Jeremiah 26:19

Did Hezekiah … put him at all to death? [The words of Micah had been to the full as harsh-sounding as any that had been uttered by Jeremiah. Jeremiah was attacked for predicting the fall of the Temple and city; but Micah had said the same thing and no action was taken against him. The precedent supplied by the case of the former prophet therefore, the elders argue, is in favour of him who is now attacked. The passage is important as shewing that the reforms of Hezekiah were far from being attributable to the influence of Isaiah alone.

intreat the favour lit. smooth the face, i.e. remove the frown (of an offended deity), appease; an anthropomorphism. Cp. Zechariah 7:2; Zechariah 8:21 f.; Malachi 1:9.

the Lord repented The LXX here, as in Jeremiah 26:3; Jeremiah 26:13, render ceased, from dislike to any expression savouring to their minds of anthropomorphism. But the word serves at any rate to remind us that "all prophecy is conditional. The prophets declare the great principles of God's moral government, and apply them to individual cases. But, if the moral conditions of the cases to which these principles are applied be altered, the threatening or the promise is postponed, modified, or recalled." C.B. (Cheyne) on Micah, l.c. In the present case the destruction here described was never altogether fulfilled. Co. points out the special interest that attaches to the above episode, as indicating what a deep impression the utterances of a prophet made upon the people, even after the lapse of a century.