//. / - LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. Presented by "TheWidov^ of GreorqeUud'^ri , % Division .ZB.S^^^t* Section.A±r?..jLl VP v_y Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/bookofmicah147klei , COMMENT AKY ON THE HOLY SCRIPTURES: CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HOMILETICAL. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINISTERS AND STUDENT8 BT JOHN PETEK " 1 ANGE, D. D., ORDINARY PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OP BONN, or cwvnurioK WITH a number of eminent European divotm TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. NEW YORK, IB OOHWKCTION WITH AMERICA* SCHOLARS OF VARIOC8 KVANOELICAL DENOMINATIONS. 70>,RME XIV. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: CONTAINING THE MINOR PROPHETS NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 189U THE MINOR PROPHETS EXEGETICALLY, THEOLOGICALLY. AND HOMILETTCALLY EXPOUNDED PAUL KLEINERT, OTTO SCHMOLLER, GEORGE R. BLISS, TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, CHARLES ELLICTT. JOHN FORSYTH, J. FREDERICK Mc CURDY, AND JOSEPH PACKARD. EDITED BY PHILIP SOHAFF, D. D. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1699 Altered according to Act of Congress, in the vear 1874, *Y Scribner, Armstrong, and Compant, IB tile Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, Trow's Printing and Bookbinding Company, 205-213 East \2tk St., NEW YORK. PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR The volume on the Minor Prophets is partly in advance of the German original, which has not yet reached the three post-exilian Prophets. The commentaries on the nin« earlier Prophets by Professors Kleinert and Schmoller appeared in separate number* some time ago a ; but for Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, Dr. Lange has not, to this date, been able to secure a suitable co-laborer. 2 With his cordial approval I deem it better to complete the volume by original commentaries than indefinitely to postpone the publication. They were prepared by sound and able scholars, in conformity with the plan of the whole work. The volume accordingly contains the following parts, eaeh one being paged separately : — 1. A General Introduction to the Prophets, especially the Minor Prophets, by Rev. Charles Elliott, D. D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis in Chicago, Illinois. The general introductions of Kleinert and Schmoller are too brief and incomplete for our purpose, and therefore I requested Dr. Elliott to prepare an independent essay on the subject. 2. Hosea. By Rev. Dr. Otto Schmoller. Translated from the German and en- larged by James Frederick McCurdy, M. A., of Princeton. N. J. 8. Joel. By Otto Schmoller. Translated and enlarged by Rev. John Forsyth, D. D., LL. D., Chaplain and Professor of Ethics and Law in the United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. 4. Amos. By Otto Schmoller. Translated and enlarged by Rev. Talbot W Chambers, D. D., Pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church, New York. 5. Obadiah. By Rev. Paul Kleinert, Professor of Old Testament Theology in the University of Berlin. Translated and enlarged by Rev. George R. Bliss, D. D., Professor in the University of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. 6. Jonah. By Prof. Paul Kleinert, of the University of Berlin. Translated and en- larged by Rev. Charles Elliott, Professor of Biblical Exegesis in Chicago.' 7. Micah. By Prof. Paul Kleinert, of Berlin, and Prof. George R. Bliss, of Lewie- burg. 8. Nahum. By Prof. Paul Kleinert, of Berlin, and Prof. Charles Elliott, of Chicago. 9. Habakkuk. By Professors Kleinert and Elliott. 1 Obadjah, Jonah, Micha, Nahum, Habakuk, Zephanjah. Wissenshqftlieh und/Ur den Gebraueh der Kirch* ausgeUgt von PAUL Kaeinbbt, Pfarrer zu St. Gertraud und a. Professor an der Universit'dt zu Berlin. Bielefeld a. Leipzig, 1868. — Dit Propheten Hosea, Joel und Amos. Theologiseh-homUetisch bearbeitet von Otto Sohmollib, Lietnt. der Theologie, Diaeonus in Uraeh. Bielef. und Leipzig, 1872. 3 The commentary of Rev. W. Prebskl on these three Prophets (Die nachtxilisehen Propheten, Go tha, 1870) was originally prepared for Lange's Bible-work, bat was rejected by Dr. Lange mainly on account of Pressel's views on tin* genuineness and integrity of Zechariah. It was, however, independently published, and was made use of, like other commentaries, by the authors of the respective sections in this volume. S Dr. Elliott desires to render his acknowledgments to the Rev. Reuben Dederiok, of Chicago, and the Rev. Jacob Lotke, of Faribault, Minnesota, for valuable assistance in translating some difficult passages in Kleinertfa Commentaries •n Jonah, Nahum, and Habakkuk. PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. 10. Zephaniah. By Professors Kleinert and Elliott. 11. Haggai. By James Frederick McCurdy, M. A., Princeton, N. J. 12. Zechariah By R#v. Talbot W. Chambers, D. D., New York. (See special preface.) 13. Malachi. By Rev. Joseph Packard, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia. The contributors to this volume were directed carefully to consult the entire ancient and modern literature on the Minor Prophets and to enrich it with the latest results of German and Anglo-American scholarship. The remaining parts of the Old Testament are all under way, and will be published ai fast as the nature of the work will permit. PHILIP SCHAFF. Otnoti Thsoiookuj Skwfa'w, New Yobs. . ixuary, 1874. THE BOOK OF MICAH. EXPOUNDED ■T PAUL ^KLEDsTERT, PAfTOft AX ST. GERTRAUD, AND PROFESSOR Of OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY W UNIVERSITY 07 BERLIN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADDITION* BT GEORGE R. BLISS, D.D., P107ES30R IN THE UNIVERSITY AT LEWISBURG, PEN*. tfEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Ifctand according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874» by Scribnkr, Armstrong, and Compant, hi &• Office af the Libraritn of Congress, at Waahingtam. MICAH. INTRODUCTION. 1. Historical Situation and Date. Like Isaiah, Micah also belongs to the great critical period in the latter half of the eighth century before Christ. At that time, the Assyrian kingdom, just prior to its fall, recovered its power, under Salmanassar, and with irresistible might carried the profound commotions of God's judgments, predicted by Amos, chapters i. and ii., over the peoples of Western Asia, and even to Africa. His activity, also, like Isaiah's, belongs to the kingdom of Judah, and numerous coincidences show the close proximity, in time and character, of these two- mightiest of the prophets (compare esp. Mic. ii. 11 ; iii. 5 ff'., 12; iv. 1 if. ; v. 2 ff. with Is. xxviii. 7 ; xxix. 9 ff. ; xxxii. 13 ff. ; ii. 2 ff. ; vii. 14 ; ix. 15). Yet the historical horizon of his prophecies is narrower than that of Isaiah. Concerning this we have an express state- ment in Jer. xxvi. 18. It is there argued by certain elders of Judah, that Jeremiah should not be held blameworthy for the hard prophecies which the Spirit impelled him to utter, but be left unharmed, and receive honor rather, on the ground that the good king Hezekiah did not punish Micah's sharp threatenings against Judah, but received them with fear and humil- iation before God. In proof of this the passage in ch. iii. 12 of our book is cited. Now, since there is nothing to prove that the discourses which are collected in our book were com- posed at different times, since rather chaps. 1-5 in particular form a beautiful and consistent whole, we are obliged to fix the date of the book under Hezekiah, 727-698. This determi- nation of the time is supported by the fact that just in those chapters (i.-iii.) in which it has been supposed there were indications of a period earlier than Hezekiah, the coincidences with Isaiah relate, without exception, to discourses of his delivered under Hezekiah. Still more definitely can the period be ascertained from intimations given by our book it- self. ~For,Jirst, idolatry, which had become triumphantly prevalent under Hezekiah's pred- ecessors, particularly Ahaz (2 K. xvi. ; 2 Chr. xxviii.), appears here throughout as still un- broken in Judah (v. 11 ff . ; i. 5 ; vi. 16). But Hezekiah, not long after the destruction of the northern kingdom by Salmanassar (Sargon), and in connection with the great Passover, by which lie sought to attach the remaining inhabitants of that kingdom to Judah (2 Chr. xxxvi. 6), extirpated idolatry. Not less clearly, in the second place, is the early portion of his reign pointed to by the circumstance that in Mieah we find a corruption of the higher classes especially, and of the official dignitaries, such as in the time of Ahaz, and even in the first years of Hezekiah, exercised the scourge of Isaiah (v. 7 ; xxviii. 14), but such as can- not have existed long under the strict and pious rule of the latter king. We may add, thirdly, that all reference to the calamity from Sennacherib is still wanting, and that the prophet rather takes his stand, in the first chapter, clearly before the destruction of Samaria. We must accordingly place the time of the composition between 727 and 723 B. c. We must draw our knowledge of the character of this period from our author, whose lively rebukes and chastisement of the rampant sins and follies of the age, taken together with the corresponding features of Isaiah's picture and with statements of the historical books, give a tolerably complete portrait of the time. The internal corruption of the nation, which under Jotham was still gilded with a super- ficial splendor (2 Chr. xxviii.), had under Ahaz, through the participation in criminality of this morally unripe monarch (Is. iii. 12, cf. ch. vii.), everywhere broken out. Ahaz is de- scribed as one of the most flagitious kings ever belonging to the house of David. He intro- duced the Baal-worship, sacrificed his children to Moloch, sanctioned by his own acts the worship of the high places, which had hitherto been barely tolerated, made arbitrary channel 4 MICAH. in the Temple after patterns which he had seen at Damascus, and finally closed the doors of the sanctuary altogether (2 K. xvi. ; 2 Chr. xxvii.). What wonder if the example from above was efficacious in poisoning the morals of the people? It was the privileged classes, in particular, who, as soon as they felt the hand over them relax, began to turn to advantage the opportunities afforded them. Covetousness and luxury were the sins most in vogue, and Jsaiah v. 8 ff. gives us a melancholy evidence that nothing was holy to the wauton uobility, not the paternal field of the poor, not sacred justice itself, to prevent them from stealing the field and perverting justice, that they might bring tribute to their own lust. This condition of tilings Hezekiah found at his elevation to the throne, and although his will was good from the very first (2 Chr. xxix. 3), and the bulk of the people showed themselves not unfavor- able to his zeal for restoring the old worship and the old piety (2 Chr. xxix. 28), it was still all the more difficult to restrain those inveterate sins of the ruling classes. The tendency of the people also was more toward an outward churchliness than toward inward religion. Isaiah and Micah zealously supported the efforts of the king to effect a reformation of those faults among the people which must have abounded especially in the first years of the reign (when our book was composed). To the bitter complaints of Isaiah, and the lively sketches which he threw out concerning the practices of the great (xxxii. 5, 6), the details drawn out in Micah ch. iii. correspond. The patriciar,s as magistrates know the right, but abuse it to fill their purses and enlarge their lands (iii. 1 ; ii. 1 f. 9 ; vi. 10 f.), and thus become rather flayers than guardians of the people (iii. 3 ff.). Strong in their combinations with each other, they have organized a for- mal system of public law-breaking (vii. 3 ; iii. 10). The priests, who should cover the rights of the poor with the protection of God's law, are covetous, and judge for hire (iii. 11). With special energy of indignation, however, both prophets contended against the true source of the prevailing sin, namely, the prophetic class, whose members, according to their vocation and office, should be the organs of divine rev- elation, but who have degraded themselves into cheap sycophants toward the great. They stand at the head of the libertines, and speak what the ears of the latter itch for, so that it is no wonder if the rebukes of the true prophets seem to the wanton scorners of the Most High to be unintelligible drivel (ii. 6), which despising they either seek to refute with com- monplaces (ii. 7), or, in the lust of revelry, deride with brutal stupidity (Is. xxviii. 8 ff.). Yet the prophets sit with them (iii. 5), feast with them, and wrest the consecrated language of the Spirit learnt in the schools of the prophets, to draw from it lulling lies of peace and of good days to come (ii. 11 ff. ; iii. 5) ; nay, they do not shrink even from the use of heathenish arts forbidden in the law (iii. 7). Thus public life has by degrees, even in Jerusalem, reached that state on account of which Samaria was brought into one calamity after another, and finally into the last (vi. 10). The better part of the people is prepared to fulfill the cere- monial requirements of the law, and even to go beyond them (vi. 6 ; cf. Is. i. 11 ff), but that this law has a moral significance, and demands holiness of heart, without which the offer- ings are of no value, is hidden from them, or is too bitter a truth. With severity therefore is the prophet compelled to remind them how they plunder the fugitives of the sister king- dom of Israel, as these are flying through Judah before the Assyrian army (ii. 8), and to point them to what the law requires of the inner man (vi. 18). Under these circumstances the judgments are approaching, by threatening which Micah would rouse their conscience to the final decision. Although the title of the book names, beside the reign of Hezekiah, that also of Jotham (758-742), and of Ahaz (742-727), as the time in which Micah received his word from the Lord, and thus seems to suggest a contradiction to the date just now deduced, still there is no reason in this for doubting the trustworthiness of either of the two statements, that of the title or of the notice in Jeremiah. For if the declaration of the elders in Jeremiah is ii. itself credible from its antiquity, and as having been made before enemies, so is the age of the title guaranteed by the consideration that a later writer, if he had wished to furnish the book with a superscription, would certainly have considered the account in Jeremiah, and avoided the apparent contradiction by leaving out Jotham and Ahaz. In view of the fact that the book is well arranged, and that no subsequent title occurs in it, one can hardly es- cape the conclusion that the prophet edited, and gave the title to, his own work. And in fact it is not difficult either to harmonize the two statements. For although the discourses -if our hook were poured forth at one gush, so to speak, they make the impression, not of bavirg arisen from one and the same transient situation, but of presenting the summary re- INTRODUCTION. eult, in some sense the resume, of an entire life previously spent in the activity of prophetic discourse. Indeed the prophet, in the flow of his discourse, involuntarily falls into the tone of narration: "Then said I" (iii. 1). We may, accordingly, assume with the title that the various contents of the book arose before the vision of the prophet between the years 758 and 722 B. c. ; but with Jeremiah that, under Hezekiah, somewhere near the close of his la- bors, he wrote out what was of permanent value in his several discourses, in the two chief discourses of the book before us (i.-v.; vi., vii.), and published it as a perpetual testimony (cf. Hab. ii. 2.) x 2. The Person of the Prophet. The name Micha (rD^E, Gr. Mt^atas, Lat. Michozas) is not of rare occurrence in the Old Testament. It is, as shown from Judg. xvii. 5 comp. w. v. 4, an abbreviation of rTO^lQ or •Vfp^, of which two forms the first is to be read also in Jer. xxvi. 18 in the Kethib. The signification is, accordingly : Who is like God ? = bsOQ. The prophet seems himself to allude to this meaning of his name (vii. 18). Of his person we know next to nothing. That he was not, as some following Hieron. hare supposed, the same with the prophet Micaiah, son of Imlah, who foretold to Ahab his ap- proaching destruction (1 K. xxii.), is self-evident : Ahab died 897 b. c. The identity of the words which open his discourse (i. 2) with the closing words in the prophecy of that Micah (1 K. xxii. 28) is an intentional allusion. Tradition has manifold stories to tell concerning him (cf. Carpzov, Introd., iii. 373 fF.). The surname \Plttnb, which the title and Jer. xxvi. 18 attach to the name, is not a patronymic, as the LXX. take it (roc rov Mioypacrdci), but marks the place of his origin : he himself names this, as Vitringa had remarked, Moresheth- gath (i. 14), that Moresheth which lies near the Philistine city of Gath (cf. Abel-maiim, Abel on the waters, 2 Chr. xvi. 4). This locality was still known to Eusebius in the Onomast. and to Hieron. who, in the Prol. ad explanandum Michceam, says : " Michatam de Morasthi,qui usque hodiejuxta Eleutheropolin (five Roman miles north of Gath) haud grandis est viculus ; " and in the Epist. 86 ad Eustoch. epitaph Patdw, p. 677, ed. Mart., he relates that there was once the grave of Micha, but that in his time a church had been erected ; and Robinson found ruins of a church and hamlet twenty minutes southeast from Beit-Jibrin, which corresponds to the Eleutheropolis of the ancients (Bib. Res. in Pal, ii. 423). The derivation of the name Mo- rashti, from the name of the town Mareshah (ch. i. 15), although common among interpreters through the influence of the Chaldee version, is inconsistent with the vocalization. That, finally, Micah had dwelt in the region of Gath, appears to be proved in another way also by the fact that he shows himself familiar with localities there, i. 10-15 (but cf. on v. 10). It is saying too much, however, when Ewald maintains that the whole character of the book betrays the inhabitant of the low-land, and that not merely the rough and un- even language, but the exaltation of Bethlehem as compared with Jerusalem, proves the origin of the prophet. 3. Contents and Form of the Book. As Micah, compared with Isaiah, embraces a shorter space of time, so his horizon is locally more restricted. The breadth of view, sweeping over all history, with which the latter sur- veys the greatness and recognizes the importance of his time, and sheds the light of prophecy on all sides, over all nations — over the distant islands of the Mediterranean, where, at that very time, Rome, the great city of the future, was building, and over the young Aryan peo- ples in the East, — indicating to them their place in the history of the world — all this is foreign to our prophet. His gaze is fixed imperturbably on his own people, but within this field he moves with the greatest intensity. 2 1 [With this Dr. Pusey substantially agrees. After arguing plausibly that some portions of the book were spoken mrlier, — ch. iv. 1 ff. as early as the reign of Jotham, — he concludes : « At the commencement, then, of Hezekiah's reign, he collected the substance of what God had taught by him, recasting it, so to speak, and retained of his spoken proph ecy so much as God willed to remain for us. As it stands, it belongs to that early time of Hezekiah's reign, in which the sins of Ahaz still lived ou. Corruption of manners had been hereditary. In Jotham "a reign too, it is said expressly, In contrast with himself, the people were still doing corruptly. Idolatry had, under Ahaz, received a fanatic impulse from the king, who at last set himself to close the worship of God. The strength of Jotham's reign was gone, the longing for its restoration led to the wrong and destructive policy, against which Isaiah had to contend. Of this Micah says, such should not be the strength of the future kingdom of God. Idolatry and oppression lived on ; against these, th« 'nheritance of those former reigns, the sole residuum of Jotham's might or Ahaz' policy, the breach of the law of love of 3od and man, Micah concentrated his written prophecy " lntroil. to Micha, p. 291. — Tr.i * [" He lingers, in his prophecy, among the towns of the maritime plain (the Shephelah) vhere his birth-place t*j 6 MICAH. If now we distribute his book, as is generally granted, into two obvious divisions : th« prophetico-political, cbaps. i.-v., and the ideal-contemplative, chaps, vi., vii., then in the First division, discourse frst, cb. i., we see that be finds in the judgment immediately impending over Samaria the text for bis threat, that the judgment will reach even to the gates of Jeru- salem (i. 9). Following immediately then, in ascending succession, the second discourse, cbaps ii., iii.. called forth by the sin, whicn can no longer be restrained, and security of the people, especially of the leaders among them, now breaking out openly everywhere, — announces that Jerusalem herself shall become a stone-heap (iii. 12). Not until then can the Messiah come, amid great distress and necessity, from Bethlehem, as Micah proclaims at the culmi- nating point of this division and of the whole book, namely, in the third discourse, cbaps. iv., v. To this external representation of guilt, penalty, and salvation, the second division, cbaps. vi., vii., adds the inner one. Here, in the form of a suit-at-law between God and his people, which ends first in painful certainty of the suffering soon to be experienced, but finally in the as- sured confidence of salvation at last, the whole depth of Israel's mission, and his tangled ways woven out of grace and election, out of sin and forgiveness, are considered and exhib- ited in an evangelical light. 1 As regards the form of the representation, Micah stands next to Isaiah in the force, pa- thos, freshness, and continuity of expression, and in the plastic choice of his words. In tha arrangement of his thoughts, however, abrupt and fond of sharp contrasts, he reminds us more of his older contemporary, Hosea. The beautiful plan of his discourse is admirable. In the first division each of the three addresses falls into two symmetrical halves, whose subdivisions, again (cf. especially chaps, iv., v.), are for the most part regularly constructed. And in the second division also the structure of his thought is grounded on a beautiful and well defined numerical proportion. 2 4. Position in the Organic System of Holy Scripture. In the organic order of the Bible, and specially in the prophetic development of the Mes- sianic theology, this book takes a fundamental position. Micah stands immovably within the inner sphere of the history of the Kingdom of Israel : Israel is the people choseD by God, with whom he has established a covenant from of old, and ratified it with an oath (vii. 20) ; in whom, from Egypt and the wilderness, he has glorified himself (vi. 4 ff.) ; to whom he gave a law which is altogether of a moral and spiritual character (vi. 6 ff.). This people have become alienated, not in part merely, but Judah also has followed the apostate northern kingdom (vi. 16), and a corruption of all divine institutions, offices, and orders has broken in (cbaps. ii., iii.), which has thoroughly devoured everything (vii. 1 ff.). On this historical ground grow the constituent elements of his proclamation : (1). The necessity of the judgment. God hardens himself against their cry of distress (iii., iv.), for idolatry must be rooted out (iiL 10 ff.), the false prophets must be put to shame (iii. 6 f.). From Zion he issues the judg- ment (i., ii.), and unto Zion, in the centre of the kingdom, reaches the desolation by the enemy (i. 9, 12; ii., 4 ; iii. 12) ; the people are even swept away into captivity, and become Among the few places in that neighborhood, which be selects for warning ami for example of the universal captivity, is his native Tillage, " the home he loved." But the chief scene of his ministry was Jerusalem. He names it, in the be- ginning of his prophecy, as the place where the idolatries, and with the idolatries, all the other sins of Judah were con- centrated. The two capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem, were the chief objects of the word of God to him, because the cor- ruption of each kingdom streamed forth from them. The sins which lie rebukes are chiefly those of the capital. Ex- treme oppression, violence among the rich, bribing among judges, priests, prophets; building up the capital even by cost of life, or actual bloodshed ; spoliation ; expulsion of the powerless, women and children from their homes ; covet- ous ness ; cheating in dealings ; pride. These, of course, may be manifoldly repeated in lesser places of resort and of judgment. Hut it is Zion and Jerusalem which are so built up with blood; Zion and Jerusalem which are, on that ground, to be ploughed as afield; it is the city to which the Lord's voice crieth; whose rich men are full of violence ; it is the daughter of' Zion which is w go forth out of the city and u;o to Babylon. Especially they are the heads and princes of the people, whom he upbraids for perversion of justice and for oppression. Even the good kings of Judah seem to have been powerless to restrain tin- general oppression.'' Dr. Pusey, Coin, on Min. Prophets, p. 289 — Tr.J 1 [Dr. Pusey finds three main divisions in the book, chaps, i.-ii. ; iii -v. : vi.-vii. Further, he agrees in general with our a'lttior. p; This book ha- a remarkable symmetry. Each of its divisions is a whole, beginning with upbraiding for sin, threat- ening God's judgments, ami ending with promises of future mercy in Christ. The two later divisions begin again with that s:une characteristic Hear ye, with which Micah had opened the whole. The three divisions are also connected, as well by lesser references of the later to the former, as also by the advance of the prophecy." . . . . " There is also a sort of prog- ress in the promises of the three parts. In the first, it is of deliverance generally, in language taken from that first de- liverance from Egypt. The second is objective, the birth of the Redeemer, the conversion of the Gentiles, the restora- tion of the Jews, the nature and extent of his kingdom. The third is mainly subjective, man's repentance, waiting upon God, and God's forgiveness of his sins. Minor Prophets, p. 291. — Ttt.] 2 [Dr. Pusey's characterization of Micah's style is faithful and interesting. He has very elaborately investigati 1 th« varieties and a laptations of his poetic rhythm, and compared them with other of the Minor Prophets, p. 292. — Tr.J INTRODUCTION. * prey to the -world-power, which is here designated by a name, typical from the earliest times, the name of Babylon (Babel), iv. 10. But (2), the certainty of salvation is not thereby abrogated ; it will come notwithstanding, and that through the Messiah, whose person, office and name are described more directly and plainly than we often find them (v. 1 ff.). Thus becomes established in Zion (3) the glorious kingdom of the future (iv. i. f. 3), a kingdom of peace and blessing (iv. 3 f. ; v. 4, 9 ; vii. 14 ff.), founded in God's pity and readiness to for- cive sin (vii. 18 f.), on the ruins of the world-power (v. 5 f.). Its members are the " dis- persed of Israel," the wretched, "the remnant" (iv. 6 f. ; v. 2, 6 ff.). But the heathen nations also, overcome by God's glory and might (vii. 16 ; iv. 3), will seek, instead of their oracles, the living God (iv. 2), for the separating barrier of the statute is far removed (vii. 11). Luther : The prophet Micah lived in the days of Isaiah, whose words he also quotes, as in the second chapter. Thus one may discern how the prophets who lived at the same time preached almost the same words concerning Christ, as if they had taken counsel with each other thereof. He is, however, one of the excellent prophets, who vehemently chastise the people for their idolatry, and brings forward always the future Christ and his kingdom. And he is for all a peculiar prophet in this, that he so plainly points out and names Bethlehem as the city where Christ should be born. Hence he was also in the O. T. highly celebrated, as Matt. ii. 6 well shows. In brief, he rebukes, prophesies, preaches, etc. But in the end this is his meaning, that although everything must go to ruin, Israel and Judah, still the Christ will come who will restore all, etc. [Dr. Pusey : The light and shadows of the prophetic life fell deeply on the soul of Micah. The captivity of Judah, too, had been foretold before him. Moses had foretold the end from the beginning, had set before them the captivity and the dispersion, as a punishment which the sins of the people would certainly bring upon them. Hosea presupposed it ; Amos fore- told that Jerusalem, like the cities of its heathen enemies, should be burned with fire. Micah had to declare its lasting desolation. Even when God wrought repentance through him, he knew that it was but for a time ; for he foresaw and foretold that the deliverance would be, not in Jerusalem, but at Babylon, in captivity. His prophecy sank so deep that, above a century afterwards, just when it was about to have its fulfillment, it was the prophecy which was remembered. But the sufferings of time disappeared in the light of eternal truth. Above seven centuries rolled by, and Micah reappears as the herald, not now of sorrow, but of salvation. Wise men from afar, in the nobility of their simple belief, asked, Where is he that is born king of the Jews ? A king, jealous for his temporal empire, gathered all those learned in Holy Scripture, and echoed the question. The answer was given, unhesitatingly, as a well-known truth of God, in the words of Micah, For that it is written in the prophet. Glorious peerage of the two contemporary prophets of Judah ! Ere Jesus was born, the Angel announced the birth of the Virgin's Son, God with us, in the words of Isaiah. When He was born, he was pointed out as the Object of worship to the first converts from the heathen, on the authority of God, through Micah. — Tr.] Literature, vid. Gen. Introduction. Special Commentaries. Theod. Bibliandri Comm. in Micharn, Tig., 1534. Ant. Gilbi In Micham, Cond., 1551. Dav. Chytrsei Explicatio Micha: Proph., Rost., 1565, 12mo. J. Dra- chonites, Michozas Propheta cum Translationibus ac Explicatione, Viteb., 1565, fol. Dan. Lam- bert, In (Joelem, Amos) Micham, Gen., 1578, Svo. Job. Brentii Comm. in Micham, Opp., t. iv., Tub., 1580. Alb. Graweri Proph. Michaz Explicatio Plana et Perspicua, Jenas, 1663, 4to. Ed. Pococke, A Commentary of Micha and Malachia, Oxf., 1677. Joh. Mussei Scholar Pro- phetical in Danielem, Micham, et Joelem, Quedlinb., 1719, 4to. C. T. Schnurrer (resp. Andler), Animadv. Phil. Crit. ad Vat. Michaz, Jena, 1798, Svo. H. W. Justi, Micha ubersetzt und erldu- tert, Leipz., 1799 2d (title-page) edition, 1820. A. T. Hartmann, Micha neu ubersetzt und erlailtert, Lemgo, 1800. Treatises and Monographs. H. L. Bauer, Animadv. Criticoz in Duo Priora cc. Proph. Michoz, Alt., 1790, 4to. C. P. Caspari, Ueber Micha den Morasthiten, 2 Th. Christiania, 1852. Practical and Devotional Expositions. Winkler, Anleitung zum richtigen und trbaulichen Verstdndniss des Proph. Micha. 1766, 8. G Quandt, Micha der Sehe r von M<+ -eseth. Berlin, 1866. MICAH. FIRST DIVISION. FIRST DISCOURSE. Chapter I. 1 Word of Jehovah, which came to Micah the Morasthite, in the days of Jotham Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Hear, all ye peoples, Attend, earth, 1 and all that is therein ! And let the Lord, Jehovah, be a witness against you, The Lord from his holy temple. 3 For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, And cometh down, and treadeth on the high places of the earth. 4 And the mountains melt under him, And the valleys cleave asunder, As wax before the fire, As waters poured down a descent. 5 For the transgression of Jacob is all this, And for the sins of the house of Israel. Who is the transgression 2 of Jacob ? Is it not Samaria? And who are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem ? 6 And 1 8 will make Samaria a heap in the field, Plantations of vines; And will pour down into the ravine the stones thereof, And lay bare her foundations. 7 And all her carved images shall be broken in pieces, And all her hires be burned with fire ; And all her idols will I make a desolation : For from the hire of a harlot has she gathered, And to the hire of a harlot shall they return. 8 For this let me wail and howl, Let me go stripped and naked ; I will make a wailing like the jackals, And a mourning like the ostriches. 9 For deadly are her wounds ; For it has come unto Judah : He has reached unto the gate of my people, unto Jerusalem. 10 In Gath [Annunciation 5 ] announce it not ; In Acco 6 [vale of tears] weep not ; In Bethleaphra [Dusthouse] I wallow in the dust, 11 Pass on with you, inhabitant of Shaphir [Fairview], In shameful nakedness. The inhabitant of Zaanan [Outlet] goeth not out ; The wailing of Beth-ezel 7 [house of separation] Taketh from you its standing-place. 10 MICAH. • — — — . . i ■ 12 For the inhabitant of Maroth [Bitterness] is anxious about good, For evil has come down from Jehovah, lo the gate of Jerusalem. 13 Bind the chariot to the courser, inhabitant of Lachish ; The beginning of sin was she to the house of Zion ; For in thee were found the transgressions of Israel. 14 Therefore must thou give a release 8 For Moresheth-gath [Gath's possession] ; The houses of Achzib [Place of deceit] 9 shall be a deception To the kings of Israel. 15 Yet will I bring an heir to thee Inhabitant of Mareshah [Possession] ; 10 To Adullam will come the glory of Israel. 11 16 Make thee bald and shave thy head, For the sons of thy delight ; Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; For they are carried away from thee. GRAMMATICAL AND TEXTUAL. [1 Ver. 2. — Although Dr. Kleinert, in the confessedly difficult question, Who are comprehended within the scope cf tail tddress? leans to the opiuion that E^Kl? means "peoples," and not "tribes of Israel," still he would hare V""1S denote simply the ,; land " of Israel. We prefer the judgment of Maurer and others (falling in with the Eng. vers.) which regards the people of the " earth " as summoned to the great controversy. This leaves, indeed, some difficulty, if the next clause be understood to refer strictly to the sacred nation, but not serious. Nothing, however, but the ap- parent unanimity of commentators in such reference, would prevent the present writer from suggesting that the 2 in- Q32 should be regarded rather in its more usual signification, " in," " among." Then the conception would be that God makes this great display of judgment in the midst of the nations, at the central point, in Palestine. All would thus be preliminary to the announcement of its occasion and object, until the fifth verse, which points directly to Israel and Judah. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 5. — ' 3727B et i"TlZD2, melon, pro eorundem causa et auctore." Maurer. — Tr.] [3 Ver. 6. — ^EptZJ). Dr. Pusey, speaking (p. 292) of the simplicity of Micah's style, as exemplified in the frequen use of the conjunction and, in place of more explanatory conjunctions, says very truly what admits of wider applica- tion than he gives it : " An English reader loses some of the force of this simplicity by the paraphrase, which, for the Pimple copula, substitutes the inference or contrast, there/ore, then, but, notwithstanding, which lie in the subjects them- selves. The English reader might have been puzzled, *t first sight, by the monotonous simplicity of the and, and, join- ing together the mention of events, which stand either as the contrast or the consequence of those which precede them. The English version accordingly has consulted for the reader or hearer, by drawing out for him the contrast or conse- quence which lay beneath the surface. But this gain of clearness involved giving up so far the majestic simplicity of the Prophet, who at times speaks of things as they lay in the Divine Mind, and as, one by one, they would be unfolded to man, without explaining the relation in which they stood to one another." It might well be added that it is often difficult to make this relation more plain than the prophet has expressed it, with full certainty of not having made it something different. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 9. — Kleinert understands God to be the subject here (with Eng. Vers.), which is not unlike the prophet's sud- den changes of person, but the masc. form of the verb may possibly be accounted for by the general want of concord (sing. adj. for plur., and sing, verb for plural) in the preceding clauses, cf. Maur. and Hitz. — Tr.J [5 Ver. 10. — Kleinert, in his version of vers. 10-15, has followed the plan of adding to the names of places mentioned, other names (real or imaginary), denoting more plainly the sense which he supposes the prophet to have attached to them in his play upon the words. A different etymology is thus assumed in several instances, for the geographical names, from that ascribed to them by the best authorities. Gath, e. g. , which Gesen. derives from 12P, and Fiirst from iljHS, Kleinert treats here as if from *T32. Similarly with Zaanan, and Beth-ezel. — Tr.] [6 Ver. 10. — Dr. Pusey (with Rosenm.,Hieron., Eng. Vers.) : "Weep not at all" (lit., weeping, weep not). Weeping is the stillest expression of grief. We speak of " weeping in silence." Yet this also was too visible a token of grief Their weeping would be the joy and laughter of God's enemies." In a foot-note he severely, almost scornfully, rejects the interpretation of our author (and most modern commentators), and brings strong reasons in support of his censure. Kleinert's reasons may be seen in the Exeget. note.) He seems to me not to have allowed enough for the requirements of the parallelism in this connection, and to have maintained a sense of the clause which is strikingly incompatible with the conspicuous mourning of the next member. — Tr.] [7 Ver. 11. — Lonts uexntissimiis .' The exceeding conciseness of the expression renders it simply impossible, at this day, to say with full confidence whether c should be connected with the preceding, as the terminus ad qvem, or with the tallowing as its subject. Dr. Kleinert adopts the former view, and translates, — The population of Zaanan (Auszug) will not go out To the mourning to Bethhaezel (House of removal), For he takes away from you his place. He thus approximates to the view of the Eng. Vers. But Hitzig, Umbreit, and Keil, quoted in the Exeget. notes, all n fard K the mourning," etc., as the subject of the following verb. With this agree Maurer and Pusey : — The mourning of 15eth-ezel Will take (or takes) from you its standing ; «exh wilh some varieties of interpretation Translating as we have done, literally, the meaning is likely to be. "The CHAPTER I. 11 distressed Inhabitants of Zaanan cannot leaTe their walls, because the supposed neighboring town of Beth-ezel can girt no standing in it, being in like affliction from besieging foes." Zunz gives a peculiar rendering: "(Yet) has not the in- habitant of Zaanan gone forth, (and) the funeral procession of Beth Haezel (already) takes its station by you." — Te.] [8 Ver. 14. — DTl^vB?, Ut. "dismissions," and applicable to - the act or form of giving up possession of anything Borne prefer to take it here in the sense of" dowry " or " bridal presents," with which the Either sent his daughter away (released her to her husband) in marriage (1 K. ix. 16). The effect is the same. — Tb.] [9 Ver. 14. — Kleinert, following Hitzig, translates 2T3S, " deceitful brook," relying apparently on Jer. xv. 18; bu there the addition of W.2S3 Sv D*72 aloue warrants that metaphor in 2T^S. — Tb.] [io Ver. 15. — So Furst • Gesen. : " hill city." — Tb ] [11 Ver. 15. — The choice which the English version gives between this and : " He will come to Adullam the glory o Israel," still remains open, each rendering being supported by manj liigh authorities. — Tb.] EXEGETIOAL AND CRITICAL. The Judgment upon Samaria and the land of Judah. Concerning the inscription and the date of the writing, see the Introduction. 1 The event fore- told is, evidently, in the immediate historical sense, besides the capture of Samaria (ver. 6), the expe- dition which, after this conquest, the Assyrian king (Salmanasar, [Shalmanezer,] or Sargon) sent out, under his general Tartan, against Philistia and Egypt (Is. xx.J, and which sorely wasted Judah (ver. 9 ff.}. The same fact formed the sub- ject also of the prophecy of Isaiah x. 5 ff., with which ours has otherwise much similarity (cf. also on ver. 10). The discourse, in a rapid but beautiful flow, runs through a great circle of thought. Its structure is outwardly characterized by several leading themes which arc expressed in brief sentences of lively rhythm, and about which as fixed centres the dis- course revolves (5 b, 9 b, 12 b). It thus falls, in respect to its contents, into two main portions, each of which has an exordium and two subdivisions : 1 . The threatening of the destruction of Ephraim, vers. 2-7. (a) Exordium, ver. 2. (6) General threatening, vers. 3-5. (c) Special threatening, vers. 6, 7. 2. The lamentation over the chastisement of the land of Judah, vers. 8-16. (a) Exordium and new theme, vers. 8, 9. (b) Song of lament, vers. 10-12. (c) Particular description, vers. 13-16. Inform, we clearly distinguish the two parts, symmetrical iu the number (25) of their members, vers. 2-7, and 10-16, from the lyrical part thrown in between, vers. 8, 9. 1. The threatening, vers. 2-7. The exordium, ver. 2, attaches itself directly through the exclamation : Hear ye peoples all, 2 to the discourse of Micah's namesake in the Book of Kings (1 K. xxii. 28), with whom our author had the common fate of be- ing compelled to encounter false prophets (compare ii. 11, with 1 K. xxii. 23). In other respects also our Micah coincides frequently with the Book of Kings. Compare the allusion, vi. 16, the phrase in iv. 4, with 1K.T.5; iv. 13, 14, with 1 K. xxii. 11, 24; the mode of writing "OS (instead of K'SS), i. 15, with 1 K. xxi. 29; so that even Hitzig cannot shut out the perception that the 1 [" No two of the prophets authenticate their prophecy in •xactly the same way. They, one and all, have the same limple statement to make — that this which they say is from God and through, thein. A later hand, had it added the titles, would have formed all on the same model. The title was an essential pai* of the prophetic hoo'c. as indicating to the people afterwards, that it was not written after the event. It was a witness, not to the prophet vhose name it bears, »ut t,i Q.i " Pusey. — Tr] historical sources of that book must have lain be- fore him to read. Whether the address D > tt^? de- denotes merely the tribes of Israel, or all nations, is hard to decide. For the former view speaks not only the further tenor of the discourse, which is directed to Israel alone, but also the parallel Deut. xxxii. 8. For, towards the same song of Moses, the subsequent sentences of this exordium point back (as indeed that song sounds on through the whole course of prophecy) : Attend, O land and its fulness. Cf. Jer. xxii. 29 ; viii. 16. Micah ex- pressly addresses the land alone, and omits the addition commonly made to the other repetitions of this phrase, " and ye heavens," which would give to 2~iS the signification " earth : " there is the same limitation to Israel as in ammim. The land is appealed to, as in the first of the passages cited from Jeremiah, 3 not, as in Is. i. 2, as witness of a judgment, or, as in Ps. 1. 4, a messenger ; but Jeho- vah's complaint is begun in the very address ; give attention, and let the Lord Jehovah become a witness against you ; 2 in a hostile sense, as 1 Sam. xii. 5 ; Mai. iii. 5 ; the Lord from his holy temple ; whence all his holy and powerful announce- ments go forth over the land (Am. i. 2). The temple is emphatically a temple of the holiness of Jehovah, because by the messages and deeds of judgment which proceed from it does He show himself as the Holy One (Is. v. 16). Vers. 3-5. The Testimony itself. Jehovah will in person, and that soon (part. c. -"^n), appear in a theophany (Ps. xviii. 50) for judgment. For behold Jehovah comes forth out of His place. From the temple proceeds the discourse of God, his appearance from heaven, for there He has his habitation (Ps. ii. 4) ; and comes down and treads on the heights of the earth, i. e., the mountains (ver. 4), which are nearest to heaven, and the highest of which, Sinai, saw the first theoph- any of God concerning his people (Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Hab. iii. 3). The word T 1 ??^ is, according to the constant reading of the Keri, regarded and pointed as plural of an obsolete form H£2, while the Kethib everywhere reads V?E2, or VniD2 f a double plural of HE2 (Ges. § 87, 5, Rem. 1). Ver. 4. And the mountains melt under him, 2 [" 3v3, negligentitut, pro D2 v3."Maurer. — la. J. 3 [But in this passage the context plainly restricts ths application of the term to the country of IsraeJ. The phrase, " Hear, O Earth," had become stereotyped as a solemn invocation of the world itself to appear as a witness or a party in God's contest with mac tind. Vid Textual and Gram on this verse Tb.]. x2 MICAH. and the valleys cleave asunder as the wax be- fore the fire, as water poured down a descent. The description rests as in other places, on the an- alogy of a tempest, when the mountains are veiled in clouds, anil the earth, dissolved into flowing mud, pours down so that deep gullies are torn through the plains (Judg. v. 5). Mountain and valley, height and depth are, furthermore, a more comprehensive expression for the shaking of the whole land. The two comparisons, c, d, have the down rushing torrent of water for their object ; the first is proper and one often employed (Ps. lxviii. 3), the second comes back to the reality; the ? is often (pleonastically) used in such comparisons also (Is. i. 7 ; xiv. 19). As salvation comes amid the peacefulness of surrounding nature (Is. xi.), so the judgment with prodigious disturbances of the natural course of things (Matt. xxiv. 7, 29) ; for it is the consequence of sin, which has broken up the harmony of the world. Ver. 5 connects this representation with its ground in the present state of things, For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. " 2 pretii, compare e.g., 1 Sam. iii. 27 with 30." Hitzig. " House "is, as often, collective for " sons." But the discourse does not pause with even this statement; it pro- ceeds to a more exact indication in the decisive sentence 5 b : Who is the transgression of Jacob ? Is it not Samaria ? In Samaria sin has reached such a climax that it has become the substance of the popular life, and from the capital outward has poisoned and polluted all the land (Hos. vi. 10). And already from this point forward the light is thrown in a striking parallel on the sin and fate of Judah, to which principally he will later turn : and who are the heights of Judah ? Is it not Jerusalem ? Jerusalem is a prominent city ; the hills on which it lies should be sanctuaries of God (Ps. xcix. 9), but as it now stands, the eternal heights have, through idolatry, become Bamoth (Ez. xxxvi. 2) sensu odioso, i. signifies robbed, spoliatus; the Masoretes have without reason substituted another form VVtt7, after Job xii. 17. Wherein the rob- bery consists is shown by the addition : naked, t. e. without the over garment (1 Sam. xix. 24). The prophet's complaint also is symbolical prophecy; when he represents his nakedness as robbery it be- comes the emblem of the fate of his people (cf. Is. xx. 3ff). I will make a complaint like the jackals, and a mourning like the ostriches. In Job xxx. 29, also these animals appear as types of the cries of pain. Ver. 9. For deadly are her wounds [lit., "the strokes" inflicted upon her]. The plural niSO is construed with the fem. sing, of the predicate according to Ew. 317 a [Ges. § 147 bj. There is implied in the subject the thought that the sad fate comes from God, is from above ; in the pred., the common comparison of public cal- amities to diseases. (Is. i. 5 ff.) The suffix to n iDQ takes the place of a genit. obj. ; it refers to Samaria. The prophet mourns so bitterly over the afflictions appointed to Samaria, because they are deadly ; and deadly for all Israel ; for they come even to Judah ; HE (Jehovah, cf. Job iii. 20) reaches even to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. Therefore are the wounds deadly, because they strike the heart of the land and the seat of the sanctuary ; and yet according to ver. 5 b, it cannot be otherwise. The gate is, in east- ern countries, the place of solemn assemoly ; hence Jerusalem is called the gate of God's people, because there Israel held his solemn courts (Is. xxxiii. 20). Notice the affecting increase of in- tensity in the discourse, which reaches its climax, in the last clause of verse ninth. With this the theme is given also of the new turn to the thought, and now begins, — Ver. 10, the proper lamentation itself. Follow- ing a view common in the O. T. (Ps. xxv. 3 ; Lam. ii. 17), he thinks first of the malicious joy of their heathen neighbors. In Gath announce it not, the Philistine city on the northwest border of Judah. With this expression the prophet re- calls an earlier occurrence, David's lamentatiou CHAPTER I. 1? aver the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 20). The paronomasia which he finds in the words of the song — for H2 may be regarded, like nb 1 Sam. iv. 1 9, as an infinitive from "122 — gives him occasion to repeat this figure to the end of the chapter, in ever new applications. (Com- pare the translation, where the paronomasia is in- dicated mostly after the manner of Riickert). 1 The very next member shows another instance of this play on words. The present text seems indeed to be capable of meaning only : Weep not. But in the apparent inf. abs. 122, there lurks (as Reland, Pal. Illustr., 534 ft"., first perceived) a contraction "13372 : in Acco weep not. Acco is the later A/crj'or TlToAe/tcCis, a city of the Canaanites lying northward on the coast (Judg. i. 31). That such contraction in fact exists is proved by a compari- son of the LXX. who. according to the common reading of the Vatican, translate oi 'EvaKei/x, with the statement in Euseb. ( Onomast., ed. Larsow, p. 188), that in Micah, a city named 'E^areei/x is men- tioned. This can refer only to the passage before us, and the statement in Eusebius rests evidently on the LXX. But the word 'EvaKei/i which they offer is nothing. The Enakites, of whom alone they could be thinking, did not, according to Josh. xi. 21, dwell so far up as Acco, and are besides always called 'Eva/dp or viol 'Evdic by the LXX. Hence the Alexandrian reading oi iv Axe'V is evidently preferable. (Some MSS. and the Aldina read iv Baxeip., not understanding the contraction, and regarding the 2 as belonging to the name). In 'Axei'/u, 'A/ce/ju, then, we have the name of a city, especially if with Hitzig we assume that it was originally iv "A«ei, and that the n has been drawn back by mistake from the following ^77. — For our explanation speaks first, the fact that thus the parallelism is completely established, and the grammatical impossibility of connecting an inf. abs. with 7S instead of S7 is avoided. And secondly, that the contraction is possible is proved by the analogous examples •"'i^£73 for n37pt£72, Am. viii. 8 ; ^2 for N V? : n ^ for hVES, Josh. xix. 3 ; xv. 29, and the altogether analogous "ltty Ps. xxviii. 8, for "1^3 37 7, the replacement of the sharpened syllable by the lengthening of the 1 [Cowles on this passage, well says : !t The remaining part of this chapter, is a graphic painting of the first re- sults of the Assyrian invasion, as they were felt in one city after another along the line of his march. Iu most of the eases, the things said of each city are a play on the signi- ficant name of that city — a method of writing well adapted to impress the idea upon the memory. Sometimes there is merely a resemblance in sound between the prominent word spoken of a city and the name of that city. Both of these cases fall under that figure of speech, technically called a parono?nasia- The latter form of it — resemblance in sounds — is of course untranslatable. The other form — a play upon the significance of the name of a city — is as f one should exclaim : What ! is there quarrelling in Con- icrd ? war in Salem [Peace] ; family feuds in Philadelphia ^brotherly Love| ; slavery in Freetown ? " Dr. Pusey (lntr. to Min. Proph., p. 293) : " His description of the destruction of the cities or villages of Judah corre- sponds in vividness to Isaiah's ideal march of Sennacherib. The flame of war spreads from place to place, but Micah relieves the sameness of the description of misery by every Tariety which language allows. He speaks of them in his awn person, or to them ; he describes the calamity in past vowel being a familiar fact. Finally, that it wa« necessary, when a paronomasia obvious to the ear was aimed at, is obvious. After the malignant triumph of their enemies, the prophet sees next the sorrow of his fellow-country- men. A series of devastated places meets the eye of the seer, and their names become to him the texts of his lamentation and gloomy previsions. Whether the designation of the places is connected, as in Is x., with the route of the hostile army is, owing to their generally more or less questionable position, and to the absence of any such express intimation as we have in Isaiah, very doubtful. So much at least is clear, however, that the territory in which the places named are contained reaches but a little beyond Jerusalem on the east, while westwardly it stretches to the border of the Philistines at Gath ; that, accordingly, just such cities are named as must naturally be most harmed by an army streaming over Judah upon Philistia. The prete- rites are prophetic. - For Bethleaphra, on account of the misfortune of the Benjamite city Ophra, (Jos. xviii. 23), not far from Jerusalem, I scatter dust on myself [better, " roll myself in the dust "] , in token of deep affliction ; cf. Jer. vi. 26, in accordance with which passage the useless correc- tion of the margin is here made. Verba sentiendi are construed with 2 (Ew. § 217 f. 2 B.) [Ges. s. v. B. 5 c] ; n^S is an addition to names of places which may also be omitted (cf. ver. 11 be- low, and Ges., Thes., 193). Ver. 1 1 . Set out on thy journey inhabitant of Shafir (pleasantness) in shameful nakedness The dat. eth. E J? is in the plural because n2tT > here, and in all the following verses is understood collectively ; "1237 stands here, as in Ex. xxxii. 27, in antithesis to 2^27: depart, go away. Shaphir lay, according to the Onom., near Eleu- theropolis, and is perhaps identical with the Shamir, Josh. xv. 48, which was on the south- west of the mountain of Judah, j~IK72 rflV, nakedness-shame == shameful nakedness, i6 a com- pound idea, like Ps. xlv. 5, humility-righteous- ness, and stands in ace. adv. (cf. Prov. xxxi. 9. The meaning of what follows becomes plain when once we take "T2D72 as an ace. of direc tion, as it often stands with as an (Gen. xxvii. or in future, or by the use of the imperative. The verbal allusions are crowded together in a way unexampled else- where. Moderns have spoken of them as not after their taste, or have apologized for them. The mighty prophet who wrought a repentance greater than his great contem- porary Isaiah, knew well what would impress the people to whom he spoke. The Hebrew names had definite mean- ings. We can well imagine how, as name after name passed from the prophet's mouth, connected with soma note of wo<', all around awaited anxiously, to know upon what place the fire of the prophet's word would next fall, and as at last it had fallen upon little and mighty round about Jernsilem, fh.) names of the plat«s would ring in their ears as heralds of the coming woe ; they would be like so many monuments, inscribed beforehand with the titles of departed greatness, reminding Jerusalem itself oi its portion of the prophecy, that evil should come fiom tht Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem." — Tb.] 2 [The abrupt change, indicative of intensity of excite ment.from the imperf. in ver. 8, to the pret. in vers. 9, 10. 11, 12, and to the imperat. in 11, 13, 16, is worthy of at ten lion. — Tl ] 14 MICAH. 3 ; 1 Chr. v. 18). Not the inhabitant of Za- anan (departure) shall go forth for mourning at Bethhaezel (Kleinert, Nimmhausen ; Ges., Fixed 4ou.se]. Zaanan is perhaps the Zenan mentioned in Josh. xv. 37, in the western lowland, and Bethhaezel (cf. on ver. 10) the Azel named by Zech. (xiv. 5), which lay at the foot of Mount olivet, and had gained, according to that passage, a mournful celebrity in the days of Uzziah, not long before Micah's time, from the fact that the people took refuge there in a great earthquake. There seems to have been an annual mourning held at that place, as was usual in commemorat- ing such national calamities (Zech. xii. 11). This, according to our verse, can no more be the case with the cities of Judah, for which Zaa- nan, on account of the paronomasia, is made a representative, for he, who executes the judgment, as ver. 9, takes away from you his (Ezel's) sta- tions. It is carried away according to God's ap- pointment, by the enemies' hand. Herein also lies a paronomasia, because v!JS as well as nps means : to take away. Hitzig translates ; Zaanan goes not forth because the lamentation of the neighborhood takes away from you its standing- place. Umbreit : The grief of Bethhaezel turns away its places for you. Keil : The cry of Beth- haezel takes away from you the standing with it [Maurcr : " Planctus Bethaezel, i. e., quod oppressi al> hostibus tenentur Bethhaezelenses, id aufert • obis hospitium ejus, facit ut nullum ibi rej'ugium habeatis."] 1 Ver. 12. For — as leading sentence must be supplied all along, from ver. 8, " I cannot " — the inhabitant of Maroth (bitterness] writhes in pain because of the [last | prosperity. Maroth, u village, as the mention of it in connection with Ezel shows, lying near Jerusalem; otherwise of no significance. / before the object of emotion (Ew. 217 d. 2 c). For, so the discourse turns, with a resumption of the main theme from verse 9, to its last division, evil comes down from Jehovah unto the gate of Jerusalem. In place of the sympathizing lamentation we have again, as at the beginning, the prophetic threat, first in the indirect, imperative form, so that actions are enjoined upon the object of the threatening, which must come as immediate effects of the threatened judgment (Is. ii. 10) ; ver. 13. Harness the chariot to the courser, inhab- itant of Laehish, to escape, namely, from the punishment. The play upon words here lies in the homophony of the roots tt?D~l and IE7D7. Laehish, a fortified city, not far from Eleutheropolis, still remaining as a rum under the name of Urn Lakis. The beginning of the sin was it for the daughter of Jerusalem, for the population of Jerusalem, that in thee were found the trans- gressions of Israel, i. e., the idolatry of the ten tribes, which had, accordingly, first found admis- sion at Laehish, and from thence had inundated Judah (vi. 16). Ver. 14. Therefore wilt thou give the re- lease upon Moresheth Gath. Laehish is no longer addressed, as the connection shows, but Israel, which throughout, even in ver. 6, is the ob- ject; and "J37 is, as frequently, a free connective. At the marriages of princes a dowry was given, »nd this is expressed by DTTfotB ]n3 (1 K. ix. I ICf. th* TextUil and Gram, note on this passage. — Te.] 16) ; this Israel gives to the enemy in the form of Moresheth — although certainly not freely re- nounced. But there lies at the same time in the idea of DTTIvtZ?, the side thought that one di- vorces himself from the abandoned property, Jer. iii. 8 (Hitzig). Hence also the play on the words : the homophonous PttT^SD signifies the betrothed (Deut. xxxii. 23). On Moresheth- Gath, i. e., Moresheth near Gath, the home of the prophet, which likewise lay in the southwest portion of Judah, cf. the In trod. 2. The houses of Achzib [deception] will become a deceitful brook to the king of Israel. C^IlTpS, are brooks which dry up in the summer, and de- ceive the thirsty wayfarer who knowing their site, goes in search of them (Jer. xv. 18; Job vi. 15 ff. ; Ps. exxvi. 4). Like them will Achzib slip from the hands of the kings of Israel, i. e., those of Judah, for after the destruction o5 Samaria, the kingdom of the ten tribes has ceased. The city lay, like the others, in the lowland o Judaa (Josh. xv. 44) ; now the ruins Kussabeh. Ver. 15. I will moreover bring P2S instead of S^S, as in 1 K. xxi. 29,) the conqueror upon thee, inhabitant of Mareshah. (conquered town). Maresha near Achzib (Jos. xv. 44) is the present Marasch (Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, p. 139, 142 f.); even to Adullam (Josh. xii. 15 ; xv. 35) northward from Maresha, but not dis- covered as yet, shall the nobility (Is. v. 13) of Israel come, namely, to hide themselves in the mountain caves there, in which David once sought refuge from Saul (1 Sam. xxii. 1). The prophet has named twelve cities of Judah, six in the lamentation, and six in the threatening, and, still further intensifying his lament, closes the whole, ver. 16, with an address to the mourning mother, Israel, who must see her children dragged away into exile (Jer. xxxi. 15; Is. iii. 26). Make thee bald and shear thy head — iu spite of the prohibition, Deut. xiv. 1, this had remained a common sign of sorrowful lamentation for the dead (Jer. xvi. 6; cf. Job i. 20; Is. xv. 2) — for the sons of thy delight ; enlarge thy baldness like the eagle (the griffin vulture is meant, which is often met with in Egypt and Syria, and has the whole forepart of the head bare of feathers) ; for they are carried away from thee, led away cap- tives. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. Very differently goes the course of the two sis ter kingdoms (cf. Ezek. ch. xxiii.), and yet goe» with both to the same destruction. The sacrea heights, on which the Lord will set his foot whea He comes down to his people, have become in Judah also heights of corruption. What has she now of advantage over her apostate sister, Samaria, whom yet the Lord had let go her own way (cf. Rom iii.) ? She has, indeed, much still ; she has the holj temple, the fountain of God's holy ordinances, an* with that the certainty that God cannot allow hei to be utterly destroyed, although be has overthrown Samaria to the very foundation. But through judg ment must Judah pass like Samaria; the holy oral nances profit not the sinful generation to whom they have become a dead and despised possession (cf. 2 Mace, v.19 f.). Nay, such a possession insures to the people among whom it exists, a serious trial, foi CHAPTER L 15 Gd<1's holiness, proceeding from the " Temple of his holiness," is a beaming light which becomes a con- suming fire when it finds no longer life but death round about it (Is. x. 17). All the names of auspic- ious presage become then omens of judgment. For, a.« sin is the distortion of that which should be be- tween man and God, the judgment is the turning straight again of that which has been turned awry (Ps. xviii. 27 b). Israel, the mother who parted from God (Hos. ii. 8), has neglected her children ; therefore will she have no friends in these children, but in her widowhood be also childless. Where the churches become empty the church herself is to blame for it. Hengstenberg : The discourse, beginning with ihe general judgment of the world, turns suddenly to the judgment upon Israel. This is to be ex- plained only from the relation in which the two iudgments stand to each other, they being in es- sence completely the same, and different only in space, time, and unessential circumstances ; so that one can say, that in every partial judgment upon Israel there is the world-judgment. Here, as al- ways in the threatenings of the prophets, we must take care that we do not, in a particular historical event, lose sight of the animating idea. Let this be rightly apprehended, and it will appear that a particular, historical occurrence may indeed be spe- cially intended, but never can exhaust the predic- tion ; that in this passage also we ought not, on ac- count of the primary reference to the Chaldaean (?) catastrophe, at all to exclude that in which, before or afterward, the same law was realized. Rieger : From the (threatening) nature of the time we may most easily perceive the purport and aim of such prophecies, namely, to rebuke the then prevailing sins, to announce the judgment of God on account of them, but ever also to bring forward the promises of Christ, and thus to call to repen- tance ; most especially to support believers, that they may find effectual comfort in the general dis- order, and abide in patient waiting for the king- dom of God and Christ. Nay, when many were first awakened from their sleep under the punish- ment of their sins, they would be turned by words of this kind to their covenant God, and not despair of his promise. On the Fulfillment. Keil : Micah prophesies in this chapter, for the most part, not particular defi- nite punishments, but thejudgment in general, with- out precise indications as to its accomplishment, so that his prediction embraces all the judgments against Judah which took place from the Assyrian invasion on until the Roman catastrophe. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. The judgment must begin at the house of God. 1. It must begin, for God, the injured One, is Judge of the world ; vers. 2-4. 2. It must begin at the house of God, i. e., at the congregation of his people. For — (a) He has here his seat and place ; ver- 2. (b) Upon this his eye first falls when He comes to judge the whole earth ; ver. 3. (c) Here is the right knowledge of God, to have fallen away from which to idolatry is a peculiar gnilt ; vers. 5 b, 7. 3. In the congregation, moreover, it strikes all ; vers. 8-16. (a) Not the godless only but the pious also, who see it come and must share in the sorrow and tomentation; vers. 8, 9. (b) Not merely the capital, but all places arc tations and signs of the judgment ; vers. 10-15. (c) Not merely the sin itself, but the generation that practice it must away to the place of punish- ment; ver. 16. Ver. 2. When Jehovah speaks, the whole land must tremble. Land and people belong together and He smites both, the field for man's sake ( Gen. iii. 17). Hence the creation also sighs for the re- demption which comes to it too with the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. viii. 19). — Ver. 3. Jehovah is not a God afar off, but always going forth out of his holy places to see and to judge what is on the earth. — Ver. 4. His holy congrega- tion lies so near his heart that for their sake ha shakes the earth. Ver. 5. Great cities, great sins (Gen. iv. 17 ; Is. xiv. 21). — Ver. 6. When man builds without God, let it be ever so firmly fast- ened with stones to the strongest ground, the storm breaks from above, lays bare the foundation, and hurls the stones asunder. The best established church-system, when it becomes essentially sinful, is, in God's hands, a spider's web. The judgment deeds of God are declarative ; while He lays bare the ground, He shows that it is sinful, and with that the annihilation is pronounced. — Ver. 8. God's spirit in the congregation itself sympathizes with, when it must punish, the congregation. His right- eousness is a self-infliction upon his love. — Ver. 13. God retains accurately in mind the individual responsibilities and the starting-points of sin. Pop- ular sins proceed from certain places, from certain classes, out over the whole ; the whole is judged, but the root is not forgotten. Theophtlact (on ver. 1) : The prophets spoke to hard and disobedient hearts ; hence they said : The vision is divine, and from God is the Word ; that the world might give heed to the Word, and not despise them. Matthew, however, spake to believing and obedient souls, and therefore placed nothing of this kind at the beginning. Or thus : The prophets saw in the spirit what they saw, since the Holy Spirit made the exhibition, and so they named it, a vision. But Matthew saw it not spiritually and in a representation, but had bodily intercourse with Him, heard Him by the senses, saw Him in the flesh ; therefore he says not "vision," but Book of the generation of Jesus Christ. Osiander (on ver. 3) : At the present day it is Tiot necessary in preaching to call persons and places by name, in which we must proceed very prudently, in order not to tear down more than we build up ; and yet the preacher may use such freedom and plainness in indicating errors and vices that those who need improvement may feel themselves aimed at, and repent and be saved. Hengstenberg (on ver. 11): The instances of play upon words are no mere empty sport. They have throughout a practical aim. The threaten- ing is to be located by them. Whoever thought of one of the designated places, in him was the thought of the divine judgment quickened. Ch. B. Michaelis (on ver. 12) : From Jl hovah, he adds to make it plain that the calamity came not by blind chance, but was brought about by the supreme control of God, the righteous Judge. Starke : Ver. 1 . Teachers must have a reg- ular call, partly because of the divine command (Heb. v. 4), partly for the sake of order (1 Cor xiv. 40). Preachers must not preach differently from God's Word (1 Pet. iv. 11). Those who practice like sins may expect like punishments. — • Ver. 2. The Lord be a witness in vou: let tho lt> MICAH Lord bear witness in you. For he who takes to heart the word concerning the judgment is con- vinced of his sins thereby, and feels the wrath of Hod. Even yet also God always puts in the mouth of his servants what He has to speak to his people, especially when teachers and hearers heart- ily call upon Him for this. — Ver. 3. So secure is the natural man, that he perceives not God's pres- ence, nay even denies it, until He finally makes his presence known by notable punishments. God de- scends not actually, or as it regards his being, but He ceases to conceal himself, to be long-suffering, and begins to punish sin, to reveal and expose it. He assumes in effect another kind of presence. — Ver. 5. God pours not out his anger upon inno- cent people. " Desine peccare et civitas non peribit " I Aminos. ). Divine services set up without God's word, although with good intention, are an abom- ination before God. And, — Ver. 6, Gods judg- ments against the false systems of worship are terrible ; for He is jealous of his own honor. — Ver. 7. Idolaters have in general more of worldly goods than those who serve the true God. — Ver. 10. It is often advisable to withhold our tears that the world may not rejoice over our misfortune. If one will weep he must do it before the outbreak of judgments, for when they are already here it is too late. — Ver. 1 1 . When God will punish a land for its sins He takes away their courage from the people. — Ver. 12. That is the way of most men : that they mourn over the loss of their goods but not over their sins. On account of their bodily troubles, also, the righteous sometimes fall into b-ibing his idols to give him what are the gifts o.^ l_V the heathen more religious than the Christian worldling. The hea- then did not offer an ignorant service to they knew not what. Our idolatry of mammon, as being less abstract, is more evident self worship, a more visible ignoring, and so a more open dethron- ing of God, a worship of a material prosperity, oi which we seem ourselves to be the authors, and to which we habitually immolate the souls of men, so habitually that we have ceased to be consciou? of it. — Ver. 10. The blaspheming of the enemies oi G' <: is the sorest part of his chastisements. — it CHAPTERS II. l-III. 12. 17 is hard to part with home, with country, to see all desolate, which one ever loved. But far, far above all, is it, if, in the disgrace and desolation, God's honor seems to be injured. — Ver. 12. Strange contradiction ! Yet a contradiction, which the whole unchristian world is continually enacting ; □ay, from which Christians have often to be awak- ened, to look for good to themselves, nay, to pray for temporal good, while living in bitterness, bittei ways, displeasing to God. The words are calcu- lated to be a religious proverb. "Living in sit.'' 1 as we say, dwelling in bitterness, she looked for goo s. Bitternesses ! for it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken tlie Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee. — Ver. 13. Beginning of sin to — , what a world of evil lies in the three words ! — Te.] SECOND DISCOURSE. Chapters II. l-III. 12. 1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds ! In the morn- 2 ing light they will practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2 And they have coveted fields, and seized them, and houses, and taken them ; and have op- 3 pressed a man and his house, even a man 3 and his possession. Therefore thus saith Jehovah : Behold, I am devising against this family an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks ; and ye shall not walk loftily, for an evil time is this. 4 In that day shall one take up a by-word concerning you, and wail a *ml of woe, 4 [and] say : We are utterly destroyed ! He changeth the portion of my people ; How he removeth it from me ! 6 To an apostate he divideth our fields ! 5 Therefore tnou shalt have none to cast a cord upon a lot [of ground] in the as- 6 sembly of Jehovah. Prophesy ye not, they prophesy. 6 They shall not prophesy to 7 [or, of] these: shame shall not depart. Thou that art called 7 the house of Jacob, was the spirit of Jehovah impatient, or are these his doings ? Do not my words 8 do good 8 to him that walketh uprightly ? But lately my people has risen up as an enemy : from off the garment ye strip the mantle, from those that pass by securely, 9 averse from war. The women of my people ye drive out of the house of their 10 delight; from their children ye take away my ornament forever. Arise ye, and depart ; for this is not the rest : because of pollution it shall destroy [you], and 11 with a sharp destruction. If a man walking in vanity 9 and falsehood should lie, saying: I will prophesy to thee of wine and of strong drink, he would be a prophet for this people. 12 I will surely gather all of thee, Jacob, I will surely collect the remnant of Israel, I will put them together as sheep in the fold, As a herd in the midst of his pasture ; It shall be noisy with men. He that breaketh through has gone up before them : They have broken through, and passed the gate, And gone forth by it. And their king passes on before them, And Jehovah at their head. HI. 1 And I said : Hear now, ye heads of Jacob, and ye magistrates of the house of 2 Israel : is it not for you to know the right ? Ye that hate good and love evil, 3 and tear their skin fiom off them, and their flesh from off their bones ; and who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, 4 and divide them, as in the pot, and as flesh within the kettle. Then will they cry to Jehovah, and he will not answer them ; and he will hide his face from them at that time, even as they have made their deeds evil. 1 3 M1CAH. 5 Thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets that lead my people astray, who biting with their teeth cry : Peace ; and he that giveth nothing for their mouth, against him they sanctify war. 6 Therefore a night shall be for you without a vision, And darkness for you without divination, And the sun shall go down over the prophets, And the day be dark over them. 7 And the seers shall be ashamed, And the diviners shall blush ; And they shall cover the beard, all of them; Because there is no answer of God. 8 Nevertheless I am filled with power, through the spirit of Jehovah, lc and judgment, and boldness, to announce unto Jacob his transgression, and unto Israel his sin. 9 Hear this now, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye magistrates of the house 10 of Israel, that abhor judgment ; yea, they pervert all that is right, building Zion 11 with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. Her heads judge for a bribe, and her priests teach for a reward, and her prophets divine for money, and lean upon Jehovah, saying ; Is not Jehovah among us ? evil shall not come upon us. 12 Therefore, for your sakes Zion shall be ploughed as a field, And Jerusalem shall become heaps, And the mountain of the house high places of a forest. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 We follow Kleinert's course in printing these chapters, as if less decidedly poetical than the remainder of the book. In gome parts the style gives reason for this procedure, yet interpreters generally make no such distinction ; and to those who differ with our author in not making a separate division of these two chapters, his conception of the form of the discourse will seem particularly arbitrary. — Tb.] [2Ver. 1. DT* vS7~t£^ ''S. There is in this, almost certainly, a reminiscence of Qen. xxxi. 29 (cf. Prov. Hi. 27 ; Deut. xxviii. 32 ; Neh. ver. 5) ; otherwise there would be much plausibility in the rendering : " for their hand is as a God."— Tb.] [3 Ver. 2. We must fail somewhat here in representing the original, from the lack in our language of a word for " man " as generically human being (tl^S, here = avOpomos, homo, Mensch), in distinction from "man" sensu eminenti ("OS, avrip, vir, Mann). — Tb.] [4 Ver. 4. So Pusey happily indicates the paronomasia in i"Pn3 Till nHD : "wail a wailing wail" would be Mil', more analogous in sound, if the expression could be allowed. Kleinert, sustained by Gesenius and others, separates the airag Aey. n s rT3, from the preceding, and translates as if it were a part. Niph. of IT 1 !"! : (it was ; Mumfuit) " All is over ! they will say," etc. This is ingenious, almost too much so, having the appearance of a modern improvement. For although the form was long ago regarded by some as Niph. pret. or part, of riTT, it seems always to have been with a dilferent interpretation. Vid. Pococke in loc. — Tb.] [5 Ver. 4. ** 7, dat. incom. : " for me," " to my hurt." — Tb.] L6Ver.6. ^D^TS^ IS^SSFT^S- ^1^3 " to drop," " drip," " distil," is here, as in other places (cf. Eng. Vers. \m. vii. 16), applied to the utterance of discourse. As to the reference of the several verbs here, and in the remainder >f the verse, there has been the greatest diversity of opinion. One can hardly know how far any interpretation which une may prefer agrees with what has been taught before. We take it thus : The ungodly crowd, weary of the pious and faithful inculcations of the true prophets, meet their exhortations to repentance with the contemptuous order to stop preach- ing. " Prophesy not," in their taunting sense is, Don't keep driveling, drooling. Compare (we shrink from quoting it here, yet we think it well illustrates the spirit with which the mass always meet their pious advisers) the slang of our rab- ble: "Dry up! " — "They prophesy " (drivel) is thus the expression of the prophet, retaliating in the right use of the n .rd which their feeble sarcasm had suggested. What follows, in the most literal translation, " they shall not prophesy to these ; shame (lit. shames) shall not depart," may then be understood as God through his prophet taking them at their word : " Even so ; people like these shall cease to enjoy the benefit of that which they call driveling ; I will give :hem up to their own wish, and the shames, which my word should have turned away, shall not depart, but come upon them." This we think consistent with the most direct rendering of the verse word for word. Kleinert's somewhat modified view will be seen in the Exeg. note, where he gives a synopsis also of the principal recent 'ranslations. Pococke in loc. gives a good and tedious account of what had come into men's heads about it in previous »ges. We may add, that Zunz renders (less literally than usual) : Preach not, ye that preach ! let none preach to such, (that) they bring not disgraces upon them. — Tb.] [7 Ver. 7 '^Vm I^DSH. Our author denies that the usual rendering of this, which we also have, with some tymitatiun, adopted, can be harmonized with what follows, but Maurer explains very well : " O dicta domus Jacobi (im CHAPTERS II. l-III. 12 IS quam tot ae lanta beneficia contulit Jova!) .... det'sctatis vos quidem audire quas jacimus minas (ver. 6). Serf qiui tandem causa est minarum? deusne? at Me quam longe alium se exkibel agentibus rede ! '« i-ausa esse ipsos Israetitas dicit versus proximus." [8 Ver. 7. Or, " are not my words good," etc. ?] [9 Ver. 11. Lit. " wind." Maurer renders not badly : " Si quis iret, (et) ventum et mendacium mentiretur." Dr. Kleiner! finds the apodosis here begining with 2"T3, which n^PTl would then merely continue. Thus he puts vers. 12, 13 into the mouth of the supposed false prophet, as grammatically the object of J^ptSltt. We think rather, that the conj In J-pm must almost necessarily mark the apodosis, and that the sentiment of the two following verses is too unlike the piobable expression of the false prophet to be balanced by the alleged antithesis in ch. iii. 1. — Ta.J [10 Ch. iii. 8. The absence of the conj., anil use of J™iS with ^ i~^_H alone of the four nouns well warrants the idea of the Eng. Vers., adopted by Pusey, that r ' spirit of JehovaU " stands out of the series, as rather the ground and cause >f all the rest — by the spirit, etc. — Ts.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. As the first discourse fell into two parts, by the parallel between Samaria and Jerusalem, so this jecond one falls into the two nearly equal divisions, chaps, ii. and iii., thus carrying through the princi- ple of parallelism. The ground of division, how- ever, is here not the analogy, but the antithesis of the leading thoughts. Thus chap. ii. begins with a description of the corruption of the great (ver. 1— 5). and then proceeds to depict the current false- hood of the sham prophets (ver. 6-13), the essence of which is comprehended at the close, in a deceit- ful but brilliant prediction of the certain prosperity of Judah in the afflictions which are soon to be experienced (vers. 12, 13). Corresponding to this, chap. iii. also begins with denunciation of the guilty nobles (vers. 1-4), and then turns likewise xo the judgment against false prophecy (vers. 5-13), at the conclusion of which, however, Micah com- municates the substance of his genuine -proclama- tion, so opposite to their spurious illusions (ver. 12). This obvious plan, which represents the dis- course as a double climax, is of itself a sufficient justification of the compass which we ascribe to the whole. With those interpreters who connect chaps, i. and ii. outwardly in one discourse (Hitzig, Umbreit, Hengst., Havernick, Keil) we, although not denying the interior connection of chaps, i.-v. in general, cannot agree, for this reason, if no other, that chap. i. manifestly bears the character ot a pure prophecy, complete in itself, while in the division before us, from beginning to end, rebuke and opposition to the reigning sins of the day are the main characteristic : with those who feel obliged to put a full period to the discourse before ch. iii-, we differ, because they rend asunder the beautiful sj mnietry of chaps, ii. and iii. The reason given for this separation, that a new beginning is marked by the "Hear, I pray, you" (iii. 1), proves noth- ing, since the same summons is found ch. iii. 9, where no critic could suppose a new discourse to begin. Ch. ii. The Thesis, vers. 1-5. The Nobility, vers. 1, 2. Their Conduct. The discourse runs parallel to the similar denunciation of Isaiah (v. 8 ft'.) against the sins of the higher ranks, and like that, this takes, from the beginning, the character of a "woe." "Woe to them that devise iniquity, and prepare evil on their beds ; in the morning light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. Wickedness is more criminal in proportion as it ifc more deliberate. The gradation from the iesign to' its accomplishment, elsewhere often rep- resented by the steps of conception, pregnancy, 1 [" Such is the fire of concupiscence, raging within, that, R3 those seized by burning fevers cannot rest, no bed suffices Uieui, so no houses or fields content these. Yet no more parturition (Ps. vii. 15 et al.), is here described, without figure, by the stages of 2.W1~\ " to devise," form the plan (Ps. xxxvi. 5), 737D, "to prepare ways and means," and T1WV " to put in execu- tion " (Is. xli. 4). The construction proceeds from the partic. to the verbuin tinit., as in 1 Sam. ii. 8 ; Ewald, § 350 b. Upon their bed they think it oat, at the time when the pious still their heart (Ps. iv. 5; i. 2); in the light of morning they carry it out; — their first thought, therefore, at the gray dawn, is not of prayer (Ps. v. 4) but of covetousness : for it is in the power of their hand, t. e., they are able to do it and no one hinders them (Gen. xxxi. 29; Neb. v. 5), cf. the LXX at Gen. 1. c. : iVx^e' h X e 'P M ou> Hitzig and Keil translate : "for their hand is their God " [ist zum Goit], their power avails to them as a God, none else do they fear. But this would require DPPrpNb £n> tt?>, Hab. i. 11. Ver. 2. We are now told wherein these their evil deeds consist; And they covet (against the law, Ex. xx. 17, whose expression "fftH is not without emphasis repeated here) fields and seize them ; and oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. The transgression of the laws for the protection of each man's real estate and inheritance (Lev. xxv. 23 ff.), by destroying the property of the peasants and oppressing thcin themselves, this is what the prophet, like his con- temporary, Isaiah, ch. v. 8 ff., most bitterly re- proves, as being the surest way to the creation of a helpless proletariate, to the hostile separation of proprietors from those without property, and so to the ruin of the national welfare and the popular life. (The second n^D may, for the sake of the parallelism, be referred to the household or family, as in Gen. vii. 1 ). This one breach of the law is sufficient to prcvoke God's anger and judgment upon this generation. 1 Ver. 3-5 : Therefore, thus saith Jehovah, behold, I devise evil upon this generation, [family]. The phrase 2?~1 2tt7H 1S emphatically- repeated from ver. 1, to set clearly before our eyes the jus talionis prevalent in God's providence (Ex. xxi. 23; Is. xxxiii 1). "This generation," is, as in Am. iii. 1, the whole people; cf. iheytved, Matt xii. 41, 42. There is the same antithesis to the " oppression " in ver. 2, in the following phrase : Jehovah devises evil, from which ye shall not withdraw your uecks ; like a yoke becomes the hard rule of the stranger on the fat cows of Ism el (Am. iv. 1 ), and does not allow itself to be shaken off (Jer. xxvii. 12), And ye shall not walk loftily n'-."^, ace. adv. with verbs of going (Ps. lviii than seven feet of earth will suffice them soon. ' Death only owns how small the frame of man.' " Kib apud. Pu»ey la loc. — Tr.] 20 MICAH. 9; Ges., Lehrg. § 178. 4); the necks that are used to carrying themselves stiffly (Is- iii. 16) will have to bend ; for an evil time is this, in which depression of spirits and gloomy silence comes over the people (Am. v. 13). This also is said with an application : your guilt causes the present to be an evil time before Cod, and so God will a time which is evil for you, the wovqp6v, s<-ns't adivo and passivo at once ; Eph. v. 6 ; Matt, vi. 13. Ver. 4. In that day will one (the verbs are used impersonally, Ewald, § 294 b 2 -y.) take up a taunt against thee (cf. Hab. ii. 6 ; Is. xiv. 4), and utter a lamentation. What in the mind of the adversaries is derision, is, in the mouth of friends and the members of this community, a lamenta- tion : cf. i. 10 ; and what follows is spoken from the position of the latter ; all is over, will one say, (~PrT3, actum est, all is lost, cf. Dan. viii. 27, and also the yeyovt, Rev. xvi. 17. 1 "We are ut- terly destroyed. On the form with u instead of o, cf. Olsh., § 263 b. " The obscure vowel is adapted to the sound of lamentation," Hitzig. — The por- tion of my people he (Jehovah, cf. i. 9) takes back. TQH of taking back of a promised bene- fit (Ps. xv. 4). Thus God repents of having granted it (Gen. vi. 6). How he withdraws it from me ! — Cf. ver. 3, against Hitzig's transla- tion : how he lets me depart ! To the apostate — t. e., to the heathen (Jer. xlix. 4), who is born and grows up in apostasy from God — he divideth our fields ! Ver. 5. Therefore, the prophecy proceeds, look- ing back to ver. 3, thou (all Israel, transition, as i. 14) shalt have no one to cast a measuring line on a lot of ground ( Judg. i. 3) in the assem- bly of Jehovah. For to the congregation of God belong the lots of ground so long only as they bear in mind that it is God's laud (Lev. xxv. 23) ; but since they, by the sins named in vers. 1, 2, ap- propriate it to themselves, there is no longer a con- gregation of Jehovah, and the owner, God, gives his land to the apostate, who have been rebellious from their birth, and so with less guilt. The words of the prophet are keen, and provoke to contradic- tion. Imagining this present to him, he ccmes to the new turn of the discourse. Vers. 6-13. State of the Prophetic Function. Ver. 6. The people will not listen to any genuine prophecy (Am. v. 10). This second reproof also runs par- allel to one of Isaiah (eh. xxviii. 7 ft.). Indeed, the prophet associates Isaiah with himself in thought, when he makes the people call out to a plurality of prophets : " Drivel not," they drivel. The expression p T T -r'7 (from H^2, therefore prop, "to let drop," trickle (Am. ix. 13), to pour out copious discourse, to prophesy = S33, cf. 3^2trT, to let bubble, gush forth ; Ps. xciv. 4), appears here, as in Am. vii. 16, in the mouth of the malig- nant opposition, whose organ the false prophets are, to carry with it a tone of contempt. (But cf. Ezek. xxi. 2, 9.) The prophet straightway re- turns this contempt ; their indignation is in real- ity an unreasonable driveling, as he then (ver. 7 c) further evinces. First, however, he answers their ob- jection by the double sentence, 6 b, c, which, accord- ing to the analogy of the following verse, is best un- 1 [Cf. Text, and Oram, in loc.]. 2 [Cf. Text, and Gram, in loc. — Tr.] 8 [Cf. Text, and Gram, on this ver. — Te.] 4 K good connection for the whole verse would be af- S>rd*d if taking the sentence ""IT k.t.A., as parenthetical, derstood as an impatient question. Shall they not drivel for that ? shall the shame not depart ? For such rhetorical questions without the particle of interrogation, cf. Hab. ii. 19; Jer. xxv. 29; Hos. xiii. 14. — Ewald, Hitzig, Maurer, Umbreit, Caspari : " Let them not prate of these things ; thi reviling has no end." Ch. V. Michaelis, Hengsten- berg, Keil : " If they prophesy not to these, the re- proach will not depart.'"- — The preceding verb stands in the sing. (Gesen., § 147, a), and iTlS)/? signifies not merely revilings but everything, which can serve as reproach and ruin to one (Is. xxx. 3). Ver. 7. The first words of this verse also are an impatient exclamation : O for what is spoken in the house of Israel ! cf. on this ace. indignationis, Ewald, §101,6; Is. xxix. 16. In like manner, Um- breit. — Caspari, Hitzig : num dicendum ? But the gerundive idea is not contained in the part. pass. Rosenmiiller and Keil : " O thou so called house of Jacob ! " But that in connection with the following gives no sense, Dp^ i"T— is not stat. abs. but ace. loci, while TIES, regarded as a verbal form, is (as Is. xxvi. 3 : if he is stayed on thee) : " for the fact that it is said in the house of Jacob," as follows, cf. I Kings vii. 48 ; Ruth i. 9. 3 The prophet (ver. 7 a), quite in the manner of ver. 6, brings up the words of the opposers, in order then to reply to them. They say : is then the spirit of Jehovah become short, t. e., impatient ? That would be against the word of God (Ex. xxxiv. 6), to which they appeal like Satan before Christ (Matt. iv. 6). Or are these — the plagues prophesied by the proph- ets — his deeds? Should he plague Israel whom he is wont to foster as his first-born son (Ex. iv. 23). The prophet replies to this f/olish speech, which claims the promise for itself regardless of the condition, by reminding them that God re- mains indeed the same, but that I ley (ver. 8 ff,) have changed, so that the promise can no longer avail for them. Do not, in fact, my words deal kindly with him that walks uprt £htly ? " The word ")W S , as an appositive to the person in ^T? 1 "' (Job xxxi. 26), could take the place which the emphasis resting on it assigns *o it, because as an adjective it draws to itself the wticle belonging to holech." Hitzig. Ver. 8. But lately — properly : yesterday — my people has stood up as an enemy. My words would have remained kind, as they were, but you have sought hostility. The hostile attitude still continues, as the imperf. indicates. On the use of ? cf. Ewald, § 217, d. a. 1. — Others, retaining the causative signification of Dftlp, translate : but my people make me stand up as their enemy. But the suffix is wanting, and the Polel is not neces- sarily' causative.* — And in what does this hostility consist ? Off from the garment ye strip the mantle of those who in secure confidence of safety (Lev. xxv. 18) pass by, averse from war, i. e., peaceably (Ps. cxx. 7). The part. pass. ZflQJ takes the place of the part. act. 2E7 (Olsh., § 245 a, cf. Ps. cxii. 7). Ver. 9. And as they spare not the peaceable, so still less the defenseless : the women of m) we should translate : " but lately, when my people," namely, the northern kingdom, Israel, already attacked, " stood up " (cf. Job xx. 27) against the enemy, Assyria, " from off tha garment ye stripped off the mantle, from them that pafMtf by securely." those namely, that fled from tte war. CHAPTERS II. l-III. 12. 21 people, the unprotected widows (Is. x. 2), ye drive out of the house of their delight, the house in- herited from the husband, to which they are at- tached by the memory of their wedded love (Cant. vii, 7 ; Ecc. ii. 8) ; from their children (the suff. is in the sing, not to denote the children severally as sons of the widows, fatherless (Kcil), for that would be a nota mala, but because Q N tp2 is taken colleC'.vely i. 9), ye take away my ornament for- ever. To belong to Jehovah is the honor and ornament of every individual Israelite ( Jer. ii. 11; Ps. lxxiii. 28) ; whoever thrusts out the children in Israel among the heathen takes aw?y this orna- ment of God (1 Sam. xxvi. 19 J. 1 From this results now (ver. 10), of itself as it were, the threatening, according to the law of the talio (cf. on ver. 3, " those that expel shall be ex- pelled " ) : Arise ye, and go : for here is not the rest (Zech. ix. 1) which was promised to the righteous people in Canaan (Dent. xii. 9 f. ; Ps. xcv. 11 ; cf. Heb. iii. 11 ff.) : for uncleanness worketh destruction (cf. Lev. xviii. 25 ; Is. liv. 16), and that a sharp destruction. So must God's prophet speak (vers. 3, 6), whether the hearers re- gard it as driveling or not. Were he, indeed, one of the prophets whom they would fain hear, (cf. Is. xxx. 10), the proclamation would sound very differently ; what they announce we are told in vers. 11-13. Ver. 11. If a man followed vanity, rTH, as in Is. xxvi. 18, and falsehood (V?, citm part, as Ps. lxxxi. 14 ; 2 Sam. xviii. 12), he would he (the apodosis aavvSeTtas, as Deut. xxxii. 29) : I will prophesy to thee, people of Israel, of wine and strong drink, t. e. either: of these things, that they shall be bestowed on you, or better : so that my predictions shall come to you as sweet as wine and strong drink, or also : prophesy to thee at the banquet (cf. ver. 6). 2 And would prophesy to this people: 3 namely, what follows in vers. 12, 13. n m continues the apodosis begun by 2T3, and, with the part, takes the place of the simple ^ s t3n, while hinting besides that this prophesying is permanent (Ewald, § 168 c.).* Instead of the verbal construction QVt > tne P art - is construed as a noun with stat. abs. as ver. 8 (Hab. ii. 15 ; Ps. xxx. 4). Ver. 12. To the part, is adjoined, as ver. 7, the direct discourse : I will surely gather all of thee, 1 [Primarily, the glory, comeliness was the fitting apparel uhich God had given them, and laid upon them, and which oppressors stripped off from them. But it includes all the gilts of God, wherewith God would array them. Instead of the holy home of parental care, the children grew up in want and neglect, away from all the ordinances of God, it may be, in a strange land. Pusey in toe. — Tr.]. 2 [« Man's conscience must needs have some plea in speaking falsely of God. The false prophets had to please the rich men, to embolden them in their self-indulgence, to tell them that God would not punish. They doubtless ■poke of God's temporal promises to his people, the land flowing with milk mid honey, His promise of abundant harvest and vintage, and assured them, that God would not withdraw these, that He was not so precise about his law. Mica h tells tbem in plain words, what it all came to ; it was a prophesying of wine and strong drink." Pusey in toe. — Th.]. 8 Or, adhering more closely to the accents : If a man followed the wind and lied deceit : I will prophesy for thee to wine and strong drink, he would prophesy to this people ; (to. The translation above is logically more perspicuous. 4nd appropriate to the Heb word* so would the liars, clothing themselves in the garb of the old prophets, prophesy in the name of Jeho- vah, O, Jacob, I will surely collect the remnant of Israel. That, indeed, a remnant only can he spoken of, who shall be gathered (according to Obad. 17 ; Joel i. 5, cf. Am. v. 15), even the false prophets know; but in view of the destruction of Samaria, they might tickle the ears of the men of Judah by pretending that the whole (1^3) of Judah, unpurified, was this remnant, and would undoubtedly enter alone into the promise. They might plausibly appeal to the precedent set by Hosea, who (Hos. ii. 2 [i. 11], cf. ch. i.) had said that after the punishment of Israel and the bestow- ment of favor on Judah, both would gather about One Head. They evidently refer to the l"Tn^ in that passage when they go on to say : I will bring them (Israel) together as sheep in the field, as a herd in the midst of its pasture- The appel- lative signification of m"2, septum-ovile, is quite possible according to the erymology, is found in the oldest versions, and is sufficiently supported by tho parallelism of "pasture." — So Hitzig, Umbreit, Caspari ; Hengstenberg, on the contrary : the Moabite, Keil : the Edomite Bozrah. — The article with the suffix in Tl^TH, as Josh. vii. 21 ; Ewald, § 290, d. And not merely Judah and Israel in their present condition, but also all the scattered and sold will return, of whom Obadiah (ver. 20) before, and Joel (iv. 6 ff.) had made mention: They, the fold and pasture of Israel, shall swarm (rraQTin instead of rra^rfFI, Olsh., § 244, e.) with men, for the multitude of the men also is & necessary element of the promises of prosperity (Hos. ii. 2 [i. 11]). Q^n is, like DVT, a cognate form for 7V271, DT^H (Ps. Iv. 3). But how do they suppose that this can take place when, after the destruction of Samaria, the northern part of the holy land is inclosed by the Assyrians round about ? This question is answered by Ver. 13. There will go up before them — a tra- ditional Messianic expression (Ob. ver. 21) — He that breaks through : the head, the leader whom they will set over them, according to Hos. ii. 2. He will place himself at their head in the holy city whither God will gather Israel, will collect them into an army and break the ring of the heathen. 5 They break through, pass into the gate (cf. on ch. i. 1 1 ), and go out through it. And their king passes on before them, for no other 4 [Cf. Gram, and Text. note. — Tr.] 5 [Dr. Pusey expresses well the opposite and more satis factory view, that the breaking through and the going forth, is out of captivity. " The image is not of conquest, but of deliverance. They break through, not to enter in, but to pass through tlw. gale aud go forth. The wall of the city is ordinarily broken through, in order to make an entrance, or to secure to a conqueror the power of entering in at any yime, or by age and decay. But there the object is ex- pressed, to go forth. Plainly then they were confined be- fore, as in a prison ; and the gate of the prison was burst open, to set them free. It is there the same image as when God says by Isaiah : 1 will say to the North, give vp : and to the South, hold not bark, or, Go ye forth of Babylon, Say ye, the Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob," etc. This author's long note on the verse before us affords an admira- ble specimen of the manner in which he connects a treasure of evangelical sentiment with tile brief hints of ancient prophecy. But it is often rather put on than drawn out ■ it is a crystallization of the gospel around a Hebrew (sen- tence rather than a blossoming forth from the bud of clearly enfolded truth."— Tb.] ? c > MICAH. than the king, out of the house &f David, can be that ''Breaker" (Am. ix. 11), and Jehovah at their head, as in the marches in the desert (Num. x. 35 ; Ex. xiii. 21). The foregoing explanation of vers. 12-13, which regards thtse as the quintessence of the golden promises with which the false prophets steal the favor of the people, rests not only on the plan of the whole discourse (chaps, ii., iii.) but also espe- cially on the impossibility of establishing otherwise a clear connection between vers. 11 and 12, and on the numerous references of the following chapter. The objections which have been raised against it, particularly that from the term " remnant," have been met in the exegesis. The passage is similarly explained by J. D. Michaelis, Hartmann, Ewald, Hofmann in the Schriflbeweis, while the majority, however, and among them of recent authors, Heng- stenberg, Hitzig, Caspari, Keil [Maurer, Pusey], separate the last two verses from the connection, and explain them as a Messianic promise from Micah's point of view. But according to this latter understanding of the subject, it is unintelligible how, immediately after this, the antithesis (ch. iii.) can begin, as indi- cated by the manifestly adversative "TOSI " but I say" (cf. Is. xxiv. 16), and by the diametrically opposite prophecy, which continues, with the ex- press assurance (ver. 8), that it gives the proper sentiment of the prophet, to the end of the chapter and culminates in the last verse. Chapter III. Here also the discourse applies directly (vers. 1- 4) to the nobility, and particularly here to those in high official station, as called guardians of the administration of justice. Hear, now, ye heads of Jacob, and ye judges (P^i^ = Arab. Kadi) of the house of Israel, Is it not for you (2 Chron. xiii. 5), for you above all, to know the right. To know = to regard, give heed to (Is. xiii. 25). Ver. 2. Ye that hate good, and love evil, that steal away their skin from off them, from the house of Israel (ver. 1), and their flesh from off their bones. They may well be pleased with the prophesying concerning the "flock" of Israel (ii. 12), for meanwhile they have the privilege of shearing and flaying the flock. Ver. 3. Yea, those who eat (the discourse turns to the third person, for in vision the prophet sees how those addressed have already stopped their ears, and turned away from him, and he makes his complaint before God and the congrega- tion) the flesh of my people, etc. Ver. 4. Then — at the time of the revelation of the wrath of God (cf. Ps. ii. 5 ; Prov. i. 18), at the very time for which their lying prophets hold out to them the prospect of nothing but golden hills, — will they rather cry to Jehovah, and he will not answer them, for they are not worthy of the gracious promise (Hos. ii. 22 ff. ), since they have let their day of grace pass by ; and will hide his face from them (impf Hiphil with e instead of i, as Ps. xxv. 9) at that time even as they have made their deeds evil. Jehovah's countenance is the fountain of life (Ps. civ. 29); when it is turned away it is death ; He will not break through before them, but will let them perish in misery, as their deeds deserve ; cf. the last words, with ii. 3, 7- Ver. 5 ff. Transition to the false prophets, par- allel to ii. 6 ff. Thus saith Jehovah against (?37, as Jon. i. 2) the prophets who lead my people astray, God's people are Israel, and he who hurts them, hurts God (Zech. ii. 8). The proph- ets should be eyes for the people (Is. xxix. 10}, and without prophets the people are blind ; but whoever leads the blind astray is accursed (Deut. xxvii. 18). They lead astray because they ara bribed by the great (ver. 1 ff.). Who, when they have anything to bite in their teeth (cf. ii. 11, 12), i. e. who when they receive any good to eat, cry, Peace — prophesy as desired ; and whoever gives them nothing for their mouth, against him they sanctify war [Kleinert : declare a sa- cred war]. By the antithesis of the two sentences, the meaning, " to bite," " to chew," is demanded for 7fJ£^3: the construction of the first [Hebrew] sentence is parataxis pro syntaxi, and the first finite verb as following what precedes has been changed into a participle: they sit with the rich at their tables, eat their bread, and sing their song. The description answers completely to that which the Greek tragic poets, from a like moral indignation, give of the venal soothsayers of their time (cf. e. g. Soph., Antig., 1036 ; Msch.., Again., IKS). To sanctify a war is the solemn formula for the dec- laration of a war which should be undertaken for the honor of God against enemies (Joel iv. 9, cf. Is. xiii. 3) ; for by the destruction of his foes God is proved a Holy One (Is. v. 16). The false prophets abuse this formula, as they do all the others of true prophecy (cf. on ii. 12 f.). Ver. 6. Therefore, because you darken Gf d's light in the daytime, there shall be to you a night without vision, yea, a darkness shall be for you without divination. The punctuators read the 3d prat, fern, impers. : " and it shall ae dark for you." But, according to the parallelism the substantive n3K?n (choshkah), with dagesh lene is to be preferred. The word chas6n, vision, which is elsewhere used of the genuine visions of true prophets (Is. i. 1), is here denned by the parallel kesom, the comprehensive designation of all the heathen arts of augury (Deut. xviii. 10, 14; Ezek. xxi. 26). In the use of the word chas6n, however, there lies the idea that the night will so break upon the people that all prophecy, even the genuine, will cease, all answer from Jehovah (cf. ver. 4 ; Lam. ii. 9). Indeed, the latter half of the verse says the same : And the sun shall go down over the prophets, — all of them — and the day be dark over them. The words are designed to complete the picture of the visionless night in the first member of the verse (cf. Am. viii. 9), and thus can hardly have the reference, which Hitzig supposes, to the eclipse of the sun on the 5th of June 716 n. c, the day in which Romulus died (Dion. Halic. ii. 56). Ver. 7. And the seers will be ashamed, and the diviners blush (cf. 1 Kings xviii. 29). " Their lying being punished in its results, they become, since God by no word of revelation helps them out of their necessity, entirely disgraced." Hitzig. And cover the beard, all of them, they will hide the face up to the nostrils, a sign of sor row (Lev. xiii. 45), here of shame (cf. Ezek. xxiv 17), as elsewhere the covering of the head (Jer. xiv. 4), Because there is no answer from God, rni^, subst. as Prov. xv. 1, 23 ; some MSS. giv«, the better sounding part, with seghol in ult. : fo; God answers not. Ver. 8. To the liars Micah sets himself and hu prophesying in contrast. But I am filled with CHAPTERS II. l-III. 12. 2? power (cf. Jer. i. 18). This first accus. (cf. Gesen., § 138, 3, b), is explained epexegetically by whnt follows; with power, i. e. with the spirit of Je- hovah, 1 in whom alone is power (Is. xxxi. 3), while those speak out of their own spirit (Ezek. xiii. 3 ; Jer. v. 13); and with judgment (judi- cial sentence), by metonymy for : with an impar- tial (opposed to ver. 5) utterance of God's right- eous judgment (Jer. i. 16), which the adversaries should indeed know, but did not wish to know : and with courage, which is not to be bought off by a dainty meal, like the slavish soul of the false prophets (ver. 5) ; to declare to Jacob his trans- gression, not the lies of false peace (ver. 5 ; ii. 11), and to Israel his sin. Ver. 9, follows with a summary view of the final consequences of this sin and its punishment. Hear this, now, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and judges of the house of Israel who abhor judgment, and make crooked that which is straight, through the desperate arts of a sophis- try which perverts right because it has the power (vii. 3; Is. v. 20). Ver. 10. Building Zion with blood-guiltiness (Ps. xxvi. 9, cf. Mic. vi. 16, with 1 Kings xxi.), and Jerusalem with iniquity. They care not that the city in which they build their palaces (Hab. iii. 6 ; Jer. xxii. 13) with the gain of sin and bloodshed, is God's own holy city (Is. i. 21 J.' 2 When the prophet remembers Jerusalem, his an- gry and complaining word passes over to her. Ver. 1 1 . Her heads judge for a bribe, there- tore to the injury of the innocent poor (Ps. xv. 5 ; Ezek. xxii. 12), and her priests teach for are- ward ; while it was their duty to give (Lev. x. 11 ; Deut. xvii. 11; xxxiii. 10) information concern- ing the decisions of the law (cf. e. g. Hag. ii. 16 ff.), they receive a fee for every consultation, so that the poor have, in fact, no part in the rights estab- lished by God (Is. v. 23), nay, can attain to no knowledge at all thereof. And their prophets divine for money, according to direction, like the heathen prophets (Num. xxii. 6 f.), and appeal to [lean upon] Jehovah, saying: Is not Jehovah among us P or, as the adversaries of Jeremiah ; here is Jehovah's temple (Jer. vii. 4) : Therefore, no evil can come upon us. Ver. 12. Therefore, so culminates in the clos- ing verse, the threatening begun in ver. 8, now in the sharpest contrast to the conclusion of the pre- ceding chapter ; therefore, for your sakes, because you make the Lord's temple a den of murderers (Jer. vii. 1 1 ), Zion shall be ploughed as [Klein- ert : into, ace. of result, Ges., § 139, 2] a field, and Jerusalem not less than the previously de- stroyed Samaria, become heaps — the stones built up with blood will be torn asunder, because Je- hovah makes inquisition for the blood ; and the i [Cf. Grain, and Text. note. — The " power " is rather the ability to exert a holy influence given from God. — Tb.]. 2 [" Or, by blood he may mean that they indirectly took away life- to that through wrong judgments, extortion, usury, fraud, oppriai jn, reducing wages, or detaining them, they took away whai was necessary to support life. Or it may be that these men thought to promote the temporal prosperity of Jerusalem, by doings which were unjust, op- pressive, crushing to their inferiors. So Solomon, in his de- generate days, made the yoke upon his people and his ser- vice grievous, so ambitious monarchs by large standing armies, or filling their exchequers, drain the life-blood of th«ir people. The physical condition and stature of the poorer population in much of France was lowered perma- nently by the conscriptions under the first emperor. In '.ur wealthy nation the term poverty describes a condition mountain of the house, j*V2 the temple, as 1 Kings vi.-viii., high places of a forest ! On th« Aram, plural "p"^, cf. Gesen., § 87, 1, a. On the threatening of Is. xxxii. 13, 14; on the incidental meaning of rHDS, on i. 5. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. The people of Israel are formed, as a holy seed, to inherit the blessing. To this end they have a holy land (ii. 4), a holy place, and the Holy God in their midst (iii. 11),* who answers them by the mouth of the prophets (iii. 7). But the straightforward development of the mission of Israel has been interrupted. The whole substance of the popular life in these holy arrange- ments has been thoroughly poisoned with the sin of seeking their own, and proudly trusting in their own power, instead of meditating on God's law (Ps i. 1), and trusting alone in his power (Ps. ii. 12). But as a people stands toward God so He toward the people ; with the froward He will show him- self froward. When the people devise iniquity He devises it against them ; when brother prepares de- struction for brother, destruction is prepared for all from on high. He has given to Israel the por- tion of goods that fell to him, but in his hands it has been squandered, and falls to those to whom it does not belong. The people is a body made up of members duly organized. But no community, even that which is best and most divinely organized, has any guar- antee of continuance (to say nothing of the eter- nal promise), unless its individual members, with a full comprehension of their calling, stand and labor therein (iii. 1-8). And radical corruption exists where that rank which ought to serve as the conduit for the stream of life from the heart of God to the whole life of the people has become putrid, and sends forth, instead of the juices of life, deadly fountains ; where between the natural op- position of the arrogant and desponding thoughts of men, for which the Word of God, under all cir- cumstances, has a somewhat unwelcome sound, and between the cowardice and self-indulgence of the servants of God, the compromise of false prophecy lias been agreed upon. We recognize the preaching of lies by its one-sided emphasis on the promises of God's Word, agreeably to the nat- ural desire of men, while it forgets the conditions of those promises ; by its sealing the crowd of hearers that may present itself for the congrega- tion of God, and assuring them all, without ex- ception, and without the purification resulting from divine judgment, of a share in his salvation. The Gospel has come for sinners, it is true, but not for drunkards and debauchees ; that is, sinners of other days. We have had to coin a new name to desig- nate the misery, offspring of our material prosperity. From our wealthy towns (as from those of Flanders,) ascends to heaven against us, "the cry of ( pauperism,' i. e., the cry of distress, arrived at a condition of system and of power, and, by an unexpected curse, issuing from the very develop- ment of wealth. The political economy of unbelief has been crushed by facts on all the theatres of human activity and industry " (Lacordaire). Truly we build up Zion with blood, when we cheapen luxuries and comforts at the pric* of souls, use Christian toil like brute strength, tempt men to dishonesty and women to other sin, to eke out the scanty wages which alone our selfish thirst for cheapness allows, heedless of everything save of our individual gratification, or of the commercial prosperity which we ftave made oui God." F usey, in loc. — Te.] MICAH. as the object of the Gospel are those who heartily confess, and desire to forsake, their sins. By such J reaching of lies the judgment is simply hastened, t brings out the contradiction of God's Word with double energy, and prepares for corruption a rush- ing progress among the other classes. The result of this course is that not merely the land becomes foreign, but prophecy disappears al- together, the presence of God becomes a dead shadow and his holy abode a stone-heap. Hengstenberg : The particular vices which the prophet names are to be regarded at the same time, and principally, as indices of the whole dis- eased condition of the people. The severity of his epeech, says the prophet to the false prophets, was rather true mildness, since it alone could avert the approaching judgment. Not from want of patience, not from unmercifulness does his God punish, but the fault lay with the sinners who vio- lently drew his judgments upon themselves. The false prophets are to be looked upon as the accom- plices of the corrupt nobility, as the bulwark, that is, which they oppose to the true prophecy and to its influence on the people, and their own con- science ; as the material power always looks about for such spiritual allies. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. On chap. ii. Several signs that the state of a people is hastening toward judgment and needs amendment. I. The reign of selfishness. 1. Each one strives and plans for himself alone. Ver. 1 a, b, c. 2. Each one trusts in his own strength. Ver. l,d. 3. Begard for the restraints of law and moral- ity is done away (ver. 2). Consequent judgment threatened. Vers. 3, 4, 5. II. Unbelief in the judgment and the conse- quent impenitence. 1 . The sting is taken from the preaching of the judgment, while they rind fault with the form in- itead of attending to the matter of the message. Ver. 6. 2. They lull the conscience with half truths. Ver. 7. 3. They suppress the consciousness of manifest sins and abuses (vers. 8, 9). Consequent judgment threatened. Ver. 10. III. The corruption of the prophetic office. 1. There are those who sing the slumbering consciences completely into a dream. Ver. 11. 2. These people mislead even honest consciences by clothing their false doctrine in the style of God's Word (Matt. vii. 15). Vers. 12, 13. Ver. 1 f. No man can serve two masters. He that seeks his own is the slave of self-seeking, and cannot escape from it day or night. Where your treasure is there is your heart also. Coveting is the original sin, and to fulfill the last command- ment is a duty as fundamental as to fulfill the first. — Ver. 3 f. As the wicked fastens his thought on wickedness so will God fasten him to the conse- quences of the wickedness. Not to be able to free one's self from what is once begun, that is the curse of evil. — Ver. 4 f. He who acts as if he had nothing, and is not satisfied with gathering and •craping together, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. — Ver. 6. Many a one doubt- less drivels because he loves to drivel ; such should take hee*l lest by th°ir ungentle words they give excuse to the adversaries. He is rightly zealot* who cherishes a burning desire that the reproach may cease. — Ver. 7. The Lord is long-suffering ; but so much the more shameful is it to abuse his patience. — Ver. 8. If God would enter into judg- ment with us, He needs not to go back to long past sins ; yesterday, the hour just past, convicts thee of thy sin. — Ver. 9. The corruption which thou workest in thy children is an everlasting cor- ruption. — Ver. 10. When man makes this lowei world his rest, God will trouble him out of it. — Ver. 1 1 . The " inner mission in a social way " has man)' dark sides, and is seldom accomplished with- out a certain sacrifice of the truth, or neglect of it and casting pearls before swine. Avoid even the appearance of evil ! — Ver. 1 2. He who would once give out a perverse sentiment as God's Word, wilt have little difficulty in finding Biblical expres- sions ; and every one to whom theology is merely a thing of the memory stands in this danger. The test of all preaching is, whether it increases thy earnestness for improvement, let it give thee pain or not. If it lulls thee to sleep, it is false even though made up of Scripture phrases. Ch. B. Michaelis : On ver. 1. When one takes his stand on the fact that he has the power, there is abuse of the power. Luther : Ver. 2. The Papists may boast of the donation and beneficences of the Emperor Con- stan tine, and others — charitable foundations, ca- thedrals, cloisters, rents, and tolls — but when we look at the truth, we must think of all such dona- tion, as the prophet speaks of it, that they have coveted such goods, and have then snatched them for themselves. Not with open violence, but by plainly deceiving men with a false pretense, as if thev could by such donation gain access to eternal life! Schlier : On ver. 5. While they think they have become rich through violence, they have rather thereby lost their whole land. Luther : Ver. 7. As to the grand boasts of the Papists, that God has given great promises to his church, I do not deny that the promises may be near at hand. But I do deny that they (the Pa- pists) are the true Christian Church. — Ver. 9. The Greeks said well, one's own hearth is better than gold. For that is the best house in which thou wouldst fain be and reside. To widows and or- phans, accordingly, their own houses, however small and humble, are true houses of delight. For there they are at home. This affection the prophet desired to magnify, that he might the more strik- ingly portray the tyranny of the covetous people. Burck : On ver. 7. Injustice against the wive* is soon followed by injustice against the children And this is a reason why dissension between the married couple is to be abominated, because it must occasion inexpressible harm to the education of the children. Starke: Ver. 1. The proverb, "Thoughts are duty free," holds good in human courts, it is true, but not before God's judgment. Covetousness is a hard thing, and leaves a man no rest day or night. — Ver. 2. We should earnestly resist the first attacks of the old Adam, that he may not ac- quire power. — Ver. 3. That there is a law of ret- ribution, is attested not only by Holy Scripture, again and again, but also by sound human reason — Ver. 4. Those who boldly deride divine admon itions, and make of them a mock, shall in turn be come a mock to their enemies. — Ver. 7. Thf nearer their punishment the more secure, gene- allv, the ungodly become. — Ver. 8. Where mani CHAPTERS II. l-III. 12. 0.r, Ibst hostility, where robbing and stealing prevail, and go unpunished, there the ungodly are near to judgment. It does not follow that all who arc called God's people are on this account in favor with Him. — Ver. 9. Whether to remain single or to marry, is optional ; by no means is it optional to break up marriage, and drive away one's spouse. As all God's works are glorious and good, so also is matrimony, which God has in many ways adorned and blessed. — Ver. 10. He that will not hear must feel. —Ver. 11. Upright teachers must preach nothing but what God com- mands them. Pfaff : Take heed, soul, to thy thoughts ! If thou wakest in the night, on thy bed, let the place serve to engage thee in holy thoughts. — ver. 4. What avails to lament, when God's judg- ments are actually receiving accomplishment! Re- pent in time ! — Ver. 5. Woe to those who have no part in the congregation of God's people ! They have also no part in God and in the heavenly in- heritance. — Ver. 7. It is an idle fancy, that God cannot punish the sinner because He is merciful; would they become subjects of his mercy, why then let them be converted. — Ver. 9. Ye judges, do the widows and orphans no hurt ! They should be written on your heart. — Ver. 11. A preacher should with full freedom, but with a mind and spirit like that of God, reprove vice. Rieger : Here also, as in chap. i. the presenta- tion of the sin and announcement of the penalty are connected together, but with the difference that there corruption of God's service is rebuked, here, rather, violence and injustice in the civil relations of the people. One draws the other after it. — Ver. 1 f. What a temptation it is, to have the power to do what evil spite suggests ! What would many a one do if the power of the hand were as great as the boldness of the heart ! As it is, however, God judges according to the counsel of the heart, and brings to light what a man has been occupied with even on his bed. — Ver. 7. That is the old and still practiced way of avoiding God's threatenings, namely, that men so readily form conceptions of God, and imagine that it is not to be supposed that God can be angry. Let one learn first of all to understand God from His own sayings. He who hates the light may for a while resort to imaginary comfort, but it cannot help him. — Ver. 8. Public outrages resulting from corruption in the civil order, draw after them many private outrages in unhappy marriages, im- proper divorces, by which the children especially are permanently corrupted, and the ground is laid for all corruption in all classes. Give us peace on every account and in every way. Quandt : Ver. 1 ff. Where such is the state of things in a country, there the glory of the people has departed, and there breathes a savor of death unto death, which attracts the eagles. — Ver. 3. The evil which the Lord devises is so named only because to the evil it appears evil, while in truth it is holy and good. — Ver. 5. Since the ungodly men of power have inwardly separated themselves from the congregation of the Lord, neither can they outwardly share in its advantages (Ps. xxxvii. 9). — Ver. 6. At the present day also the office of the preacher of righteousness is made specially dif- ficult by the hypocrites who give forth their own carnality, and cry, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. — Ver. 8. 0, that all who do violence to poverty would consider that, while they abuse the poor brethren, they set themselves against the great God in heaven. — Ver. 9. True religion u. to visit the widows and the fatherless in theif affliction ; the devil's worship, to rob widows and orphans. On chap. iii. To whom much is given in the kingdom of God, of him God's judgment will re- quire much. I. The more is given him the greater is hia guilt. 1. He cannot excuse himself from want of knowledge. — Ver. 1. 2. Rather is his sin a contradiction to the known commandment. Vers. 2, 9. 3. And as such, aggravated by the design to deafen the conscience, it comes to view practically in a very abominable light, and that (a.) In externis as want of natural affection and as bare egotism. Ver. 3 c, 10, 11. (b.) In internis as desecration of what is holy. Ver. 5. II. The greater the guilt the greater also the punishment. 1. The abused word and office loses power with respect, and is as if it were not. Vers. 4 b, 6. 2. It loses also its power with God; He no longer hears, and remains dumb. Vers. 4 a, 7. 3. And all which God does further is to an nounce and bring on trouble. Vers. 8-12. Ver. 1 f. When once reverence for God's com mand is destroyed, with the men in power, sin goes irresistibly toward its final end, like a flame which rests not till all is consumed. But against even the fury of the elements God has set his bar- rier (Job xxxviii. 11). How a right magistracy should be constituted we learn from Is. xxxii. 2. — The Word of God is not partial, but the Most High is above the heights. Neither should his servants be partial. God values the magistracy not accord- ing to its legitimacy, but according- to its works. But it may well be that the horrid works of a usurped power should first and most speedily come to an issue (vi. 16). To hold men like beasts for fattening and slaughter, is an abomination in the eyes of God. What held good in the O. T. within the nation of Israel, holds good of mankind in the N. T., and with a N. T. application the word of the prophet is true of slavery. Yet not even the prophet preaches revolution, but delivers his testi- mony, and sets home God's judgment. — Ver. 5. A servant of God, in his judgment on men, and his conduct towards them, should be influenced by no possible tokens of love toward himself person- ally. — Ver. 6. In hours of drought we ought to prove ourselves, whether we are not ourselves to blame through deficient joyfulness and devotion in the service of God. — Ver. 8. The human virtues also grow only out of the fullness of the Spirit of God, which a servant of God in his office needs. — Ver. 9. To make the straight crooked and to brand right as wrong — who does not shudder at the sin 7 And yet this is the bosom sin of these our highly cultivated times ; scarcely one has not a part in it ■ it is the necessary result of all partisanship (Eccles. vJi. 29). — Ver. 10. Whoever builds with gold from extortion and usury builds with blood (I John iv. 15). —Ver. 11. What profits all the knocking at the outward form of the church, when the fact proves that God by his Spirit is not there but has left it ? In such a case the breaking up of the form also is only a question of time. The church is only a result of labor spent on the king- dom of God ; labor spent on the church is in itself of no profit, as a schoolmaster is not the carpentei who builds the school-house, no? the public office! who brings up the children, but ae who forms theii 2t> MICAH. souls. — Ver. 12. Better for a land to be quite un- cultivated than cultivated in the service of sin. Lcther : On ver. 1. As the parson of the mag- istracy, because they are in office, is public aud common, so their sins r.nd transgressions also are public, and much more offensive than those of or- dinary citizens, not only on account of the scandal, from the fact that the common herd are any how inclined to imitate the sins of the great lords, but also because the magistracy thus become more slack to blame and punish in the lower orders those iniquities which they find and feel in them- selves. Ch. B. Michaelis : Ver. 2. When the prefect advised Tiberius to lay heavy burdens on the prov- inces, he wrote, A good shepherd shears the sheep, but does not flay them. Tarnov : Ver. 3. David would not drink the water which his attendants had procured for him at the hazard of their lives (2 Sam. xxiii. 16); ought there to be then, among Christian men. any so bad that by them the blood of their dependents is drunk, and in a moment what those have con- tributed drop by drop 1 Ch. B. Michaelis : Ver. 4. By this the prom- ise is not broken that God will hear all that call upon Him. Here such are meant as wickedly call upon Him (James iv. 3), not in truth (Ps. cxlv. 18) but hypocritically, and merely in the anguish of punishment (Prov. i. 28), without repentance and faith (Is. i. 15); as Esau wept (Gen. xxvii. 34), and as the lost lament (Wisd. v. 3). Tarnov : On ver. 8. He speaks of the gift which God has given him, not to boast of it, but compelled, as Paul (2 Cor. x. 11 ff.). Luther : On ver. 10. He condemns not priests and prophets because they take reward and money, for the pious' and God-fearing preachers of the Word are worthy of their hire, but because they abuse their office to their own gratification, and for the sake of gain, and see through the finger when the people sin, whom they should justly have punished. Hengstenberg : On ver. 13. Righteousness Duilds up because it brings God's protection and blessing; unrighteousness tears down because it brings God's curse. Starke: On ver. 1. Those are dangerous preachers who reprove only the crowd, that they may flatter the lords. Magistrates should of ne- cessity know justice, because only thus can they speak what is just. — Ver. 2. Love of evil is al- ways connected with hatred toward the good, al- though men commonly, in practicing the evil, keep up a semblance of love for the good. — Ver. 5. It is indeed a great hardship to live under a tyran- nical government, but still more dangerous is it to be supplied with false and ungodly teachers, for they preach the people not only out of the land but into hell. That is a certain sign of an anti- christian disposition, which has always manifested itself as soon as the truth has arisen here or there in the world : the devil has at once roused up re- vilers, who attacked the witnesses for the truth, and accused them of horrible crimes. So it is still, and so it will remain to the last day. — Ver. 6. He who loves the light of divine truth walks also in the light of blessedness (Job xxii. 28) ; but he who chooses darkness rather than light walks also tn the darkness of error and falsehood, and does the deeds of darkness. — Ver. 7. When the day of divine v( ngeance comes, the teachers of error will not be overlooked. — Ver. 8. Here we perceive the distinction between a false and a true prophet, between a converted and an unconverted teachar, and the different ground, nature, and object of their office. There is with the true man, spirit, power, light, self-denial, wise temperance, pure, uncorrupted delivery of God's plan of salvation ; and with the false, envy, imagination, selflova which putt's up, personal gain, respect of persons, deception of the fancy, etc., etc. — Ver. 10. By tyranny and injustice neither the church of God is built nor the kingdom of a prince established. Pfaff : Ver. 1. We have here the condition of the magistrncy. God has established this to dis- pense right and justice, to further the public good, to be an example of virtue to the people, and surely it should not take this away from the peo- ple by injustice and tyranny. — Ver. 4. Repent- ance which comes to us from an experience of tha punishment deceives not before God. — Ver. 5. Behold the criterion of a false and ungodly teacher. He is one who for his own enjoyment comforts the ungodly in their sins, who looks only for a good revenue and reward, who preaches to please men, who calumniates the real servants of God that speak the truth, who rebukes only when his gains are disturbed. — Ver. 12. The more secure men are, the heavier are the judgments of God which come upon them. Rieger: Ver. 1. God has given to every class in the world both its external advantages and its tendency and adaptation to usefulness. Thus even the great ones in the world should find in their more complete culture, understanding and discern- ment, an impulse to become acquainted with the rights which God has established. If then in the world they hate good, it is not only for themselves a sorry proof that they are children of the devil, but also opens the way for the eternal destruction of others, because much good is nipped in its blos- som by the hate, or at least suspicion, which tha great direct against it. The more enjoyment and advantage one can procure from his unrighteous- ness, the less readily does one give it up. — Ver. 4. As little as the violent are generally disposed to cry to the Lord, there still come occasions even to them, as war, etc., when their cries are awakened. As the promise that his prayer shall be heard is the most consoling to wretched man, so is the threat of having to hear the judge the most dread- ful. Let him who thus turns away the sufferer, who should have had the benefit of his office, hides his face from him, refuses him an interview, — let such an one be careful what he does. — Ver. 5 f. The times when, in the earthly rule things go sadly and in disorder, commonly bring also great danger of temptation upon the church. — Ver. 2 f. Misbelief often does as much mischief in the land as unbelief. Amid increasing corruption of life, to trust to purity of doctrine alone, and think one's self on this account far from the evil day, is misbelief. True, the kingdom of God cannot come to a stand, but meanwhile it may be taken from us and given to others. Quandt : Ver. 1. Those are the right court preachers who are not restrained by the star on the breast from inqiiiring whether the heavenly morning star shines also in the breast ( Urlsperger). — Ver. 3. There are people who spend money enough on a single meal to support a teacher or a missionary for a considerable time. — Ver. 6. Only a sudden thought of the dark eternity can now fill with anguish the soul which rejoices in sin. — Ver 7. When once the world perceive that they are de- ceived, they turn with scorn from their own proph- ets. — Ver. 8. Inward certainty, and having the CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 27 >oul established in God, is the best call for a preacher — Ver. 12 The times are become still worse before the judgment came (Is. xxvi. 18). Bremer : Sermon on vers. 1-4 Warning to the judges. (1.) Their responsibility as possessors of knowledge. (2.) Their sin : violation of duty, and self-seeking. (3.) Their punishment. — Synodal sermon on vers. 5-8. Warning to the heralds of God's Word. (1.) Their ideal character (ver. 8). (2.) Their danger of darkening God's Word through self-seeking, in that either they for per- sonal advantage preach what the ears of people lust after, or brand their personal enemies as God's enemies. (3.) The aggravation of their sin ; dese- cration of the Word^ confusion of God's congre- gation. (4.) Their punishment; they lose the capacity to discern God's Word, and speak to the disgust of others and of themselves. Sermon on vers. 11, 12. False confidence in God. (1.) Its wound, an outward temple — sacraments. (2.) Its danger, disregard of the distant future, indiffer- ence, indulgence given to the natural man. (3.) Its end. Fate of the Jewish state ; the holy city becomes as the world, and shares the fate of the world. So likewise we. If we forsake God He will forsake us. [Pcbey : Chap. ii. 1. Upon their beds, which ought to be the place of holy thought, and of com- muning with their own hearts and with God. 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. — Ver. 6. Shall not depart. It hath not now first to come. It is not some new thing to be avoided, turned aside. The sinner has but to remain as he is ; the shame encompasseth him already, and only dtpart- eth not. The wrath of God is already upon him, and abideth on him. — Ver. 13. So then, Christians, following Him, the captain of their salvation, strengthened by his grace, must burst the bars of the flesh and of the world, the bonds and chains of evil passions and habits, force themselves through the narrow way and narrow gate, do violence to themselves, endure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. The title of our Lord, the breaker-through, and the saying, they break through, together express the same as the New Testament doth, in regard to our being partakers of the sufferings of Christ. — Chap. iii. 6. The prayer is never too late, until judgment comes ; the day of grace is over when the time of judgment has arrived. They shall cry unto the Lord, and shall not be heard, because they too did not hear those who asked them, and the Lord shall turn his face from them, because they too turned their face from those who prayed to them. O, what will that turning away of the fer« be, on which hangs eternity ! — Tr.] THIRD DISCOURSE. Chapters IV. and V. Chap. IV. 1 And it shall be in the last days, That the mountain of the house of Jehovah Shall be established on the top of the mountains ; And it shall be exalted above the hills . And peoples shall flow unto it. 2 And many nations shall go, And shall say : Come ye, And let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, And to the house of the God of Jacob ; That he may teach us of his ways, And we walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth law. And the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem, 3 And he shall judge between many peoples, And decide for strong nations, to a great distance ; And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, And their spears into pruning-knives. They shall not lift up sword, nation against nation, Nor shall they learn war any more. 4 And they will sit, each one under his vine, And under his fig tree, And none shall terrify ; For the mouth of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken, 5 For all the peoples walk, Each in the name of his God ; And we will walk in the name of Jehovah, Our God for ever and ever. iS ' MICAH. 6 In that day, whispers Jehovah, I will gather her that is lame, And her that is dispersed will I collect together, And whom I have afflicted ; 7 And will set the lame one for a remnant, And the far removed for a strong nation ; And Jehovah shall reign over them in Mount Zion, Henceforth and forever. 8 And thou, tower of the flock, Ophel, daughter of Zion, to thee shall approach, And come, the former dominion, A kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem. 2 9 Now why dost thou cry out aloud ? Is there no king in thee ? Has thy counsellor perished, That pangs have seized thee as the travailing woman? 10 Wrhhe, and bring forth, Daughter of Zion, as the travailing woman ! For now thou must go forth out of the city, And dwell in the field, And come unto Babylon. There shalt thou be redeemed, There shall Jehovah deliver thee, Out of the hand of thy, enemies. 11 And now are gathered against thee Many nations, That say : Let her be defiled, And let our eye gaze upon Zion ! 12 But they know not The thoughts of Jehovah, And understand not his counsel ; That he collects them as sheaves into the threshing-floor. 13 Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion ! For thy horn will I make iron, And thy hoofs will I make brass, And thou shalt beat in pieces many nations, And I will devote 3 to Jehovah their gain, And their treasure to the Lord of all the earth. 14 (Ch. V. I. 1 ) Now gather thyself in troops, thou daughter of troopi They have set a siege against us ; With a staff they smite on the cheek The judge of Israel. Chap.V. 2. (1) And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah — Small to be among the thousands of Judah, — From thee shall come forth for me He that is to be ruler in Israel ; Whose goings forth are from of old, From the days of eternity. 3 (2) Therefore will he give them up, Until the time when she that travaileth hath borne ; And the residue of his brethren shall return To the sons of Israel, 4 (3) And he shall stand and feed, In the strength of Jehovah, In the majesty of the name of Jehovah, his God ; 1 ,'Ch. v. 1 of the Eog. vers is ch. iv. 14 oj the Hebrew BibU TE-1 CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 29 And they shall dwell ; for now shall he be great Unto the ends of the earth, 6 (4) And he will be peace ; Asshur, when he coineth into our land, And when he treadeth upon our castles, Then will we set up against him Seven herdsmen, And eight anointed of men ; 6 (5^ And they shall pasture the land of Asshur with the sword, And the land of Ninirod in her gates : And he will deliver from Asshur, When he cometh into our land, And when he treadeth on our borders. 7 (6) And the remnant of Jacob shall be In the midst of many peoples, As the dew from Jehovah, As rain upon the grass, Which tarrieth not for man, Nor waiteth for the sons of men. 8 (7) And the remnant of Jacob shall be Among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, As a lion among the beasts of the forest, As a young lion among the flocks of sheep, Which, if he pass through, treadeth down, 9 (8) High be thy hand over those that distress thee, And let all thy enemies be cut off ! 10 (9) And it will be in that day, whispers Jehovah, That I will cut off thy horses from the midst of thee, And will destroy thy chariots ; 11 (10) And I will cut off the cities of thy land, And pull down all thy fortresses ; 12 (11) Audi will cut off incantations out of thy hand, And sorcerers thou shalt not have ; 13 (12) And I will cut off thy carved images, And thy statues out of the midst of thee, And thou shalt no more worship the work of thy hands ; 14 (13) And I will tear down thy Asherahs, out of the midst of thee, And lay prostrate thy cities ; 15 (14) And will in anger and fury execute vengeance On the nations who have not heard. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. pCh. IV. 1. Kleinert and Pusey : at the end of the days ; but jT^nS means, properly, the « latter part," "end " m that sense.— Te.] p Ver. 8. The only considerable objection to the translation above, regarded merely as a translation, is that it makes too little account of the Athnack ; but this pause seems here no more than a rhetorical suspension of the construction, and the repetition of the verb (not the same verb) "approach," "come" (and with change of tense), makes no tautology, but only « raises the soul to think of the greatness of that which should come." (Pusey.) This view appears to b« fevored also by the RMiia in the second member, and is that adopted by Dr. Pusey, except that he treats ^VS _ n3 as a genitive, not appositive, and translates " Ophel, of the daughter of Zion." This is an allowable alternative. On OpheL •irf. Smith's Diet, of the Bib., Am. Ed. Zunz's version reads : " And thou flock-tower, the height of the daughter of Zion will come to -nee," etc., which makes a ieparate subject for each verb, and allows a more complete division at the Atknach; but it labors under the equally lerious difficulty of an irregular concord between 723? and nnSi™ ), and keeps not quite so close to the order of the Hebrew. Eleinert's translation, given in the exeget. notes, sacrifices the accent in making 7517 as a genitive, limit the twf preceding words as a compound term ; but his interpretation deserves very careful consideration. — Ta.] [8 Ver 13. On D~in, vid. Lange on Josh. ii. 10. — Ta.] so MICAH. EXKGETICAL AND CEITICAL. This discourse also falls into two main portions, chapters iv. ir.d v., the close connection of which is shown by their contents and arrangement. The leading thought common to both is, that the deliv- erance and glorification of Israel is certain to come, because the promise cannot be broken, while yet it will come only through grievous afflictions, and after the deepest humiliation. In respect to the plan, ch. iv. begins, in an immediate antithesis to the threatening which had preceded, — a. Vers. 1-8. With a description of the future glory of the kingdom of God in Israel, having Je- rusalem for its central point (eight verses with forty members), and then passes, — b. Vers. 9-14. (Six verses with thirty members), to the description of the heavy affliction, distress, and banishment of the people, which must come before their salvation. Parallel to this, ch. v. begins : — a. Vers. 1 -8. By describing the person and work of the Messiah, with whom that glorification must arrive (eight verses and forty members), and proceeds, — b. (Six verses with fifteen members), to the threatening which, from the nature of the case, is pronounced with this promise upon all ungodly practices in Israel. There is nothing in the historical situation to oblige us to assume a chronological advance from the preceding discourse. For, although in ch. iv. 9 ff. the picture of the affliction appears to be drawn into the immediate present, still it is prophetically given throughout, and we easily perceive that the prophet speaks not out of a state of facts corpore- ally visible, but from prophetic intuition. Chap. iv. vers. 1-8. The future kingdom of God in Jerusalem, the centre of the world. And it will come to pass — rPm, the usual form by which the dis- course is transferred to the future, so that we have to recognize an antithesis to the conclusion of the preceding chapter, without any immediate progress, but with a new flight of the discourse (Hos. ii. 1 ; Joel iii. 1 ). At the end of the days, therefore not soon, as those false prophets supposed (ii. 12 f. ), but only in the final completion of salvation. The phrase dwi rmnwa (Targ. H»»S' f]iD3, « a t the end of the days," LXX. iv rais eVxarais rjnepats), is the opposite to n^ti?S^2 (Gen. i. 1), and thus denotes in the prophets (Hos. iii. 5; Joel iii. 1 ; Ezck. xxxviii. 16, cf. Deut. iv. 30), the comple- tion of the world in contrast to its creation, the aim of all ages, the last time, with which closes the historical development in which the prophet stands and in the light of which he tests the present time and foretells the future — the Messianic time. Then shall the mountain of the house of Jehovah, winch represents, according to the connection, the whole elevated, (i. 5), holy city, including Zion, called in the Messianic Ps. lxxxvii. also a founda- tion of God on the holy mountains; — thus in gaining a universal character prophecy gives, in- Btead of the localities named in connection with the destruction (iii. 12), etc., the ideal conception 1 [Literally, " upon " it, as though the stream would over- flow the mountain. " It is a miracle, if waters ascend from a valley and tiow to a mountain. So it is a miracle that earthly nations should ascend to the church, whose doctrine and life am lofty, aiduous, sublime." Lap. in Pusey ill •uc. — Tb J of Jerusalem (cf. the Doctrinal and Ethical be- low), — be established, not on the topof the mouti tains (Hengstenberg, Iveil) for in this sense ]*|~.: is construed with 717 (Judg. xvL 26), and the con- ception could not be carried out, but as the hea<# of the mountains (3 predicative as 1 Chron. xii 18 ; Ps. xxxv. 2 ; Ex. vi. 3 ; &T) metaphorically for " the first, most eminent," as 1 Chron. xii. 18. Thus the question is already answered, whether the exaltation is to be understood as physical (Hofm., Drechsl.) or moral (Casp., Hengstenb.). The ideal Zion will be elevated above all else in the world (Is. ii. 17; 2 Cor. x. 5). The apocalypf'' 1 style of directly designating the kingdoms of the world by mountains (Rev. xvii. 9), would suit wel! here, but cannot be supported for the O. T., by the passages adduced by Hengstenberg. At the bottom of the phrase lies the image presented in Ps. lxviii 17, where the advantage which Zion enjoys as th" dwelling-place of God is indicated by the envy wit - which the higher mountains look upon it. Before God, not the lofty but the low has value (cf. v. 1 '. ]133 stands emphatically as the expression which, from the ancient promise. 2 Sain. vii. 16, 26, has b : come the usual one, for the unchangeable establis t- ment of anything by Almighty God, who can buil ! firmly even on the floods of waters (Ps. xxiv. 2, cf. xciii. 2). Parallel to this the following member says : and it (Zion) shall be exalted above ths hills (cf. Ezek. xvii. 22 f.). The ideal significance ot both sentences is proved by the parallel third mem- ber ; and the peoples shall flow unto it, 1 seeing it as it were from afar; not by constraint, but willingly. It lies in the universal character of the prophecy, that the word " peoples " here should not, as in i. 2, be the tribes of* Israel, but the na- tions of the world, and accordingly, in the second verse, CIS immediately takes its place (cf. Is. ii 2)- Ver. 2. And many nations shall go, D > 3"^ like the N. T. ol ttoWoi, e. g. Matt. xxvi. 28 ; nol in reference to those who exclude themselves, buy to the great number of those who come (cf. Is. ii. 2, ^3). A powerful movement will go through th* heathen world, so that their own feeling will tun - , them all toward Zion (Zech. viii. 20. ff.), and shall say to each other Come ye ! and let us go up (for a mountain is thought of) to the mountain of Je- hovah, and to tne house of the God of Jacob, no more to our deceitful idols from one land to t'i« other (Deut. xxx. 11 ff.) ; that he may teach ua (imperf. instead of pert', con v. because the conn • tion is final) concerning his ways, \fc irepi, as Is xlvii. 13),- that we may walk in his paths. God teaches sinners the path in which they should go, (Ps. xxv. 8, 12). For out of Zion shall go forth direction, and the word of Jehovah out of Jeru- salem. The Thorah rests immediately on t •. preceding •"Or, and is, therefore, not to be under stood (with Hengstenberg) as the Mosaic law strictly, but in its proper, more comprehensive sense, " in- struction," as also the explanatory " word of Jeho- vah," in the parallel member, is not at all the word already written merely, but one that is to be ■-! [Dr. Pusey understands the "J^2 partitively, and happslj applies the expression to the infinite variety and degrees zi understanding to which individual saints hT'e attained, con- cerning God. and of experience of his grace. " They do nol (to t" God because they know Him, but that they may know Elim - Tb.i CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 31 founded out anew. 1 Theodoret : "The word of the gospel, beginning as from a fountain, runs out through the whole inhabited world," Jerusalem, accordingly, is considered in that time of salvation, not as the seat of culture, but as the source of the living revelation of the Lord. Ver. 3. And He will judge between many peoples. War comes from the fact that men would procure justice for themselves, and so exer- cise violence (cf. Gen. iv. 23 ; Rom. xii. 19) ; the new kingdom, however, will be (Is. ix. 11 ) a king- dom of peace ; God will discharge the duty of a judge. Compare, concerning the spread of such intimations of a reign of peace, in the heathen world, about the time of Christ, Virgil, Eccl. iv. ; Ovid, Fast., i. 699 ; Martial, xiv. 34. And will correct mighty nations, " who were hitherto for the most part inclined of their own will to grasp the sword." Hen^st., cf. Is. liii. 12. Far away into the remote distance: accordingly, the flowing up in vers. 1 and 2, is a spiritual movement which is 1 [He speaks of it as law simply, not the Jewish laiv as such, but a rule of life from God. Man's better nature is ill at ease, being out of harmony with God. It cannot be other- wise. Haviug been made in His likeuess, it must be dis- tressed by its uulikeness ; having been made by Him for Himself, it must be restless without Him. What they indis- tinctly longed for, what drew them, was the hope to be con- formed by Him to Him. The sight of superhuman holiness, life, love, endurance, ever won and win* these without to the gospel or the church.'' — Pusey.] 2 These three verses are found again in Is. ii. 2-4, almost word for word. It is disputed which of the two prophets borrowed them from the other. At first view the reference of them to our author seems to be favored by the obvious circumstance that they staud in a vital and complementary connection, are essential to the understanding of what fol- lows, and through the antithesis to the immediately preced- ing context, have au appropriate and truly constructive position (cf ii. 12 with iii. 1 and iv. 14 with v. 1). In Isaiah, on the other hand, the three verses stand entirely apart at the head of a long discourse, whose subsequent parts are easily intelligible without them, and have only the interior connection with them that Isaiah shows : "So it ought to be and might have been, but how unworthy are ye now, that such salvation should come." It is in this view evident that Isaiah in that passage quotes from some source, and granting this, it seems most obvious that he quotes from Micah. But now we learn from Jeremiah xxvi. 18 f. that Micah published his prophesies (cf. the Introd.) under king Hezekiah. And although one might restrict this statement to that which was immediately connected with the verse of Micah (iii. 12) there cited, and belonging to the same time, etill. on this principle chaps. i.,vi., ii., possibly, at the most, could be assigned to an earlier date of composition, but pre- cisely for the series of discourses, chaps, ii.-v., would Jeremi- ah's statement remain decisive. But Isaiah's discourse, ch. ii., belongs not to the time of Hezekiah, but at the latest, to that of Ahaz, probably to that of Jotham, and was composed, accordingly, before Micah ii.-v. Besides, the assumption (Otherwise improbable) that Micah has presented us iu our book with a total collection of the revelation, communicated <>y him at different times, does not solve the enigma. For thug the verbal identity of the citation in Isaiah, made from the oral discourse, with the written expression of Micah remains unexplaiued. This latter must have lain before Isaiah, on the supposition that he was the borrower from our prophet. Thus commentators have been led to assume that both prophets made use of one and the same earlier prophet (Hitzig : Joel), whose writing has been lost. But how can | this be proved, especially since it stands written expressly over those verses in Isaiah, ei'eyK6Tfs e| a/ypoiv ht\ ri)V a\S>va tpayfxara eira fiovs iTratyievTis Kai (v kvk\w irepiKOfxl^ovTes KaTaAfTTTWoucri rais x?)A.a(s ras anraxvas- The comparison with the threshing cattle leads the prophet, through the association of ideas, to repre- sent the power of the attack of the Jews upon the enemy by the familiar figure of the horus, as a symbol of strength, while yet he continues the pic- ture of the threshing by the mention of the hoof: for thy horn will I make iron (Deut. xxxiii. 17), and thy hoofs I will make brass (Job xxviii. 2). And thou shalt beat in pieces many nations. And I will devote (cf. Lev. xxvii. 28) to Jehovah their gain (the goods they have collected by rob- bery, Judges v. 19), and their treasures to the Lord of the whole earth, to Jehovah, who tbrough the subjugation of the heathen will have fhown himself such (Ps. xcvi., xciii). The distinction which here appears, between the revealing God speaking in the prophet, the Logos, and the God dwelling in heaven, presents itself als? elsewhere in prophecy (Hos. i. 2; Is. xlviii. 16). Zachariah calls the former " the angel that talked with me" (ch. i. 13, et scepe). He is, ac- cording to our passage, the same that also in the name of God crushes the enemies (Ps. xxxvi. 5 6). 1 [Dr. Pusey in loc. presents strongly, and enlarges, tin arguments for understanding this of the oppressions in tf t time of th» Maccabees. — T».l CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 35 Verse 14 [Eng. vers. v. 1] however, puts a check upon the expectation raised high by this announce- ment. There will indeed a judgment follow upon the heathen before Jerusalem, and the prophecy of Isaiah (xxx. 27 ff.) concerning the overthrow of the next approaching army of Assyria has its truth ; but just as certaiuly has that of Mi call himself also, previously given (iii. 12), concerning the extreme humiliation of Jerusalem. — This ex- planation of the seeming contradiction between vers. 13 and 14 appears the most obvious. Still the other view, supported by Keil, that vers. 12, 13, concerning the Assyrian calamity, contemplate the final catastrophe of the heathen before Jerusa- lem (cf. Ezek. xxxvh'L), and so belong to thees- chatology of Micah, cannot be absolutely rejected as untenable. — Now, for this time of the judg- ment, which will strike thee also, gather thyself in troops ( Jer. v. 7) thou daughter of the troop. j*")2 before "l-H?) as before Zion (ver. 10), has the significance of a personifying address, in a relation of apposition with the following word : thou daugh- ter of war-troops, i. c, thou people of Zion gathered in troops (1 Sam. i. 16), crowded together after the manner of a troop in war ; 1 gathered in troops, not indeed for attack merely, but from melancholy necessity ; for they have set a siege against us. The prophet reckons himself with his people (cf. on i. 8). Nor does the trouble stop with the siege ; "With a staff they smite on the cheek the judge of Israel ; it leads to the extreme disgrace of Is- rael (cf. 1 Kings xxiii. 24 ; Jobxvi. 10) in the per- son of their judge, i. e. of him who stands at the head of phe people, and who, if probably the king is meant, as Am. ii. 3, is still not called Tf?'? or vE?X3, because this dignity, in the view of the prophets, is reserved for the Messiah (ver. 2), and in the afflictions preceding the Messiah properly exists not at all or only in a God-forsaken plight (ver. 9). Vers. 1-8 [Eng. vers. v. 2-9]. The description of the birth-pangs of salvation is ended, and the prophet turns, as in iv. 1 fF., to the prediction of that by which the salvation described shall come, namely, the -person and ivork of the Messiah. While Jerusalem labors and has no strength to bring forth, God of his own strength sends the Messiah. With the aggravation of the threatening the prom- ise also is enhanced. Vers. 1-4 a [2-5]. As the little Zion will become great among the mountains of the world, so amonsr the cities will the little Bethlehem. The new flight of the discourse connects itself with iv. 14, as iv. 1 does with iii. 12, and iv. 9 with iv. 8. But thou Bethlehem-Ephratah ! The addition of the ancient name from Gen. xxxv. 16 heightens the impression of solemnity, and contains an allusion also, judging from the paronomasias in chapter first. The stem H"©, Hiph. " to make fruitful," recalls the name of the Messiah, " Zemach," "branch" or " shoot " (Jer. xxiii. 5; Zech. iii. 8) ; as also in the name Bethlehem itself, i. e. Bread-house, an allusion may be discovered to the time of blessing in the kingdom of David, cf. the Abi-ad of Is. ix 6. The name is construed as mascnline, not because the population is addressed (Keil : but then precisely the feminine would be 1 L"T-T n f2 almost always means an irregular band of plundering soldiers, on a foray or raid, and in calling Jeru- lalem the daughter of such a troop, the prophet seems to Intimate the lawltwnest, violence, and injustice of which required), but on account of the masc. j"C? con- tained in the name ; " thou Bread-house of fruit- fulness." Small art thou among the districts of Judah. Some : too small to be, but in that case ]P must stand and not 7> and "T'VV could hardly fail to have the article to mark the apposi- tion. Rather ~^^ is a predicate, and the infini- tive with 7 stands, as often, in place of the finite verb (Prov. xix. 8 ; Ps. cxiii. 8, cf. ver. 9 ; Is. xxi. 1 ; Eccl. ii. 3 ; 2 Chr. xi. 12), so that the transla- tion in Matt. ii. 6 is correct even to the ovSafj.ws which anticipates the sense, and that of Luther corresponds exactly to the original. The LXX. translate the .HVilb twice : oXtyoarbs el rod ehai. 2 Alafim, prop, "thousands," are according to Num. i. 16, x. 4, the greater divisions into which the tribes were parted. Bethlehem was so small that it is wanting in the catalogue of cities in the book of Joshua. The LXX. indeed have it, and this warrants the con jecture of Jerome that it originally stood in the Hebrew text and was afterward stricken out, not, certainly, stricken out, as Jerome supposes, to ob scure the derivation of the Messiah from the tribe of Judah, but plainly because the Rabbinic critics, sharing the interpretation of our passage rejected above, felt obliged to correct the text of Joshua accordingly [?] In Ezra i. 21, and Neh. vii. 26, Bethlehem is numbered in the Hebrew also as one of the families of Judah ; but it is wanting in Neh. xi. 25, among the cities rebuilt immediately after the exile, and in the N. T. time it is called merely a KC0/X7) (John vii. 42), a x^t 310 '" (Joseph., Ant., v. 2, 8). As the Flock-tower will be again honored as the seat of the old dominion, so will Bethlehem, the home of David, as the starting-point of the new Ruler. Out of thee will go forth for me (cf. Jer. xxx. 24) he who is to be a ruler ^cf. rT^ttJEStt, iv, 8) in Israel. JIVm? without subject rests on the construction in the preceding member of the verse. The subject is left undetermined because it is immediately determined by the predicate, and, besides, the idea " out of thee " must first lie made prominent, which would have been thrown into the background by naming the subject in the former member, — And whose outgoings are from of old, from the days of ancient time. It is not a new thing which Micah prophesies ; but he whose origin he announces is one with the long promised Messiah of the stock of David. That the " of old " means directly the ancient time of the kingdom of David, which lay for Micah already 'n the distance of three hundred years, appears possible to be in- ferred from Am. ix. 11, where it is said in a quite similar connection : " I will build the house oi David as in the days of old (cf. sup., iv. 8). Still, the prophet, who everywhere speaks out of the full compass of God's organic kin^d^m (cf. on chap. iv. ver. 10), may have carried back his view even to the origin of the promise, even to the promise given to Eve, as the emphatic accumula- tion of the phrase suggests. " 1 or a periou of in- conceivable length the ruler goes forth, and is com ing, who will finally proceed from Bethlehem, lot, since he it is toward whom the history of mankind, ehe had been guilty, and for which she was to be repaid I kind— Tr.] 2 Cf. Textual and Grammatical on the passf ge. MICAH. tf Israel, of the house of David, look, all the steps in the progress of these are preparations for his toming, goir.gs-forth of the second son of Jesse." Roffinau, ■Schriftbeiveis, ii. 1, 9. Only this are we hardly allowed to say, that our passage, in the sense of the prophet, gives a strict proof of the antemuudane life of the Messiah. Besides, the expression translated " ancient times " is too am- biguous. Matthew, if he had held that interpreta- tion, would certainly not have left this so impor- tant proof text untranslated. Yet history has at- tached to the ambiguous word of the prophet this definite sense, and that we, when we read the pas- sage, so understand it, is natural, and only an ap- plication of the maxim, that God's revealing deeds are explanations of his revealing words, and vice versa. And, in fact, that no other reference of our passage is historically possible, than that to the birth of Christ, is obvious. So was it understood, not merely by Matt. ii. 6, but also by the scribes (Matt, ii. 5; John vii. 41 f.), nay, even by the emperor Hadrian, who, to kill the pseudo-Messianic disturb- ances at the root, caused all the Jews to be driven out of the region round about Bethlehem ( Reland, J., 647; Tertulliau, Cont. Jud., chap. 13), and the refutation of the strange propositions of the Jewish theology after Christ hardly required the great toil which Hengstenberg has expended upon ihem. The great freedom with which Matthew gives the citation is to be judged according to 2 Cor. iii. 6. Calvin : " Semper attendant lectores, i/uorsum adducant evangelistic scri/tturie locos, ne tcrupidose in singulis verbis insistant, sed contenti tint hoc uiw, quod scriptura nunquam torquetur ab Mis in alienum sensum." The word VHS^pQ is chosen in reference to Hos. vi. 3; the employment of the plural is explained by the older interpreters (Je- rome, Trera., Jun.) on the theory that Micah speaks of the eternal, unceasing procession of the Son from the Father. Cocceius : " Omnibus diebus sieculi egredilur Jilius a pat re et eternum est airavyaff- xarris S6^r}s arrov." That, however, is an importa- tion of the previously conceived dogmatic notion, without support from the language. Hengsten- berg 's explanation, " place of origin," is linguis- tically more appropriate (Num. xxxiii. 2; Ps. Ixx. 7), yet apart from the true sense, for the "days of iternity ' are not place, and the assertion that NUYO in general cannot mean the actus exeundi, is arbitrary ; cf. the forms H^O, ~?P3?n, SHB, etc. The plural may most simply be regarded as the rhetorical plural especially frequent in poetical diction (Ps. cxiv. 2; xlix. 4, and the HlS^in, Prov. iv. 31) ; yet further on a deeper side-design of the prophet will appear. Vers. 2 [3]. But how does this gracious pur- pose of God agree with the heavy tlneatenings in rhap. iv. ver. 14 ? That is explained by ver. 2, since it begins, paradoxically enough, with 7^ T> not "although," but " because." Therefore, pre- cisely because Israel is to he redeemed not by his own power, but by the gracious gift of the Mes- siah, and because not out of the secure city of Zion, but out of that despised Bethlehem, this Messiah must come, will he give them up; that is, God gives Israel into the hands of the enemy, ^,""0 as 2 Chr. xxx. 6, until the time that she that bears has borne. Who she is that bears cannot be doubtful from chap. iv. 8 ff. Then the people were tompared to Rachel. Rachel must groan anew at the Tower of the flock, that the new birth might come to pass. The one in travail, accordingly, is not any individnal woman, as for instance the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus (Hengstenberg) but the people of Judah, of whom it was predicted Gen. xlix. 10, that a ruler sprung from them should never fail until Shiloh should come, which Shiloh Micah understands as a person, and in ver. 4 a, replaces by Shalom. In Hos. xiii. 13, Israel has not come to the birth, but Judah is in Is. vii. 14, cf ix. G, also the pregnant maiden who shall bring forth the Immanuel. In the last distress the Messiah is born, whose outgoings, therefore, are as old as the time when the first seed of promise went forth, — as when God comforted his people with the prospect of " a time when the travailing woman shpuld bear; "as old therefore as Abraham and Adam (Gen. xii. 3). In Micah's mind, as the connection of these two verses shows, the same con- clusion is drawn as Paul plainly expresses, Gal. iii. 16 : not of many seeds does the promise speak, but of one : and so, all the births which have taken place since that promise, and in the line of it, are, as being only members of the genealogy leading to the Messiah, goings-forth of himself, the One. And as the people appear here as his mother, not a sin- gle family line leads to him, but all. Thus there is no incongruity in the fact that the people, after the representative capital, is called the daughter of Zion, while yet he comes from Bethlehem. That is the fullness of the time when the gath- ering of the people, which for the present only false prophets can promise (ii. 12), will take place. The sentence with "I connects itself to the preceding as if after "T3? stood instead of D17 a final temporal clause : until (she that bears shall have borne) and the residue of his brethren return (out of the captivity : iv. 10). Instead of the customary terminus terknicus, rpHSK? (cf. on ii. 12), which returns again afterwards, we have the synonymous ""•HJ (as Zech. xiv. 2), perhaps to indicate that we have to do not merely with the inhabitants of Judah left from the judgment, but with other estranged sons of Abraham, namely, with the members of the ten tribes, now long revolted from David. So the word is interpreted by Hoffman also, and Cas- pari, and Keil. That these scattered ones are his, the Messiah's brethren, is manifest from our expla- nation of the first half of the verse, but it is em- phatically brought out : only as his brethren have they a right to return to P37 = . , Prov. xxvi. 11) the sons of Israel, his race (Is. liiii. 8). Vers. 3 [4]. For not theirs is the power, but he will stand, in the position of a governor, as a shepherd anions his flock (Is. lxi. 5), and feed, perform God's office (Ps. xxiii., xcv.), as the true follower of David called from the flock to the kingdom (cf. on iv. 8, but also Rev. xii.), in the power of Jehovah (cf. Is. ix. 5 ; xi. 2), in the majesty of the name of his father, which he himself will bear (Is. ix. 5; cf. x. 21), and whose Gadn (majesty) has already, in ancient times, proved itself mighty over his people (Ex. xv. 7). And they shall abide [Kleinert : settle], dwell in peace, as is described chap. iv. ver. 4. And now (nm? spoken from tne standing-point of the fulfillment, as in iv. 7) is He great, He alone (cf. Joel ii. 21, 20, and the citation Luke i. 32) unto the end of the earth ; the kingdom hal CHAPTERS IV AND V. 31 ■ oecome a universal kingdom (chap. iv. ver. 1 ff. ; Ps. lxxii. 8). The three first words of ver. 4 are to he con- nected immediately with ver. 3, and to be separated from the following : And He will be peace. Thus only arises a satisfactory sense, and the beautiful structure of the third verse comes into view : (1 a) and He stands, (b) and He feeds in the power of Jehovah, (c) and in the majesty of the name of Je- hovah; (2 a) and they dwell, (b) for now is He great even to the ends of the earth, (c) and He will be peace. " Peace" is the Messiah called, as quite similarly (Eph. ii. 14) avros ((ttiv t) elpi]V7) fl/jLuy, with which cf. Judg. vi. 24 ; Is. ix. 5. The reference to Gen. xlix. 10, indicated on ver. 2 is manifest, as Ezekiel also offers a personal inter- pretation of the obscure term Shiloh (chap. xxi. ver. 32). Peace is the characteristic feature in all the descriptions of the Messiah's kingdom (cf. par- ticularly, Is. xi. 9, 6). And as David had already, in reference to the great mission, named the heir of the promise (2 Sam. vii.) Solomon, man of Seace, it was doubly natural for the prophet, who ad before his eyes everywhere the mutual connec- tion of the historical relations, and who had also (chap. iv. ver. 4) looked back to the time of Sol- omon, to say : He will be the true Solomon, seeing that the first one effected not the peace, but the sun- dering of the kingdom (1 K. xi. 31 ff.). Ver. 4 [5], b, 5 [6]. The security and power of the new kingdom, God's kingdom, stands in antag- onism to the world-kingdom, and can attain to its restoration only by the destruction of the latter (Ps. ii. 9). This is represented here under the name of Assyria, also in its historical, typical signification, as a universal empire, as in Is. xxvii. 13, while in iv. 10 Babylon appears in the same light. Asshur, whatever Assyria it may be (L. Bauer : another Assyria;) Castalio com- pares Virgil's verse: "Alter erit tunc Tiphys et altera quce vehat Argo delectos heroas;" when he eometh into our land, — the prophet speaks as a member of the people, — and when he treadeth upon our palaces, then we will set up against him (^?V, as Judg. ix. 43) seven shep- herds and eight princes of men. The distinctive terms, "palace," "seven," and "eight," connect themselves with the threatening formula with which Amos (chaps, i., ii.) announces the approach of the avenging catastrophe. The grace will be mightier than the sin ; hence, instead of the three and four sins, which, according to Amos ii. 4, make the judgment necessary, seven and eight heroes are named, who shall drive away the enemy. The seven and eight are, as we may suppose, not coor- dinate with the one in whose hands, according to 5 b, the main transaction rests, but subordinate to him. That the sense is only that the Messiah will afford the same protection to the people as a num- ber of heroes (Umbreit, and still earlier Hengsten- berg), is intimated by nothing in the text. Obadiah nlso in a quite similar connection has the plural (ver. 21). They are called shepherds, since the prophet, from ver. 2 on, has constantly used the figure of feeding (pasturing) for dominion, to recall the pastoral origin of the dynasty of David. Whether here the function of leadership in war, or that of which John (xii. f.) speaks, is most prom- inent in the figure, cannot be determined. Jere- miah (xx ), Ezekiel (xxxiv.), and Zechariah, after „he example of our prophet, and of Ps. xxiii. and xcv., present further developments of the figure ; the final amplificat>'?9 of it, within the limits of Scripture, is g>Ven by Jesus himself in John x. Nasikh is not an anointed one, but one formally installed in office, a prince (Caspari, cf. Hupfeld on Ps. ii. 6), and D"TS "O^DS are princes among the children of men (Ewald, § 287, g). Ver. 5 [6]. And they shall feed [down], while the protective agency for Israel is turned (cf. Ps. ii. 9 ; Rev. ii. 27) into a destructive one for the hea- then, the land of Asshur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with his [her] gates. Nim- rod likewise is a typical designation (cf. iv. 10). The defeat of the enemy will drive them from tha gates of Jerusalem, into which they would press, to their own gates, and crush them there (cf. Is. xxviii. 6). So will He, the Messiah, deliver from Asshur when He eometh into our land, and when He treadeth on our borders. Climax : not at all shall the enemy reach Jerusalem, but at the very border shall they be met and thrust back. It appears from a comparison with chap. iv. ver. 2, that the prophet makes a distinction among the heathen themselves between those who are disposed to salvation and those who are hardened against it. The one class will voluntarily press towards salvation, the others, by irresistible, judicial power be brought to a recognition of God's sovereignty (Ps. ii. 12). Thus also the apparent contradiction between our passage and Is. xix. 23 ff. is explained. The same antithesis is carried through in what fol- lows : — Vers. 6-8 [7-9]. The people of God, in its par- ticipation in the work of the Messiah, is a benefi- cent dew for those who seek God, a destructive one for those who hate Hiin ; Luke iii. 34 ; Rom. ix. 33 coll. Is. viii. 14; xxviii. 16. Then will the remnant of Jacob, which through the Messiah will have shared in salvation (cf. on ver. 2), be in the midst of the abundance of the peoples (cf. chap. iv. ver. 2) as dew, image of the vivifying refreshment which descends from heaven (Hos. xiv. 6) from Jehovah, not by human caprice and cal- culation, and with human failures (Is. Iv. 10), as rain-showers on the grass. Grass without rain presents a dry and withered appearance, and with it, therefore, a God-forsaken people may well be compared (Is. xl. 6), as again with a field full of dry bones (Ezek. xxxvii.). If elsewhere the rain coining from God is mentioned with reference to the certainty of its fertilizing effect (Is. Iv. 10), here it is thought of as that which tarrieth not for men, and waiteth not for the children ot men, which (as is implied in the phrase "from Jehovah," in the first member) is not at all depend- ent on the doings and strivings of men, but alone on the grace of God which supplies it according to his own thoughts and his own laws (Is. Iv. 8) Umbreit : The Lord's congregation is, in its heav enly call, in its independence of the favor of men, a dew which falls in refreshing drops on the herb- age of the world ; it works with as fertilizing an effect on the variously stocked field of the peoples round about. Ver. 7 [8J. But again will also the remnant of Jacob be among the heathen, in the midst of the abundance of the peoples as a Hon ... unsparingly. That the figures of dew and a lion stand in contrast, is obvious ; and to attempt to combine them with reference to the element com- mon to both, suddenness — Israel will fall like dew as unexpectedly as a lion on his prey (Hit- z ig) —empties the passage of meaning, to say nothing of the turgidity. Our verse runs parallel to ver. 5, as ver. 6 to chap. iv. ver. 2 ff. Ver. 8 [9]. With e suiting shout the prophe 38 MICAH. cheers Israel on, as he marches toward the object indicated in the preceding verse : High be thy hand (Is. xxvi. 11) above thine oppressors, — he goes forth, not in pride, but summoned by oppres- sion, for defense, — and let all thy foes be cut off. Cf. Is. lx. 12. Vers. 9-14 [10-15]. The Threatening which lies ill the Promise. If Israel, the kingdom of the fu- ture, is to be established, it must be pure, pure from confidence in any help beside God's, whether hu- man measures, force of arms, and the like, or idols. Accordingly, Ood must root out of Israel all abom- inations, before the judgment on the rebellious nations can come. Cf. 1 Pet. iv. 17 ; Jer. xxv. 29. And it will come to pass in that day, saith Je- hovah, that I will destroy thy horses out of the midst of thee, and . . . strongholds. Parallel to our prophecy, and serving as a commentary upon it, stand many passages in the prophet Isaiah. He also mentions first of all the war-chariots and cavalry which had been brought in from Egypt simultaneously with the origin of idolatry, as an abomination in the eyes of God (ii. 7, cf. xxxi. 1 ; 1 Kings x. 21 f.), and declares that the fortresses mus! be destroyed (ii- 15) ; because all that is flesh and not spirit, and Israel shall be delivered not by man (xxxi. S). If the kingdom of peace is to come, the putting away of the weapons of war (iv. 8) must begin in Israel. From the same point of view is the mention of cities to be regarded. Sacred history derive- the first origin of cities from the first murderer; tne close aggregation of men for mutual protection (Gen. iv. 17), that is, on account of the experience and further apprehen- sion of murder and homicide. Compare the posi- tive term of the prophecy, Ezek. xxxviii. 12; Zech. ii. 8 f. Ver. 11 [12]. As the self-help through war, so vanishes also self-deception through unprofit- able and ensnaring idolatry, which, in contrast with the reverence for Jehovah expressed in proph- ecy and worship, is characterized by the two marks of divination and worship of idols : And I will destroy divinations out of thy hand, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. Sign-monger- ing by hand (with staves, rods, drinking-cups, etc.) and observations of the sky and clouds (both can be understood from the word p3?D, from p!7, a cloud), are used to represent all kinds of sorcery and magic. Ver. 12 [13]. Then will I cut off thy stone images and thy molten images out of the midst of thee ; and no more shalt thou worship the work of thy hands. Ver. 13 [14j. And I will tear down thy Ash- erahs — m^tt'S, as Deut. vii. 5 irregularly writ- ten with ■> in the penult denotes, according to the derivation from ~!CTS, related to "lU,^, the tree- trunk stuck upright in the ground to be wor- shipped (Deut. xvi. 21 ), such as were the symbols of the nature-gods in the Canaanitish idolatry — out of the midst of thee, and destroy thy cities. These are regarded here not as fortified places, but as seats of false worship, as i. v. cf. Is. xv. 1. Ver. 14. Then, when thus the purification is completed within thee, I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath on the people who have not heard. This last addition establishes, through the implied consequence, that some heathen na- tions will hear, the distinction made on ver. 5. DOCTHLNAL AND ETHICAL. A light, a city on a hill, toward which th« heathen stream — that is the holy congregation (Matt. v. 14). In the time of salvation she is loosed, by the catastrophe spoken of in iii. 12, from her natural substratum, the little earthly hill of Zion, and in her spiritual significance, as no longer a mere centre of a temporal system of wor- ship, but the source of the perfect instruction con- cerning God, exalted high above all that is high on the earth. As upon the figure of David the prophetic figure of the Messiah is developed, so upon the figure of Jerusalem is the prophetic fig- ure of the holy community of the future (cf. Ps. lxxxvii.). As once from the tower of Babylon, which they had raised for themselves, sinners were scattered over the world, so God now sets up the banner around which they are to assemble. Prom men the multitude of ways, from Him the oneness of way. From men the centrifugal power, from Him the centripetal. Now must the deceitful voices of the gods and the oracles be dumb, to in- quire of which the heathen travelled over land and sea ; inquiries of the heavens also and of the abyss (Deut. xxx. 12 fl.) must cease. The world is aroused to receive the statute and watch-word of God which goes forth from Zion. And this watch- word is Peace, not the peace which the world giveth, for " in the world ye shall have tribula- tion," but which God alone can give, when He be- comes judge of the nations. He has become the God of the world, the calling of Israel the religion of the world. Then there is a quiet, blessed abid- ing ; God's congregation are the quiet in the land. With glorified lustre the times of Solomon, the Peaceful, return. And whatever of noble fame there is among men grows pale before his name, or receives new splendor through his name. But that the light may burn clear it must first be purified from the dross. Not with the proud, who rejoice in their own light, dwells the Holy who is the only light, and a burning flame for the ungodly, but with those who are humble and of a contrite spirit (Is. lvii. 15). Not until he is crip- pled in the contest with God does Israel receive the blessing (Gen. xxxii. 25). The tower to which the congregation turn is not a regal, but a flock- tower. Prom the flock proceeds the rule, and the flock are the ruled. David was a shepherd, shep- herds first heard of the Saviour, a shepherd was He himself. But until then, until the spiritual completion of things, the way is still long. Jerusalem is still standing, and must first pass through the purify- ing judgments, whose end was described, ch. iii. 12. Heavily struggles the congregation which is to be made perfect, under the terrors of the judgment. Out of her must the Messiah be born, from whom help cometh. But wave upon wave rushes on au*» clashes her that travaileth, yea, the waves will sweep her away from the shore where she thought herself concealed. Under God's severe dealings there must first come upon Zion's lips the cry : " Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner," before she can hear it said from his lips: " Pear not, fot from henceforth shalt thou catch men." And al though she arise in might, so long as her Messiah is not born, all her labors come to nought, she labors in vain and spends her strength for nought (Is. xlix. 4). She must endure the worst. Over against her stands the world-power, d' (ian. fiom ancient times, and -jrcvn up togethei witk CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 3i her. And to the fullest power of manifestation must she come, yea, must accomplish the last shame of subjugation and extermination upon the inheritance of God, before she can herself be judged ; for God judgeth not before the time is fulfilled (Gen. xv. 16). But the days of the world- power also are numbered. She is allowed by God to perform her work and she performs it ; but while she gathers all her might, she gathers it still only for the destruction which God has appointed to her. For, when the time is fulfilled, the Messiah will be born of the travailing congregation. Not in- deed in the outward Zion. Over that hangs the doom of destruction. But the poor of the world hath God chosen. Out of little Bethlehem will He tome toward whom all the promises have pointed from the beginning, because from the beginning He was with God, and toward his coming all his- tory looks. Israel is abandoned, but abandoned for the glory of God, which shall be accomplished through the Messiah. When everything totters, under the divine judgments, He alone stands firm and enters on his shepherd office to fulfill the prophecy of the kingdom ; through Him God be- comes the world-God, and Israel's religion the world-religion, and in Him is the Peace, yea, He is Himself Peace. But the world will not have the peace. The heathen flow unto it ; some of them however do not join in this movement, but would destroy the kingdom. These flow on to be judged. It is an- other David who acts the shepherd here. For fall- ing and for rising again, one for life another for death, thus stands the Messiah, and with Him the congregation of God, in the midst of the nations, in the midst of history. Those who belong to Him are a congregation of the holy, separated from all that is impure, from all in which man trusts apart from God, which he loves and fears besides God ; and therefore tri- umphant, because God maintains her cause. Hengstenberg : It makes no difference as to the thing whether the nations walk with their bod- ily feet or with the feet of the soul, whether they move toward the proper Mount Zion, or toward the Church, which was typified by that, only that the beginning of the pilgrimage must belong to a time when symbol and thing signified were still together, the outward Zion was still the seat of the Church. Incessantly strides the divine judg- ment towards its final issue, irresistibly the divine grace wrests from the enemy the prey which ap- peared to be given up to them forever. New phases of sin introduce new phases of judgment, a new phase of worldliness a new onset of the world-power. That the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Old Testament forms a side object of the occurrences of the New Testament, that, however, this object was with none of the latter the only object, that each of them, rather, has its signifi- cance apart from prophecy, and that by this sig- nificance prophecy and history are both equally ruled, is everywhere manifest. Among the bless- ings which the Messiah should bring to the con- gregation of the righteous, is first perceived the fundamental benefit, the condition of all others, namely, the transformation which He will produce !n the disposition of the covenant people. This Above all things must be changed, if they are not •till further to be given up to judgment. False Israel is the proper booty of the world. Schmiedeh : The three periods of deliverance in Micah give the basis for subsequent prophecy ; (1.) The redemption from Babylon is unfolded bj Is. xl.-lx., and in such a way that this redemption becomes the typical form for the entire subsequent development of the kingdom of God. (2.) The deliverance of Jerusalem from the universal attack of the nations is represented : n Ezek. xxxviii.- xxxix. as the last triumph of Israel. (3.) The rescue from the last calamity of all, in which the city itself is conquered, and the judge of Israel is mocked, lies at the bottom of the concluding prophecy of Zechariah. Calwer Bible : That is a comfort to him, that God's instruments of punishment upon Israel find also an avenger again for their tyranny, even in the people of Israel, although these must first have passed under the rod. Schlier: Not until Zion the impure has been destroyed, can it become the seat of God's holy dominion ; Zion's people must first be led far away as captives, before they become a people strong in the Lord and victorious over all peoples ; Zion's king must be deeply humbled before the true king of David's lineage comes, who brings everlasting peace to his people. Of the fulfillment. Justin Martyr (Dial. c. TV.) : As many of us as, moved by the law and by the word coming out of Jerusalem, through the Apostles, have come to the faith, and fled for refuge to the God of Jacob and of Israel, filled until then with war and slaughter and all iniquity, we have everywhere changed the instruments of war into instruments of peace, and are building piety, righteousness, philanthrophy, faith, hope, etc. Calvin : Although God governed the ancient people by the hand of David, Josiah, Hezekiah, yet there lay as it were a shadow between, so that God ruled in a hidden way. The prophet, accord- ingly, here expresses the difference between that typical outline-shadow of the kingdom and the later, new kingdom which God would reveal through the Messiah. And that is truly and defi- nitely fulfilled in the person of Christ. For al- though Christ was the true seed of David, He was still at the same time Jehovah, that is, God mani- fest in the flesh. Hengstenberg thinks himself obliged, follow- ing' ancient examples, to interpret iv. 9-14 in an apocalyptic way, as a chronological series, so that in vers. 9, 10 the Babylonian catastrophe, in ver 11 the Maccabean struggles, in ver. 14 the oppres- sions of the Romans should be foretold. Com- pare, on the contrary, the explanation given above. Rosenm., Casp., and Keil give an eschatolog- ical reference to these verses. Schmieder : It is an entire mistake to interpret this great prophecy of Micah of any one historical event, as though it was completely fulfilled in that. The interpretation coi-responds nowhere in its en- tire fullness, not even with the expressly promised deliverance from Babylon. This should not ex- pose the prophecy to suspicion, but only warn us against the undue haste of expositors. The proph- ecy rests on visions which represent, not separate historical events, but which in large, figurative sketches show the course of the development of God's kingdom. What the Holy Spirit thus speaks, that the Holy Spirit alone can interpret, not all pious curiosity of historical learning. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. On iv. 1-8. The kingdom of God. 1. Its central point: the glorified and exalted Zion. the source of the statutes and revelation^ 10 MICAH. and through grace, the ancient, chosen seat of Gtod's dominion. Ver. 1 a-c, 2 g, h, 8. 2. Its citizens : those who flow toward it thirst- ing for rit, r hteosuness, longing for salvation. Ver. 1 a, 2 a-f,'6, 7. 3. Its order : God's law and God's peace. Ver. 3. 4. Its blessedness : rest, security, prosperity. Ver. 4. 5. Its duration : eternal, like God Himself. Ver. Ver. 1. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory. The city on the hill shines and is not concealed ; it is thy own fault if thou see not. Salvation comes of grace ; but that thou mayest possess it the voice of desire must be in thy heart. He who would not suffer law and justice, and longs not therefor in humble prostration, is not ready for the Gospel either. — Ver. 3. God's judgments are best, and are clear enough for him who has part in the Holy Ghost. Plough and scythe cease not ; sowing and reaping are stall attended with toil, but what was a curse has become a blessing. — Ver. 4. Who longs not for rest ? In the kingdom of God thou hast peace. The terrors of the world are for him alone who goes with the world. — Ver. 5. In God's name! With that begin all thy work, then will it go on prosperously. — Ver. 6. Even the Old Testament knows that not until after the fullness of the heathen will Israel after the flesh, humbled and contrite, enter into the kingdom. Why is his entrance delayed ? Because Christians, instead of regarding God's way, and thus living in peace, consume each other in strife and spiritual warfare, and so throw doubt over the certainty of the di- vine promises. Until ver. 3 is fulfilled (in a spir- itual sense), ver. 6 also will not be fulfilled. — Vers. 7, 8. How will the dominion be? The ques- tion is obscure, and can be answered only from the New Testament. One thing only is sure — that God will reign forever. Hengstenberg : On ver. 2. The ways of the Lord are the ways in which He would have men walk, — the ways of living which are well pleasing to Him. The antithesis is the walking in one's own ways (Is. liii. 6), the direction of the life ac- cording to the caprice of the corrupt heart itself. Michaelis : The Messiah will be a teacher, says Kimchi. And it is quite remarkable how the old teachers of the Jews themselves say expressly, that the Messiah will interpret the words of the law, and discover the errors of the Jews ; that the doctrine which men learn before Him will not be tonsidered in comparison with his new law. Burck : Ver. 3. Jehovah Himself will reign through his law and spirit. The office which ye most shamefully disregard (ver. 3), will be most faithfully discharged. Michaelis : One may not object to this what Christ says (Matt. x. 34 if.), that He was not come to bring peace on the earth but a sword ; for this happens per accidens through human depravity ; and these disturbances Christians do not excite but suffer. The perfect fulfillment of this proph- ecy, moreover, is reserved for the final completion of all things. Calwer Bible : Ver. 4. Even under Solo- mon's reign was it so (1 Kings iv. 25), as also the ereat crowd of men in Israel, which is promised (ii. 12), likewise existed in Israel, according to 1 Kiugs iv. 20, under Solomon. Solomon's reign •vas indeed the chief type of the final reign of Messiah. Caspari : Ver. 5. We have *» do with a prom- ise. _ An admonition, or decree implying an ad- monition, would not be appropriate "here amona mere promises.^ The walking in the name of Jeho vah, however, is not to be regarded as a merit de- serving salvation, but as a conditioning grace which has been bestowed upon Israel. Calvin : Ver. 8. The prophet here establishes the souls of the pious, that they may hold out steadfast through the long delay, and not be dis- couraged by the present defeat so as to despair of the fulfillment of God's promises. The dominion of the daughter of Zion is made prominent, be- cause the king in Israel had obscured the j>iory of God. Gdlich: It is called the ancient kingdom, (1.) Because it is David's kingdom in his son Christ. (2.) Because it is a kingdom proceeding from among them, not of foreign princes. (3.) Because it is the kingdom of God. (4.) Because it is the kingdom of the twelve tribes reunited as at the time of David and Solomon. (5.) Because it is the kingdom over the heathen as David and Solo- mon ruled over the heathen. Luther : Ver. 1. The kingdom of Christ, or the preaching of the Gospel, has been made so sure, and so firmly established, that it can be stifled or exterminated by no power, however great. — ■ Ver. 2. In particular, the prophet wished to show the difference between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Moses and the law. Moses is a dreadful teacher; constrains and drives the people to a shadow of obedience. But the kingdom of Christ has a willing people (Ps. ex.), who of them- selves like sheep follow their shepherd. Eor to such willing obedience are they moved by the great, unspeakable benefits. — Ver. 3. If any one is so utterly unacquainted with Holy Scripture as to interpret this text to mean that a Christian either may not bear arms, or not legitimately use them, he very uuskillfully perverts the whole sense of the prophet. For he takes this saying concern- ing the spiritual kingdom of Christ and applies it to the bodily kingdom ; and this he does against the plain Scripture, which enjoins on the temporal magistracy that they should protect their subjects in the enjoyment of their rights, and help main- tain the general peace. — Ver. 4. What a great difference is there between householders ! Yet if they be Christians, each of them has his noble fruits, with which to help and support others. — Ver. 6. Yet who would be so pusillanimous as not easily to allow God to take away his earthly goods, it he only has sure hope of the heavenly goods * Starke : Ver. 1. At the time of Christ, Mount Zion stood over all other mountains. The Church of the New Testament has a great preeminence over the Church of the Old Testament. Christ maintains and extends, even amid manifold dis- ruption and desolation of the earthly kingdoms his spiritual kingdom — the Christian Church on earth — by his Word and Gospel. — Ver. 2. It is not enough that each one believes for himself, one must also excite another by fraternal means unto righteousness. We must not only send others to church, but also visit it ourselves. Not all who come to the church arc on that account true members of the church, but only those who come in true simplicity. — Ver. 3. Christiana should be a peaceable people and not live in bick- erings, strife, and enmity. True piety is rewarded in this world also (1 Tim. iv. 8). — Ver. 5. It is a devilish opinion that men may be savei in all religions. Christ's kingdom is not a worldly boi CHAPTERS IV. AND V 41 an eternal kingdom. A Christian must fear God not for a time only, but constantly. — Ver. 6. Bodily plagues and all kinds of chastisements be- long to the strange ways of God, by which, how- ever, He seeks to bring the erring into the right way. The cross must give birth to the Church of Christ. Hold fast and endure. Pfaff : Ver. 1 . The church of the New Testa- ment rests on an immovable foundation. Even the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. All the kingdoms of the world are nothing to be con- sidered of in comparison with the kingdom of Christ. — Ver. 3. Because there is still everywhere war, hatred, and enmity among those who should be Christians, the Lord still judges the peoples and punishes the heathen. — Ver. 5. No one is capable of the peace of God except him who walks in the name, and in the power, and according to the commandments of the Lord. Qoandt : Ver. 1. As Zion, so far as it signified also Jerusalem, was the capital of God's kingdom under the Old Testament, the language of the prophets naturally adapted itself to that, and thus the whole kingdom of God, from its Old Testa- ment germs on toward its New Testament devel- opment, on earth and in heaven, was designated by the name of Zion, the mount of God. — Ver. 3. The kingdom of peace is building itself up even in these periods, in so far as Christian people have already beaten many a sword into plough- shares and many a spear into pruning-hooks ; this imperfect fulfillment is a pledge of the complete fulfillment. On chap. iv. 9-14. Of the struggles of God's con- grey at ion. They must be maintained — 1. Under heavy sorrow in secure expectation of the final redemption (vers. 9, 10). 2. Under the mighty assaults of the foe in sure confidence that the Lord sits upon the throne (vers. 11, 12). 3. In constant self-examination. For, although the victory must certainly be given to God's cause (ver. 13), nevertheless, until Christ is born in the congregation (and in each individual, ver. 1), the result of every contest is deserved disaster and dis- grace (ver. 14). Ver. 9. Desperate complaint under the struggle and sorrow which God lays upon thee is a sign that Christ is not in thee. See to it that it becomes the right complaint and sadness ; then will He, amidst the pain, be born in thee. — Ver. 10. In his misery the prodigal son first found his way to his father's house. — Ver. 11. How much more earnestly must we be concerned that God's name should be hallowed through our faith and life, since we know that to his enemies nothing is more agreeable than to see us dishallowed. While we are not unholy no one can render us so ; and those who attempt it do so for their own condemnation and ruin. — Ver. 13. In the fortunes of the congregation there is a constant ebb and flow. Let us be on our guard against pride in apparently prosperous seasons, against despondency in the drought. — Ver. 14. It is a very wretched thing, that many Christians re- member not until amid the furious assaults of the enemy that they belong together, so as to spare one another ; but at other times for trifling causes refuse salvation to each other and will not dwell under one roof. Hengstenberg : On ver. 9. The mingling to- gether of judgments with promises of salvation should guard believers against vain hopes, which, tf not supported by the event, change into so much the deeper despondency. It contains also an in direct solace in itself, for He who sends the predic- tion of what shall be, under his control must it stand, and " He who sends can turn it away." The greatest reason for our faint-heartedness under the cross is the doubt whether it comes from God. Calvin : Ver. 10. As soon as He has strength- ened the souls of believers to bear the cross, He adds the hope of salvation. Luther : Birth-pangs indicate not a death but a twofold life, that, namely, the mother is to be delivered of her burden and the new man born. — Ver. 11. Israel, with his claim to be alone the peo- ple of God, was a thorn in the eye of the heathen. Starke : Ver. 9. In great distress of heart men often either forget God's promises, or begin in some measure to despair of their fulfillment. — Ver. 10. Then is the cross most lightly borne, when we consider the will of God, and yield ourselves pa- tiently to the trouble. — Ver. 12. The ungodly in their persecution of the saints, always have, doubt- less, an evil design, but God knows how neverthe less to turn it to good. — Ver. 13. A great army can accomplish nothing unless God gives it strength. — Ver. 14. And all preparation for war is vain when God would punish. Those who de- spise Him and his Word are despised by God in return, and given over to the scorn of men. Pfaff: Ver. 11 if. The enemies of Christ's kingdom must not think that, bemuse by God's appointment they are permitted to plague the church for a time, this will pass unpunished. The iniquity will be returned upon their own heads Against God's judgments, when they fall, avails no military preparation, but only the preparation through repentance and prayer. Rieger: Even in our Church, and amid the priceless liberty of conscience with which God has blessed us, his kingdom is still every where hampered and oppressed by the power and spirit of the world, and one cannot make the least use of discipline, still less discover traces of the kingdom of God in the secular power. But the greater the need the better can the promises come to one's help. If God should even still further and more grievously afflict, this must still be our consolation, that if He breaks down that which He has himself built, He will use all the living stones otherwise for his own purposes. The certainty of the faith of Israel in the Old Testament, and the solidity of all God's promises through the prophets, have served at all times as a support for the Christian faith. Where there is little or no faith in the heart, and men still esteem earthly good very highly, we often hear premature and too sensitive complaints, against which we must testify that there can and will be a still further decay of external prosperity, while yet God will not let his promise fail. Our heart is either lost in the distress and forgets the prom- ise, or it lends an ear to the promise and then thinks there must nothing adverse intervene. It is right to keep promise and threatening both be- fore the eyes. On chap. v. The Prince of Peace. 1 . His coming. (a.) In lowly guise, 1 a; humble, (b.) And yet to the throne, 1 b ; glorious, (c.) Because He was appointed to this from of old, 1 c ; eternal. (d.) At the appointed fullness of time, 2 a; tem- poral. 2. His work. (a.) To seek and save that which was lost, 2 b, (b.) To be a shepherd in truth, 3 a. 12 MICAH. (c.) To prepare God's kingdom even to the ends of the world, 3 b. (d.) To give peace to his followers through the orotection which He will afford and the bestow- ment of power, 4. (e.) To judge the world, 5, 14. 3. His Congregation. (a.) A spiritual congregation. Ver. 6. (b.j A powerful congregation. Vers. 7, 8. (c.) A holy congregation, which (a) trusts in God alone (vers. 9, 10) ; (/8) inquires after God's will alone (ver. 11); (y) fears God alone (vers. 12, 13). Ver. 1. God counts not but weighs; and the lowly and small in the eye of the world He chooses most fondly. He is a concealed God. His ways reach from the deep to the height. — As David came not from Bethlehem without previous signs, so everything temporal in the kingdom of God has eternal signification. — Kings should consider that they ought not to esteem most highly their arse- nals, but their stores of bread, and that those exist for these. — Rulers are at all times by God's grace. Christ's coming is from eternity and to eternity. — It is little to believe that Christ was before the world ; salvation begins not until j r ou experience that He is born in the world. — Ver. 2. God's " therefore" is always hard to understand, especi- ally when it goes against our flesh. Blessed he who receives it. God forsakes, but only for a cer- tain time ; have patience in the time of drought, his time is best of all. All his ways tend toward new birth ; even death. He has forgotten none, and goes after all, even the lost ; leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and seeks the one. — Ver. 3. Raise thy head ; the Saviour stands ever, and if He veils himself, the cloud is in the dim- ness of thine eye ; he cannot fall. — Although Jesus be thy salvation, thou shouldst not in a childish way drag his nature into the dust, but cherish a holy reverence for his divine majesty. In the name of Christ call upon God ; in the name of God cry to Christ ; He will certainly hear thee. Wherever thou art He is not far off. Even if thou wert sitting in the abyss, his kingdom reaches thither. But consider that time on earth has an end, seeking may begin too late. — Ver. 4. He gives Himself, therefore gives He peace. In the congregation He, the One, is invisible ; his work there is carried on by many hands. A visible head to the congregation is against Scripture: — Ver. 5. Kven where He smites, it is only salvation. No Christian should rejoice in the destruction of en- emies, but only be thankful for the salvation of his own soul. — Ver. 6. Amid the world must the con- gregation stand. Flight from the world is con- trary to the kingdom of God. Where the main- tenance of the spirit and of strength fails, there exists nothing of the true Israel. Again, where grace is sought through human wisdom, and is placed in an outward mechanism of Christianity, rather than in the living, travailing power of God's spirit, there too the true Israel is not. Times of refreshing in the Church come not according to the will and calculation of men, but according to (iod's will. They cannot be made, but must be Iirayed for. But for death God is not to blame, tut those who would not receive the dew of his Spirit, and would rather remain dry. — Vers. 7, 8. If a preacher would indeed speak the Word of the Spirit, he must know that God's Word, which he proclaims, will triumph. He who believes not speaks as if he spoke not. How much more earn- est and diligent in our office should we be, if we always thought that God does not without mean? carry forward the upbuilding of his kingdom, but has connected this with instruments, with the rem- nant of Israel, his servants. — Vers. 9, 10. The pride of learning and wisdom also is horses ; the pride of self-righteousness and good works is char- iots, on which the natural man rides abroad ; and if whole communities rest in them and suppose that they are thus justified, they are cities and for- tresses rejected of God. — Ver. 11 f. Covetousness and ambition also are idols. How many men ask first these dark idols of their heart, before they in- quire after God's will, and thus lose, alas ! labor and profit ; adulterating also the fountain of grace which had been opened in their hearts. — Ver. 14. In the time of salvation, the idea of " heathen " will no more be conceived as national and histor- ical, but those are heathen who hear not the voice of God, whether by birth they stand within or out- side of the congregation. Michaelis : On ver. 1 . " Days " and " eter- nity " seem to be incompatible, but the Scripture speaks of divine things which it would reveal, in a human way. Hence as we conceive always of a space still beyond the uttermost world-spheres, al- though it does not exist, so we imagine days and seasons before the world, because we cannot do otherwise. Thus the Apostle also speaks of the days of eternity, and God is called (Dan. vii. 9) the Ancient of Days. Cheysostom : When He says : His begin- nings are from the beginning, from the days of antiquity, He shows his preexistent nature ; but when He says : He will go forth a ruler to feed my people Israel, He shows his temporal birth. Calvin : "For me will He come forth; " thus God indicates that He intends the destruction of the people only so as to restore them again after a certain time. Hence He calls back to Himself them that believe, and to his plan, as if He would say : So have I rejected you for a season, that you still lie near my heart. Hkngsten t berg : God so ordeted circumstances connected with the typical choice of David that his human lowliness might appear in the strongest light. It was God who raised him from a keeper of sheep to be a shepherd of the people. Michaelis : On ver. 2. Therefore, because this is the plan of God, first to punish Zion for her sins and then to restore her through the Christ that comes forth out of Bethlehem. Calvin : Ver. 3. The expression " feed " shows how Christ stands toward his own, the sheep that have been intrusted to him. He does not rule over them like a dreadful tyrant, who oppresses his subjects with fear, but He is a shepherd and cares for his sheep with all the gentleness that could be desired. But since we are surrounded with enemies, the prophet adds : He works with power, that is, with all the power there is in God, all the protection there is in Christ, as soon as there is need to protect the church. We should learn, therefore, to expect from Christ just as much salvation as there is power in God. Schlier : Ver. 6 tf. Christ's people are a source of blessing everywhere, bu where they are opposed they become a lion which none can resist they are also a victorious people. Schmiedek : That the power of the holy peo pie is a peaceful one, and that only the strength, not the kind of their force is compared to the force of a lion, is proved by what follows. Michaelis : Christ is a lamb and a lion, <£ Rev. vi. 16. CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 43 Michaeus : Ver. 9. So did Joshua and David, in order to break up false confidence (Josh. xi. 6 ff. ; 2 Sam.viii. 4). Luther: How well ha? God fulfilled that al- ready with the temporal Israel ! Starke : Ver. 1. As believers under the Old Testament comforted themselves, amid their afflic- tions, with the promise of Christ's coming in the flesh, so it becomes us, on whom the end of the world has come, to comfort and strengthen our- selves with the hope of Christ's coming at the last judgment (1 Thes. iv. 16-18). Whatever cities worthily receive Christ, these are his Bethle- hem. Although God's throne is very high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly. — Ver. 2. Let him that afflicts afflict, until He comes with the Gospel. Let him who loves happiness submit himself to his government in humility. — Ver. 3. The Gospel gives nourishment to our souls, and glorifies Christ in us. Christ's kingdom of power as well as of grace is and goes everywhere. The Gospel can be detained and hindered by no human power. — Ver. 4. Christ is our peace, because through Him we have peace above us with God, within us in our conscience, around us with other men, and under us against Satan. — Ver. 5. God can doubtless wink at the tyrants for a time ; but when they have tilled up the measure it will be measured to them again with the measure. — Ver. 6. God scatters his pious ones for this reason also, that through them the seed of the Gospel may be sown also iu other places. God has always a little flock left in the Church. True conversion results neither from our own nor from the powers of other men, but from God alone. The Gospel is the dew by which God refreshes the thirsty earth. — Vers. 9, 10. Many things not bad in themselves may be- come bad by abuse. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual and mighty before God (2 Cor. x. 4). — Ver. 13. Insincere worship also is a kind of idolatry. — Ver. 14. God in kind- cess calls the sinner to repentance ; if he obey not He chastises him in moderation ; but if not even this helps, He overwhelms him utterly with his in- dignation. Pfaff: Ver. 1. Since Bethlehem, with the other cities of Judasa. has long been destroyed, the Messiah must have been born already. Jesus must reign by his Spirit in our hearts, if we would be a portion of his Israel. — Vers. 2, 3. A beauti- ful prophecy of the union of Jews and heathen in the New Testament ; then they shall form one congregation to the world's end. — Ver. 6 f. Chris- tians who walk in the power of the Saviour, are like a fruitful dew and rain, which fertilizes others also, makes them grow and bear fruit unto the Spirit ; they are endowed with a spiritual strength from on high, whereby they may powerfully affect the conscience of men, and triumph gloriously over the kingdom of Satan. Rieger : There remains much unexplained in this chapter. We may, however, in that which is clear and certain find our pasture, and have so much reverence for the more difficult parts as to Delieve that there lies iu them also something by which already the faith of others has been strength- ened, or of which others after us will have better understanding. — Ver. 1 ff. Christ is here prom- feed particularly as He who should be Lord over Israel, therefore in his kingdom. Where then is his high-priesthood, his redeeming work, and all the rest which is proclaimed of him in the Gos- pel ? All that has its fulfillment and due relations in the kinglv mlc. Tor this sets in motion his whole work of redemption with its blessed fruits, and procures its fulfillment for all the righteous- ness of God. It was the ease with the Jews that they in an earthly sense rested on the kingdom alone, and stumbled at the rest; now, it works with many in Christendom almost precisely the other way. — Ver. 2. It is not hard for faith to apprehend that, as Christ was once horn at Beth- lehem, as regards his person, so also he, in his king- dom, may once appear as the shepherd of nations, born tli rough so many pangs and sighs of all the faithful, and may bring everything to the end pro- posed in the counsel of God. Quandt : Ver. 1. Out of the place which is too small to be an independent member, goes forth the head. Not the present Bethlehem, whose poor in- habitants support themselves by the preparation of mementoes for the pilgrims, out of the stones and shells of the Dead Sea, but a converted Christian soul is now the true birth-place of the Redeemer. — Ver. 3. He who has the Messiah for a shepherd finds in Him both pasture and protection. With Him will the congregation dwell, not roam abroad any longer (cf. Am. viii. 11). — Ver. 6. The bless- ings which Christianity has brought to the world are not to be counted. — Ver. 7. Not to the souls, but the sins of the nations will Israel be terrible ; for the peace which the Messiah gives is in its nature warfare against sin. — Ver. 10. Cities which are fortresses fall under the judgments of God, that confidence in them may fall also. — Ver. 14. It is God's way to do wonders with broken reeds. Not until He has washed Israel in the sharp lye of his judgments, and taken from him all in which he placed his vain hopes, is he a suitable instrument for God, to execute his vengeance on the nations through attestation of the word. [Dr. Pcsey : On iv. 1. God's promises, good- ness, truth, fail not. He withdraweth his Pres- ence from those who receive Him not; only to give Himself to those who will receive Him. Mercy is the end and sequel of chastisement. Mi- cah then joins on this great prophecy of future mercy to the preceding woe, as its issue in the order of God's will. — Ver. 2. In Micah's time not one people, scarcely some poor fragments of the Jewish people, went up to worship God at Zion, to call to remembrance his benefits, to learn of Him. Those who should thereafter worship Him, should be many nations. — They came not making bargains with God (as some now would), what they should be taught, that He should reveal to them nothing transcending reason, nothing ex- ceeding or contradicting their notions of God ; they do not come with reserves, that God should not take away this or that error, or should not disclose anything of his incomprehensibleness. They come in holy simplicity, to learn whatever He will con- descend to tell them ; in holy confidence, that He, the Infallible Truth, will teach them infallibly. — No one ever saw or could imagine two human be- ings, in whom the grace of God had unfolded it- self in exactly the same way. Each saint will have his distinct beauty around the throne. But then each will have learnt of his ways, in a differ- ent proportion or degree. — Ver. 3. The fathers had indeed a joy, which we have not, that wars were not between Christians ; for although "just wars are lawful," war cannot be on both sides just ; very few wars have not, on both sides, what is against the spirit of the Gospel. lor, except where there is exceeding wickedness on one side, or peril of further evil, the words of our Lord would hold good, in public as well as private, 7 i4 MICAH. tay unto you that ye resist not evil. — Ver. 10. God's judgments, or purifying trials, or visitation of his saints, hold their way, until their end be reached. They who suffer cannot turn them aside; they who inflict them cannot add to them or detain them. — There [in Babylon, "in tumult, and din, and unrest, and the distractions of this life "] shall it [the backslidden and chastened soul] be deliv- ered, like the poor Prodigal, who came to himself in a far country, when worn out by its hard ser- vice. Even then it must not despair, but remem- ber, with him, its Father's house, the Heavenly Jerusalem. Its pains within or without, whereby it is brought back, are travail pains. Though all is dark, it must not say, 2" have no Counsellor. For its Redeemer's name is Counsellor, " one Coun- sellor of a thousand." " Thine Intercessor never dies." Out of the very depths of misery will the Divine mercy draw thee. Dr. Pusey: Ch. v. 7 (Eng. Vers.). In the Gos- pel and the grace of Christ there are both, gentle- ness and might; softness, as of the dew, might, as of a lion. For, " wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily; and sweetly doth she order all things." 1 — Ver."ll. The church shall not need the temptation of human defenses ; for God shall fence her in on every side. Great cities too, as the abode of luxury, and sin, of power and pride, tut, mostly, of cruelty, are chiefly denounced as 1 Wisi. viu. L the objects of God's anger. Babylon stands at the emblem of the whole city of the world or of the devil, as opposed to God. " The first city wai built by Cain ; Abel and the other saints had no continuing city here." Matthew Henry : Ch. iv. 2. Where we come to worship God, we come to be taught of Him. Those may comfortably expect that God will teach them who are firmly resolved by his grace to do as they are taught. — Ver. 5. Then peace is a blessing indeed, when it strengthens our resolu- tion to cleave to the Lord. — Ver. 12. When men are made use of as instruments of Providence in accomplishing its purposes, it is very common foi them to intend one thing, and for God to intend quite the contrary. — Ver. 13. When God has conquering work for his people to do, He will fur- nish them with strength and ability for it, will make the horns iron and the hoofs brass ; and when He does so, they must exert the power He gives them and execute the commission; even the daugh- ter of Zion must arise and thresh. Ch. v. 2 (Eng. Vers.). A relation to Christ will magnify those that are little in the world. — Ver. 5. When God has work to do He will not want fit- ting instruments to do it with; and when He pleases He can do it by a few ; He needs not raise thousands, but seven or eight principal men may serve the turn, if God be with them. SECOND DIVISION. FOURTH DISCOURSE. Chapters VI.-VTL Chap. vi. 1 Hear ye, I pray, what Jehovah saith : Rise thou, wage a controversy before the mountains, And let the hills hear thy voice ! 2 Hear, ye mountains, Jehovah's controversy, And ye immovable foundations of the earth ! For Jehovah hath a controversy with his people, And with Israel will he dispute. 3 My people, what have I done unto thee ? And wherein have I wearied thee ? Testify against me. 4 For 1 I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, And out of the house of bondage I redeemed thee ; And sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Mir iam,, 5 My people, remember now What Balak consulted, The king of Moab, And what answer was given him, By Balaam, son of Beor ; From Shittim to Gilgal ; That thou mayest know the righteousness of Jehovah. 6 With what shall I come into the presence of Jehovah, CHAPTERS VI AND VII. 45 Bow down unto God on high ? Shall I come into his presence with burnt offerings, With calves of a year old ? 7 Doth Jehovah delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand streams of oil ? Shall I give my first born for my transgression,' The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? 8 He hath told thee, man, what is good ; And what 8 doth Jehovah require of thee, But to do justly, And love mercy, And walk humbly with thy God ? 9 Jehovah's voice calls to the city, And wisdom will see thy name. 4 Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it I 10 Are there yet in the house of the wicked Treasures of wickedness, And the lean Ephah, accursed ? 11 Can I be pure with the wicked balances, And with the bag of deceitful weights ? 12 Her rich men are full of violence, And her inhabitants speak lies, And their tongue is deception in their mouth. 13 And I also will smite thee with deadly wounds, Laying thee waste on account of thy sins. 14 Thou shalt eat and not be satisfied, And thy emptiness [shall remain] in thee ; And thou shalt remove, and shalt not rescue, And what thou dost rescue I will give to the sword 15 Thou shalt sow, and not reap ; Thou shalt tread olives, and not anoint thee with oQ» And must, and not drink wine. 16 And they diligently keep the statutes of Omri, And all the works of the house of Ahab ; And ye walk in their counsels, That I may make thee an astonishment, And her inhabitants a hissing : And the reproach of my people ye shall hear. CHAP. viL 1 Woe is me ! for I am become As the gatherings of the harvest, As the gleanings of the vintage : There is no cluster to eat ; For a first-ripe fig my soul longs. 2 Perished is the godly man out of the earth ; And upright among men there is none : They all lie in wait for blood, Each his brother they hunt with a net. 3 For evil both hands are active ; The prince asketh, and the judge [ judgeth] for reward, And the great man — he speaketh the desire of his soul, And they wrest it. 4 The best of them is as a prickly bush, And the most upright worse than a thorn hedge : The day 5 of thy watchmen and of thy visitation cometh ; Then shall be their perplexity. 5 Trust ye not in a friend, Confide not in an associate; 46 MICAH. From her that lieth in thy bosom Keep the doors of thy mouth. 6 For son despiseth father, Daughter riseth up against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; A man's enemies are the people of his house. 7 And I, to Jehovah will I look, I will wait for the God of my salvation ; My God will hear me. 8 Rejoice not, mine enemy, over 6 me ; When I have fallen, I arise ; When I sit in darkness, Jehovah is a light to me. 9 The indignation of Jehovah I will bear, For I have sinned against him, Until he plead my cause, and maintain my right : He will bring me forth to the light ; I shall see his righteousness. 10 And my enemy shall see, And shame shall cover her, Her who saith to me : Where is Jehovah thy God? My eyes will look upon her, Now she shall be trodden down As the mire in the streets. 11 A day for building thy fence walls : That day shall the statute be far removed. 12 That day, unto thee shall they come Even from Assyria, and the cities of Egypt ; * And from Egypt even unto the river ; And [to] sea from sea, And [from] mountain to mountain. 13 And the land will be desolate On account of its inhabitants, Because of the fruit of their doings. 14 Feed thy people with thy rod, The flock of thy possession, Dwelling alone, 8 In the forest, in the midst of Carmel ; They shall feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old* 15 As in the days of thy coming from the land of Egypt. Will I show to them marvellous things. 16 The nations shall see and be ashamed, Of all their might ; They shall place their hand on their mouth, Their ears will be deaf. 17 They shall lick dust like the serpent, As creeping on the earth ; They shall tremble forth out of their hiding-places, Unto Jehovah our God they shall come with dread, And shall fear because of thee. 18 Who is a God like thee, That forgiveth iniquity, And passeth over transgression CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 47 For the remnant of his possession ? He holdeth not his anger forever, For he delighteth in mercy. 19 He will again have compassion on us, He will trample on our iniquities, And cast into the depths of the sea all their sins. 20 Thou wilt give truth to Jacob, Mercy to Abraham, Which thou hast sworn to our fathers, From the days of ancient time. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 ¥w. 4. — ^3. Dr. Kleinert renders : Is it, possibly, that I brought thee up, etc. ; itt etwa, dots, n. s. w. Thto ta spirited but savors too much, perhaps, of modern rhetoric. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 7. — 3?E?S and j"ISt3n are regarded by many as used by metonomy for "sin-offering," "expiation." Perhaps however they are quite as well taken to be adverb, ace. (Gesen. § 118, 3); and at aU events, the rendering of the Eng. Vers, gives the sense : and so Zunz. — Tr.] [3 Ver. 8. — Our author with Hitzig, disregarding the accentuation, makes TllZfl also dependent on "PHr"! : " and what Jehovah seeks of thee ; " and then translates uZS N 3 : " nothing but." Maurer's refutation of Hitzig at this point is harsh and petulant, but effectual. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 9. — Kleinert, with Maurer and many others, inverts the order of these words, with the advantage of thus securing au obvious agreement in gender between nS"^* 1 and its subj., and a thought at least equally appropriate. But as there is some doubt about the meaning, — " look out for," circumspectare, cireutnspicere — thus ascribed t» HS"! And as "wisdom " may very well stand for "the wise man," it seems preferable to adopt the simplest translation, follow- ing the very order of the Hebrew words. The Exegetical note will give several of the many renderings which have beea proposed. — Tr.] [5 Chap. vii. 4. — Kleinert treats E^ as an ace. of time, translating : In the day of thy seers, When thy visitation cometh, and in the next member would have H^rTl in the second pers. masc. : Thou shalt be ensnared by them. — Tr.] [6 Ver. 8. — I do not think the s 7 " pleonastic " here, but rather as giving the ground of the hostile "joy." — Tr.] [7 Ver. 12. — Tl^JO, properly signifying, "bulwark," or "fortification," "strength," is here almost certainly used of Egypt, probably with a play on the name of the latter. Pusey : " The name Matior, which he gives to Egypt, modi- fying its ordinary dual name Mitzraim, is meant at once to signify "Egypt " [Is. xix. 6 ; xxxvii. 25], and to mark the strength of the country." — Tr.] [8 Ver. 14. — Kleinert changes the punctuation, putting a period after c, and then reads : — In the forest in the midst of Carmel may they feed, In Bashan, etc. " Dwelling alone " is in either case parenthetic, but it seems just as well to connect what immediately follows with the " feed," etc., in the first member, as is done above. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL Leaving the concrete sketches of history, the public reproofs, and the historical prediction, the orophet rises to the height of the idea woven through the whole course of history, and repre- sents the relation between the God of Israel and his people, the past condition the present compli- cations and the future solution, under the figure of a suit-at-law. In accordance with this fundamental character, the discourse has no special historical reference, but takes, as we may say, a universal position. We must, to be sure, perceive, with Caspar i, that Israel, charged by the prophet with backsliding, freely grants its guilt and is ready to atone for it (vi. 6 a) ; that it is disposed to clear itself by num- ^rous sacrifices (vi. 6 b), not however through hearty relinquishment of its pride, unrighteous- ness and oppression (vi. 8-10 flf.). But that we should by these trait* (in contrast with the preced- ing discourses, as having fallen within the time of Hezekiah's predecessors), be here necessarily orought down to the first years of Hezekiah, when a general sense of sin and the favorable disposi- tion for the orderly restoration of Jehovah's wor- ship may have existed in the higher strata of the people, while the mass still strove against the ethi- cal portion of the law, is disproved by the con tents of the section, ch. vii. 1 tf. (cf. vi. 16). There we find no word of any difference between the good disposition of the great and the stupidity of the multitude, but, rather, the description runs completely parallel to that in ch. iii. Nor is there otherwise any solid support for maintaining the date of the whole to be either earlier or later than for chaps, i.-v., and we must be content with say- ing, that in a completely similar situation, this concluding discourse distinguishes itself only by its peculiar rhetorical character from the former portion of the book. This is true in respect to matter, inasmuch as the subject is not particular manifestations of present sin, but the sins of the whole people, and not particular moments of the future, but judgment and salvation in their spir- itual nature; and in respect to form, inasmuch as it is not directly paraenetic or eschatological, but lyrical and of the nature of a psalm. It close* 18 MICAH. the book of Micah very much as Hab. iii. and Is. xl.-lxvi. close those books, and as Rom. xi. 33-36 the Jewish historical exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. In its plan also this peculiarity of the closing addrsss appears. It falls into three parts, and the fundamental number which prevails is (apart from the introitus and the transitus) 13. The scheme is as follows : — ft. The introitus. vi. 1, 2 (seven lines). Then I. The first stage of the suit (vi. 3-8) ; and 1. Vers. 3-5. God's complaint (thirteen lines). 2. Vers. 6-8. Israel's anxious reply (thirteen lines). II. Second stage of the suit (vi. 9-vii. 8) ; and 1. vi 9-16. God's reproof (twenty-six lines). 2. vii. 1-6. Israel's complaint (twenty-six lines). b. The transitus, vii. 7, 8 (seven lines) ; and fol- lowing upon this, — III. The closing psalm : humiliation, confidence, and praise, vii. 9-12 (13+26+13 lines). Introitus, chap, vi., vers. 1, 2. Hear ye now; thus begins, like the opening discourse, i., ii., the closing address also ; hear ye what Jehovah saith, dicturus est, namely, to me, the prophet. Arise, bring a suit toward the mountains ! In the name of Jehovah, and as his advocate, should the prophet enter into the controversy with the people, and utter the complaint so loud that the mountains, which, as appears from the following clause, and the hills shall hear thy voice, and from ver. 2, are present as witnesses of the trial (cf. Deut. xxxii. 1 ; Is. i. 2), may murmur with the echo. The explanation, bring a suit against the mountains, accuse the mountains, is seuseless in itself, and therefore DS must be taken as a sign of direction, as Judg. xix. 18 ; Is. lxvi. 14. Ver 2. The prophet, following the command, calls out to the mountains : hear, ye mountains, Jehovah's cause, and ye unchangeable — from their unehangeableness Israel might have taken an example ; Balaam had long before called the rocks of Canaan changeless (Num. xxiv. 21 ) — ye foun- dations of the earth, that cannot be shaken, but that should now tremble before the solemn mes- sage, and weighty judgment of Jehovah (Is. xxiv. 18). For Jehovah hath a suit against his peo- ple (ef Hos. iv. 1), and with Israel will he have a settlement. First Stage, vers. 3-8. — Vers. 3-5. The Com- olaint Jehovah speaks not with the thunder of .he law, hut with the much sharper cordiality of wounded love. My people, thou that belongest to me alone, brought up by me, what have I done to thee, and wherein have I wearied thee ? The Hithpael, " to have a settlement," was not without significance. He is in earnest, if Israel has aught against Him, to hear it. Jehovah might have wearied Israel by over rigorous requirements (Is. xliii. 23), or by unfulfilled promises (Jit. ii. 31 ). But much more should the expression recall how Israel has wearied the Lord (Is. xliii. 24). Answer me ! properly, as the 3 instead of the customary ace. shows: defend thyself against Me, make reply to my charge (Job xxxi. 35). Ver. 4. God's language continues in a tone of the deepest irony : Is it in that I led thee up out of the land of Egypt (Am. ii. 10), and redeemed theo out of the house of bondage 1 (cf. Ex xx. 2) — plur. cone- for abstr., Ewald, § 17'.t; and that I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Mir- iam ? With special fondness the sacred writers bring forward, when they would impress upon thfl people the goodness of the Lord, his earliest deeds, and, above all, those connected with their deliver- ance from Egypt, because through that Israel be- came his peculiar possession 'Ps. cxiv.), and also in it, as the actus primus of his gracious choice of the people, there lay enfolded, so far as regards its direction and shape, all the subsequent develop- ment ; all the following acts of grace are only con- firmations of the first purpose of grace. Ver. 5 glances at these tokens of love in the his- tory of the planting of Israel until their arrival in the Holy Laud : My people, remember now, what counsel Balak took, the king of Moab, and what answer was given him by Balaam, Beor's son ; cf. Num. xxii. 24. " It was no light thing that Israel, ready to enter into the Holy Land, is sent forward, not cursed by him, but rather blest by God through him, to his great and arduous task. The curse would, through the su- perstition of many of the Israelites, have discour- aged them, and inspired their superstitious foes wiih confidence. So much the more must the blessing have raised the spirits of the people, as it indicated that the Lord had so completely blessed them in the eyes of all nations, that even enemies who would curse were obliged to bless them." Caspari. The little clause : from Shittim to Gil- gal, is a new object to "")3T ■ Remember what oc- curred from Shittim to Gilgal, i. e., between the first station after Balaam's (Num. xxv. 1) blessing and the first station on the soil of the Holy Land (Josh. iv. 19). Remember this, that thou mayest know the covenant grace (properly: the right- eousnesses) of Jehovah. Jehovah's deeds of mercy are called exhibitions of righteousness, inasmuch as after the original establishment of the covenant with Abraham, or (as the case may be) of the cov- enant of the law on Sinai, all following grace was only fulfillment of what had been before promised, ;'. e., niTT"^. — "J37E7 cum inf. as Am. ii. 7. Ver. 6-8. Reply and Decision. As Jehovah ad- dressed primarily the prophet, so the discourse of the people is directed immediately to him, stand- ing as he does between God and the people. He is the mouth of God toward the people ( Hos. i. 1 ; Deut. v. 5 ff., cf. Ex. iv. 16). Israel, in so far as it is really such, cannot close its ears to the voice of truth (cf. John xviii. 37), hence owns itself guilty without parley, and asks only after the way of expiation. Wherewith shall I meet Jeho- vah 1 Cli7, to meet with gifts, in order to gratify any one, and to render to him honor and duty (Ps. cv. 2 ; Deut. xxiii. 5). Wherewith bow myself? HS3 belongs to both clauses, and " to bow one's self," ?pS, imperf. Niph., from ^33, Olsh., § 265, e., is, like the meetinsr Him, an expression of respect, which is appropriate before the God on high, who looks down on men, and in whose sight they are as grasshoppers (Is. xl. 22). Shall I meet Him with burnt offerings ! That is the Hist I bought with men who look at what is exter- nal ; thither they naturally turn to fill the " ach- ing void" in the soul with outward things, and as naturally also to try to expiate the sins which spring from the heart against God, according to the outwardly written letter: work-righteousness, and the idolatry of the letter. With calves of a year old ? Not as if these alone were proper tc be offered (Caspari, Hitzig. against Lev. xxii. CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 49 xxvii.), but because they were accounted as the most important (Lev. ix. 3). Ver. 7. Hath Jehovah, pleasure in thousands (hecatombs) of rams 1 in myriads of oil-brooks ? (cf. Job xx. 17). The questions, as the connec- tion shows, are not rhetorical (Luther), but express the good resolution, the spirit of anxious and earnest inquiry : if so, then we would fain offer them to Him. Libations of oil were an essential element of the meat-offering, and the thank-offering (Lev. ii. 1, 15 ; vii. 12). The climax culminates with the latter half of ver. 7 : Shall I give up my first-born, the best and last that I have, as a sin-offering for myself ? As elsewhere nStOn and Dtt?S, so here 3? 2,' 2 stands, the sin for the offering which is brought as its equivalent. The fruit, offspring, of my body, as an atonement for my soul i Cf. Deut. vii. 13. The external disposition, as it is of heathen origin and nature, so it proceeds, even to the final consequence, to atone for sin by sin, even by murder. Thus the kings of Moab sacrificed their first-born (2 K. iii. 27). According to Israel- itish principles the firstlings belonged naturally to God, so that the offering might not once have been a strange gift for God, but the law directed that the first born of men should be ransomed (Ex. xiii. 13) ; it demands a disposition most completely ready to offer all, bnt not the external act (Gen. xxii.). And to this direction of the entire life, which alone gives all its moral value and accepta- bleness with God to each particular deed, the prophet also points in what immediately follows. Ver. 8. He, namely, God (Hitzig and Hessel- berg, indefinitely: they), hath made known to thee, O man, what is good. Ye know, why do ye ask? Is it not an idle question, contrived that, instead of the answer, an escajw for thy conscience should be offered thee '. And what Jehovah seeketh of thee (cf. Luke xiii. 7). Since 7T0, re- peated in the two preceding clauses, is used in the sense of " nothing " as in the rhetorical question, Eccl. i. 3, it may be followed by DS s 3, nisi: noth- ing else does Jehovah seek of thee, but to do right, suu?n caique, and love mercy, the dispo- sition from which flows the beneficent discharge of the duties of the law (Prov. xxi. 21 ), a contrast to ch. iii. 2 ; and walk humbly (on the const, cf. Ewald. § 280, c. [Text, and Gram, on OI>. 4] ) before thy God (cf. 1 Sam. xv. 22 ; Hos. vi. 6). Micah's ac- curate acquaintance with the whole Pentateuch, which stands out through these chapters especially, appears here also, and here in a way doubly im- portant for historical criticism, since it involves Deuteronomy : the passage referred to as God's word connects itself exactly, in matter and form, with Deut. x. 12 ; cf. also Deut. xvi. 12 ; viii. 14). Ver. 9— vii. 6. Second Stage. Ver. 9-16. The Judgment in the Case. The voice of Jehovah, that judges mightily (Am. i. 2), calls concern- ing the city, t. e., Jerusalem, the representative of the sins of the people, i. 5 (/ as Ob. i. 1); and after the true wisdom, which has in itself the pledge of its prosperous issue and result (Job v. 12; vi. 13), thy name looks out, the holy manifestation of thyself in the judgment (Is. xxx. 27 : cf. for the sense of the phrase, Ps. xiv. 2. — Penary (De Leviratu Hcbr., p. 70), Keil : Wisdom has regard to thy name. Caspari : O, what wis- dom, if one sees thy name. In the last-named writer see also many other explanations of the pas- sage. [Cf. Text, and Gram, note.] — The sudden variation of the person is common in all the proph- ets ; and thus the discourse turns back again hero in what immediately follows to the people : Per- ceive the scourge, the judgment appointed by Jehovah, here by metcnomy for the discourse which treats of it, as in Is. x. 5, 24, for the Assyr- ian power which executes it, and who hath ap- pointed it ! V12W has a double construction, first with the ace. obj., then with an object-clause. ni3D is gen. coram., not merely masc, cf. Num. xvii. 22. He has appointed the rod whose law is continually broken. The rod itself is not de- scribed until ver. 13 ff. ; the reason for it is first given, ver. 10 ff. Ver. 10. Are there yet, he asks (ft?^ more Aram, for tt?.1, 2 Sam. xiv. 19) in the house of the wicked the treasures of wickedness, gained by wickedness, as e. g., by what is immediately in- dicated ; yea, the lean Epha, accursed ? The epha of leanness is the false measure of grain, for- bidden in the law (Deut. xxv. 14 ff), too small, contrasted with nsbtt?, the right measure, which, as opposed to the crime before us, is called (Lev. xix. 36) an epha of righteousness (Caspari). This connection shows that in the interrogation in the first member, the point is, not that former sins have tiot been expiated by the restoration of ill-gotten treasures, but that still new sins are ever heaping up, and thus God's requirement in ver. 8 is ever broken anew. Ver. 11. In the same sense he proceeds, look- ing back to Deut. xxv. 19 ff. : Can I — as much as to say : can one now ; an exemplification in the first person, common also in English (cf. Glassii, Phil. Sac, p. 898 f.) — remain pure with the balance of wickedness, and with the bag with weights of deceit 1 The sinners dream that by their offerings before God they shall stand pure, in spite of their daily repeated sins ; that is the faulty moral apprehension which the prophet would de stroy. The sins of trade and exchange here named may have been particularly rife with the Jewish national character, but they stand palpably repre- sentative of all injustice (cf. 1 Thess. iv. 6). Ver. 12. Over these instances this verse, by the relative applying to the city, reaches back to ver. 9 : Her rich men are full of violence. Such relative connections (n^TT^S ~ 1 ^^?) have the character of an exclamation, or direct call, cf. Am. vi. 3 ff. ; Mic. iii. 3 (quos ego!). And her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is de- ception in their mouth. As this array of their sins rests on the Psalms, so that of threatened penalties (ver. 13 ff.), rests on the Pentateuch (Lev. xvi. 25 f . ; Deut. xxviii. 39 f.). And so also I, as intimated in ver. 9, have made sick the blows upon thee, i. e., I smite thee mortally ; cf. for the expression, Nah. iii. 19 ; for the matter, Is. i. ; Micah, i. 9 ; with devastation (inf. abs., prob ably gerund, Gesenius, § 131, 2; the form, Gesen- ius, § 67, Rem. 10) on account of thy sins. Ver. 14. Thou shalteat and not b« satisfied; cf. for the fulfillment, Jer. Iii. 6 ; Hag. i. 6 ; and thy emptiness shall remain in thy bowels ! Thou shalt carry away, flee with thy goods and family, and not save ; and what thou shalt save, will I give to the sword. Cf. Jer. 1. 37 ; xiii. 16. Ver. 15. Thou shalt sow . . . not drink wine. The enemy shall reap thy harvests and plunder thy stores (Am. v. 11, cf. the reference ir Is. lxii. 8 ff). In ver. 16, finally, sin and punishment are onc« 50 MICAH. more briefly grouped together : Yea, they observe — instead of the customary Kal, he designedly chooses the strongest form, Hithpael, the reflexive of Piel (Jonah ii. 9), to express the carefulness of the observance (Hitzig) — the statutes of Omri and all the doings of the house of Ahab, the Baal worship (1 K. xvi. 31 f.) and all the other abominations (e. g., 1 K. xxii. 27), by which this abandoned dynasty had from the beginning dis- graced the ungodly throne (Ps. xciv. 20) of the kingdom of Israel ; human statutes instead of God's Word (Lev. xx. 23), such as indeed had un- der Ahaz broken into Judah also (2 K. xvi. 3 ; 2 Chr. xxviii. 2). And so ye walk in their coun- sels, that (ironically ; the actual results of the corruption represented instead of the desired fruits of their luxurious prosperity, as Hos. viii. 4) I may make thee (f^o?, c. inf. as ver. 5) a ruin (iii. 12), and her (Jerusalem's) inhabitants a hiss- ing ; and the disgrace of my people — ye shall bear it; the present generation is ripe for the curse, which the Lord had cast forth in the law for the future of his people (Is. lxv. 7). Chap. vvi. vers. 1-6. The Lamentation of the Peo- ple. As appears from the subjoined transitus, ver. 7, and especially ver. 8, where the holy common- wealth ij! manifestly thought of as speaking, the speaker here is the prophet, not so much as proph- et, but a-; organ of the ideal person, the true Is- rael ; like Is. xlix. 1 ff. ; Ix. 1 ff., where the prophet identifies himself with the true Israel, personified throughout ch. xl.-lxvi. under the name of the Servant of Jehovah. Israel must confess that God, in his bitter complaint (ch. vi. 9 ff.), is just. In the later prophets this view is presented in a still more concrete form, when they personify the true Israel in the angelic character of the maleach (messen- ger) who represents the people before God, and re- ceives from God the words which He has to com- municate through the prophets to the members of the people, his members (Zech. i. 12, 14). Daniel, having shaped this personification of the ideal Is- rael to the image of a heavenly Son of Man, to whom the dominion of the world is assigned (vii. 13 ff., cf. ver. 27), and having given both to this heavenly and to the earthly Israel the name of the Messiah (ix. 25 f.), furnishes the basis for the New Testament deyelopment, in which Christ appears on the one hand as a name of the people of Israel (Heb. xi. 26, cf. ver. 25), then as the Son of Man descended from heaven, and He in whom all the promises given for Israel are combined. — "Woe is me ! thus begins the lament (cf. Job x. 15), for I am become as a gathering of the harvest, as a gleaning in the vintage. Were these words the words of the prophet, the sense would be obscure, and hence from ancient times the conjecture has been proposed, that the two substantives were to be regarded as participles ; like gatherers of the fruit, like gleaners of the vintage. But the pointing by 6 under Aleph, utterly precludes this view, which has also been rejected by the most ex- act interpreters, from Ben Izaac down to Hitzig. Caspari : It has happened with me as with one who at the harvest time seeks early figs. But nei- ther does rTTT mean " it has occurred to me," for the passage Is. i. 9, quoted by Caspari, proves noth- ing like this, nor does this latter special limitation, the seeking of early figs, lie indicated at all in the general designation V^ll (Am. viii. 1) ; but if figs and grapes are meant at all, the thought that the prophet finds none would be very unsuitably ex- pressed by the harvest, where they find many rig* and by the gleaning of the vintage, where thej still find some clusters left. A clear understanding results here only from the position before assumed, that the personified Israel himself speaks through the prophet : I am become like gleanings of the harvest (the plural stands for symmetry with the following plur. tantum, rn>72 '. as gleanings of th« vintage, t. e., I am so entirely gleaned that thertf is no cluster any more to eat ; for an early fig, which was particularly relished (Jer. xxiv. 2 ; Is. xxviii. 4), my soul pants. Ver. 2. What Israel intends by the clusters, and early figs, which he would so gladly find with him, but which have been snatched away (cf. Is. xxxiii. 4), appears from this verse ; gone is the pious man; (collect, for the pious, C ,| T , Dn, pos- sessors of the chesed, the grace, who by their con- duct show themselves worthy of the grace, and who taken together are the true Israel (Ps. xvi. 10) — from the earth, and an upright man is no more to be found. It lies in the nature of prophecy that it should extend its immediate hor- izon over the whole world. And in fact, when the righteous have already died out of Israel, how should it be with the heathen who have not God's word? (Luke xxiii. 31). All he in wait for blood (Ps. x. 8 ff. ), each for his neighbor they hunt with the net. In the phrase " each for his neigh- bor," which has usually a quite general significa- tion : alter alteram, there lies here a special em- phasis ; those who lie in wait for each other are brethren, creatures of one God, sons of one fore- father (Mai. ii. 10), and bound by the law to love each the other as himself (Lev. xix. 18). Ver. 3. The first three words form a parallel to the sentence just closed : for evil the hands are stout, and they are not with some Rabbins, Rosen- miiller, and Ewald, to be connected with the fol- lowing. D^ii? stands for verbo jinito, as v. 1 ; Prov. xix. 8 ; 2 Chron. xi. 2, and 3^t£n in the intrans. sense, to be joyful, glad, spirited (cf. ii. 7 ; Prov. xv. 13; Gen. iv. 7); cf. the parallel sen- tence. : their feet run to evil (Is. lix. 7). It would be still more suitable to the primary meaning cf Z^isn as well as to the connection with what fol lows, to propose as the sense of the phrase : upon evil they look favorably, are friendly to it ; but then we should have, instead of ETC 3, ha»ds, 3. or D37S. Hitzig : only the evil do they prac- tice well ; which is the same as : for the evil alone have they hands, while if anything good is to be done, they have none for it. But this sense does not lie in his translation, which itself breaks down upon the bl?- Cocceius (Lex., p. 304) : Super malo sunt manus ad bonum faciendum, i. e., fingunt et plasmant malum, ut bonum videatur. Similarly Um- breit, Keil, Caspari. But this sense ^^n no- where has. Hence the two last offer also the al- ternative translation, to do it well ; which coin- cides with Hitzig's. The corruption rests on a compromise of the ruling classes, and so on the worst moral vileness ; " the foundations are de- stroyed " (Ps. xi. 3) ; the prince demands some deed of violence, C^ (ver. 2), and the judge for a price from the princes may be bought (or says. For a price !) ; and the high-born : he speaks out the desire (Prov. x. 13 ; the other sense - ' ruin." destroys the connection) of his soul, ind to- gether they extort it; each one gives his part, so CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 51 that a m— 3?, a dark web of intrigues, a snare for the victim, results. Ver. 4. Their good man, i. e., the best among them (Ewald, 313, c), is like a thorn, the most uprigat worse than a hedge (cf. 2 Sam. xxiii. 6). That will all be proved, for in the day of thy seers, in the jam Jehovah, God's judgment day, which all thy prophets (elsewhere rather par- tic. Kal C"D2, Jer. vi. 17 ; Ezek. iii. 17) have so constantly proclaimed, when thy visitation comes (this sentence is likewise a more definite limitation, a second stat. absol. to jam, cf. Ps. lvi. 4; lxxxviii. 2 ) then wilt thou be ensnared by them. Accord- ing to the suffix in the previous member, IT nn is not third fern, (then will be her perplexity), but a second masc. in the address to the people, and the sense (cf. Is. xxii. 5) is, that Zion, in the day of God's judgment, cannot free herself from the machinations of those seemingly respectable men who are really thorn hedges, but will be caught as a victim (cf. Gen. xxii. 13 ; Nah. i. 10.) Ver. 5 From that it follows that now what is otherwise a token of the greatest moral decay, in a land, must be practiced of design and for self-de- fense : trust not in a friend ; " he takes no notice of the fact that those to whom he calls are them- selves, in the same relations, without love and fidel- ity " (Caspari), Rely not on the most trusted; from her who lies in thy bosom, thy wife (Deut. xiii. 7), keep the doors of thy mouth. " The prophet mentions only the treachery of the wife against her husband, because his discourse is ad- dressed to the men as genus potius; because the wife can much more easily prove treacherous to the husband than vie? versa, since the man stands preeminently in relations which allow treachery ; and because, finally, the wife is subject to the man, and eo in a higher degree pledged to fidelity than lie (?)" — Caspari. Ver. 6. Friendship and love are no longer se- curities for confidence, for even the relation of nat- ural piety is lost in an unnatural perversion : the oon makes a fool of his father [ ?] ( Deut. xxxii. 1 5 ; Jer. xiv. 21 ) ; the daughter stands up as a witness against her mother (2 C^p, as Ps. xxvii. 12) ; the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and the man's enemies are his servants. N C£73S liTZl, " men of his house " are not his relations, who live in his house, but the company of servants /Gen. xvii. 23-27; xxxix. 14). The connection of ver. 4 with 5 and 6 shows how appropriately this description is again employed (Matt. x. 35 ff. ; Luke xii. 53) as a sign of the last davs (cf. also Matt. xxiv. 10 ff.). Vers. 7, 8. Transitu*. The true Israel shudders not in this time of need. He knows well that for him the promise cannot be broken, and that through the confusion of the judgment God's light must break. By the "^Sl as also the long pre- served space between vers. 8 and 9 shows, these two verses are appended as a conclusion to the forego- ing, while yet they constitute by their contents and psalm-like tone, — a stri3tural peculiarity, common to the prophets — the transition to what follows : but as for me I look out for God. Both aspects of the spirit which speaks in the Erophets appear in this " looking out," in that he oth as prophet looks out for, strives to anticipate, liic fortunes of the future, the coming of God for salvation, and also as the spirit of the true people of God confidently trusts in this coming help (Ps. v. 4 ; Heb. ii. 1 ). Prophecy and faith are correla- tives. I will wait, the Opt. indicates that tha word is an exhortation to his own soul (Ps. xlii. 12), for the God of my salvation, the God on whom my salvation rests ; this also being a psalm- tone (Ps. xxvii. 9). My God will hear me, and his hearing is an active, effectual hearing. Ver. 8. Hence results immediately the apos- trophe to the enemy, the world-power which (iv. 10) is called Babylon, to which the chastisement of Israel is committed : She must not regard this condition of chastisement as a perpetual thing. Rejoice not, my enemy; the pleonastic "O, which strengthens the emphasis, is likewise appro- priate to the psalm style (Ps. xxv. 2, et suepe). 1 For if I fall, I rise again, I fall only to rise again. — The conditionally gains energy by the parataxis without particles (Prov. xviii. 22 ; Ewald, 357, 6). The second ^S, as is shown also by the change of tenses, is temporal and not for additional confirm- ation. When I sit in darkness, a common fig- ure for the affliction caused by God's judgments (Is. viii. 25 ; ix. 1 ; be. 1 ff.) ; then is Jehovah my light (Ps. xxvii. 1 ) ; ;md this light cam. ^t re- main concealed, but must actively manifest itself. Vers. 9, 10. With this trausitus the psalmody is begun which sounds on through the whole lyric period which follows (vers. 9-20). This descriht ■* (in the form of a prayer, with hope and supplica- tion, announcing and celebrating the completion of God's doings with his people), the coming of the kingdom of light after the darkness, and is thus the fulfillment of the final clause of ver. 8 ; when I sit in darkness then is Jehovah my light. The position is an ideal one. As ver. 1, Israel, on ac- count of his deficiency in righteous men, felt that the worst abominations were maturing, and with them the judgment, and by gradual approach stood finally (ver. 7 f.) in the crisis of the judg- ment, so he proceeds now in spirit through judg- ment and exile to salvation. His language turns in a constant alternation, swaying lyrically (cf. Ps. cxvi. ), iiu\v toward himself, now toward the offended and forgiving God, now toward the en- emy who is to be judged (cf. ver. 8). Ver. 9. The indignation of Jehovah will I bear, with this humility (cf. vi. 8) and submission to the will of God, the germ of salvation is already given ; when God's will is accepted as their will the sorrow ceases to be sorrow. For I have sinned against him. Humiliation under sorrow flows from the recognition of sin ; the sorrow must be recognized as indignation, that is, as the mani- festation of God's righteousness (Ps. Ii. 6). Such recognition moves his heart, which cannot fail to answer the call of his people ; and this confidence gives Israel a joyful courage to endure until he, as he surely must, shall maintain my cause. In- stead of standing my foe, as now, in the suit (vi. 1), He will make my cause against the heathen his own (Ps. xxxv. 1 ; xliii. 1), and secure for me my right ( Ps. ix. 5 ). To the light will he bring me forth, out of the darkness of captivity (Ps. lxviii. 7) as once out of Egypt (Deut. viii. 14). I shall see with pleasure (2) his righteousness, fot even the deliverance of the sin-laden people is righteousness, because it is a fulfillment of the ancient promises (cf. on vi. 5). Ver. 10. And that shall my enemy see with pain (cf. on ver. 8), and shame shall cover her. The verbs are not indicative, therefore not direct 1 [Cf. Oram, and Text. — Tf.i 52 MICAH announcement, but jussive: the prophecy of sup- plicating confidence. Her who saith to me : Where is Jehovah thy God ? on whose help thou hast rested thy hope (of. Ps. lxxix. 10 ; cxv. 2). This is the point of view from which Israel's cause becomes a controversy for God. My eyes will look upon her with pleasure — on the sharpened Nun, cf. Ewald, 198 a — and she will be trodden down as mire in the streets. The last Qamets in D?3~IJ3 is shortened into Pattach, on account of the coming together of two tone syllables (cf. Is. x. 6). From the enemy the dis- course turns off — Ver. 11-13. While the representative element gives way more to the prophetic, and announces salvation to the holy community. It is a day (so De Dieu, Hitz., Casp.) to build thy walls. The anticipation of the exile goes forward, and from the certainty of the threatenings (iii. 12; iv. 10), the prophet expects (cf. ver. 7) the restoration of Jeru- salem. To take this whole first member, not in- dependently, but as a designation of time to the second ("on the day when thy walls shall be built, will," etc.) is forbidden by the Sinn in the sec- ond member; besides, that view would require the reading ni32n D1\ At the bottom of the fig- ure of wall-building lies the conception of the vineyard (Is. v. ; xxvii. 2 ff. ; Ps. lxxx.) ; "Ha is the inclosing wall of a vineyard (the wall of a city is noin). In that day will the law be far removed. The Rabbinic Exegesis, and with that those among recent Christian interpreters who are influenced more or less by the legal spirit of the Uabbins, have been obliged at this passage to have recourse to rationalistic evasions. According to the Targum and Hengstenberg, fiTl should mean the statutes imposed by the heathen oppressors ; but this is not even remotely suggested by the con- nection, and the passage cited from Ps. xciv. 20 testifies rather for the opposite view. Caspari would have it mean that then the boundaries of the land of Israel shall lie in the far distance, be extended far beyond the original compass ; but what should the walling around (ver. 1 1 a) mean if the border is abolished ? That would be direct- ly contrary to the figure. Keil : The limits be- tween Israel and the nations, the law of Israel's exclusiveness shall be abolished. But why this limitation to one particular law 1 pn is the law in its widest and most general sense (Ps. xcix. 7 ; rxlviii. 6 ; Ex. xv. 25), and as it is unquestionably the doctrine of the New Testament, that in the time of the Gospel the fence of the law is broken down (Eph. ii. 14), so there is the less ground for denying to the prophet this meaning in our passage, because the whole context has left the historical ground far behind, rising to the ideal height of a spiritual contemplation, and because Jeremiah also, in a like connection in the famous passage (eh. iii. 16), prophesies a like triumph over the legal posi- tion (cf. Is. lxv. 1 f., and, in our prophet himself, ck. vi. 6 f.) We may designate our passage as exactly the text of Jeremiah's great prophecy (ch. txxi. 31 If.) concerning the new covenant. The parenthetical view therefore of the words pm^ pn ("in that day — far distant is the term — in that day," etc., De Wette, Ewald, Umbreit), is to be rejected. Ver. 1 2. In that day, unto thee, the restored Zion, -— the i of the apodosis after the elliptical protasis In designate the time, as Ex. xvi. 6 f. ; Ewald, 344 b, — will one come from Assyria, and also the cities of Egypt will come ; not merely the scattered believers of Israel, who al- ready (cf. ver. 11) will have founded the new struc- ture, but also the heathen peoples will be added (Ps. lxxxvii.), and Assyria the scourge, first of all, but also the cities of Egypt, which here, as Is. xix. G ; xxxvii. 25, received the poetical name Mazor, instead of the usual Mizraim. She stands forth as the second world-power, on the other side of Israel from Assyria (cf Zech. x. 11), and the cities are particularly regarded, as prce- cipua membra of the land of culture, even in Jeho vah's Messianic prediction (Is. xix. 18). Yea. from Egypt even unto the Euphrates, and even unto the sea from the sea, from the West- ern, Mediterranean to the Eastern, Persian Sea (cf. Joel ii. 20), and from the mountain to the mountain, from Sinai in the south to Lebanon in the north, sc. will they come to thee. D"* and "^nn are local accusatives, and the induction of a great extent of country by the antithesis of the quarters of the compass is a common turn of dis- course (cf. Am. viii. 12). The prophet's enumera- tion confines itself, as was natural, to what was suggested by history and geographical position, and indeed with a special horizon, having refer- ence to Gen. xiii. 14 f. ; but in the specification of the points of the compass lies potentially the uni- versality of the plan of salvation (cf. iv. 1, 2) The same thought is expressed with greater clear- ness and smoothness by Isaiah (ch. xix. 23). But with cutting sharpness the prophet here also — Ver. 13. For the last time connects with the promise the contrast of the judgment : but the land (we may understand, either with Caspari, from ver. 2, Canaan, which extends itself before those that flock unto it, or, with Keil, the whole earth, out of which those who seek deliverance crowd hither) will he waste on account of its inhabitants (cf. vi. 11), because of the fruit of their doings. For just in Zion alone, the seat of God's congregation, will be deliverance (Ob. 17 ; Joel iii. 5), and this Zion is not the present, which itself is then destroyed (iii. 12, coll. iv. 1), but a spiritual, living Zion. So salvation and judgment lie side by side (Is. lxv. 24). With that strikingly sudden turn, the occasion is given for the last supplication (vers. 14-17), which the prophet utters in the name of the congrega- tion. Ver. 14. Peed thy people, who after the ter- rors of the judgment need the shepherd's care, which also according to the promise (ver. 3) was to be given, with thy staff, the mark of the shep- herd (cf. Zech. xi. 4 ff.); the flock (Ps. xcv. 7) of thy possession (Ps. xxviii. 9) who dwell alone, whom thou hast as it were separated from among the nations, and whose distinction it is from of old that they, separately from the nations, belong to thee alone (cf. Num. xxiii. 9 ;*Ps. iv. 9, where TT27 belongs to the verb), ^aStt? an old form instead of the stat. constr. (Ob. 3). " Accusa- tivus habitantem notat passionis non objectum sea effeclum, ut acervos desolatos" (Jer. xxxvii. 26). Ch. B. Michaelis. In the forest in the midst of Carmel let them feed; in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. The kingdom of Zion shall extend over the whole desolated land, as was denoted by the enumeration of the east and west, as Ps. lx. 9. That both regions named belong to the Ten Tribes may be accidental, but is better re- garded as a commentary on ver. 13, in such sens* CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 53 that, as the desolation of the Ten Tribes began sooner, so will it continue longer than that of Zion, that it lies waste while Zion has been built up. The phrase, " in the forest in the midst of Carmel," is not to be dragged back to the preced- JDg, There it would be a useless, obscure, and halt- ing addition, but to be connected with the second half of the verse, as the parallel passage (Jer. 1. 19), which evidently rests on this, still more clearly shows. By " the days of old " are hardly meant the days of Uzziah, as Movers supposes, but those of David, as the normal period of the unity of the kingdom (cf. on ver. 2). Ver. 15. As in that passage so here, the proph- et's glance, while he quotes God's a answer, confirm- atory of the prayer in ver. 14, goes still further back ; as in the days when thou, Israel, earnest out of the land of Egypt (Ps. cxiv.), will I to them, thy people, show wonders of grace. msb52 are the special manifestations of God's mercy, often in opposition to the course of nature (Ex. hi. 20), which will be repeated in the age of salvation (the Messianic age) (ix. 5). As the sup- plicating people in ver. 14 spoke of itself in the third person, ^H^, so God in the first member here addresses it with thou, but in the second, speaks of it in the third person ; " thou " is the present Israel, " he " is the Israel of the future. Ver. 16. The old impression upon the heathen resulting from God's wonderful deeds in behalf of Israel ('jf. Ex. xv. 14 f ; [Josh. ii. 9 ft'.] ) is to be repeated. The heathen will see it, those, name- ly, who even then remain rebellious (cf. on ver. 14), and be ashamed so that all their power van- ishes (Ezek. xxxii. 30). 1^2 Ztrre fii) tlvat, as Is. _ixiii. 1, — will lay their hand on their mouth ; extreme astonishment takes away the power of jpeech (Judg. xviii. 19; Is. lii. 15) — their ears will be deaf " before the thunder of Jehovah's mighty deeds (Job xxvi. 14)." Hitzig. Ver. 17. The evil in them is overcome by the good, the serpent which reared itself against Jeho- vah is, like his type (Gen. iii.), by the eternal judg- ment, cast down to the ground ; dust shall they lick like the serpent (Ps. lxxii. 9 ; Is. xlix. 23) creeping on the earth — properly : as those things which creep on the earth ; 3 veritatis, as Is. i. 7. They shall tremble forth out of their hiding-places; to Jehovah our God (cf. iv. 5) shall they approach with terror [herbeizitteni\ (Hos. xi. 10 f ), and be in fear before thee (Ps. xl. 4). With this the discourse passes over again to the congregation, and ends — Vers. 18-20, in a final lyric strophe (as Ps. civ. 32 ff. ; lxviii. 30 ff. ; Rom. xi. 33 ff.). The won- derful deeds of God, exhibitions of power to the adversaries, which bring them to trembling sub- mission, are for Israel deeds of mercy and truth, which open his mouth for an inspired cry, lay in his soul the spirit of free heart devotion (nil nS'HS, Ps. Ii. 14), in the production of which all God's discipline, through law, deeds, and proph- ecy, culminates. "Who is a God like thee ! This also is borrowed from the triumphal ode of Miriam (Ex. xv. 11; cf. Ps. lxxxvi. 8). Whether there is any play here on the name Micah, must be left 1 Thin form of dialog ae between God and the people is very common in the hymnistic style of the prophets ; more particularly at the conclusion where the prophetic ecstasy haa reached its climax Hosea xiv., e.g., cannot be under- undecided. Forgiving iniquity and graciously passing over all transgression for the remnant of his people (cf. on ii. 11). Back of this and what follows lies the description of the compas- sion of God in Ex. xxxiv. 6 f. ; in the word "123? perhaps an allusion to the great act of mercy (Ex. xii. 12, 13). He does not hold his anger for- ever, for he has his pleasure in mercy (Ps. ciii. 9). Ver. 19. He will again have compassion on us (on the constr. vid. Gesen. § 142, 3 b), will tread down our iniquities, which rise up against us as enemies, and overpower us (Ps. lxv. 4). Yea, he will cast into the depth of the sea all their sins, the prophet adds in confirmation, here also regarding the sins as foes, and intentionally alluding to Ex. xv. 10. Ver. 20. Thou wilt show truth to Jacob, wilt maintain for the descendants what thou hast prom- ised them in their progenitor, mercy to Abraham, who lives on in his posterity, and waits for the promise (John viii. 56), and was not vainly called a father of a multitude. Thou wilt show to them the truth and grace which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of antiquity. The unity of the plan of salvation for Israel from be- ginning to end (for the mercy and truth of God are the scarlet threads which run through it), is the thought with which the prophet, placing him- self at the culminating point of revelation, con- cludes. This perspective has been expanded only from the point of view of the Now Testament (Matt. xxv. 34). DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. God has entered into a covenant relation with Israel, dating (vii. 21) from the days of the patri- archs. Hence, while His judgments roar against the heathen, unproclaimed and without pity, to Is- rael He first demonstrates his guilt, and that by set- ting before Himself and the people alike the eter- nal principles which He has given in His revelation by word and deed, and in the face of these proves to Israel that He has kept His truth, but that Is rael has broken the covenant and become guilty. This conviction He secures before the punishment, that the latter may not prove an annihilation, but be made fruitful of improvement. For such fruit results from the punishment, provided the latter turns the sinner in upon himself, and when it is borne with the consciousness that it is just. Only on this condition, finally, is forgiveness possible; yea (while it appears that the sin is too great to be possibly expiated by punishment), necessary ac- cording to the grace of God. To this end serve* the controversy at law. This begins with a reference to those original works of redemption by which God fonudeil the congregation, and with marvelous exhibitions of favor called them to be his people. Thereby Is- rael from the beginning entered into an obligation to be specially consecrated to Him : I am the Lord thy God. This obligation was represented in an outward system of duties. The ceremonial cultus, however, is only a passing pedagogic stage. It cannot be regarded as the independent principle and soul of the relation, because it offers to God stood at all without bearing in mind that we have a dia- logue before us. This is the H^l 7 , the solemn responrtv* song (Ex. xv. 21) at the time of the salvation, as Ho*ea (H 18 [16]) foretells. 54 MICAH. nothing which does not already belong to Him, and in consistency it would lead to ungodly mur- der. It must look beyond itself, and can furnish no couch of rest for the congregation. The reg- ulative and substantial principle in the law is, rather, the moral kernel, the righteousness of the heart. And according to this principle must Israel be judged and condemned ; for, when God's truth, appearing in judgment, looks around for wisdom (Prov. i. 7) it perceives in every house the folly (Ps. xiv. 1) of sinners, who would fain enjoy God's blessing without purity of life. Therefore the greed and slavery of the sinner must become his punishment; to eat and not be satisfied, to labor and not enjoy the fruits, the miserable lot of involuntary servitude, is their normal end. Wherever like sins exist there is like punishment; no right of legitimacy can secure the kingdom of Judah against the fate of Samaria, if the ways here are the same as there. Sent forth by God and his Spirit (Is. xlviii. 16), the true Israel wanders through the ages, and struggles for embodiment. But the longer the time the less does present reality correspond to the character which he is obliged to demand of his members. According to this they should be a liv- ing possession, prophets and priests to God (Ex. xix. 5, 6). Nay, he appears to himself now as a vineyard, a fruit garden which has been gleaned ; of those who are now called Israelites he can scarcely recognize one as a member of his body. Not a blooming orchard is this people, not belted together by the bands of divine peace into one well-pleasing whole, but involved in the bonds of iniquity, which bind the chiefs of the people (John vii. 48) together; so closely involved that in the day of judgment they cannot release themselves. The connection is external ; inwardly, not the na- tional bond merely, but all, even the most intim- ate relations of the family are utterly fretted away, and that will show itself in the worst outbreaks of alienation and discord. But yet the true Israel knows that his time will come. Although he, with all his promises, is bound to the substratum of this neglected nation- ality, he knows still that when it has to be given up (v. 2) to punishment, he with it will be given up only to redemption. In the darkness of their abandonment to the world, Jehovah is his light. Hence comes that right disposition to endure, which the litigation was intended to produce : the endurance of the anger as a cross which we take upon ourselves without reluctance : / will bear ; and the confident waiting for deliverance. He t-ubmits to be given up to the hands of the world- power, but nevertheless knows that in that day when God shall perform his promises, out of these heathen also all that are called shall enter into the new Jerusalem, which will he divested of all en- closure and narrowness; that if all lie in ruins the eternal kingdom of God will arise upon the ruins. Then will the Lord be the shepherd of the true Israel, now become actual and visible. He will march with might at the head of his own people. The adversaries, scattered and cast to the ground, come trembling unto Jehovah whom they had despised. That will be the great day of the forgiveness of Bins, and of the infliction of punishment, which only th': God of the true Israel can ensure, for he takes pleasure in compassion. And it must come because the compassionate God is a true and faith- ful God, and the Covenant made with the fathers can be broken by nothing which may come b» tween. Schmieder (vi. 4) : Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, was a prophetess (Ex. xv. 20). Just as the deliverance out of Egypt, as beginning of the creation of the people of God, includes within it all the subsequent works of protection and re- demption, so the three personages, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, are the types of the whole legislation of the entire priesthood and prophecy, therefore all God's saving institutions for Israel (vii. 1 1 ff.). The day of vengeance upon evil is the dawn of the day of redemption and restoration for the con- gregation of the saints. This is the pervading doctrine of the whole Bible ; with the flood comes the rain-bow to Noah, with the destruction of Pharaoh the deliverance from Egypt, with Saul's death David's glory, with the destruction ol Jeru- salem the new hope of Zion, with the fall of Baby- lon, the return of the Jews, with the judgment upon the heathen the return of the Jews. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Mirror of Evangelical Repentance. 1. Everything is open and manifest before God , the dumb earth is his witness. Hide not thyself (vi. 1, 2). 2. How much has He done for thee t Hast thou ever considered it ? (vers. 3-5). 3. Thou hast outwardly taken part in his wor- ship, mayest even have gone further in it than was necessary. But how is it with thee inwardly ? (vers. 6, 7.) 4. Thou knowest his law, but thy life accuses thee (vers. 8, 9-12). 5. Thou knowest that He is judge, and art ac quainted with his judgments. But thy ways show that thou regardest them not (vers. 13-16). 6. Yea. Lord, I confess (vii. 1-6). 7. But I believe also ; therefore will I fain bear thy judgments (vers. 7-9). 8. For I know thy promises (vers. 10-17). 9. And will celebrate thy great compassion (vers. 18-21). Or : The History of the congregation in God's light (Is. ii. 15). Exordium : The light of God a light of judgment (vi. 1, 2). 1 . The selection and establishment of the con- gregation (vers. 3-5). 2. The legislation (vers. 6-8). 3. Sin (vers. 9-16). 4. The acknowledgment of sin (vii. 1-6). Trans- itus : The light of God a light of grace (vers. 7, 8). 5. The return (ver. 9). 6. The experience of grace (vers. 10-20). Ver. 1. The heart of man is harder than a stone. The rocks could not but be moved by tha gratuitous beneficence of God, and his complaint. Men remain unaffected, " If these should keep silence the stones would cry out." — Ver. 2. la there greater condescension than this, that the Lord of heaven and earth, before whom none liv- ing is just, and who sees through and through everything, will not judge Israel, unless He have seen his sins and consented to it. How soon, C Christian, art thou ready with thy judgments ! and allowest thy brother no time for reply, and ha»i no ear for him ! — Ver. 3. What God has done for us from our youth up is nothing but benefits. Therefore we shoul 1, even in painful experiences, know that the hou- cometh, when we shall recog- CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 5h nize them as mercies from God. What the deliv- erance from Egypt was for Israel, that is for us the redemption from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. Thus have we become his holy people and possession. — Ver. 4. A great benefit is it when God at the right time puts the right people at the head of the congregation. To «uch right people it pertains also that they should meet opposition. — Ver. 5. Balaam came to curse, but when he sought God (Num. xxiii. 3), his curse was turned into a blessing. Whatever thou wouldst do, forget not to seek God, that thou may- est do all as his instrument. To the upright He gives success. The end of all earnest meditation on the ways of God is that one perceives them to be righteousness. — Vers. 6-8. A sermon in time of war. The people seek their God and thereby become conscious of their guilt. Then seeking is equivalent to atonement. Wherewith? (1.) Not with outward behavior. Fast-days help not, and the first-born who lie dead on battle-fields, atone not for the sins of the people. Rather (2) with the heart. Holy wars like those of David are scarcely waged any more, but it ought to be the case that wars should be waged holily. Those who are at home, however, should show mildness and modesty. — Ver. 6. That is the way of sinful man, to excuse himself as if he knew not God's word. Then we speak as if we knew not what He really demands (Luke x. 29 flf.). Or we capri- ciously turm notions- of God as if He demanded things which no man can perform. No heart is so lazy that it would not find out how to reach what is good (Prov. xxii. 13). — Ver. 8. If thou seekest God, ask thyself above all, What does God seek in me ? To do right, KaTepyd&adai Si- \aiover the world and into eternity, there is nothing so commendable as the forgiveness of sins. He *ho said : Thy ^ins are forgiven thee, could be no other than God, unless he were more criminal than Adam ; for he exercised the highest prerog- ative of God. — Ver. 19. The last short sting of repentance : Belongest thou also to the " rem- aant?" The "remnant" is lame and crippled (iv. 7) ; it needs the physician. God takes pica* ure in mercy ; what a look does that give us into the deepest heart of God ! There no man sees a bottom, but as deeply as he can see, nothing bt delight. — Ver. 20. God has a long memory ; ana his blessing extends to the thousandth generation. On vi. 1. Luther: People are wont, especially if they hear of the anger of God, to believe that it will not go so fearfully with them. Hence they allow themselves to suppose that in the midst of sin they may hope to hud forgiveness and pardon, and may either laugh at the prophet's threatening or despise it as human fiction. Such mistake would the prophet guard against when he says, not that men should hear him, but the Lord ; the Lord speaks, and not he. Taknov : From men who would not hear, tha discourse turns to the hills and mountains, that it may be heard. Ver. 3. Chrtsostom : He calls those his peo- ple who would not call Him God ; those who strive to take from Him the kingdom He treats not as haughty rebels, but invites them to Him mildly, and says : My people, what have I done to thee ? Have I been burdensome to thee ? Thou canst say nothing of that kind. But even if thou couldst thou shouldst not have fallen away from Him. For who is the son whom his father chastiseth not ? But not once hast thou occasion to speak of that. Cf. Jer. ii. 5. Ver. 4. Michaelis : It is an ungodly thing to injure him from whom thou hast received no evil, much more ungodly still to injure the most boun- tiful benefactor. Ver. 5. Hengstenberg : That also is rega: ied as a part of Balaam's answer which served as its practical guaranty. Ver. 6. Luther : God had commanded sacri- fices. But He would receive them as certain tes- timony of obedience toward Him if they were not disobedient in much greater and more important things. But since they neglect the greater acts of worship, and perform the lesser and more irrational acts with so ungodly a purpose, namely, that the sacrifices should be a payment for their sins, God regards their offerings as an abomination, and mocks them. Michaelis : They are not able to deny their sins, but practice hypocrisy when they offer sacri- fices and outward things, but are unconcerned about repentance. Ver. 8. Luther : That is also a service which all men in every position can render. Michaelis : It is the most excellent things in the law which Christ, in opposition to the purely pedagogic Old Testament portions of the law, calls to fiapvrepa rod v6fiov. There is nothing more humble or more humbling than faith. Vers. 13. Luther : We Germans have expe- rienced such things through war. Ch. vii. 1. Burck : This is a complaint. To the pious teacher, namely, it is sad, that the per- verseness of human nature is so great, that not only are the ungodly not improved, but in some sort actually with design and exertion become daily worse. On this account, however, we ought not to let the calling sleep nor be neglected. For on the teachers lie two things, says Luther : first, that they save their soul, as Ezekiel speaks, second- ly, that the evil world should have a testimony against it. " Had 1 not come and spoken," said Jesus, " they had not had sin." To this may b« added the third most important cause, tha* whefl CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. all others blaspheme, God's name may be hal- lowed. Schlieb : The prophet proclaims to his people the painful confession of sin, that they may learn by that what is necessary. The confession of sin is followed by the confession of faith. Ver. 2. Lutheb : There is none that walketh rightly. Because, namely, he sees that all men, when it goes well and prosperously, live without fear of God, and in the highest wantonness. Again when misfortune comes, they either faint or betake themselves to carnal helps and means. — Ver. 3. Therefore should rulers let sins in them be freely punished (for it is God's command), but they should stand clear of sins. Ver. 7. Calweb Bible : Thus speaks the prophet, in the name of the little flock, to the un- godly opposers. Michaelis : But I: that is an antithesis to the foregoing, and means : It is even so ; all is getting bad ; the righteous and fearful judgments of God hang over men's heads ; but what shall I do in such a state of things ? — despair, or murmur, or speak impatiently ? Rather, etc. He does not allow himself to be led away by the wickedness of the great mass, and what is more, he does not throw away hope ; although the deluge must come, know that God can save even in the deluge. The ground of his hope lies in God : the God of my salvation. He will certainly save me, who has from ancient times been my salvation, and who is called God of salvation. Is. xviii. 10 ; Hab. iii. 18. Ver. 8. Calvin : The feeling of divine grace in adversity is quite peculiarly comparable to the light, as when one who has fallen into a deep pit yet perceives a distant gleam of the sun when he raises his eyes. So should we also not be confound- ed, however dense and gloomy the darkness may be in our trials, but ever keep the spark of light glow- ing for us, that is, faith should ever raise our eyes upward that we may have a feeling of the divine goodness. Ver. 9. Luther : It may seem an amusing thing, that Basilius, in a letter in which he laments his mother's death, says that this has happened be- cause of her sin. But, truly, whoever thinks that even the most trifling misfortune has its source in this fountain, mistakes not, but lives nobly in the fear of God. Calweb Bible : Even the pious can never ex- cept themselves from the general guilt, and must therefore also take their part of the general pun- ishment, although they may live innocently from the world and before the world. Cf. 1 Pet. iv. 1 2- 19. MichaeLiS : Until; that is twofold, first, the immovable patience of the congregation, secondly, the end of the appointed suffering. Ver. 10. Michaelis: They rejoice not so much over the destruction of enemies as over the assurance of the favor of God, whose name hith- erto has been so much profaned by them. Ver. 12. Hengstenberg : It is not enough *hat the people of God be free from the slavery of the world ; they become also the object of the long- ing of the nations, even the strongest and most hostile ; the magnet which attracts them. Ver. 13. Luther : In these words we should notice the special diligence of the Holy Spirit, which sees clearly what sort of thoughts the wicked »ynagogue will have, that they will hope for a car- nal kingdom, and despise the preaching of the Gos- pel on that account. Such an error, which not only obscures the Kingdom of Heaven r ut utterly takes it away, the Holy Spirit would here antici- pate and forestall. Ver. 14. Tabnov: "With thy staff; not with the iron rod of Moses, but with thine, the hading of the Holy Spirit, with thy Word and Spirit ; for j these are the instruments of the kingdom of God. Cocceius : With the staff the shepherd num- ' bers his sheep, smites, leads them, points out whither they should go, from what they should turn aside, where they should find pasture. Ver. 18. Michaelis: The congregation whici J here speaks through the prophet, is sunk in an abyss, while it contemplates the riches of the di- vine grace and mercy, which in the last times is to come upon it. Vers. 18 ff. Bubck : The Holy Scriptures re veal a new, rich depth of the divine fullness, and a truly inexhaustible treasure of " indulgence." There are no casus reservati. Starke : Ch. vi. 1 . Teachers and preachers in their teaching should not make a show of strange languages, or clothe themselves in the writings of Church fathers, or even in unprofitable fables, but should abide by God's Word alone, and speak that. On the mountains and hills in particular was idol- atry practiced, so that they had evidence of men's ungodliness. — Ver. 3. God earnestly desires the salvation of all. — Ver. 4. We should remember not only the benefits which God has shown to us, but particularly those also which our forefathers have experienced. — The teaching and the govern- ing office should be in accord with each other. — Ver. 5. The wish of the enemies of the Church, to destroy it, has never succeeded. — Vers. 6, 7. Most powerfully does our own conscience bear witness to the necessity of a vicarious atonement, in that it cannot otherwise be pacified. It makes a great difference whether pious or ungodly people ask : How shall we appease God ? Even with such works as God has commanded can He not be served, if they are performed by an impenitent man. By self-appointed acts of worship He w only angered the more. — Ver. 8. Believe, love, and endure. As it is a great sorrow when men whom God has created and Christ redeemed, know neither God nor Christ, so, on the contrary, it is a great blessing, when we know from God's Word, and perceive what is good, and what God demands of us. On the ground of ignorance, since we cau know but will not, we cannot excuse ourselves. — Ver. 9. A man sees only what is before his eyes, but God sees the heart. Those who will not give ear to God's paternal admonitions must taste his sharp rod. — Ver. 10. There are ungodly men who knowingly have in their house goods gained by unrighteousness. Such goods are not treas- ures, but a coal, by which the rest also that has been honestly gained shall be consumed. — Ver. 11. A Christian householder should endure no false balance or false weight in his house. — Ver. 12. Rich people who love unrighteousness, meet unrighteousness also as a reward. Covetous peo- ple are generally lying people also. Those who possess goods wickedly acquired commonly cypress the poor also with great violence and pride ; cov- etousness is insatiable. — Ver. 13. Here He begin* to display the rod which He had commanded in ver. 9 to hear. God begins with lighter punish- ments, but when these do not secure improvement, He makes them heavier in proportion as they ara more prolonged. — Ver. 14. Famine is one of God's greatest plagues. As the pious, in all their conduct, have God about, with, and for them, M 58 MICAH the wicked, on the other hand, have Him against them. — Ver. 15. If we would enjoy our labor, we must fear God and pursue piety, fairness, and jus- tice. — Ver. 16. Subjects are often much more submissive to their rulers in their wicked require- ments than in just and commendable regulations. — Ch. vii. 1. When teachers see no fruit of their labors, they should not straightway lay them down, but faithfully do their own part and commend it to God's blessing. — Ver. 2. Religion should not be judged by the lives of men. Cain has in all times his brother. Before God sends the general calam- ities on a land, He is wont to remove the pious people by death, that they may not see the evil. Those also who go about with secret plots and wicked practices are murderers before God, for He seeth the heart. — Ver. 4. The ungodly believe not what is threatened them until they have it in hand ; then they are utterly cast down and dis- heartened, so that they can counsel neither them- selves nor others. — Ver. 5. Christians ought to be prudent. — Ver. 6. When men first give them- selves up to carnal lusts, and lose sight of all shame and respect for God, then natural affection also commonly dies out. — Ver. 7. See how strenu- ously he insists that he has a God, much as if the other crowd had no God- The wicked have a God, doubtless, but an angry God, a God of ven- geance and not of salvation. He that would be secure against evil example must look to the Lord in obedience and patience. — Ver. 8. God some- times leaves believers also to stumble and fall, that they may be humbled, but He helps them up again. — Ver. 9. The righteous complains first of himself. — Ver. 10. God punishes not only the blasphemies which are cast upon Him, but the cal- umnies against his children also. — Ver. 11. The preaching of the Gospel is the means by which God maintains and enlarges his Church. — Ver. 13. The earth is the Lord's, the men, however, are its guests and inhabitants. — Ver. 14. God would have us pray to Him for the good things which He promises us. Believers have in Christ no want, but full enjoyment. — Ver. 16. It annoys the wicked greatly, when they see that the Gospel is spread abroad in spite of them. — Ver. 17. It is among the items of the great mystery, that the unbelieving world has believed the Gospel. — Ver. 18. Not only is there no other God, but also there is in heaven and on earth no such loving-kindness to be found as with God, who forgiveth sins. God is not so compassionate as to have no anger, but only so that He holds it not forever. Sin is Sa- tan's work, forgiveness God's. — Ver. 19. The sea is the blood of Jesus Christ. God not only forgives sins, but gives us the power also to sub- due sin. — Ver. 20. As God Himself is truth, so also is his Word truth, on which we may confi- dently rest. Pfaff : Ch. vi 6-8. Ye cannot excuse your- selves, ungodly men, as not having known the will of God. As clearly and richly as this has been made known to you, as many corrections, from the Good Spirit as ye have received in your Bouls, so often has conscience in you been awak - ened. But ye hold the truth in unrighteousness. — Ver. 13. Public iniquity and deceit are cer- tainly followed by heavy judgments ; for the prop- erty gathered by them must become a disgrace (vii. 8). In the darkness of the greatest affliction, the pious still see the light, and find their pleasure in the Lord's mercy, which is hidden in the cross. Rikger: Ch. vi. (1) The forcible beginning, \>r the awakening of hearts, vers. 1, 2. (2) The friendly direction, for the winning or hearts, vers. 3-8. (3) The sharp threatening against the sealed hearts, vers. 9-16. On vers. 6, 7. As men now. a-days express their unreasonableness towards the service of God in spirit and in truth, when they say, One scarcely ever knows what one ought to do ; they will be contented with nothing any more. — Ver. 8. To conduct one's self in all things earnestly, according to the divine and not the human standard, and in this to give to the Word of God its judicial power ; to practice kind- ness with delight, and to walk in humble faith before and with God : in that light let each one consider his own heart and conscience. — Ver. 9 ff. God has never accumulated presages of future events for the gratification of curious inquisitiveness, but to promote improvement at the present, thereby to render aid against unrighteousness. — Ch. vii. 1 ff. One must never rest satisfied with discourses and representations to men, but must support the pub- lic address by many words before and with the Father in secret ; and if one will cover the unfruit- fulness of the public labor with fatigue, one must refresh himself again by this intercourse with God. — Ver. 2. For the righteous who doubtless yet re- mained it was a salutary prompting that they should not so conceal themselves (Prov. xxviii. 28), but be active also in the better spirit. — Ver. 8 ff. There are always people who are glad to see it when the truth is so humbled, and her confessors brought into such straits, that it seems to be all over with relig- ion, order, and discipline. They together make up the enemy that is hostile to Zion. — Ver. 9. This makes one submissive under all the reproach upon the Church and her service, to observe that there is indignation at the bottom of it, that God thus withdraws Himself, and we no more attain to the blessing of former witnesses. But hope re- freshes the heart. Schmieder : Ch. vi. 3. This question of the conscience, cutting deep into the sinful heart, ad- dresses itself still, and in a still more humiliating way, to the people whom the Lord has purchased with his blood. The liturgy of the Romish Church, on Good Friday, during the adoration of the cross (the so-called lamentations), has appropriated this complaint of the Lord to the holy people : " I led you forty years long through the wilderness, fed thee with manna, and brought thee into a good land, and thou hast therefor crucified thy Saviour. I planted thee as my beautiful vineyard, and thou hast become bitter for me, hast given me vinegar to drink in my thirst, with a spear hast pierced my side. For thy sake I scourged Egypt and her first- born, and thou hast caused me to be scourged," etc. — Ver. 7. Not indeed, unless it is a sign of a heart offering itself to God. — Ver. 8. Doing rightly is an exhibition of faith, complete devotion to God is the real spiritual burnt-offering. To love mercy toward others is the true daily meat-offer- ing. To walk humbly, to be mindful that God is the Holy One, thou a poor sinner, that is the true spiritual sin-offering. — Ver. 14. That is the curse of the covetous, that he is never satisfied ; the blessing of God and contentment are wanting. — Ch. vii. 3. Thus ever the history of Naboth's vineyard repeats itself. The prince demands it since Naboth will not consent, judges are bribed aud the queen says what she lusts after ; Naboth though innocent, must die as a blasphemer ; thus they weave the net. — Ver. 4. The thorn, the hedge, is in the vegetable kingdom the type of what is evil, because it injures (2 Kings xiv. Judg. ix.) ; as the vine, the t'ive 'he fig tree are the CHAPTERS VI. AND VII. 59 type of the good, because they give fruit and shadow. — Ver. 5 ff. Compare Matt. x. 35 f., where by the use which our Lord makes of this prophetic office it is clear that the times of such domestic discord and insecurity, come then especially when, after the undisturbed dominion of evil, the Spirit of God arouses and enlivens the remnant of the pious, so that they with word and deed bear wit- ness against wickedness, and contend with Satan. Then must the pious man contend and suffer for the Lord's sake, but also watch lest he commit sin, and thus be rightfully chastised for his sin's sake. — Ver. 14. Since on Carmel, in Bashan and Gilead, was the best pasture, and since Israel is here compared to a flock, these good pasture grounds are here typically assigned to the people, while yet only the fruitful abodes in the land of Canaan are really meant. — Ver. 18. That is the so-called angry God of the Old Testament. — Ver. 19. Our misdeeds are our most dangerous enemy and accuser ; but even this Satan will the God of peace subdue to Himself and us, and has already done it, if we trust wholly to Him who treads the serpent under foot. Happy he whose sin is buried (Rom. vi. 4). Quanpt : Ch. vi. Of Israel's gratitude. (1) Israel's unthankfulness for God's previous mercy, vers. 1,5. (2) ver. 6-8. How Israel should thank God. (3) ver. 9-16. How God will punish thank- less Israel. — Ver. 1 . The mountains and hills signify the prominent leaders of the people. — Ver. 10. Cf. Am. viii. 5, 6. — Ver. 11. Inquiry of the conscience terrified by the searching of the Lord. Not as if the grain-speculators actually inquired thus. But Micah wishes that they would so in- quire, that they might come to themselves and re- pent. — Ver. 12. The punishment of men on earth is never the ultimate end, but ever the means to the end of their conversion. — Ch. vii. Mercy glories over judgment. — Ver. 2. The seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal were not wanting in Micah's time either. But if one would picture the impression made by a barren landscape, he does not stop on the description of a flower or two which may bloom somewhere in con- cealment. The Redeemer also said universally : Ye would not, and leaves Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea out of the account. — Ver. 20. God's oath, on which Micah here at the end leans as on a rock, is that of Gen. xiii. 16 ff. How God kept it, see in Luke i. 72-75. [MATTUiiw Henky : on ch. vi. 4. When we are calling to mind God's former mercies to us, we must not forget the mercy of good teachers and governors when we were young. Let those be made mention of, to the glory of God, who went before us, saying, This is the way, walk in it; it [1 So good people have been wont to complain, in Church and State, since the Homeric heroes, at least, of the degen- eracy of each generation, as compared with the preceding one. If such wailings were reasonable, what angelic piety and social virtue must have flourished three thousand years tgo, and how dreadful to think of our posterity, three thou- sand years hence, looking back, over countless steps of de- was God that sent them before us, to prepare the: way of the Lord, and to prepare a people for Him. — Ver. 6-8. Deep convictions of guilt and wrath will put men upon inquiries after peace and par don, and then, and not till then, there begins to be some hope of them. Those that are thoroughly convinced of sin, of the malignity of it, and of their misery and danger by reason of it, would giv* all the world, if they had it, for peace and pardon Men will part with anything rather than their sins, but they part with nothing, to God's acceptance, unless they part with them. — Ver. 9. It is a point of true wisdom to discover the name of God in the voice of God, and to learn what He is from what He says. Every rod has a voice, and it is the voice of God that is to be heard in the rod of God ; and it is well for those that understand the language of it; which if we would do, we must have an eye to Him that appointed it. Every rod is appointed, of what kind it shall be. where it shall light, and how long it shall lie. The work of ministers is to explain the providences of God, and to quicken and direct men to the lessons that are taught by them. — Ver. 16. If professors of religion ruin themselves, their ruin will be the most reproachful of any other; and they in a special manner will rise at the last day to everlasting shame and con- tempt. — Ch. vi. 1. Some think that this intimates not only that good people were few, but that those few who remained, who went for good people, were good for little ; like the small withered grapes, the refuse that were left behind, not only by the gath- erer, but by the gleaner. When the prophet ob- served this universal degeneracy, it made him de- sire the first-ripe fruit ; he wished to see such wor- thy, good men as were in the former ages, were the ornaments of the primitive times, and as far ex- ceeded the best of all the present age as the first and full-ripe fruits do those of the latter growth, that never come to maturity. When we read and hear of the wisdom and zeal, the strictness and 3on- scientiousness, the devotion and charity, of the professors of religion in former ages, and see the reverse of this in those of the present age, we can- not but sit down and wish with a sigh, O,for prim- itive Christianity again ! Where are the plainness and integrity of those that went before us ? Where are the Israelites indeed, without guile? Our souls desire them, but in vain. The golden age is gone and past recall ; we must make the best of what is, for we are not likely to see such times as have been. 1 — Ver. 9. Those that are truly penitent for sin will see a great deal of reason to be patient under affliction. — Ver. 15. God's former favors to his Church are patterns of future favors, and shall again be copied out as there is occasion. — Tr.J terioration, to us as paragons of lost perfection ! This view of things is, rather, a lazy or helpless recognition of th« remaining evil which it behooves each age to put away or diminish. As Henry himself says on ver. 9, " When we complain to God of the badness of the times, we ought to complain against ourselves for the badness of our owx hearts."— T*.] Date Due