new modes of sinning; and make
these things their nocturnal meditations, that, having fixed their plan, they may begin to
execute it as soon as it is light in the morning.
Because it is in the power of their hand - They think they may do whatever they
have power and opportunity to do.
GILL, "Woe to them that devise iniquity,.... Any kind of iniquity; idolatry, or
worshipping of idols, for the word is used sometimes for an idol; or the sin of
uncleanness, on which the thoughts too often dwell in the night season; or coveting of
neighbours' goods, and oppressing the poor; sins which are instanced in Mic_2:2; and
every thing that is vain, foolish, and wicked, and in the issue brings trouble and distress:
now a woe is denounced against such that think on such things, and please themselves
with them in their imaginations, and contrive ways and means to commit them:
and work evil upon their beds; when, the senses being less engaged, the thoughts
are more free; but should not be employed about evil; but either in meditating on the
divine goodness, and praising the Lord for his mercies; or in examining a man's heart,
state, and case, and mourning over his sins, and applying to God for the remission of
them; but, instead of this, the persons here threatened are said to "work evil on their
beds", when they should be asleep and at rest, or engaged in the above things; that is,
they plot and contrive how to accomplish the evil they meditate; they determine upon
doing it, and are as sure of effecting it as if it was actually done; and do act it over in their
own minds, as if it was real; see Psa_36:4;
when the morning is light, they practise it; they wish and wait for the morning
light, and as soon as it appears they rise; and, instead of blessing God for the mercies of
the night, and going about their lawful business, they endeavour to put in practice with
all rigour and diligence, and as expeditiously as they can, what they have projected and
schemed in the night season;
because it is in the power of their hand; to commit it; and they have no principle
of goodness in them, nor fear of God before them, to restrain them from it: or, "because
their hand is unto power" (b); it is stretched out, and made use of in the commission of
sin to the utmost of their power, without any regard to God or man. The Vulgate Latin
version is, "because their hand is against God"; their hearts are enmity to God, and
therefore they oppose him with both their hands, and care not what iniquity they
commit; they are rebels against him, and will not be subject to him. The Septuagint and
Arabic versions are, "because they lift not up their hands to God"; they do not pray to
him, and therefore are bold and daring to perpetrate the grossest iniquity, which a
praying man dared not do; but the Syriac version is the reverse, "they do lift up their
hands to God"; make a show of religion and devotion, when their hearts and their hands
are deeply engaged in, sinning; which shows their impudence and hypocrisy; but the

passages in Gen_31:29 favour and confirm our version, and the sense of it; so the
Targum.
HE RY 1-2, "Here is, I. The injustice of man contriving the evil of sin, Mic_2:1,
Mic_2:2. God was coming forth against this people to destroy them, and here he shows
what was the ground of his controversy with them; it is that which is often mentioned as
a sin that hastens the ruin of nations and families as much as any, the sin of oppression.
Let us see the steps of it. 1. They eagerly desire that which is not their own - that is the
root of bitterness, the root of all evil, Mic_2:2. They covet fields and houses, as Ahab did
Naboth's vineyard. “Oh that such a one's field and house were mine! It lies convenient
for me, and I would manage it better than he does; it is fitter for me than for him.” 2.
They set their wits on work to invent ways of accomplishing their desire (Mic_2:4); they
devise iniquity with a great deal of cursed art and policy; they plot how to do it
effectually, and yet so as not to expose themselves, or bring themselves into danger, or
under reproach, by it. This is called working evil! they are working it in their heads, in
their families, and are as intent upon it, and with as much pleasure, as if they were doing
it, and are as confident of their success (so wisely do they think they have laid the
scheme) as if it were assuredly done. Note, It is bad to do mischief upon a sudden
thought, but much worse to devise it, to do it with design and deliberation; when the
craft and subtlety of the old serpent appear with his poison and venom, it is wickedness
in perfection. They devised it upon their beds, when they should have been asleep; care
to compass a mischievous design held their eyes waking. Upon their beds, where they
should have been remembering God, and meditating upon him, where they should have
been communing with their own hearts and examining them, they were devising
iniquity. It is of great consequence to improve and employ the hours of our retirement
and solitude in a proper manner. 3. They employ their power in executing what they
have designed and contrived; they practise the iniquity they have devised, because it is in
the power of their hand; they find that they can compass it by the help of their wealth,
and the authority and interest they have, and that none dare control them, or call them
to an account for it; and this, they think, will justify them and bear them out in it. Note,
It is the mistake of many to think that as they can do they may do; whereas no power is
given for destruction, but all for edification. 4. They are industrious and very expeditious
in accomplishing the iniquity they have devised; when they have settled the matter in
their thoughts, in their beds, they lose no time, but as soon as the morning is light they
practice it; they are up early in the prosecution of their designs, and what ill their hand
finds to do they do it with all their might, which shames our slothfulness and
dilatoriness in doing good, and should shame us out of them. In the service of God, and
our generation, let it never be said that we left that to be done tomorrow which we could
do today. 5. They stick at nothing to compass their designs; what they covet they take
away, if they can, and, (1.) They care not what wrong they do, though it be ever so gross
and open; they take away men's fields by violence, not only by fraud, and underhand
practices and colour of law, but by force and with a high hand. (2.) They care not to
whom they do wrong nor how far the iniquity extends which they devise: They oppress a
man and his house; they rob and ruin those that have numerous families to maintain,
and are not concerned though they send them and their wives and children a begging.
They oppress a man and his heritage; they take away from men that which they have an
unquestionable title to, having received it from their ancestors, and which they have but
in trust, to transmit it to their posterity; but those oppressors care not how many they
impoverish, so they may but enrich themselves. Note, If covetousness reigns in the
heart, commonly all compassion is banished from it; and if any man love this world, as
the love of the Father, so the love of his neighbour is not in him.

JAMISO , "Mic_2:1-13. Denunciation of the evils prevalent: The people’s
unwillingness to hear the truth: Their expulsion from the land the fitting fruit of their
sin: Yet Judah and Israel are hereafter to be restored.
devise ... work ... practise — They do evil not merely on a sudden impulse, but
with deliberate design. As in the former chapter sins against the first table are reproved,
so in this chapter sins against the second table. A gradation: “devise” is the conception of
the evil purpose; “work” (Psa_58:2), or “fabricate,” the maturing of the scheme;
“practice,” or “effect,” the execution of it.
because it is in the power of their hand — for the phrase see Gen_31:29; Pro_
3:27. Might, not right, is what regulates their conduct. Where they can, they commit
oppression; where they do not, it is because they cannot.
K&D 1-2, "The violent acts of the great men would be punished by God with the
withdrawal of the inheritance of His people, or the loss of Canaan. Mic_2:1. “Woe to
those who devise mischief, and prepare evil upon their beds! In the light of the morning
they carry it out, for their hand is their God. Mic_2:2. They covet fields and plunder;
them, and houses and take them; and oppress the man and his house, the man and his
inheritance.” The woe applies to the great and mighty of the nation, who by acts of
injustice deprive the common people of the inheritance conferred upon them by the
Lord (cf. Isa_5:8). The prophet describes them as those who devise plans by night upon
their beds for robbing the poor, and carry them out as soon as the day dawns. ֶ‫ן‬‫ו‬ፎ ‫ב‬ ַ‫שׁ‬ ָ‫ח‬
denotes the sketching out of plans (see Psa_36:5); and ‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬ ָ , to work evil, the
preparation of the ways and means for carrying out their wicked plans. ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬ ָ , the
preparation, is distinguished from ‫ה‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ָ‫,ע‬ the execution, as in Isa_41:4, for which ‫ר‬ ַ‫צ‬ָ‫י‬ and
‫ה‬ ָ‫שׂ‬ ָ‫ע‬ are also used (e.g., Isa_43:7). “Upon their beds,” i.e., by night, the time of quiet
reflection (Psa_4:5; cf. Job_4:13). “By the light of the morning,” i.e., at daybreak,
without delay. ‫וגו‬ ‫שׁ‬ֵ‫י‬ ‫י‬ ִⅴ, lit., “for their hand is for a god,” i.e., their power passes as a god
to them; they know of no higher power than their own arm; whatever they wish it is in
their power to do (cf. Gen_31:29; Pro_3:27; Hab_1:11; Job_12:6). Ewald and Rückert
weaken the thought by adopting the rendering, “because it stands free in their hand;”
and Hitzig's rendering, “if it stands in their hand,” is decidedly false. Kı cannot be a
conditional particle here, because the thought would thereby be weakened in a manner
quite irreconcilable with the context. In Mic_2:2 the evil which they plan by night, and
carry out by day, is still more precisely defined. By force and injustice they seize upon
the property (fields, houses) of the poor, the possessions which the Lord has given to His
people for their inheritance. Châmad points to the command against coveting (Exo_
20:14-17; cf. Deu_5:18). The second half of the verse (Mic_2:2) contains a conclusion
drawn from the first: “and so they practise violence upon the man and his property.”
Bēth answers to bottım, and nachălâh to the Sâdōth, as their hereditary portion in the land
- the portion of land which each family received when Canaan was divided.
CALVI , "The Prophet does not here speak only against the Israelites, as some

think, who have incorrectly confined this part of his teaching to the ten tribes; but
he, on the contrary, (in discharging his office, addresses also the Jews. He refers not
here to idolatry, as in the last chapter; but inveighs against sins condemned in the
second table. As then the Jews had not only polluted the worship of God, but also
gave loose reins to many iniquities, so that they dealt wrongfully with their
neighbors, and there was among them no attention to justice and equity, so the
prophet inveighs here as we shall see, against avarice, robberies, and cruelty: and
his discourse is full of vehemence; for there was no doubt such licentiousness then
prevailing among the people, that there was need of severe and sharp reproofs. It is
at the same time easy to perceive that his discourse is mainly directed against the
chief men, who exercised authority, and turned it to wrong purposes.
Woe, he says, to those who meditate on iniquity, and devise (78) evil on their beds,
that, when the morning shines, they may execute it Here the Prophet describes to the
life the character and manners of those who were given to gain, and were intent only
on raising themselves. He says, that in their beds they were meditating on iniquity,
and devising wickedness. Doubtless the time of night has been given to men entirely
for rest; but they ought also to use this kindness of God for the purpose of
restraining themselves from what is wicked: for he who refreshes his strength by
nightly rest, ought to think within himself, that it is an unbecoming thing and even
monstrous, that he should in the meantime devise frauds, and guiles, and iniquities.
For why does the Lord intend that we should rest, except that all evil things should
rest also? Hence the Prophet shows here, by implication, that those who are intent
on devising frauds, while they ought to rest, subvert as it were the course of nature;
for they have no regard for that rest, which has been granted to men for this end, —
that they may not trouble and annoy one another.
He afterwards shows how great was their desire to do mischief, When it shines in
the morning, he says, they execute it He might have said only, They do in the
daytime what they contrive in the night: but he says, In the morning; as though he
had said, that they were so heated by avarice, that they rested not a moment; as
soon as it shone, they were immediately ready to perpetrate the frauds they had
thought of in the night. We now then apprehend the import of the Prophet’s
meaning.
He now subjoins, For according to their power is their hand As ‫,אל‬ al, means God,
an old interpreter has given this rendering, Against God is their hand: but this does
not suit the passage. Others have explained it thus, For strength is in their hand:
and almost all those well-skilled in Hebrew agree in this explanation. Those who had
power, they think, are here pointed out by the Prophet, — that as they had strength,
they dared to do whatever they pleased. But the Hebrew phrase is not translated by
them; and I greatly wonder that they have mistaken in a thing so clear: for it is not,
There is power in their hand; but their hand is to power. The same mode of
speaking is found in Proverbs 3:0, and there also many interpreters are wrong; for
Solomon there forbids us to withhold from our neighbor his right, When thine
hand, he says, is for power; some say, When there is power to help the miserable.
But Solomon means no such thing; for he on the contrary means this, When thine

hand is ready to execute any evil, abstain. So also the Lord says in Deuteronomy
28:0,
“When the enemy shall take away thy spoils,
thy hand will not be for power;”
that is, “Thou wilt not dare to move a finger to restrain thy enemies; when they will
plunder thee and rob thee of thy substance, thou wilt stand in dread, for thy hand
will be as though it were dead.” I come now to the present passage, Their hand is for
power: (79) the Prophet means, that they dared to try what they could, and that
therefore their hand was always ready; whenever there was hope of lucre or gains
the hand was immediately prepared. How so? Because they were restrained neither
by the fear of God nor by any regard for justice; but their hand was for power, that
is, what they could, they dared to do. We now then see what the Prophet means as
far as I can judge. He afterwards adds —
COFFMA , "Having in the preceding chapter foretold the approaching doom of
both the northern and southern kingdoms of "the house of Jacob," Micah
announced the crimes of the people, especially of the nobles, for which God had
determined to punish the entire nation (Micah 2:1-2). He particularly identified that
punishment as their removal from the land which they mistakenly believed was
"theirs," not the Lord's (Micah 2:4-5). He then identified and refuted the "false
prophets" whose lies had deceived the people and encouraged them in their
rebellion against God (Micah 2:6-11). He concluded the chapter with a brief but
strong promise of redemption for "a remnant" of the people (Micah 2:12-13).
Micah 2:1
"Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning
is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand."
The meaning of the last clause here is, "Their hand is as a god to them; they make
their own power the highest force they will recognize."[1] "They are not led into
their evil by others, for they themselves conceive the evil purpose in their own
hearts."[2] At bedtime, when men of a righteous disposition mark the hour with
meditation upon God's Word and the offering up of prayers to the Father, the
thoughts of the evil men (Micah 2:1) were directed toward the accomplishment of
some evil purpose.
CO STABLE, "Micah announced that those who lay awake at night plotting evil
that they put into practice the next day would experience woe. Woe announces
punishment coming because of guilt (cf. Isaiah 3:9; Isaiah 3:11; Jeremiah 13:27;
Ezekiel 13:3; Ezekiel 13:18; Hosea 7:13; Amos 5:18; Habakkuk 2:6; Zephaniah 2:5).
The people in view seem to be the rich because they had the ability to carry out their
schemes. In times of affluence and peace, the rich and the poor in society normally
become richer and poorer, and this was true in Israel and Judah in the late eighth

century B.C.
"This expectation of divine help and justice at morning (also in 2 Samuel 15:2; Job
7:18; Psalm 37:6; Psalm 73:14; Psalm 90:14; Psalm 143:8; Jeremiah 21; Jeremiah
12; Hosea 6:3; Hosea 6:5; Zephaniah 3:5) probably had to do in part with the
king"s practice of administering justice in the morning ..." [ ote: Waltke, in The
Minor . . ., p636.]
Verses 1-5
1. Sins of the wealthy2:1-5
Having spoken abstractly about rebellion and sin (cf. Micah 1:5), Micah now
specified the crime of the Israelites that had both social and theological dimensions.
"The oracles against Samaria and Judah in the first chapter speak in general terms
of their rebellion and sin and put the accent on immediate political destruction. This
oracle indicts them for specific crimes and puts the accent on the eternal and
theological punishment." [ ote: Waltke, in Obadiah , . . ., p156.]
"It is in Micah 2:1-5 that the prophet establishes the basis for the national crisis and
the future collapse of the nation. It was not the imperialism of Assyria or the
fortunes of blind destiny that brought the house of Israel to this critical stage. It was
her disobedience to her God. How different is the prophetic view of history from
that of the secular mind!" [ ote: McComiskey, p409.]
Verses 1-11
C. The sins of Judah2:1-11
Micah identified the sins of the people of Judah, all of which violated the Mosaic
Covenant. In view of these transgressions, divine punishment was inevitable and
just.
In chapter1the sins of the people of both orthern and Southern Kingdoms seem to
be in view, but now Micah"s audience, the people of Judah, appear to be the main
subjects of his prophecy, in view of what he said. We should not draw this line too
boldly, however, since the same sins that marked the people of Judah also stained
the citizens of Israel.
TRAPP, " Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when
the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Ver. 1. Woe to them that devise iniquity] Or, labour, affliction, vanity, a lie. The
Hebrew word Aven is of large use; applied to all kinds of sin which causeth pain,
sorrow, and misery; and here in particular to covetousness, that root of all evil to a
man’s self and others, 1 Timothy 6:9-10. Our prophet flings a woe at it, as doth
likewise Habakkuk, Habakkuk 2:9, calling it an evil covetousness, as the prophet
Isaiah tells us, that for the iniquity of his covetousness God was wroth with Israel

and smote him, Isaiah 57:17. The world counts it a light offence; and casts a cloak of
good husbandry over it, 1 Thessalonians 2:5. But this disguise will serve such no
better than that which Ahab once put on and perished. "Let no man deceive you
with vain words" (those plastered words, πλαστοις λογοις, 2 Peter 2:3, used by bell’s
proctors): "for because of these things" (sc. fornication, covetousness, &c., those
peccadillos as they are counted) "cometh the wrath of God upon the children of
disobedience," Ephesians 5:6. For what reason? They devise iniquity, cogitant quasi
coagitant, they plot and plough mischief, being men of wicked devices, Proverbs
14:2, talking again to themselves, as that covetous wretch did, Luke 12:17, beating
their brains about their worldly projects, and resting no more, no, not upon their
beds by night (a time and place appointed for rest, when men should together with
their clothes put off their cares, and compose themselves to sleep, that nurse of
nature, and sweet parenthesis), than one doth upon a rack or bed of thorns.
Thus they work evil upon their beds] They work hard at it, having the devil for
their taskmaster, who shall therefore also be their paymaster. He hath their souls
here as in a sling, 1 Samuel 25:29, violently tossed about and restless; they are his
drudges and dromedaries, driven about by him at his pleasure, 2 Timothy 2:26,
wholly acted and agitated by him, Ephesians 2:2, having as many lords as lusts,
wherewith their hearts are night and day exercised, 2 Peter 2:14, without
intermission. See this in Felix, who at the same instant trembled and coveted a
bribe; in Ahab, who, sick of aboth’s vineyard, laid him down upon his bed, but
rested not, 1 Kings 21:4. His heart did more afflict and vex itself with greedy longing
for that bit of earth than the vast and spacious compass of a kingdom could counter
comfort.
When the morning is light they practise it] And so they lose no time, being up and at
it by peep of day; when others are fast asleep, and so more easily surprised and
circumvented by them. The morning is the most precious part of the day; and
should be employed to better purpose. But "wickedness proceedeth from the
wicked, as saith the proverb of the ancients," 1 Samuel 24:13, and as they like not to
have God in their heads, Psalms 10:4, nor hearts, Psalms 14:1, so neither in their
words, Psalms 12:4, nor ways, Titus 1:16, but the contrary; surely Satan is rightly
called the god of this world; because as God at first did but speak the word and it
was done, so, if the devil do but hold up his finger, give the least hint, they are ready
pressed to practise.
Because it is in the power of their hand] The Vulgate hath it, Because their hand is
against God; and, indeed, the same word El signifieth God and power. The Seventy
render it, Because they have not lifted up their hands to God (an exercise proper
and fit for the morning, Psalms 5:4). The Tigurine, Quia viribus pollent, They have
strength enough to do it. Their hand is to power (so the original hath it), that is,
saith Calvin, quantum possunt, tantum audent, they dare do their utmost, they will
try what they can do; their hand is ever ready to rake and scrape together

commodity; neither can they be hindered either by the fear of God or any respect to
righteousness. ihil cogitant quod non idem patrare ausint. (De Monachis,
Lutherus).
ELLICOTT, "(1) Woe to them that devise.—The prophet proceeds to denounce the
sins for which the country was to receive condign punishment at the hands of God.
There is a gradation in the terms employed: they mark the deliberate character of
the acts: there were no extenuating circumstances. In the night they formed the
plan, they thought it out upon their beds, and carried it out into execution in the
morning. So also the gradually increasing intercourse with the wicked is described,
as reaching its culmination, in the first Psalm: Walking with the ungodly leads to
standing among sinners, and at last sitting habitually in the seat of the scornful.
BE SO , ". Wo to them that devise iniquity — That design and frame mischief;
and work evil upon their beds — Contrive how to work it, and actually execute their
plans when they rise in the morning. Because it is in the power of their hand —
Because they can do it; because there is none that can hinder them. They make their
strength the law of justice; and do whatsoever they have a mind to do, whether right
or wrong, because they have power in their hands. And they covet fields — Set their
minds upon the estates of their meaner neighbours, thinking how convenient they lie
to theirs, as Ahab thought concerning the field of aboth. And take them by
violence — By power wrest the estates out of the hands of the owners of them. And
houses, and take them away — They take both houses and lands. So they oppress a
man and his house — They not only do injustice to a man himself, but to his whole
family also, by taking away his heritage, whereby his family, as well as himself, and
his posterity after him, were to be supported.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY
THE PROPHET OF THE POOR
Micah 2:1-13; Micah 3:1-12
WE have proved Micah’s love for his countryside in the effusion of his heart upon
her villages with a grief for their danger greater than his grief for Jerusalem. ow
in his treatment of the sins which give that danger its fatal significance, he is
inspired by the same partiality for the fields and the folk about him. While Isaiah
chiefly satirizes the fashions of the town and the intrigues of the court, Micah
scourges the avarice of the landowner and the injustice which oppresses the peasant.
He could not, of course, help sharing Isaiah’s indignation for the fatal politics of the
capital, any more than Isaiah could help sharing his sense of the economic dangers
of the provinces; [Isaiah 5:8] but it is the latter with which Micah is most familiar
and on which he spends his wrath. These so engross him, indeed, that he says almost
nothing about the idolatry, or the luxury, or the hideous vice, which, according to
Amos and Hosea, were now corrupting the nation.
Social wrongs are always felt most acutely, not in the town, but in the country. It

was so in the days of Rome, whose earliest social revolts were agrarian. It was so in
the Middle Ages: the fourteenth century saw both the Jacquerie in France and the
Peasants’ Rising in England; Langland, who was equally familiar with town and
country, expends nearly all his sympathy upon the poverty of the latter, "the poure
folk in cotes." It was so after the Reformation, under the new spirit of which the
first social revolt was the Peasants’ War in Germany. It was so at the French
Revolution, which began with the march of the starving peasants into Paris. And it
is so still, for our new era of social legislation has been forced open, not by the poor
of London and the large cities, but by the peasantry of Ireland and the crofters of
the Scottish Highlands. Political discontent and religious heresy take their start
among industrial and manufacturing centers, but the first springs of the social
revolt are nearly always found among the rural populations.
Why the country should begin to feel the acuteness of social wrong before the town
is sufficiently obvious. In the town there are mitigations, and there are escapes. If
the conditions of one trade become oppressive, it is easier to pass to another. The
workers are better educated and better organized; there is a middle class, and the
tyrant dare not bring matters to so high a crisis. The might, of the wealthy, too, is
divided; the poor man’s employer is seldom at the same time his landlord. But in the
country power easily gathers into the hands of the few. The laborer’s opportunities
and means of work, his home, his very standing-ground, are often all of them the
property of one man. In the country the rich have a real power of life and death,
and are less hampered by competition with each other and by the force of public
opinion. One man cannot hold a city in fee, but one man can affect for evil or for
good almost as large a population as a city’s, when it is scattered across a
countryside.
This is precisely the state of wrong which Micah attacks. The social changes of the
eighth century in Israel were peculiarly favorable to its growth. The enormous
increase of money which had been produced by the trade of Uzziah’s reign
threatened to overwhelm the simple economy under which every family had its
croft. As in many another land and period, the social problem was the descent of
wealthy men, land-hungry, upon the rural districts. They made the poor their
debtors, and bought out the peasant proprietors. They absorbed into their power
numbers of homes, and had at their individual disposal the lives and the happiness
of thousands of their fellow-countrymen. Isaiah had cried. "Woe upon them that
join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room" for the common
people, and the inhabitants of the rural districts grow fewer and Isaiah 5:8. Micah
pictures the recklessness of those plutocrats - the fatal ease with which their wealth
enabled them to dispossess the yeomen of Judah.
The prophet speaks:-
"Woe to them that plan mischief, And on their beds work out evil! As soon as
morning breaks they put it into execution, For-it lies to the power of their hands!"
"They covet fields and-seize them, Houses and-lift them up. So they crush a good

man and his home, A man and his heritage."
This is the evil-the ease with which wrong is done in the country! "It lies to the
power of their hands: they covet and seize." And what is it that they get so easily-not
merely field and house, so much land and stone and lime: it is human life, with all
that makes up personal independence, and the security of home and of the family.
That these should be at the mercy of the passion or the caprice of one man-this is
what stirs the prophet’s indignation. We shall presently see how the tyranny of
wealth was aided by the bribed and unjust judges of the country; and how, growing
reckless, the rich betook themselves, as the lords of the feudal system in Europe
continually did, to the basest of assaults upon the persons of peaceful men and
women. But meantime Micah feels that by themselves the economic wrongs explain
and justify the doom impending on the nation. When this doom falls, by the Divine
irony of God it shall take the form of a conquest of the land by the heathen, and the
disposal of these great estates to the foreigner.
"Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold I am planning evil against this race, From
which ye shall not withdraw your necks, or walk upright: For an evil time it is! In
that day shall they raise a taunt-song against you And wail out the wailing ("It is
done"); and say, We be utterly undone: My people’s estate is measured off! How
they take it away from me! To the rebel our fields are allotted. So thou shalt have
none to cast the line by lot In the congregation of Jehovah."
o restoration at time of Jubilee for lauds taken away in this fashion! There will be
no congregation of Jehovah left!
At this point the prophet’s pessimist discourse, that must have galled the rich, is
interrupted by their clamor to him to stop.
The rich speak:-
"Prate not, they prate, let none prate of such things! Revilings will never cease! O
thou that speakest thus to the house of Jacob, Is the spirit of Jehovah cut short? Or
are such His doings? Shall not His words mean well with him that walketh
uprightly?"
So the rich, in their immoral confidence that Jehovah was neither weakened nor
could permit such a disaster to fall on His own people, tell the prophet that his
sentence of doom on the nation, and especially on themselves, is absurd, impossible.
They cry the eternal cry of Respectability: "God can mean no harm to the like of us!
His words are good to them that walk uprightly-and we are conscious of being such.
What you, prophet, have charged us with are nothing but natural transactions."
The Lord Himself has His answer ready. Upright indeed! They have been
unprovoked plunderers!

God speaks:-
"But ye are the foes of My people, Rising against those that are peaceful; The
mantle ye strip from them that walk quietly by, Averse to war! Women of My
people ye tear from their happy homes, From their children ye take My glory
forever. Rise and begone-for this is no resting-place! Because of the uncleanness that
bringeth destruction. Destruction incurable."
Of the outrages on the goods of honest men, and the persons of women and children,
which are possible in a time of peace, when the rich are tyrannous and abetted by
mercenary judges and prophets, we have an illustration analogous to Micah’s in the
complaint of Peace in Langland’s vision of English society in the fourteenth century.
The parallel to our prophet’s words is very striking:-
"And thanne come Pees into parlement and put forth a bille, How Wronge ageines
his wille had his wyf taken. "Both my gees and my grys his gadelynges feccheth; I
dar noughte for fere of hym fyghte ne chyde. He borwed of me bayard he broughte
hym home nevre, e no ferthynge therefore or naughte I couthe plede. He
meynteneth his men to marther myne hewen, Forstalleth my feyres and fighteth in
my chepynge, And breketh up my bernes dore and bereth aweye my whete, And
taketh me but a taile for ten quarters of ores, And yet he bet me ther-to and lythbi
my mayde, I nam noughte hardy for hym "uneth to loke.’"
They pride themselves that all is stable and God is with them. How can such a state
of affairs be stable! They feel at ease, yet injustice can never mean rest. God has
spoken the final sentence, but with a rare sarcasm the prophet adds his comment on
the scene. These rich men had been flattered into their religious security by hireling
prophets, who had opposed himself. As they leave the presence of God, having
heard their sentence, Micah looks after them and muses in quiet prose.
"Yea, if one whose walk is wind and falsehood were to try to cozen "thee, saying, "I
will babble to thee of wine and strong drink, then he might be the prophet of such a
people."
At this point in chapter 2 there have somehow slipped into the text two verses
(Micah 2:12-13), which all are agreed do not belong to it, and for which we must
find another place. They speak of a return from the Exile, and interrupt the
connection between Micah 2:11 and the first verse of chapter 3 (Micah 3:1). With
the latter Micah begins a series of three oracles, which give the substance of his own
prophesying in contrast to that of the false prophets whom he has just been
satirizing. He has told us what they say, and he now begins the first of his own
oracles with the words, "But I said." It is an attack upon the authorities of the
nation, whom the false prophets flatter. Micah speaks very plainly to them. Their
business is to know justice, and yet they love wrong. They flay the people with their
exactions; they cut up the people like meat.

"But I said, Hear now, O chiefs of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel: Is it not
yours to know justice? Haters of good and lovers of evil, Tearing their hide from
upon them."
(he points to the people)
"And their flesh from the bones of them; And who devour the flesh of my people,
And their hide they have stripped from them And their bones have they cleft, And
served it up as if from a pot, Like meat from the thick of the caldron! At that time
shall they cry to Jehovah, And He will not answer them; But hide His face from
them at that time, Because they have aggravated their deeds."
These words of Micah are terribly strong, but there have been many other ages and
civilizations than his own of which they have been no more than true. "They crop
us," said a French peasant of the lords of the great Louis’ time, "as the sheep crops
grass." "They treat us like their food," said another on the eve of the Revolution. Is
there nothing of the same with ourselves?
While Micah spoke he had wasted lives and bent backs before him. His speech is
elliptic till you see his finger pointing at them. Pinched peasant faces peer between
all his words and fill the ellipses. And among the living poor today are there not
starved and bitten faces-bodies with the blood sucked from them, with the Divine
image crushed out of them? Brothers, we cannot explain all of these by vice.
Drunkenness and unthrift do account for much; but how much more is explicable
only by the following facts! Many men among us are able to live in fashionable
streets and keep their families comfortable only by paying their employs a wage
upon which it is impossible for men to be strong or women to be virtuous. Are those
not using these as their food? They tell us that if they are to give higher wages they
must close their business, and cease paying wages at all; and they are right if they
themselves continue to live on the scale they do. As long as many families are
maintained in comfort by the profits of businesses in which some or all of the
employees work for less than they can nourish and repair their bodies upon, the
simple fact is that the one set are feeding upon the other set. It may be inevitable, it
may be the fault of the system and not of the individual, it may be that to break up
the system would mean to make things worse than ever-but all the same the truth is
clear that many families of the middle class, and some of the very wealthiest of the
land, are nourished by the waste of the lives of the poor. ow and again the fact is
acknowledged with as much shamelessness as was shown by any tyrant in the days
of Micah. To a large employer of labor who was complaining that his employees, by
refusing to live at the low scale of Belgian workmen, were driving trade from this
country, the present writer once said: "Would it not meet your wishes if, instead of
your workmen being leveled down, the Belgians were leveled up? This would make
the competition fair between you and the employers in Belgium." His answer was,
"I care not so long as I get my profits." He was a religious man, a liberal giver to his

Church, and he died leaving more than one hundred thousand pounds.
Micah’s tyrants, too, had religion to support them. A number of the hireling
prophets, whom we have seen both Amos and Hosea attack, gave their blessing to
this social system, which crushed the poor, for they shared its profits. They lived
upon the alms of the rich, and flattered according as they were fed. To them Micah
devotes the second oracle of chapter 3, and we find confirmed by his words the
principle we laid down before, that in that age the one great difference between the
false and the true prophet was what it has been in every age since then till now-an
ethical difference; and not a difference of dogma, or tradition, or ecclesiastical note.
The false prophet spoke, consciously or unconsciously, for himself and his living. He
sided with the rich; he shut his eyes to the social condition of the people; he did not
attack the sins of the day. This made him false - robbed him of insight and the
power of prediction. But the true prophet exposed the sins of his people. Ethical
insight and courage, burning indignation of wrong, clear vision of the facts of the
day-this was what Jehovah’s spirit put into him, this was what Micah felt to be
respiration.
"Thus saith Jehovah against the prophets who lead my people astray, Who while
they have aught between their teeth proclaim peace, But against him who will not
lay to their mouths they sanctify war! Wherefore night shall be yours without
vision, And yours shall be darkness without divination; And the sun shall go down
on the prophets, And the day shall darken about them; And the seers shall be put to
the blush, And the diviners be ashamed: All of them shall cover the beard, For there
shall be no answer from God. But I am full of power by the spirit of Jehovah, and
justice and might, To declare to Jacob his transgressions and to Israel his sin."
In the third oracle of this chapter rulers and prophets are combined-how close the
conspiracy between them! It is remarkable that, in harmony with Isaiah, Micah
speaks no word against the king. But evidently Hezekiah had not power to restrain
the nobles and the rich. When this oracle was uttered it was a time of peace, and the
lavish building, which we have seen to be so marked a characteristic of Israel in the
eighth century, was in process. Jerusalem was larger and finer than ever. Ah, it was
a building of God’s own city in blood! Judges, priests, and prophets were all alike
mercenary, and the poor were oppressed for a reward. o walls, however sacred,
could stand on such foundations. Did they say that they built her so grandly, for
Jehovah’s sake? Did they believe her to be inviolate because He was in her? They
should see. Zion-yes, Zion-should be ploughed like a field, and the Mountain of the
Lord’s Temple become desolate.
"Hear now this, O chiefs of the house of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel,
Who spurn justice and twist all that is straight, Building Zion in blood, and
Jerusalem with crime! Her chiefs give judgment for a bribe,"

"And her priests oracles for a reward, And her prophets divine for silver; And on
Jehovah they lean, saying: ‘Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? Evil cannot come at
us.’ Therefore for your sakes shall Zion be ploughed like a field, And Jerusalem
become heaps, And the Mount of the House mounds in a jungle."
It is extremely difficult for us to place ourselves in a state of society in which bribery
is prevalent, and the fingers both of justice and of religion are gilded by their
suitors. But this corruption has always been common in the East. "An Oriental state
can never altogether prevent the abuse by which officials, small and great, enrich
themselves in illicit ways." The strongest government takes the bribery for granted,
and periodically prunes the rank fortunes of its great officials. A weak government
lets them alone. But in either case the poor suffer from unjust taxation and from
laggard or perverted justice. Bribery has always been found, even in the more
primitive and puritan forms of Semitic life. Mr. Doughty has borne testimony with
regard to this among the austere Wahabees of Central Arabia. "When I asked if
there were no handling of bribes at Hayil by those who are nigh the prince’s ear, it
was answered, ‘ ay.’ The Byzantine corruption cannot enter into the eternal and
noble simplicity of this people’s (airy) life, in the poor nomad country; but (we have
seen) the art is not unknown to the subtle-headed Shammar princes, who thereby
help themselves with the neighbor Turkish governments." The bribes of the ruler of
Hayil "are, according to the shifting weather of the world, to great Ottoman
government men; and now on account of Kheybar, he was gilding some of their
crooked fingers in Medina." othing marks the difference of Western government
more than the absence of all this, especially from our courts of justice. Yet the
improvement has only come about within comparatively recent centuries. What a
large space, for instance, does Langland give to the arraigning of "Mede," the
corrupter of all authorities and influences in the society of his day! Let us quote his
words, for again they provide a most exact parallel to Micah’s, and may enable us to
realize a state of life so contrary to our own. It is Conscience who arraigns Mede
before the King:-
"By ihesus with here jeweles youre justices she shendeth, And lith agein the lawe
and letteth hym the gate, That leith may noughte have his forth here floreines go so
thikke, She ledeth the lawe as hire list and lovedays maketh And doth men lese
thorw hire love that law myghte wynne, The mase for a mene man though he mote
hit cure. Law is so lordeliche and loth to make ende, Without presentz or pens she
pleseth wel fewe. For pore men mowe have no powere to pleyne hem though the
smerte; Suche a maistre is Mede amonge men of gode"
PETT, "Verses 1-11
The Sins Which Have Brought Judah’s Calamity On It (Micah 2:1-11).
These prophecies would have been spoken well before the scenes previously
depicted, which from the point of view of this chapter are still in the future. They
are a detailed explanation as to why YHWH will punish His people.

Micah 2:1
Woe to those who devise iniquity
And work evil on their beds!
When the morning is light, they practise it,
Because it is in the power of their hand.’
God’s woe is described on those who spend their time while in bed on working out
ways to grow rich by false means, and then putting it into practise when they get up.
They sin night and day. It is a way of life with them. We are reminded of those of
whom it was said that ‘the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually’
(Genesis 6:5). The night time is a time for planning evil. The day time is a time for
practising it.
PULPIT, "Micah 2:1
The prophet, himself one of the people, first inveighs against the sins of injustice and
oppression of the poor. Devise … work … practise. A gradation. They are not led
into these sins by others; they themselves conceive the evil purpose in their own
heart; then they prepare and mature their scheme by reflection; then they proceed
to execute it. Work evil; i.e. prepare the means for carrying out their conception
(comp Isaiah 41:4). Upon their beds. At night, the natural time for reflection (comp.
Job 4:13; Psalms 4:4; Psalms 36:4). Is light. Far from shrinking from the light of
day in putting into effect their evil projects, they set about their accomplishment as
soon as ever the morning allows them. Because it is in the power of their hand. Their
might makes their right. (For the phrase, comp. Genesis 31:29; Proverbs 3:27.) As
the word el may be taken to mean "God" as well as "power," some render here,
"For their hand is their god," comparing the boast of Mezentius in Virgil, 'AEneid,'
10:773—
"Dextra mihi Deus et telum quod missile libro."
The Vulgate has, Quoniam contra Deum est manus eorum; LXX; διότιοὐκ ἦραν
πρὸς τὸν θεὸν χεῖρας αὐτῶν, Because they lifted not up their hands unto God." So
the Syriac, with the omission of the negative.
BI 1-4, "And they covet fields, and take them by violence
Avarice
Greed is the spring and spirit of all oppression.
Here rapacious avarice is presented in three aspects.
I. Scheming in the night. When avarice takes possession of a man, it works the brain by
night as well as by day. What schemes to swindle, defraud, and plunder men are
fabricated every night upon the pillow!

II. Working in the day. The idea esteemed most is the worldly gain of avaricious labour.
So it ever is; gain is the God of the greedy man. He sacrifices all his time and labour on
its altar. Shakespeare compares such a man to a whale which plays and tumbles, driving
the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful.
III. Suffering in the judgment. For judgment comes at last, and in the judgment these
words give us to understand the punishment will correspond with the sin. “Because they
reflect upon evil,” says Delitzsch, “to deprive their fellow men of their possessions,
Jehovah will bring evil upon this generation, lay a heavy yoke upon their necks, under
which they will not be able to walk loftily or with extended neck.” Ay, the time will come
when the avaricious millionaire will exclaim, “We be utterly spoiled.” “Go to, now, ye
rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you,” etc. (Homilist.)
The wrong which Micah attacks
Micah scourges the avarice of the landowner, and the injustice which oppresses the
peasant. Social wrongs are always felt most acutely, not in the town, but in the country.
It was so in the days of Rome, whose earliest social revolts were agrarian. It was so in the
Middle Ages; the fourteenth century saw both the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants’
rising in England; Langland, who was equally familiar with town and country, expends
nearly all his sympathy upon the poverty of the latter, “the poure folk in cotes.” It was so
after the Reformation, under the new spirit of which the first social revolt was the
Peasants’ war in Germany. It was so at the French Revolution, which began with the
march of the starving peasants into Paris. And it is so still, for our new era of social
legislation has been forced upon us, not by the poor of London and the large cities, but
by the peasantry of Ireland and the crofters of the Scottish Highlands. Political
discontent and religious heresy take their start among industrial and manufacturing
centres, but the first springs of the social revolt are nearly always found among rural
populations. Why the country should begin to feel the acuteness of social wrong before
the town is sufficiently obvious. In the town there are mitigations, and there are escapes.
If the conditions of one trade become oppressive, it is easier to pass to another. The
workers are better educated and better organised; there is a middle class, and the tyrant
dare not bring matters to so high a crisis. The might of the wealthy, too, is divided; the
poor man’s employer is seldom at the same time his landlord. But in the country power
easily gathers into the hands of the few. The labourer’s opportunities and means of work,
his house, his very standing ground are often all the property of one man. In the country
the rich have a real power of life and death, and are less hampered by competition with
each other, and by the force of public opinion. One man cannot hold a city in fee, but one
man can affect for evil or for good almost as large a population as a city’s, when it is
scattered across a country side. This is precisely the state of wrong which Micah attacks.
This is the evil, the ease with which wrong is done in the country. “It lies to the power of
their hands; they covet and seize.” Micah feels that by themselves the economic wrongs
explain and justify the doom impending on the nation. (G. A. Smith, D. D.)

2 They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance.
BAR ES. "And they covet fields and take them by violence - (rend them
away) and houses, and take them away Still, first they sin in heart, then in act. And yet,
with them, to covet and to rob, to desire and to take, are the same. They were prompt,
instantaneous, without a scruple, in violence. So soon as they coveted, they took.
Desired, acquired! Coveted, robbed! “They saw, they coveted, they took,” had been their
past history. They did violence, not to one only, but, touched with no mercy, to whole
families, their little ones also; they oppressed a man and his house. They spoiled pot
goods only, but life, a man and his inheritance; destroying him by false accusations or
violence and seizing upon his inheritance . Thus, Ahab first coveted Naboth’s vineyard,
then, through Jezebel, slew him; and , “they who devoured widow’s houses, did at the
last plot by night against Him of whom they said, Come, let us kill Him, and the
inheritance shall be our’s; and in the morning, they practiced it, leading Him away to
Pilate.” : “Who of us desires not the villas of this world, forgetful of the possessions of
Paradise? You see men join field to field, and fence to fence. Whole places suffice not to
the tiny frame of one man.” : “Such is the fire of concupiscence, raging within, that, as
those seized by burning fevers cannot rest, no bed suffices them, so no houses or fields
content these. Yet no more than seven feet of earth will suffice them soon . Death only
owns, how small the frame of man.”
CLARKE, "They covet fields - These are the rich and mighty in the land; and, like
Ahab, they will take the vineyard or inheritance of any poor Naboth on which they may
fix their covetous eye; so that they take away even the heritage of the poor.
GILL, "And they covet fields, and take them by violence,.... The fields of their
poor neighbours, which lie near them, and convenient for them; they wish they were
theirs, and they contrive ways and means to get them into their possession; and if they
cannot get them by fair means, if they cannot persuade them to sell them, or at their
price, they will either use some crafty method to get them from them, or they will take
them away by force and violence; as Ahab got Naboth's vineyard from him:
and houses, and take them away; they covet the houses of their neighbours also,
and take the same course to get them out of their hands, and add them to their own
estates:

so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage; not only
dispossess him of his house to dwell in, but of his paternal inheritance, what he received
from his ancestors, and should have transmitted to his posterity, being unalienable; and
so distressed a man and his family for the present, and his posterity after him. The
Vulgate Latin version is, "they calumniate a man and his house"; which seems to be
designed to make it agree with the story of Ahab, 1Ki_21:13.
HE RY 1-2, "Here is, I. The injustice of man contriving the evil of sin, Mic_2:1,
Mic_2:2. God was coming forth against this people to destroy them, and here he shows
what was the ground of his controversy with them; it is that which is often mentioned as
a sin that hastens the ruin of nations and families as much as any, the sin of oppression.
Let us see the steps of it. 1. They eagerly desire that which is not their own - that is the
root of bitterness, the root of all evil, Mic_2:2. They covet fields and houses, as Ahab did
Naboth's vineyard. “Oh that such a one's field and house were mine! It lies convenient
for me, and I would manage it better than he does; it is fitter for me than for him.” 2.
They set their wits on work to invent ways of accomplishing their desire (Mic_2:4); they
devise iniquity with a great deal of cursed art and policy; they plot how to do it
effectually, and yet so as not to expose themselves, or bring themselves into danger, or
under reproach, by it. This is called working evil! they are working it in their heads, in
their families, and are as intent upon it, and with as much pleasure, as if they were doing
it, and are as confident of their success (so wisely do they think they have laid the
scheme) as if it were assuredly done. Note, It is bad to do mischief upon a sudden
thought, but much worse to devise it, to do it with design and deliberation; when the
craft and subtlety of the old serpent appear with his poison and venom, it is wickedness
in perfection. They devised it upon their beds, when they should have been asleep; care
to compass a mischievous design held their eyes waking. Upon their beds, where they
should have been remembering God, and meditating upon him, where they should have
been communing with their own hearts and examining them, they were devising
iniquity. It is of great consequence to improve and employ the hours of our retirement
and solitude in a proper manner. 3. They employ their power in executing what they
have designed and contrived; they practise the iniquity they have devised, because it is in
the power of their hand; they find that they can compass it by the help of their wealth,
and the authority and interest they have, and that none dare control them, or call them
to an account for it; and this, they think, will justify them and bear them out in it. Note,
It is the mistake of many to think that as they can do they may do; whereas no power is
given for destruction, but all for edification. 4. They are industrious and very expeditious
in accomplishing the iniquity they have devised; when they have settled the matter in
their thoughts, in their beds, they lose no time, but as soon as the morning is light they
practice it; they are up early in the prosecution of their designs, and what ill their hand
finds to do they do it with all their might, which shames our slothfulness and
dilatoriness in doing good, and should shame us out of them. In the service of God, and
our generation, let it never be said that we left that to be done tomorrow which we could
do today. 5. They stick at nothing to compass their designs; what they covet they take
away, if they can, and, (1.) They care not what wrong they do, though it be ever so gross
and open; they take away men's fields by violence, not only by fraud, and underhand
practices and colour of law, but by force and with a high hand. (2.) They care not to
whom they do wrong nor how far the iniquity extends which they devise: They oppress a
man and his house; they rob and ruin those that have numerous families to maintain,
and are not concerned though they send them and their wives and children a begging.
They oppress a man and his heritage; they take away from men that which they have an

unquestionable title to, having received it from their ancestors, and which they have but
in trust, to transmit it to their posterity; but those oppressors care not how many they
impoverish, so they may but enrich themselves. Note, If covetousness reigns in the
heart, commonly all compassion is banished from it; and if any man love this world, as
the love of the Father, so the love of his neighbour is not in him.
JAMISO , "Parallelism, “Take by violence,” answers to “take away”; “fields” and
“houses,” to “house” and “heritage” (that is, one’s land).
CALVI , "Micah confirms here what is contained in the former verse; for he sets
forth the alacrity with which the avaricious were led to commit plunder; nay, how
unbridled was their cupidity to do evil. As soon as they have coveted any thing, he
says, they take it by force. And hence we gather, that the Prophet, in the last verse,
connected wicked counsels with the attempt of effecting them; as though he had
said, that they indeed carefully contrived their frauds, but that as they were skillful
in their contrivances, so they were not less bold and daring in executing then.
The same thing he now repeats in other words for a further confirmation, As soon
as they have coveted fields, they seize them by force; as soon as they have coveted
houses they take them away; they oppress a man and his house together; (80) that is,
nothing escaped them: for as their wickedness in frauds was great, so their
disposition to attempt whatever they wished was furious. And well would it be were
there no such cruel avarice at this day; but it exists every where, so that we may see,
as in a mirror, an example of what is here said. But it behaves us carefully to
consider how greatly displeasing to God are frauds and plunders, so that each of us
may keep himself from doing any wrong, and be so ruled by a desire of what is
right, that every one of us may act in good faith towards his neighbors, seek nothing
that is unjust, and bridle his own desires: and whenever Satan attempts to allure us,
let what is here taught be to us as a bridle to restrain us. It follows —
And they covet fields and forcibly seize them,
And houses, and they take themaway;
Yea, they oppress the young man and his house,
And the old man and his inheritance.
There must be some distinction between ‫,גבר‬ which I render, “the young man,” and
‫,איש‬ rendered above, “the old man.” The first means, robust, strong; and the second
is a common term for man, but sometimes signifies a husband, and also a man in
years. We may, indeed in harmony with the passage, consider the first as meaning a
householder, and the latter as signifying a husbandman. The fields in the first line
are the same with the inheritance in the last: and houses and a house are mentioned
in the two intervening lines. — Ed.
COFFMA , "Verse 2
"And they covet the fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and
they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage."

"Even a man and his heritage ..." The ancient land-laws of the children of Israel are
the background of this. Upon their entry into Canaan, God had allocated, by the
casting of lots, to each of the tribes of Israel their inheritance; and, in turn, the
various families within the various tribes each received its God-given portion. This
arrangement was sacred; and upon every golden jubilee, all sales, mortgages, and
interim property deals were cancelled; and all of the land reverted to its original
possessors, or their heirs. Such an arrangement, whatever may have been
considered its shortcomings, prevented the building up of a landed nobility, which
in every age and in all countries has resulted in the bitter and heartless oppression
of the poor. In demanding a king, the Israelites took the first step in dismantling
God's system. The ancient jubilees were no longer honored, as commanded in
Leviticus 25:13ff; and the result was the harsh oppression and robbery of the poor,
as depicted in these verses. The kings, of course, were opposed to continuing God's
system, and they frequently engaged in the exploitation of the poor upon their own
behalf, as did Ahab, when he slew aboth in Samaria and took away his inheritance
(1 Kings 21f).
It should be noted that it was a covenant provision of the will of God which was
wantonly violated and repudiated by Israel.
"They covet fields, etc ..." This is a violation of the Decalogue in the specific instance
of Commandment X, in some ways one of the most significant in the whole
Decalogue, because it indicated that, "God regarded sins of thought as well as of
action."[3] The apostle Paul seemed to have regarded this as the most difficult
commandment in the ancient Law (Romans 7:7). With all respect for God's law at a
very low ebb, disastrous conditions soon resulted. McKeating described the
situation in those days thus:
"During the monarchy, whatever the theory of the matter, land did in practice pass
out of the hands of the small landholders. When peasants fell into serious debt, they
often had no option but to sell, and the laws of redemption and jubilee were a dead
letter."[4]
CO STABLE, "The plotting in view involved robbing others of their fields, houses,
and inheritances ( including lands) through deception (cf. 1 Kings 21:3; Isaiah 5:8).
The wealthy not only violated the tenth commandment against coveting what
belongs to a neighbor but also the eighth commandment against stealing ( Exodus
20:15; Exodus 20:17; Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 5:19; Deuteronomy 5:21;
Colossians 3:6-7). Furthermore they broke the second greatest commandment that
said they should love their neighbors as themselves ( Leviticus 19:18; cf. Matthew
22:34-40).
"They practiced the world"s version of the Golden Rule: "Whoever has the gold
makes the rules."" [ ote: Wiersbe, p392.]
TRAPP, "Micah 2:2 And they covet fields, and take [them] by violence; and houses,
and take [them] away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his

heritage.
Ver. 2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence] See here the several
degrees of sin, and what descents covetous men dig to hell, and beware betimes.
Surely as the plot of all diseases lies in the humours of the body, so of all sin in the
lust of the soul. The heathen could say (Laertins),
Pαντων µεν πρωτιστα κακων επιθυµια εστιν.
Covetousness is called the lust of the eyes, 1 John 2:16, because from looking comes
lusting, from lusting acting (hence lusts of the soul are called deeds of the body,
Romans 8:13), yea, acting with violence, they covet and take, they rob and ravish,
Psalms 10:9, there is neither equity nor honesty to be had at their hands; but as they
take away fields, houses, heritages shamelessly; so they bear them away boldly, and
think to escape scot free; because it is facinus maioris abollae (Juvenal), the fact of a
great one, whose hand is to power, as Micah 2:1.
And houses, and take them away] Though a man’s house be his castle, as we say, yet
it cannot secure him from these cormorants. Scribes and Pharisees devoured
widows’ houses, Matthew 23:14, where was a concurrence of covetousness and
cruelty, for these seldom go sundered, besides the putrid hypocrisy of doing this
under a pretence of long prayers. A poor man in his house is like a snail in his shell;
crush that and you kill him.
So they oppress (or defraud) a man and his house] Either by fraud or force, by craft
or cruelty, they ruin a man (a well-set man, virum validum, ‫גבר‬ ) and his family, his
whole progeny; which might not be done to the unreasonable creatures,
Deuteronomy 22:6. This is to be like Uladus, that cruel prince of Valachia; whose
manner was, together with the offender, to execute the whole family; yea, sometimes
the whole kindred.
ELLICOTT, "(2) And they covet fields.—The act of Ahab and Jezebel in coveting
and acquiring aboth’s vineyard by violence and murder was no isolated incident.
The desire to accumulate property in land, in contravention of the Mosaic Law, was
denounced by Micah’s contemporary, Isaiah: “Woe unto them that join house to
house. that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in
the midst of the earth” (Isaiah 5:8).
PETT, "Micah 2:2
‘And they covet fields, and seize them;
And houses, and take them away,
And they oppress a man and his house,

Even a man and his heritage.’
They are mainly the wealthy people. (‘how difficult it is for those who have wealth
to enter under the Kingly Rule of God’ - Luke 18:24). They covet their neighbour’s
fields and find means of seizing them by using underhand methods, political
influence or loopholes in the law. They gain possession of their houses, and
dispossess the inhabitants. They oppress ‘smaller’ men and their families, and try to
take over their heritage. We can compare the same men spoken of by Isaiah in a
similar way, ‘Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there
is no room and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land’ (Isaiah 5:8)
That this was possible given the teaching of the Law about the preservation of a
man’s heritage (all land was to return to its original owner after fifty years and had
to be available for redemption - Leviticus 25:10) just emphasises how far the people
as a whole had strayed from God’s covenant. It had simply been put aside, the hope
being that as long as the ritual was maintained at a certain level God would be
satisfied. What they had overlooked was that it was in fact their practical behaviour
that was of most importance to God. In God’s Law a man’s heritage was sacred.
PULPIT, "Micah 2:2
They carry out by open violence the fraud which they have devised and planned
(comp. Isaiah 5:8; Amos 4:1). Covet fields. Compare the ease of Ahab and aboth (1
Kings 21:1-29.). The commandment against coveting (Exodus 20:17) taught the Jews
that God regarded sins of thought as well as of action. The Law forbade the
alienation of landed property and the transfer of estates from tribe to tribe (Le
25:23-28; umbers 36:7). A rich man might buy a poor man's estate subject to the
law of jubilee; but these grandees seem to have forced the sale of property, or else
seized it by force or fraud. Oppress; Vulgate, calumniabantur. The Hebrew word
involves the idea of violence.
3 Therefore, the Lord says:
“I am planning disaster against this people,
from which you cannot save yourselves.
You will no longer walk proudly,
for it will be a time of calamity.

BAR ES. "Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as
one continuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers of
evil. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought; by day, in act. And
so he speaks of it in the present. They do it. But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was
one unbroken course of acting. And so he also uses the form, in which the Hebrews
spoke of uninterrupted habits, They have coveted, they have robbed, they have taken.
Now came God’s part.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord - Since they oppress whole families, behold I will
set Myself against this whole family ; since they devise iniquity, behold I too, Myself, by
Myself, in My own Person, am devising. Very awful is it, that Almighty God sets His own
Infinite Wisdom against the devices of man and employs it fittingly to punish. “I am
devising no common punishment, but one to bow them down without escape; “an evil
from which” - He turns suddenly to them, “ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall
ye go haughtily.” Ribera: “Pride then was the source of that boundless covetousness,”
since it was pride which was to be bowed down in punishment. The punishment is
proportioned to the sin. They had done all this in pride; they should have the liberty and
self-will wherein they had wantoned, tamed or taken from them. Like animals with a
heavy yoke upon them, they should live in disgraced slavery.
The ten tribes were never able to withdraw their necks from the yoke. From the two
tribes God removed it after the 70 years. But the same sins against the love of God and
man brought on the same punishment. Our Lord again spake the woe against their
covetousness Luk_16:13-14; Luk_11:39; Mat_23:14, Mat_23:23, Mat_23:25; Mar_
12:40. It still shut them out from the service of God, or from receiving Him, their
Redeemer. They still spoiled the goods Heb_10:34 of their brethren. In the last dreadful
siege , “there were insatiable longings for plunder, searching-out of the houses of the
rich; murder of men and insults of women were enacted as sports; they drank down
what they had spoiled, with blood.” And so the prophecy was for the third time fulfilled.
They who withdraw from Christ’s easy yoke of obedience shall not remove from the yoke
of punishment; they who, through pride, will not bow down their necks, but make them
stiff, shall be bent low, that they go not upright or haughtily anymore Isa_2:11. The Lord
alone shall be exalted in that Day. For it is an evil time. Perhaps he gives a more special
meaning to the words of Amos Amo_5:13, that a time of moral evil will be, or will end in,
a time, full of evil, that is, of sorest calamity.
CLARKE, "Against this family (the Israelites) do I devise an evil - You have
devised the evil of plundering the upright; I will devise the evil to you of punishment for
your conduct; you shall have your necks brought under the yoke of servitude. Tiglath-
pileser ruined this kingdom, and transported the people to Assyria, under the reign of
Hezekiah, king of Judah; and Micah lived to see this catastrophe. See on Mic_2:9 (note).

GILL, "Therefore thus saith the Lord, behold, against this family do I devise
an evil,.... Because of those evils of covetousness, oppression, and injustice, secretly
devised, and deliberately committed, the Lord, who neither slumbers nor sleeps,
declares, and would have it observed, that he had devised an evil of punishment against
the whole nation of Israel, the ten tribes particularly, among whom these sins greatly
prevailed; even an invasion of their land by the Assyrians, and the carrying of them
captive from it into foreign parts:
from which ye shall not remove your necks; that is, they should not be able to
deliver themselves from it; they would not be able to stop the enemy in his progress,
having entered their land; nor oblige him to break up the siege of their city, before which
he would sit, and there continue till he had taken it; and being carried captive by him,
they would never be able to free themselves from the yoke of bondage put upon them,
and under which they remain unto this day. The allusion is to beasts slipping their necks
out of the collar or yoke put upon them: these sons of Belial had broke off the yoke of
God's commandments, and now he will, put another yoke upon them, they shall never be
able to cast off until the time of the restitution of all things, when all Israel shall be
saved:
neither shall ye go haughtily; as they now did, in an erect posture, with necks
stretched out, and heads lifted up high, and looking upon others with scorn and
contempt; but hereafter it should be otherwise, their heads would hang down, their
countenances be dejected, and their backs bowed with the burdens upon them:
for this time is evil; very calamitous, afflictive, and distressing; and so not a time for
pride and haughtiness, but for dejection and humiliation; see Eph_5:16.
HE RY 3-5, " The justice of God contriving the evil of punishment for this sin (Mic_
2:3): Therefore thus saith the Lord, the righteous God, that judges between man and
man, and is an avenger on those that do wrong, Behold, against this family do I devise
an evil, that is, against the whole kingdom, the house of Israel, and particularly those
families in it that were cruel and oppressive. They unjustly devise evil against their
brethren, and God will justly devise evil against them. Infinite Wisdom will so contrive
the punishment of their sin that it shall be very sure, and such as cannot be avoided, very
severe, and such as they cannot bear, very signal and remarkable, and such as shall be
universally observed to answer to the sin. The more there appears of a wicked wit in the
sin the more there shall appear of a holy wisdom and fitness in the punishment; for the
Lord will be known by the judgments he executes; he will be owned by them. 1. He finds
them very secure, and confident that they shall in some way or other escape the
judgment, or, though they fall under it, shall soon throw it off and get clear of it, and
therefore he tells them, It is an evil from which they shall not remove their neck. They
were children of Belial, that would not endure the easy yoke of God's righteous
commands, but broke those bonds asunder, and cast away those cords from them; and
therefore God will lay upon them the heavy yoke of his righteous judgments, and they
shall not be able to withdraw their necks from that; those that will not be overruled shall
be overcome. 2. He finds them very proud and stately, and therefore he tells them that
they shall not go haughtily, with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and
mincing as they go (Isa_3:16); for this time is evil, and the events of it are very
humbling and mortifying, and such as will bring down the stoutest spirit. 3. He finds
them very merry and jovial, and therefore tells them their note shall be changed, their
laughter shall be turned into mourning and their joy into heaviness (Mic_2:4): In that

day, when God comes to punish you for your oppression, shall one take up a parable
against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, with a lamentation of
lamentations (so the word is), a most lamentable lamentation, as a song of songs is a
most pleasing song. Their enemies shall insult over them, and make a jest of their griefs,
for they shall take up a parable against them. Their friends shall mourn over them, and
lay to heart their calamities, and this shall be the general cry, “We are utterly spoiled; we
are all undone.” Note, Those that were most haughty and secure in their prosperity are
commonly most dejected and most ready to despair in their adversity. 4. He finds them
very rich in houses and lands, which they have gained by oppression, and therefore tells
them that they shall be stripped of all. (1.) They shall, in their despair, give it all up; they
shall say, We are utterly spoiled; he has changed the portion of my people, so that it is
now no longer theirs, but it is in the possession and occupation of their enemies: How
has he removed it from me! How suddenly, how powerfully! What is unjustly got by us
will not long continue with us; the righteous God will remove it. Turning away from us
in wrath, he has divided our fields, and given them into the hands of strangers. Woe to
those from whom God turns away. The margin reads it, “Instead of restoring, he has
divided our fields; instead of putting us again in the possession of our estates, he has
confirmed those in the possession of them that have taken them from us.” Note, It is just
with God that those who have dealt fraudulently and violently with others should
themselves be dealt fraudulently and violently with. (2.) God shall ratify what they say in
their despair (Mic_2:5); so it shall be: Thou shalt have none to cast a cord by lot in the
congregation of the Lord, none to divide inheritances, because there shall be no
inheritances to divide, no courts to try titles to lands, or determine controversies about
them, or cast lots upon them, as in Joshua's time, for all shall be in the enemies' hand.
This land, which should be taken from them, they had not only an unquestionable title
to, but a very comfortable enjoyment of, for it was in the congregation of the Lord, or
rather the congregation of the Lord was in it; it was God's land; it was a holy land, and
therefore it was the more grievous to them to be turned out of it. Note, Those are to be
considered the sorest calamities which cut us off from the congregation of the Lord, or
cut us short in the enjoyment of the privileges of it.
JAMISO , "against this family — against the nation, and especially against those
reprobated in Mic_2:1, Mic_2:2.
I devise an evil — a happy antithesis between God’s dealings and the Jews’ dealings
(Mic_2:1). Ye “devise evil” against your fellow countrymen; I devise evil against you. Ye
devise it wrongfully, I by righteous retribution in kind.
from which ye shall not remove your necks — as ye have done from the law.
The yoke I shall impose shall be one which ye cannot shake off. They who will not bend
to God’s “easy yoke” (Mat_11:29, Mat_11:30), shall feel His iron yoke.
go haughtily — (Compare Note, see on Jer_6:28). Ye shall not walk as now with
neck haughtily uplifted, for the yoke shall press down your “neck.”
this time is evil — rather, “for that time shall be an evil time,” namely, the time of
the carrying away into captivity (compare Amo_5:13; Eph_5:16).
K&D 3-4, "“Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I devise evil concerning this
family, from which ye shall not withdraw your necks, and not walk loftily, for it is an
evil time. Mic_2:4. In that day will men raise against you a proverb, and lament a
lamentation. It has come to pass, they say; we are waste, laid waste; the inheritance of

my people he exchanges: how does he withdraw it from me! To the rebellious one he
divides our field.” The punishment introduced with lâkhēn (therefore) will correspond to
the sin. Because they reflect upon evil, to deprive their fellow-men of their possessions,
Jehovah will bring evil upon this generation, lay a heavy yoke upon their neck, out of
which they will not be able to necks, and under which they will not be able to walk loftily,
or with extended neck. ‫ּאת‬ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫ח‬ ָ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ ַ‫ה‬ is not this godless family, but the whole of the
existing nation, whose corrupt members are to be exterminated by the judgment (see
Isa_29:20.). The yoke which the Lord will bring upon them is subjugation to the hostile
conqueror of the land and the oppression of exile (see Jer_27:12). Hâlakh rōmâh, to walk
on high, i.e., with the head lifted up, which is a sign of pride and haughtiness. Rōmâh is
different from ‫וּת‬ ִ‫מ‬ ְ‫,קוֹמ‬ an upright attitude, in Lev_27:13. ‫ה‬ ָ‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ ‫ת‬ ֵ‫ע‬ ‫י‬ ִⅴ, as in Amo_5:13, but in
a different sense, is not used of moral depravity, but of the distress which will come upon
Israel through the laying on of the yoke. Then will the opponents raise derisive songs
concerning Israel, and Israel itself will bewail its misery. The verbs yissâ', nâhâh, and
'âmar are used impersonally. Mâshâl is not synonymous with ne
hı, a mournful song
(Ros.), but signifies a figurative saying, a proverb-song, as in Isa_14:4; Hab_2:6. The
subject to ‫א‬ ָ ִ‫י‬ is the opponents of Israel, hence ‫ם‬ ֶ‫יכ‬ ֵ‫ל‬ ֲ‫;ע‬ on the other hand, the subject to
nâhâh and 'âmar is the Israelites themselves, as ‫נוּ‬ ֻ ַ‫שׁ‬ְ‫נ‬ teaches. ‫ה‬ָ‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ִ‫נ‬ is not a feminine
formation from ‫י‬ ִ‫ה‬ְ‫,נ‬ a mournful song, lamentum lamenti, i.e., a mournfully mournful
song, as Rosenmüller, Umbreit, and the earlier commentators suppose; but the niphal of
‫ה‬ָ‫י‬ ָ‫ה‬ (cf. Dan_8:27): actum est! it is all over! - an exclamation of despair (Le de Dieu,
Ewald, etc.); and it is written after 'âmar, because ‫ה‬ָ‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ִ‫נ‬ as an exclamation is equivalent in
meaning to an object. The omission of the copula Vav precludes our taking 'âmar in
connection with what follows (Maurer). The following clauses are a still further
explanation of ‫ה‬ָ‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ִ‫:נ‬ we are quite laid waste. The form ‫נוּ‬ ֻ ַ‫שׁ‬ְ‫נ‬ for ‫וֹנוּ‬ ַ‫שׁ‬ְ‫נ‬ is probably chosen
simply to imitate the tone of lamentation better (Hitzig). The inheritance of my people,
i.e., the land of Canaan, He (Jehovah) changes, i.e., causes it to pass over to another
possessor, namely, to the heathen. The words receive their explanation from the clauses
which follow: How does He cause (sc., the inheritance) to depart from me! Not how does
He cause me to depart. ‫ב‬ ֵ‫שׁוֹב‬ ְ‫ל‬ is not an infinitive, ad reddendum, or restituendum, which
is altogether unsuitable, but nomen verbale, the fallen or rebellious one, like ‫ה‬ ָ‫ב‬ ֵ‫שׁוֹב‬ in
Jer_31:22; Jer_49:4. This is the term applied by mourning Israel to the heathenish foe,
to whom Jehovah apportions the fields of His people. The withdrawal of the land is the
just punishment for the way in which the wicked great men have robbed the people of
their inheritance.
CALVI , "The Prophet shows now that the avaricious were in vain elevated by
their frauds and rapacity, because their hope would be disappointed; for God in
heaven was waiting his time to appear against them. Though they had anxiously
heaped together much wealth, yet God would justly dissipate it altogether. This is
what he now declares.

Behold, he says, thus saith Jehovah, I am meditating evil against this family (81)
There is here a striking contrast between God and the Jews, between their wicked
intentions and the intentions of God, which in themselves were not evil, and yet
would bring evil on them. God, he says, thus speaks, Behold, I am purposing; as
though he said, “While ye are thus busying yourselves on your beds, while ye are
revolving many designs while ye are contriving many artifices, ye think me to be
asleep, ye think that I am all the while meditating nothing; nay, I have my thoughts
too, and those different from yours; for while ye are awake to devise wickedness I
am awake to contrive judgment.” We now then perceive the import of these words:
it is God that declares that he meditates evil, and it is not the Prophet that speaks to
these avaricious and rapacious men; and the evil is that of punishment, inasmuch as
it is the peculiar office of God to repay to all what they deserve, and to render to
each the measure of evil they have brought on others.
Ye shall not, he says, remove your necks from under it. Since hypocrites always
promise to themselves impunity, and lay hold on subterfuges, whenever God
threatens them, the Prophet here affirms, that though they sought every escape, they
would yet be held bound by God’s hand, so that they could not by any means shake
off the burden designed for them. And this was a reward most fully deserved by
those who had withdrawn their necks when God called them to obedience. They
then who refuse to obey God, when he requires from them a voluntary service, will
at length be drawn by force, not to undergo the yoke, but the burden which will
altogether overwhelm them. Whosoever then will not willingly submit to God’s
yoke, must at length undergo the great and dreadful burden prepared for the
unnamable.
Ye will not then be able to withdraw your necks, and ye shall not walk in your
height. He expresses still more clearly what I have referred to, — that they were so
elated with pride, that they despised all threatening and all instruction: and this
presumption became the cause of perverseness; for were it not that a notion of
security deceived men, they would presently bend, when God threatens them. This
then is the reason why the Prophet joins this sentence, ye shall no more walk in your
height; that is, your haughtiness shall then surely be made to succumb; for it will be
a time of evil He means, as I have said, that those who retain a stir and unbending
neck towards God, when he would lay on them his yoke, shall at length be made by
force to yield, however rebellious they may be. How so? For they shall be broken
down, inasmuch as they will not be corrected. The Prophet then adds —
COFFMA , "Verse 3
"Therefore, thus saith Jehovah: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from
which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughtily; for it is an
evil time."
"Thus saith Jehovah ..." After the manner of all the prophets, Micah had begun by
the ascription of his whole message to Jehovah; but he reiterated it again and again,

as did they all. Carlson's paraphrase of this verse is:
"Jehovah will recompense those oppressors according to their doings. He will
prepare a halter (yoke) for their necks. Instead of going about with their heads
haughtily lifted, they will be led into captivity with haltered necks."[5]
Keil also agreed that, "The yoke that the Lord will bring upon them is subjugation
to the hostile conqueror of the land and the oppression of exile."[6]
CO STABLE, "Because they had done these things, Yahweh was plotting to bring
calamity on the family of the Israelites that they would not be able to escape. They
would be locked into it like a yoke holds the neck of an ox. The coming judgment
would be a hard time for them that would humble them.
TRAPP, "Micah 2:3 Therefore thus saith the LORD Behold, against this family do I
devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go
haughtily: for this time [is] evil.
Ver. 3. Behold, against this family do I devise an evil] They had devised iniquity,
Micah 2:1, and now he deviseth their misery. God usually retaliates, and
proportions provocation to provocation, Deuteronomy 32:21, frowardness to
frowardness, Psalms 18:26, contrariety to contrariety, Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus
26:21, and device to device, as here. He loves to pay sinners home in their own coin;
and to make them know, by sad experience, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter
to forsake the Lord and his fear, Jeremiah 2:19. Woe be to that man against whom
the Almighty sets himself to devise an evil; such a one shall find, that thought is not
free (as that pestilent proverb would make it), either from the notice of God’s holy
eye, the censure of his mouth, or the stroke of his hand, see Jeremiah 4:14; Jeremiah
6:19, Revelation 2:23, Deuteronomy 29:19. And this nature itself had some notion of,
as appeareth by his censure who judged that Antiochus did therefore die
loathsomely, because he had but an intent to burn Diana’s temple (Polybius). Fecit
quisque quantum voluit, saith Seneca; and Incesta est, et sine stupro, quae stuprum
cupit, saith the same author. Vain thoughts are very sins, and expose men to
punishment; these shall either excuse or accuse at the last day, Romans 2:15.
Meanwhile, God is devising what to do to them; he is preparing his bow and making
ready his arrows upon the string, even a Tophet of the most tormenting temper will
shortly swallow them up, without true and timely repentance.
From which ye shall not remove your necks] It shall so halter and hamper you, that,
like "fishes taken in an evil net, and as birds caught in a snare, so shall ye be snared
in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon you," Ecclesiastes 9:12, ye shall never
be able either to avoid it or to abide it. But as the bird in a gin, the fish on the hook,
the more it strives the more it sticks ( Sic laqueos fera, dum iactat, astringit. Sen.);
and as the bullock under the yoke, the more he wriggles the more he galls; so shall it
be here. Your fair necks, that would not bear the easy yoke of God’s obedience,
shall be ridden on by the enemy and bound to your two furrows, Hosea 10:10-11;
yea, a yoke of iron shall be put upon thee, until thou be destroyed, Deuteronomy

28:48.
either shall ye go haughtily] Heb. Romah; and hence haply Roma had its surname,
from its height and haughtiness; according to that of the poet (Virg. Aeneid. I),
“ atque altae moenia Romae. ”
The meaning here is, God would deject and darken them, so as that they shall
utterly lose their former renown and splendour. He will thrust them down, as it
were, with a thump on the back, and there hold them. See Ezekiel 21:26-27; the
scene shall be changed, and the haughty abased.
For this time is evil] Both sinfully and penally evil. The apostle seemeth to allude to
this text when he saith, "Redeem the time, because the days are evil"; and
"Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof" ( κακια, i.e. κακωσις), that is, the misery of
it, saith Christ, Matthew 6:34. And again, Those very days shall be affliction, θλιψις
(so the Greek text hath it), Mark 13:19, as if the time were turned into affliction;
because of that evil, that only evil, without mixture of mercy, Ezekiel 7:5, here
foretold, and therefore foretold that it might have been prevented, ideo minatur
Deus ut non puniat.
BE SO , "Micah 2:3. Therefore, behold, against this family do I devise evil — As
they devise mischief against others, so will I devise an evil against them, as a due
punishment for their sin. As they have unjustly deprived others of their
inheritances, so a conquering enemy shall dispossess them and carry them into
captivity. The word family is equivalent to people, as appears from Jeremiah 1:15.
From which ye shall not remove your necks — They laid snares for others, where
open force would not suffice, so that the poor could not get out of their hands, but
were empoverished and enslaved; and God here threatens that he will deal thus with
them by the Assyrians, from whose power they should not be able to defend
themselves or to escape. either shall ye go haughtily — You have made others hang
down their heads, and so shall you now; for this time is evil — You have made it an
evil time for sins committed against me, and against the poor and innocent: and I
will make it an evil time for calamities and miseries on the whole family of Jacob.
ISBET, "GOD’S MESSAGE I EVIL TIMES
‘Thus saith the Lord.’
Micah 2:3
I. If the former chapter deals with sins against the first table of the law, this deals
with those against the second.—Men are depicted devising evil to their neighbours,
coveting their goods, and oppressing their persons. Therefore God would devise evil
against them. And as they would not have His yoke of mercy, they should bear that
of heavy judgment. So absolute was to be the devastation of the land, that the
inheritance should no longer descend from father to son, or be measured out by lot;
and so inveterate would be the people’s revolt from God, that they would no longer

bear to hear the words of the true prophet.
II. Jehovah protests that it is not His desire that such things should obtain.—They
were not His doings. He wanted to do only good to them that walked uprightly. But
the people had so absolutely forfeited all claim upon Him. They had deprived the
helpless of the robes that they wore next their skin; they had taken advantage of
widows and orphans in their distress; and therefore the sentence had gone forth for
them to arise and depart, to go into captivity, since Canaan could no longer be their
resting-place. Drunken men were offered the sinful people as their prophets, since
they rejected the true.
III. Yet God would restore His people.—He would break a way for them through
the gates of the walled cities in which they were imprisoned, and lead them back to
their own land. Our Breaker is the Lord Jesus, Who broke a way for us from the
prison-house of death, and we have but to follow Him Who passes on before us—the
Lord at our head.
PETT, "Micah 2:3
‘Therefore thus says YHWH,
Behold, against this family do I devise an evil,
From which you shall not remove your necks,
either shall you walk haughtily,
For it is an evil time.’
YHWH now warns them that because of their behaviour He will devise a
catastrophe against them (either the family of Jacob or the ‘family’ of rich men) that
they will not be able to avoid. It will be like a heavy yoke from which they will be
unable to remove their necks, nor will they be able to walk with their nose in the air,
because it will be a catastrophic time.
It is a reminder to us that if we do not obey His word, and if we neglect the needy,
then God will allow circumstances to overtake us to our detriment as well.
PULPIT, "Micah 2:3
The sin shall be followed by its appropriate punishment. As they devised evil, God
will devise a penalty. This family. The whole people (Amos 3:1). An evil. A
chastisement, a judgment (Amos 3:6). Ye. The prophet suddenly addresses them, the
"family." Your necks. He speaks of the calamity as a heavy, galling yoke, from
which they should be unable to free themselves (comp. Hosea 10:11). This yoke is
their conquest and exile at the hands of foreigners (comp. Jeremiah 27:12).
Haughtily. With head erect. Septuagint, ὀρθοί. Their pride shall be brought low.

This time is evil; full of calamity, which is announced in the following verses. The
words occur in Amos 5:13, but the evil there spoken of is moral (comp. Ephesians
5:16).
4 In that day people will ridicule you;
they will taunt you with this mournful song:
‘We are utterly ruined;
my people’s possession is divided up.
He takes it from me!
He assigns our fields to traitors.’”
BAR ES. "In that day shall one take up a parable against you - The mashal
or likeness may, in itself, be any speech in which one thing is likened to another:
1) “figured speech,”
2) “proverb,” and, since such proverbs were often sharp sayings against others,
3) “taunting figurative speech.”
But of the person himself it is always said, he “is made, becomes a proverb” Deu_
28:37; 1Ki_9:7; 2Ch_7:20; Psa_44:15; Psa_69:12; Jer_24:9; Eze_14:8. To take up or
utter such a speech against one, is, elsewhere, followed by the speech itself; “Thou shalt
take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, ...” Isa_14:4. “Shall not all
these take up a parable against him, and say, ...” Hab_2:6. Although then the name of
the Jews has passed into a proverb of reproach (Jerome, loc. cit.), this is not contained
here. The parable here must be the same as the doleful lamentation, or dirge, which
follows. No mockery is more cutting or fiendish, than to repeat in jest words by which
one bemoans himself. The dirge which Israel should use of themselves in sorrow, the
enemy shall take up in derision, as Satan does doubtless the self-condemnation of the
damned. Ribera: “Men do any evil, undergo any peril, to avoid shame. God brings before
us that deepest and eternal shame,” the shame and everlasting contempt, in presence of
Himself and angels and devils and the good Psa_52:6-7; Isa_66:24, that we may avoid
shame by avoiding evil.
And lament with a doleful lamentation - The words in Hebrew are varied
inflections of a word imitating the sounds of woe. It is the voice of woe in all languages,

Micah 2 commentary

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Micah 2 commentary