Micah 6:9-16

Commercial Dishonesty and its Punishment. This rather corrupt passage is quite distinct from Micah 6:1. It may have been written by Micah, and forms a parallel to his denunciation of agrarian dishonesty in Micah 2:1 ff. But it might equally well belong, e.g. to the time of Malachi 3:5 (c. 450) in respect of the sins which are denounced and the threat of their punishment. Let Jerusalem listen to Yahweh, who asks concerning the wealth of the wicked, and the dishonest means by which it has been acquired (Deuteronomy 25:14; Proverbs 20:10; Amos 8:5). He will punish these sins by the sufferings of famine (Leviticus 26:26; Deuteronomy 28:38 ff.), and by plunder and slaughter at the hands of an enemy. The foe shall intervene between the sowing and the harvest, between the pressing out of the oil from the olives (Thomson, op. cit., p. 207) and its personal use (Ruth 3:3), between the treading of the grapes (Isaiah 16:10; Isaiah 63:2) and the joy of drinking the wine. These are the consequences of such unjust conduct as that of Ahab towards Naboth; the result is the desolation of the city and the scorn of the peoples (LXX for my people).

Micah 6:9. hear ye the rod yields no good sense; read with Wellhausen and others, after LXX and Targum, Hear, O tribe, and the assembly of the city. wisdom will see thy name also yields no sense, and is probably a gloss; the LXX suggests that its original was Wisdom is it to fear thy name.

Micah 6:10. abominable means accursed (cf. Deuteronomy 25:16). Omit yet, as a corrupt fragment of the emended clause in Micah 6:9, and read Can I forget for Are there. The ephah was a dry measure of about a bushel.

Micah 6:11. VSS read Shall he (i.e. anyone) be pure.

Micah 6:13. The perfects are prophetic; read, perhaps, I will begin to smite, with LXX.

Micah 6:14. humiliation and the mg. are guesses for the unknown Hebrew word, which LXX renders it will be dark.

Micah 6:16. statutes means customs (cf. Jeremiah 10:3, mg.); the historical reference is apparently to 1 Kings 21, as typical of the Omri dynasty, rather than to the offences against Yahwistic religion condemned in 1 Kings 16:25; 1 Kings 16:30 f.