Micah 1:3-9

CRITICAL NOTES.

Micah 1:3. Tread upon the proud and idolatrous (high places) people, as Ruler over all the earth.

Micah 1:4.] Imagery from storms and earthquakes, to describe the terrors of God’s judgments (Psalms 18:8). The similes, “like wax.” (as in Psalms 68:3), and “like water,” are intended to express the complete dissolution of mountains and valleys. “The actual facts answering to this description are the destructive influences exerted upon nature by great national judgments” [Keil].

Micah 1:5. Trans.] as the cause of this judgment. Samaria and Jerusalem, the capitals of Israel and Judah, are the centres and source of corruption which has filled the kingdoms.

Micah 1:6. Heap] Samaria, judged first, will be destroyed—not a trace of the city will be left—and become like a heap of stones gathered from the field. Pour] Dash down the stones of the city into the valley beneath. “The stones of the temples and palaces of Samaria have been carefully removed from the rich soil, thrown together in heaps, built up in the rude walls of terraces, and rolled down into the valley below” [Porter’s Handbook].

Micah 1:7.] Her treasures were gathered from the hire of a harlot, and to the hire of a harlot must they return. Literal prostitution was practised in Babylon and Syria, and the hire was dedicated to the support of the priesthood, and idolatrous worship.

Micah 1:8.] The Prophet first laments himself, that he may touch others. Stripped] i.e. of shoes or sandals. Naked] i.e. without upper garment (1 Samuel 19:24). This representation accords with Isaiah 20:2, and symbolizes what would befall the people. Dragons] Jackals or wolves (Job 30:29), whose howlings are at night most lamentable. Ostrich] Remarkable for its peculiar shrieks in pain.

Micah 1:9. Wounds] Lit. the strokes inflicted upon her. Public calamities are often compared to diseases (Isaiah 1:6). Gate] “Because in it, par excellence, the people went out and in.” Even the capital would not be spared.

HOMILETICS

THE AWFUL JUDGMENT.—Micah 1:3

To quicken attention to his message, the Prophet declares God’s purpose to humble the most eminent and manifest his justice to all.

I. The seat of judgment. “The Lord cometh forth out of his place.” If the place means either the temple or heaven itself, the procedure is not ordinary. God quits the temple, and turns the mercy-seat into a throne of judgment. He has not retired from the government of the world, but rends the heavens and comes down in awful justice to sinful nations. His daily providence affords no rule to guide us when he “comes out of his place.” He manifests himself in surprising wrath (Isaiah 26:21), and performs “terrible things which we looked not for.”

II. The circumstances of judgment. “The mountains shall be molten under him,” &c. This may be figurative language, but it conveys a real truth. Nature trembles, and its stability dissolves at God’s presence. The hills melt like wax before the fire, the mountains pour down like floods into the valley. The earth in its lowest depths feels the indignation of a righteous God. Nature often realizes the destructive power of Divine judgments. History proves that all her forces are yoked to accomplish God’s purposes. The hardest will melt, the strongest cannot resist; “for, behold, the Lord will come with fire, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.”

III. The cause of judgment. “For the transgressions of Jacob, is all this.” Jerusalem, the centre of holiness, and the residence of Jehovah, was the seat of idols, and the fountain of uncleanness (2 Chronicles 28:24). The unity, the claims, and the being of God were denied in the worship of Baal (Ezekiel 16:31; 2 Chronicles 28:24). Samaria, the rival capital, was the seat of injustice, and the corrupter of the country. The sins of these places were obstinate and aggravating. Sin is the cause of all ruin, material and moral. Multiplied sins (transgressions) will bring severe strokes. External rites and outward profession will not secure “the house of Israel.” Wealth and population cannot defend Samaria. All have provoked God to anger, and must feel his severity. Those who take no warning and feel no shame, ought to learn that shame and warning are a desert and a presage to ruin. “They are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”

IV. The effects of judgment. “The order of the sin was the order of the punishment,” says one.

1. High places would be overturned. God will “tread upon the high places of the earth.” Men of eminence, scenes of idolatry, and military fortifications; everything set in opposition to him would be trampled down and levelled in the dust. The lofty and the proud, the mighty and the secure, will be cast down. Those who trust in the height of the mountain or in the fertility of the valley, the munitions of rocks or the abundance of wealth, will be disappointed. There is no security against Divine judgment but in Christ Jesus.

2. Idolatry would be derdolished. The idols themselves would be stripped by the foe and destroyed. All graven images would be beaten to pieces. Gross superstitions and refined idolatry are spiritual adultery, and provoke God to jealousy. The hire and support of idolatry would be taken away. Micah adopts the language of Hosea (Hosea 2:5; Hosea 9:1; Hosea 10:6). The wealth or rewards received for worshipping idols, the gifts and votive offerings laid upon the altars, would enrich another nation. They had been gathered as the hire of a harlot, “and they shall return to the hire of a harlot.” Riches gained without God will be scattered away. Cursed in their origin, cursed in their end. “Ill got, ill spent.” “Whatever material prosperity is gained by ignoring or dethroning God is the hire, the price of the soul, and shall be burned out with fire.” Men shall be put to shame that abuse their gifts, and their sinful gain shall turn to everlasting loss.

3. The city would be destroyed. Samaria, the crown of pride (Isaiah 28:1), was to be reduced to its original meanness, the site of vine-plantings. Its gorgeous palaces and noble temples would be destroyed. The stones would be rolled down the hills, and gathered into heaps as monuments of ruin. The foundations would be laid bare, and not one stone left upon another. The destruction would be complete; fragments of human habitations, emblems of man’s labour and luxury, should lie amid the beauty and fertility of nature. Traces of sin and punishment are written in commercial ruin, national disgrace, and natural scenery. Whatever we build without God, church systems or family fortunes, and cement by strongest sins, will be hurled down with the storm; great will be their fall and eternal their ruins. “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

THE INCURABLE WOUND.—Micah 1:8

The strokes inflicted by God are most severe. The wound is incurable. Morally and politically, individually and generally, the case is desperate. Hence the Prophet is moved to bitter sorrow.

I. The moral disease of men is incurable. Obstinacy in sin will bring Divine judgments, and no hand can cure the wounds that God inflicts but his own.

1. It is a deadly disease. “Her wound is incurable,” lit. she is grievously sick of her wounds. The centre, the vital parts of the kingdom, are tainted, the capital is corrupted.

2. It is a universal disease. The calamity begins with Samaria and comes to Jerusalem, the seat of justice and of religion.

3. It is a hopeless disease. The Prophet saw no remedy in the present state of things. This is a sad picture of the condition of the sinner. He is not simply in distress, but morally diseased and morally incurable. “There are anodynes that may deaden their pains, and death will relieve them of their torture,” says a writer; “but a morally incurable soul is destined to pass into anguish, intense and more intense as existence runs on, and peradventure without end.” “Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous.”

II. This morally incurable wound should create intense sorrow. The Prophet vents his grief in all ways of expressing grief. He goes stripped, “half-naked,” as we say, without garments of beauty, despoiled, plundered by an enemy. He wails like the pitiable cry of a jackal in the night, or an ostrich bereaved of her young. He mourns with increasing feeling for the chastisement, and as an example to his people. We should lament not only the sufferings of saints but the punishments of sinners. Ministers themselves must be affected with the message they deliver to others. To win souls they must be men of sympathy. The impending ruin of the ungodly must move them to tears before God. “I will grieve from the heart over those who perish,” said one. “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?” “Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed?”

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1

Micah 1:3. Earth. Inanimate nature knows its Creator, and worships him in its own fashion. “States and kingdoms which stand out upon the world like mountains are utterly dissolved when he decrees their end. Systems as ancient and firmly-rooted as the hills pass away when he does but look upon them” [Spurgeon].

“Macbeth is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments” [Shakespeare].

Micah 1:5. Transgression. God’s justice on offenders goes not always in the same path, nor the same pace; and he is not pardoned for the fault who is for a while reprieved from the punishment [Fuller].

Micah 1:6. Heap. Travellers speak of the site of Samaria as strewed with masses of ruins; of its rich soil now cultivated in terraces; and of the stones that are collected together into heaps. The whole face of this part of the hill suggests the idea that the buildings of the ancient city had been thrown down from the brow of the hill. Ascending to the top, we went round the whole summit, and found marks of the same process everywhere [Narrative of Scottish Mission].

Micah 1:7. Broken. Its idols in whom she trusts, so far from protecting her, shall themselves go into captivity, broken up for the gold and silver whereof they were made. The wars of the Assyrians being religious wars, the idolatry of Assyria destroyed the idolatry and idols of Israel [Pusey].

Micah 1:9. Incurable. Moral disorganization can never be remedied by intellectual culture. Social reforms may alter circumstances, but the gospel only can remove the evils of society.

“Pause not; for the present time’s so sick
That present medicine must be ministered,
Or overthrow incurable ensues” [Shakespeare].