Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 7 July 2024. Omitting greyed-out text should bring verbal delivery under 45 minutes.
Micah (not to be confused with Micaiah, son of Imlah who confronted King Ahab a century previous, but Micah, the author of the 6th book of the Minor Prophets) was a contemporary of1 Isaiah (1:1) and Hosea (1:1), all of whom lived during the last kings of the northern kingdom of Israel and its overthrow by the Assyrians, in the 700’s BC, about a hundred years before the southern kingdom of Judea fell to the Chaldeans.
The context of this prophecy was a time of prosperity for both the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah under the long and prosperous reigns of King Jereboam II in Samaria, and King Uzziah in Jerusalem.
The territory of Israel had expanded such that they were in control of most of the trade routes between Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Small-scale farming began to be upstaged by new opportunities for international trade, resulting in the wealthy buying up more land, leaving poor peasants to move into the cities to find jobs, further increasing the gap between rich and poor.
Religiously, foreign ideologies were flowing freely through Israel along with commercial trade, making the exclusive claims of Moses seem narrow-minded and provincial, and as the true religion waned, Biblical morals evaporated, and corruption and injustice became rampant. (Cohen)
Of course, unbelieving critics of the Bible today have a problem with the date of Micah because they don’t believe in a God who knows the future, so they assume that the only way anybody could have said what Micah said about what came true for Israel and Judah was if they were writing after it had all happened, so they set the date of Micah during or after the Babylonian exile.
But, as eminent Hebrew scholar Bruce Waltke pointed out in his commentary, “The grammar of Micah is preexilic, displaying none of the characteristic features of postexilic Hebrew… and its provenance is consistently Palestinian at the time of the Assyrian invasions.”2
God’s word has integrity and it is trustworthy.
The name “Micah” (or “Micaiah” in its full form) means, “Who is like the LORD?” The answer, of course, is nobody! Our God is unique in His power and authority and intelligence and holiness and goodness, and that’s why we should worship Him alone!
Micah was from Moresheth3, in the Shephalah hills of Judah, bordering the Mediterranean coastal plain to the West4.
The ancient Philistine cities of Gath and Lachish were the nearest5 towns to Moresheth, only 6 miles away as the crow flies, and they were under Jewish control.
(I say “as the crow flies” because this is very hilly country, which, by the way, may have influenced the way Micah wrote so much about high places and valleys.)
About 20 miles northeast is Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of course, was the capitol city of Micah’s nation of Judah.
Samaria, on the other hand, was about 50 miles due north of Moresheth and was the capitol city of the 10 northern tribes of Israel.
In order to prophecy during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Micah had to have been a prophet for at least 30 years6. It is generally agreed that his book is a compilation of perhaps 20 sermons written over that period of time.
100 years later, the prophet Jeremiah summed up Micah’s book with these words, “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, `Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, And the mountain of the temple Like the bare hills of the forest."’” (Jeremiah 26:18, NKJV)
God
gave a message – in words – directly to Micah, and we get to
read the very words of this message! Let us listen and give heed
to what God said!
“The word of Yahweh which was to Micah
the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of
Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem: Listen, all
you peoples, {and} be attentive, O earth and [all] that fills it,
for Yahweh the Master will become a witness among y’all from the
temple of His holiness. Look, Yahweh is indeed going forth from His
place, and He will come down and step on the high places of the
earth. Then the mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys
will burst open like wax from flames of fire, like water being
poured through a precipice. All this is due to the transgression of
Jacob and due to the sins of the house of Israel. Where is the
transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And where are the high
places of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria
into a pile in the field – into a place for planting a vineyard,
and I will have her building-stones poured out into the ravine, and
her foundations laid bare. And all her idols will be smashed and all
her income will be burned in the fire, and I will put all her images
in the trash, because out of the income of a prostitute she took
collections – yes they turned even the income of a prostitute...”
In the first verses of his book, Micah introduces the LORD, Jehovah- God, Yahweh.
Since this God speaks “words,” the world is called to “listen” to him in v.2.
Since this God is a “Lord” – a Master, an authority, enthroned in a holy temple, we should “pay special attention” to what He says as He comes to “bear witness”!
Three verbs in v.3 (“go forth,” “come down,” and “tread”) strongly describe God’s action7 which will bring Him into contact with His people and make Him a “witness” concerning what is going on with them.
“Going forth” is the verb used in Hebrew to describe a king or army general leaving his home base to go out to war, so the preposition “from” in “from His holy temple” is not describing Him sitting in his heavenly temple and issuing orders “from it,” but rather “going out from” it.
This fits the standard Hebrew grammar formula for prosecuting someone in court, but the historic translations in Latin, Aramaic, and Greek seem to interpret it as a coming to be “with” rather than “against” while bearing testimony. The next verse – v.3 – describes the LORD coming down to be on earth, which could also fit with the LORD coming to be “with” His people, but could also be part of coming “against” them.
It is reminiscent of Genesis 18:20-21 “And the LORD said, ‘Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.’”
The initial and obvious fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy is the overthrow of Samaria and the end of the Northern kingdom of Israel, but Micah’s language goes beyond that immediate historical event to also prophesy the Babylonian exile of Jerusalem and even the incarnation of the Son of God as well as His “second” coming8.
The Messianic overtones should not be missed. Micah prophecies of this happening in the future, and it is exactly what Jesus did – God the Son came down from the glory of heaven to walk on earth and “bear witness among” us to the truth.
Commentators write about the nations being witnesses or about Micah being God’s witness, but what the text actually says is that God Himself would become the witness.
John 18:37 “...Jesus answered [Pilate], ‘...or this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’” (NKJV, cf. 7:7, 8:18)
Furthermore, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 uses the same Greek words for the “Lord” “coming down,” referring to the second coming of Christ, that the Greek translation of Micah 1:4 uses: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” (NKJV) Micah’s prophecy is initially about the Assyrians conquering the Israelite city of Samaria, but it is ultimately about being ready for the coming of Christ.
The “high places” mentioned in v.3 were hilltops where altars were commonly placed to worship gods9.
In the Pentateuch, this word was also used to describe the hilltops where kings built their fortified cities, but in the Biblical history of this particular time (2 Ki. 15-18 & 2 Chron 27-29) “high places” is only used to describe places of worship, so we can be certain that God is saying that He was coming to personally witness the places where they worshiped idols and step on them – stomp on them even, because He is a jealous God (Ex. 20:5). (Matthew Henry’s commentary saw in the word “tread” an action of “contempt and disdain.”)
God personally sees what we worship, and He also sees what corrupt people in the highest echelons of power are doing behind closed doors, and He is going to hold all accountable.
God’s judgment against Samaria is described in apocalyptic terms which match the description of
God’s descent onto Mount Sinai in Exodus 19,
Psalm 97:1-8 “The LORD reigns; Let the earth rejoice; Let the multitude of isles be glad! Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. A fire goes before Him, And burns up His enemies round about. His lightnings light the world; The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the LORD, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples see His glory. Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, Who boast of idols. Worship Him, all you gods. Zion hears and is glad, And the daughters of Judah rejoice Because of Your judgments, O LORD.” (NKJV, cf. Isaiah 34:1-3)
as well as the 2nd coming of Christ described in 2 Peter where the earth “burns” & “melts”10.
The volcano and earthquake and flooding images here, however, are probably figurative, describing the level of disruption that the inhabitants of Samaria would feel when they were conquered by Assyria.
“Do men trust to the height and strength of mountains, as if they were sufficient to bear up their hopes and bear off their fears? They shall be molten under him. - Do they trust to the fruitfulness of the valleys11 and their products?” They shall be cleft, or rent, - and be wasted away as the ground is by the waters that are poured down a steep place.” ~M. Henry, 1714 AD
“[S]ince God is said to melt the mountains with his presence, let us hence learn to… reverently receive his word… For when we become humble, and the pride and height of our flesh is subdued, he then immediately receives us, as it were, into his gentle bosom, and gives us an easy access to him, yea, he invites us to himself with all possible kindness. That the Lord then may thus kindly receive us, let us learn to fear as soon as he utters his voice: but let not this fear make us to flee away, but only humble us, so that we may render true obedience to the world of the Lord.” ~J. Calvin, 1559 AD
God’s intervention of judgment is due to the sin of His people.
God is not some irate deity with a hair-trigger temper that explodes for no good reason. His judgments are always judicious and fair, in proper response to our sin, and even so, His judgments are always delayed by His patience and softened by His mercy.
But if we learn anything from the prophets it must be this, that sin is deadly-serious; it’s destructive, and it must not be winked-at or tolerated.
“For sin God destroyed the whole world, which he had made, both man and beast, save only a seed reserved in the Ark... For the proud sinful words of the old Giants did the... confusion of languages come upon the world... For sin were the 5 cities burnt with fire [which Lot and his daughters alone escaped]. For sin were the old Giants Og king of Bashan, and the monstrous seed of [Sihon] destroyed. For sin the Caananites... were ... destroyed, and consumed. The ... Monarchies which Daniel described... all beaten down for sin. And the 10 little horns or kingdoms... Finally all realms countries, towns and cities, shall for sin have the like ruin and destruction. Some sooner... to cause the rest to repent, and at the length all because the reward of sin is destruction by the mighty Lord – his unchangeable ordinance. So sore a thing is sin in the sight of God, that whoso ever sins, deserves death. This was the old learning which the Lord taught Adam in Paradise, which all the seed of Adam feels and tastes continually, and yet can neither see nor avoid the cause of their destruction… And shall our polluted [modern city12] escape unpunished?” ~Anthony Gilby, 1551 AD
And the same is true of sin in the church today. “Judgment begins in the house of God.” (1 Peter 4:17)13
Now, there is some difficulty in translating the second half of v.5 because the Hebrew interrogatives in it usually mean “Who” but, since this interrogative equates “transgression” with “Samaria” and “sin” with “Jerusalem,” it might be better to translate the interrogative as “Where”? It makes more sense to say that the “sinning” and “transgressing” is particularly happening in these two capitol cities of Israel and influencing the rest of the nation.
So, what was “the transgression of Jacob,” and how was that related to Samaria?
In Genesis 31:36, the Old Testament Patriarch Jacob said to his father-in-law Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have so hotly pursued me?” Well, as it turned out, the offense was that Jacob’s family had made off with Laban’s teraphim idols! Micah mimics Jacob’s self-righteous objection in the second half of v.5 because idolatry had continued to dog the steps of Jacob’s descendants right up to Micah’s time.
At the very beginning of the northern kingdom, Israel’s first King Jeroboam had set up golden calf idols (1 Ki. 12:28) to worship in Dan and Beersheba to prevent the Israelites in the north from coming down to Jerusalem to worship God properly there.
2 Kings 13:6 reports that, from that time, all the way down to the time of Micah, “Nevertheless they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin, but walked in them; and the wooden image [Ashera-pole-idol] also remained in Samaria.” (KJV)
The transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel were idol-worship.
The problem with the “High places of Judah” and “Jerusalem” was the same:
About 100 years before Micah, King Jehoram “...made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit harlotry, and led Judah astray.” according to 2 Chron. 21:11 (NKJV),
and then, in Micah’s time, King “...Ahaz... cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every single city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked to anger the LORD God of his fathers.” (2 Chr. 28:24-25, NKJV)14
Modern archaeologists have discovered in Judea vast numbers of idols dating to this period15.
But, almost a thousand years before Micah, God had told the Israelites in Leviticus 26:27-3216 “If y'all don't give heed to me... and y'all keep walking defiantly in relation to me, then I will walk with furious defiance in relation to you, and I – yes I – will discipline y'all sevenfold because of your sins... I will cause the destruction of your high-places and I will cut off the use of your incense-altars and I will put your corpses on top of the corpses of your idols, and my soul will disdain y'all. I will also destine your cities to be wasteland, and I will cause your holy places to be desolated... your enemies who settle in it will wreak desolation upon it.”
Micah’s message is that, through idolatry, Samaria and Jerusalem have so broken God’s covenant with them that, unless they repent of this sin, God will institute the curses of destruction and exile which He had warned them would be the consequences of idolatry instead of faithfulness to Him. (Waltke) Micah goes into detail now in...
Samaria was a large and prosperous city, well-fortified and populous. It was built on a 300 foot-high hill with high walls made of stones held together with mortar.
What Micah (as well as Isaiah and Hosea17) prophesied was unthinkable, that this great city would become no more than a “heap of rubble” in the wilderness.
For the “stones” to be “poured down into a valley,” an army must have destroyed the city walls and rolled the stones downhill.
(This Hebrew verb for “pour down” is the same as the one in v.4, so this may be a more concrete way of explaining what was said in more poetic terms in the last part of v.4.)
As the walls were torn down, it would have exposed the foundations of the wall – at, or below, ground level.
For a civilized city to be reduced to a “field” – even one where fruit could potentially be planted18 – was a curse. It was a reversal of the dominion-taking which God had commissioned man to do in Genesis 1. It meant the eradication of families and culture.
But Israel is littered with archaeological sites matching this very description of “piles of rubble in the fields.”
God says He will do this, but He uses Hebrew Hiphil verb stems in v.6 to let us know that He will be – not the direct agent, but – the cause behind this calamity: Literally, “I will make into a pile… I will cause to pour out the stones… I will cause to be bare the foundation...”
God “used the battering rams of the Assyrian army… to carry out his sentence against … the proud stones of her retaining walls and royal residence.”19 ~Bruce Waltke, 2007 AD
God explained this causal relationship through Isaiah in 2 Kings 19:25-26, saying, “... I have brought it to pass, That you [King Sennacherib of Assyria] should be For crushing fortified cities [like Samaria] into heaps of ruins. Therefore their inhabitants had little power; They were dismayed and confounded…” (NKJV)
And yet mercy is still available. It may not be mentioned in this context, but it remains in the context of the whole of scripture.
Job 30:24 "Surely He [God] would not stretch out His hand against a heap of ruins, If they cry out when He destroys it.” (NKJV)
But Samaria didn’t cry out to the Lord for mercy; they didn’t repent of their rebellion against God.
So Micah’s prophecy was fulfilled against Samaria:
Initially in 722 BC, when Shalmaneser “...the king of Assyria took Samaria [after a 3-year seige] and carried Israel [the Israelite residents of Samaria] away to Assyria…” (2 Kings 17:6, NKJV)
“[T]his was entirely fulfilled... by John Hyrcanus [early in the second century BC]… the account of the destruction of it by him, as given by Josephus, exactly answers to this prophecy…” ~John Gill, 1766 AD
“[W]hen Hyrcanus had taken that city, which was not done till after a year's siege, he was not contented with doing that only, but he demolished it entirely, and brought rivulets to it to drown it, for he dug such hollows as might let the water run under it; nay, he took away the very marks that there had ever been such a city there.” ~Antiquities 13.10.3
If you look at photos of the hill of Samaria today, you will still see “ruins” and “vineyards” (or orchards).
Micah’s prophecy would also be fulfilled upon Jerusalem. Psalm 79:1, Psalm 137:7, and Lamentations 4:11 use several of the same words from Micah’s prophecy here in v.6 to describe what the Chaldeans did to Jerusalem in 586 BC.
The reason for this destruction was the idol-worship of the people associated with God’s name, and so it is particularly against those idols that God expresses His destructive wrath.
Three idolatrous things in particular are mentioned in v.7: idolatrous images, ill-gotten money, and illicit sex.
Regarding the idolatrous images, God had told the Jews back in Deuteronomy 12:3 “You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.” (NAW) Since they didn’t do it, God had others do it for them.
History-drawings made of hammered-metal have been found in ancient Khorsabad dating back to the time of Micah, depicting Assyrian soldiers chopping idols up with axes.
And there’s an interesting passage in 2 Chronicles 34:3-7, written about 100 years after Micah, that describes, using several of the same words here in v.7, an idol-smashing-and-burning campaign conducted by King Josiah among the residents still living around Samaria, thus fulfilling, to the very word, the prophecy of Micah20.
“The idols in which Samaria trusted, though so popular, far from protecting her brought its judgment. So also modern man’s trust in his defense budgets and technological skills, instead of in the living God, will actually destroy him. Poetic justice awaited the idols. Just as they had been constructed from the silver and gold paid to cult votaries, so also their precious metals were broken down by the Assyrian soldiers21 and reused to hire cult prostitutes in Nineveh, from which, we may suppose, new idols, just as worthless, would be made once again.” ~Bruce Waltke, 2007 AD
Are we going to follow Samaria and Assyria in the recycling of idols or cut a new course of independence from human props and trust in the God who created it all?
Image, income, and experiences are not just the stuff of ancient paganism, they continue to charactize false religion today, and we still have the command in the New Testament: 1 John 5:21 “Dear children, keep yourselves from the idols.” (NAW)
In their unfaithfulness to the one true God, Israel in Micah’s time had adopted the worship of the world around them and “collected” “idols.” Micah’s counterpart in Israel, the Prophet Hosea, explained in Hosea 13:1-3 “...they sin more and more, And have made for themselves molded images, Idols of their silver, according to their skill; All of it is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, ‘Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!’” [a reference to the golden calves King Jeroboam had erected in Beersheba and Dan instead of worshiping God at the temple of Jerusalem] Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud And like the early dew that passes away, Like chaff blown off from a threshing floor And like smoke from a chimney.”
The Hebrew word translated “wages/hire/earnings/temple gifts” – everywhere else it occurs in the Bible – describes payment for sexual prostitution. The implication is that the Israelites had become so degraded in their religious practices that priests were turning places of worship into places where men would pay money to commit adultery with prostitutes, and using that income as a way of supporting the priests and the upkeep of the temple. Hosea described it like this in chapter 4:13-19, “They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops, And burn incense on the hills, Under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, Because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters commit harlotry, And your brides commit adultery... the men themselves go apart with harlots, And offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot… Ephraim is joined to idols, Let him alone. Their drink is rebellion, They commit harlotry continually. Her rulers dearly love dishonor... And they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.” (NKJV)
It was sick, and God had already told them a thousand years earlier through Moses not to do anything like that: Deuteronomy 23:18 “You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the LORD your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.” (NKJV)
Most commentators I read thought that this was just a figure of speech, describing idol-worship in terms of adultery, but I would point out that where you find idol-worship throughout history, you also tend to find sexual immorality22, and it is easy to see from the books of Kings and Chronicles and the Prophets that such immorality was rampant in Israel at this time23.
“Samaria gathered together the entire apparatus of her idolatrous worship from prostitute's gifts... namely, through gifts presented by the idolaters. The acquisition of all this is described as the gain of prostitute's wages, according to the scriptural view that idolatry was spiritual whoredom... Micah had in his mind ... the worship... under the symbols of the golden calves. These things return back to the wages of prostitution, i.e., they become this once more by being carried away by the enemies, who conquer the city and destroy it, and being applied to their idolatrous worship.” (cf. Isa. 46:1-2; Dan. 1:3).” ~Keil
“The offerings sent to Israel’s temple by the Assyrians, whose idolatry Israel adopted, shall go back to the Assyrians, her teachers in idolatry, as the hire or fee for having taught it.” ~Hugo Grotius, 1640 AD
“Yet herein were the heathen more religious than the Christian worldling. The heathen did 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 dethroning of God, a worship of a material prosperity, of 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 conscious of it.” ~Edward B. Pusey, 1880 AD
What
is the one thing God commands you to do in this
passage? Did you catch it?
Listen, all you
peoples, {and} be attentive, O earth and [all]
that fills it.
Are you part of one of the “peoples” on the earth? Are you one of the creatures that “fill” the “earth”? Then this is God’s direct command to you: “Listen up [and] pay attention..!”
God has been communicating through the prophets and apostles for thousands of years. Have you been attentive to that?
“What is written in the Bible, and what is preached by the ministers of Christ according to what is written there, must be heard and received, not as the word of dying men, which we may be judges of, but as the word of the living God, which we must be judged by…” ~M. Henry Are you heeding it?
“Behold the judgment of the Lord against the people of His wrath and … learn a lesson from this.” (Hailey)
Within a few years of Micah’s initial prophecies, the Jews in Judea would watch the Assyrian army wipe out the northern kingdom of Israel and its capitol Samaria, and they were to learn the lesson that rebellion against God can’t go on forever; God will wipe out folks who call themselves believers but who really worship idols and are unfaithful.
God explicitly said this in Isaiah 10:11 “[S]hall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?” (NAW)
“Every judgment is an earnest, a forerunner, a part of the final judgment and an ensample of its principles.” ~Edward Pusey, 1880 AD
That lesson can be extended into our day. If God would bring destruction to the most prominent cities in the Bible for rebellion and unfaithfulness to Him, nothing but His patience and mercy prevents Him from wiping out cities today for their iniquity.
In Revelation 2:5, Jesus gave a similar threat to the church in Ephesus: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” (NKJV)
“All threatened judgments, let it be recalled, are conditional. If sinners repent beforehand, they will be saved (Jer. 18:7-8, Jonah 3:4, 10; 4:1). This principle is still valid...” ~Bruce Waltke, 2007 AD
The Christians in Thessalonica “...turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thess. 1:9-10, NKJV)
We likewise need to be people who live lives of repenting of sin and believing in Jesus to save us.
God has come down to earth to be a witness. Will you believe His testimony?
1 John 5:9-13 “If we accept the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who is believing in the Son of God has the evidence in himself; the one who is not believing in God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the evidence of which God has testified concerning His Son. And this is the evidence: that God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I write to you in order that you may have known that you have life forever – to [you] who are believing in the name of the Son of God... Dear children, keep yourselves from the idols.” (NAW)
DouayB (Vulgate) |
LXXC |
BrentonD (Vaticanus) |
KJVE |
NAW |
Masoretic HebrewF |
1 The word of the Lord, that came to Micheas, the Morasthite, in the days of Joathan, Achaz, [and] Ezechias, kings of Juda: which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. |
1 [Καὶ] ἐγένετο λόγος κυρίουG πρὸς Μιχαιαν τὸν τοῦH Μωρασθι ἐν ἡμέραις Ιωαθαμ [καὶI] Αχαζ [καὶ] Εζεκιου βασιλέων Ιουδα, [ὑπὲρ] ὧν εἶδεν περὶ Σαμαρείας καὶ περὶ Ιερουσαλημ. |
1 [And] the word of the Lord came to Michaeas the [son] of Morasthi, in the days of Joatham, [and] Achaz, [and] Ezekias, kings of Juda, [concerning] what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem. |
1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. |
1 The word of Yahweh which was to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem: |
(א) דְּבַר יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר הָיָה אֶל מִיכָה הַמֹּרַשְׁתִּי בִּימֵי יוֹתָם אָחָז יְחִזְקִיָּה מַלְכֵי יְהוּדָה אֲשֶׁר חָזָה עַל שֹׁמְרוֹן וִירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם. |
2
Hear, all ye peopleX:
[and]
let the earth give ear, and |
2
Ἀκούσατε, λαοί,
|
2
Hear these |
2
Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and |
2 Listen, all you peoples, {and} be attentive, O earth and [all] that fills it, for Yahweh the Master will become a witness among y’all from the temple of His holiness. |
(ב) שִׁמְעוּ עַמִּים כֻּלָּםM Nהַקְשִׁיבִי אֶרֶץ וּמְלֹאָהּ Oוִיהִי אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה Pבָּכֶם לְעֵד אֲדֹנָי מֵהֵיכַלQ קָדְשׁוֹ. |
3 For behold the Lord will come forth out of his place: and he will come down, and will tread upon the high places of the earth. |
3 διότι ἰδοὺ κύριος ἐκπορεύεται ἐκ τοῦ τόπου αὐτοῦ καὶ καταβήσεται καὶ ἐπιβήσεται ἐπὶ τὰ ὕψη τῆς γῆς, |
3 For, behold, the Lord comes forth out of his place, and will come down, and will go upon the high places of the earth. |
3 For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. |
3 Look, Yahweh is indeed going forth from His place, and He will come down and step on the high places of the earth. |
(ג) כִּי הִנֵּהR יְהוָה יֹצֵא מִמְּקוֹמוֹ וְיָרַד וְדָרַךְS עַל בָּמוֹתֵיT Uאָרֶץ. |
4 And the mountains shall be melted under him: and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as waters that run down a steep place. |
4
καὶ |
4
And the mountains shall be |
4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. |
4 Then the mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will burst open like wax from flames of fire, like water being poured through a precipice. |
(ד) וְנָמַסּוּ הֶהָרִיםX תַּחְתָּיו וְהָעֲמָקִים יִתְבַּקָּעוּY כַּדּוֹנַג מִפְּנֵי הָאֵשׁ כְּמַיִם מֻגָּרִים בְּמוֹרָד. |
5 For the wickedness of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the wickedness of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Juda? are they not Jerusalem? |
5 διὰ ἀσέβειαν Ιακωβ πάντα ταῦτα καὶ διὰ ἁμαρτίαν οἴκου Ισραηλ. τίς ἡ ἀσέβεια τοῦ ΙακωβZ; οὐ ΣαμάρεAAια; καὶ τίς ἡ ἁμαρτίαAB [οἴκου] Ιουδα; οὐχὶ Ιερουσαλημ; |
5 All these calamities are for the transgression of Jacob, and for the sin of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what is the sin [of the house] of Juda? is it not Jerusalem? |
5 For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? |
5 All this is due to the transgression of Jacob and due to the sins of the house of Israel. Where is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And where are the high places of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? |
(ה) בְּפֶשַׁע יַעֲקֹבAC כָּל זֹאת וּבְחַטֹּאות בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵלAD מִיAE פֶשַׁע יַעֲקֹב הֲלוֹא שֹׁמְרוֹן וּמִי בָּמוֹתAF יְהוּדָה הֲלוֹא יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם. |
6 And I will make Samaria as a heap [of stones] in the field when a vineyard is planted: and I will bring down the stones thereof into the valley, and will lay her foundations bare. |
6
καὶ θήσομαι
Σαμάρειαν εἰς ὀπωροφυλάκιονAG
ἀγροῦ
καὶ εἰς φυτείαν ἀμπελῶνος καὶ
κατασπάσω
εἰς |
6
Therefore I will make Samaria as a store-house [of
the fruits]
of the field,
and as a planting of a vineyard: and I will |
6 Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. |
6 Therefore I will make Samaria into a pile in the field – into a place for planting a vineyard, and I will have her building-stones poured out into the ravine, and her foundations laid bare. |
(ו) וְשַׂמְתִּי שֹׁמְרוֹן לְעִיAI הַשָּׂדֶה לְמַטָּעֵיAJ כָרֶם וְהִגַּרְתִּיAK לַגַּי אֲבָנֶיהָAL וִיסֹדֶיהָ אֲגַלֶּהAM. |
7
And all her graven things shall be cut in pieces, and all her
wages
shall be burnt with fire, and I will bring
to destruction
all her idols: for they |
7
καὶ πάντα τὰ γλυπτὰ
αὐτῆς κατακόψουσιν καὶ πάντα
τὰ μισθώματα
αὐτῆς ἐμπρήσουσιν
ἐν πυρί, καὶ πάντα τὰ εἴδωλα
αὐτῆς θήσομαι
εἰς ἀφανισμόν·
διότι ἐκ μισθωμάτων
πορνείας
συνήγαγεν καὶ ἐ |
7
And they shall cut in pieces all the graven images, and all that
she
has hired they shall burn with
fire, and I will |
7 And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot. |
7 And all her idols will be smashed and all her income will be burned in the fire, and I will put all her images in the trash, because out of the income of a prostitute she took collections – yes they turned even the income of a prostitute. |
(ז) וְכָל פְּסִילֶיהָAP יֻכַּתּוּAQ וְכָל אֶתְנַנֶּיהָAR יִשָּׂרְפוּ בָאֵשׁ וְכָל עֲצַבֶּיהָ אָשִׂים שְׁמָמָה כִּי מֵאֶתְנַן זוֹנָה קִבָּצָהAS וְעַד אֶתְנַן זוֹנָה יָשׁוּבוּAT. |
1Why would God send two or three prophets at once? He Himself said in Deuteronomy 19:15 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.” (Cf. Mat. 18:16, 2 Cor. 13:1) So God abides by His own law to send Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah as witnesses concerning the sin of Israel.
2He also noted that in chapter 5 verse 4, Micah depicts Assyria as controlling Babylon, which was true in the 8th century BC, but would not have been true in the 6th century period of the exile when Babylon controlled Assyria.
3The fact that Micah identifies himself by his hometown instead of by his father’s name suggests that his ministry may have been conducted primarily away from his hometown and away from folks who would have known his father. (Waltke) This would fit with the fact that in his later years, the Assyrians conquered his hometown, forcing the Jewish inhabitants to flee to Jerusalem, and it would also fit with his messages aimed at Jerusalem.
4https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/home-of-the-prophet-micah/ identifies it with Azekah.
5Also 6 miles northeast of Moresheth is Adullam (where some 300 years ago David had hidden himself from Saul).
6Waltke suggested a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 53. He is also the source of the 20-sermon estimate.
7Of course, with an omnipresent God, any description of Him moving has to be understood in a qualified way. Commentator John Gill explained well that, “It signifies not change of place, but of his dispensations; going out of his former customary method into another; ‘removing... from the throne of mercies to the throne of judgment’ [as Rabbi Jarchi put it]; doing not acts of mercy, in which he delights, but exercising judgment, [what Isaiah called] ‘his strange work.’”
8“The
whyche daye and tyme of the Lordes comming seemeth here to be
chieflye and pryncypallye descrybed, thoughe the destruccyon of the
Iewes be therewyth insumate, for thus dothe Christe hym selfe cople
bothe together .xxiiii. of Mathew and Dauid in the .xvii. Psalme
doothe adioyne the daye of hys perticuler deliueraunce to thys daye
of the Lordes cōminge…” ~Anthony Gilby, 1551 AD
“But
the words, which are image-language now, shall be most exactly
fulfilled in the end, when, in the Person of our Lord, He shall come
visibly to judge the world…” ~Pusey, 1880 AD
9See https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/high-places-altars-and-the-bamah/
102 Peter 3:12 “anticipating and hastening the coming of the Day of God, on account of which the heavens will be disintegrated by burning and the elements be melted away by being heated” (NAW)
11The parallelism of “mountains” and “valleys” is a merismus including all places everywhere. (Waltke) No one is going to escape God’s justice.
12Originally “Samaria of London.”
13“External privileges and professions will not secure a sinful people from the judgments of God. If sin be found in the house of Israel, if Jacob be guilty of transgression and rebellion, God will not spare them; no, he will punish them first, for their sins are of all others most provoking to him, for they are most reproaching.” ~M. Henry, 1714 AD
14These (and perhaps other kings of Judah) also commissioned a whole network of “idolatrous priests... to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem... who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.” (2 Kings 23:5, NKJV) cf. Jeremiah 32:31-35, & 26:18 which chronicle the continued idolatry of Judah a century after Micah.
15For instance, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2253695/How-idolatry-continued-Kingdom-Judah-Israeli-dig-uncovers-temple-icons-dating-Old-Testament-era.html
16cf. Deut 28
17Isaiah
8:4 “for, before the boy knows how to cry out, 'My father,' or
'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be
carried away to the presence of the king of Assyria.” (NAW)
Hosea
13:16 “Samaria is held guilty, For she has rebelled against
her God. They shall fall by the sword, Their infants shall be dashed
in pieces, And their women with child ripped open.” (NKJV)
18The mention of planting vineyards, nevertheless, ties in with God’s mercy, because there are only four other places in the Old Testament where this word for planting shows up, and in each one (esp. in Isa. 60:2, 16, 21), God promises the reconstruction Jews under Nehemiah and Ezra that this fallow ground in Palestine will be the place where He sovereignly re-plants the nation of Israel in preparation for the coming of the Messiah! “It could be remade only by being wholly unmade.” ~Pusey, 1880 AD
19Waltke also wrote, “Blinded by their own cupidity, the false prophets saw no connection between Israel’s sin and rampaging Assyrign army, but the true prophet saw the holy Sovereign, marching above the Assyrign juggernaut…”
20“...in the twelfth year he [King Josiah] began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images. They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and the incense altars which were above them he cut down; and the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images he broke in pieces, and made dust of them and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali and all around, with axes. When he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, had beaten the carved images into powder, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.” (NKJV)
21Hosea 10:5-6 “The inhabitants of Samaria fear Because of the calf of Beth Aven... The idol also shall be carried to Assyria As a present for King Jareb.” (NKJV)
22Viz. Gill’s commentary: “[H]arlots prostituting themselves in the temples of idols... was common among the Heathens, as at Comana and Corinth, as Strabo relates; and particularly among the Babylonians and Assyrians, which may be here referred to: for Herodotus says, it was a law with the Babylonians that every woman of that country should once in her life sit in the temple of Venus, and lie with a strange man: here women used to sit with a crown upon their heads: nor might they return home until some stranger threw money into their laps, and took them out of the temple, and lay with them... nor was it lawful to reject the price or the money, be it what it would, for it was converted to holy uses, and Strabo affirms much the same. So the Phoenician women used to prostitute themselves in the temples of their idols, and dedicate there the hire of their bodies to their gods, thinking thereby to appease their deities, and obtain good things for themselves.”
23Dr. Bruce Waltke, in his 2007 commentary on Micah also interpreted this literally. “The idols in view here were constructed from silver and gold paid to cult prostitutes. This debauchery and debasing of mankind enriched the temples with splendid images… The conquering Assyrian army, parading under the symbols of the Assyrian pantheon, would use the precious metals of gold and silver that formerly overlaid Samaria’s rich idols (cf. Isa 40:19–20) to pay the Assyrian cult prostitutes, providing revenue for their cultic centers, and so… they will again be used as wages for prostitutes... The repetition of ʾetnan zônâ (wages for prostitutes) denotes poetic justice; as Israel had secured its money to support sacred courtesans by exploiting others, so the Assyrians would support theirs by robbing Israel.”
AMy
original chart includes the following copyrighted English versions:
NASB, NIV, ESV, Bauscher’s version of the Peshitta, and Cathcart’s
version of the Targums, but I remove these columns from my public,
non-copyrighted edition of this chart so as not to infringe on their
copyrights. NAW is my translation. When a translation adds words not
in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use
of italics or greyed-out text, I put the added words in [square
brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different
from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs
too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far
from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular. I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing Micah 1 are 4Q82 (containing parts of verses 7-15
and dated between 30-1 BC), the Nahal Hever Greek scroll
(containing vs. 1-7 and dated around 25BC), and the Wadi Muraba’at
Scroll (containing verses 1-16 and dated around 135 AD). Where the
DSS are legible and in agreement with the MT, the MT is colored
purple. Where the DSS support the
LXX/Vulgate/Peshitta with omissions or text not in the MT, I have
highlighted with
yellow the LXX and its translation into English, and where I
have accepted that into my NAW translation, I have marked it with
{pointed brackets}.
BDouay Old Testament first published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609, Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner, Published in 1582, 1609, 1752. As published on E-Sword in 2016.
C“Septuagint” Greek Old Testament, edited by Alfred Rahlfs. Originally published in 1935. As published in 2016 on E-Sword. Where the Nahal Hever Greek Dead Sea Scroll agrees with this text, I have colored the text purple.
DEnglish translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, 1851, “based upon the text of the Vaticanus” but not identical to the Vaticanus. As published electronically by E-Sword in 2016.
E1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published electronically by E-Sword in 2019.
FFrom
the Wiki Hebrew Bible
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%94_%D7%90/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA.
DSS text comes from https://downloads.thewaytoyahuweh.com.
Both were accessed in 2024.
GThe 1st century BC Greek manuscript, Nahal Hever, spells “LORD” with the paleo-Hebrew letters for YHWH, everywhere the divine name occurs in the manuscript, but the rest of the manuscript is spelled with normal Greek letters.
HThe definite article is omitted in the Nahal Hever manuscript. Also, the final vowel of the next word is lengthened with a dipthong: μωρασθει. The latter is an inconsequential result of different ways of transliterating words from one language to be pronounced in another language, but the former is significant. Waltke pointed out that the genitive definite article is the Greek formula for introducing the name of a person’s father, which is not an accurate way to translate this verse, and that the Coptic, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions made the same mistake.
IAlthough the Nahal Hever manuscript is unreadable at this spot, there is not enough room between legible words to include the two και’s found in the LXX.
JThis is a paraphrastic translation. The Vulgate actually matches the MT with “and its fullness.”
KNahal Hever instead has the synonymous phrase πληρωμα αυτης “their fullness.”
LNahal Hever supports Rahlfs, omitting the YHWH found in the MT, but the Vulgate appears to support the MT with both “Lord” and “God.”
MKeil (and also Fausset) suggested that since these opening words were the same as those of Micaiah son of Imrah in 1 Kings 28:22, that Micah here must be quoting Micaiah. He also suggested that the whole earth is summoned to hear “because the judgment which the prophet has to announce to Israel affects the whole earth… being connected with the judgment upon all nations, or forming a portion of that judgment.” (Hailey agreed, noting that we should “learn a lesson” from “the judgment of the Lord against the people of His wrath.” This makes more sense than the supposition of Calvin and others that they are being summoned as witnesses against Israel.) Henry explains the 3rd person pronoun (Lit. “all of them”) as “all you that are now within hearing, and all others that hear it at second hand.” The “to y’all” later in the verse, Keil refers to Jerusalem and Samaria, not the nations. Gill (following Abarbanel) suggested that the first half of the verse was also addressed only to the Israelites, but the plural “peoples” and “the earth and what fills it” is rather against that notion (Pusey, Waltke “communities outside of Israel are in view,” etc.).
NDSS add -ו (“and”), confirming the readings of the LXX, Peshitta, and Vulgate.
OLXX,
and Targum omit the “and” here, but it’s in two DSS. BHS
claims that the DSS rearranged the words to read “Yhwh Adonai,”
but it is not so in any of the three known DSS. Similarly, Cathcart
translated the Targum “the Memra of the Lord” although this is
not actually the reading of the Targum (which actually follows the
MT). LXX omits YHWH and so do
a couple of Hebrew manuscripts.
Three verbs in v.2
strongly expressing motion (“go forth,” “come down,” and
“tread/travel”) follow this verb, to describe God’s next
action which will make Him a witness concerning what is going on
with the people associated with His name and reputation. “Going
forth” is the verb used in Hebrew to describe a king or army
general leaving his home base to go out to war, so the preposition
“from” in “from His holy temple” is not describing Him
sitting in his heavenly temple and issuing orders “from it,” but
rather “going out from” it.
Calvin took the opposite view
that God was leaving the temple in Jerusalem and going up to the
judgment seat and calling all the nations to be witnesses, but the
clear motion in the Hebrew text is down to earth, and it is Himself,
not the nations, that He intends to be a witness (also contra
Fausset and Henry and others which postulated Micah as the witness,
because he is warning them of God’s impending punishment).
The
Messianic overtones of this emphatic motion should be considered.
Micah prophecied of this happening in the future, and it is exactly
what Jesus did – exited the glory of heaven to walk on earth and
bear witness among us to the truth (John 18:37, cf. 7:7, 8:18).
PPeshitta and Targum use the same beth preposition, consistent with the LXX εν and the Latin in, which indicates a historic interpretation of “with” rather than “against.” The next verse describing the LORD coming down to be on earth could support the idea of testifying “with” them. However, the beth preposition is the normal Hebrew idiom for testifying “against” someone in court (Exod. 20:16; Num. 5:13; Deut. 4:26; 5:20; 31:26; 1 Sam. 12:3, 5, etc.). cf. Gill: “let him bear witness in your [consciences].”
QCalvin (following Abarbanel) considered this to be the earthly temple in Jerusalem (in the sense of Psalm 5:8); but most commentators (e.g. Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Keil, Fausset, Gill, Hailey “The ‘holy temple’ is not Jerusalem, but heaven…,” Waltke, etc.) considered it to be His heavenly dwelling (in the sense of Psalm 11:4). Matthew Henry tried to conflate the two: “He will be a witness from his holy temple in heaven, when he comes down to execute judgment Mic. 1:3 against those that turned a deaf ear to his oracles, wherein he witnessed to them, out of his holy temple at Jerusalem” (but the latter statement goes beyond what Micah actually said).
R“hinnēh (look!) may either emphasize ‘the immediacy, the here-and-now-ness,’ of the situation or function ‘to introduce a fact upon which a following statement … is based’ … The former nuance is preferred because it commonly occurs with participles...” ~Waltke, quoting someone else, but the endnotes in the electronic edition of his commentary are messed up, so it is impossible to tell who.
SWaltke notes how the 4/4 meter of the Hebrew in the Masoretic Text “presents YHWH’s stately march from heaven to the …. earth,” but also notes that this verb “conveys the notion of possessing key terrain.” (Waltke is also quoting someone else here, but the endnote problem with his electronic edition makes it impossible to tell who.)
TQere = בָּמֳתֵי – this is just a difference of spelling with no difference in meaning. These “high places” were hilltops where altars were traditionally placed to worship gods. In the Pentateuch this word was also used to describe the places where kings tended to build their fortified cities, so it could indicate God checking out the capitol cities and the political leaders (which was the position of Rashi, Metsudath David, Calvin, Grotius, and Fausset), but in the Biblical history of this particular time (2 Ki. 15-18 & 2 Chron 27-29) “high places” is only used to describe the places of worship, so certainly God was coming to personally witness the places where they worshiped idols (Hailey, Pusey, Waltke). God personally sees what we worship and He also sees what corrupt people in the highest echelons of power are doing behind closed doors, and He is going to hold all accountable.
UDSS, Peshitta, and LXX all make this noun definite: “the” earth.
VNahal Hever is unreadable at this point, but the spacing and legible letters would support the word τακησονται “run” used by Aquila and Symmachus in their 2nd century Greek translations, which is closer to the meaning of the Hebrew, instead of the LXX “quake.”
WOnly the middle of this word is legible in Nahal Hever, but there is a gamma instead of a kappa here, so perhaps it contained a synonym like ραγησονται.
XThe “melting” of “mountains” is also mentioned in Psalm 97:5 and Isaiah 34:3, and both refer to a coming of the Lord in judgment in the sight of all nations. The “cracking” of “valleys” is not mentioned anywhere else in the Hebrew O.T. The only other mention of the “pouring out” of “water” is 2 Samuel 14:14 as a metaphor for men dying. The LXX word for “melt” is found in the Greek text of 2 Peter 3:12, but the rest of these metaphors are not in the NT.
YOwen (Calvin’s editor) noted that the only other place this verb occurs in the Hithpael is Josh. 9:13, referring to wineskins bursting.
ZNahal Hever omits the definite articles before “ungodliness” and before “of Jacob” but this doesn’t change the meaning because the proper noun “Jacob “is definite.
AAThe letter in Nahal Hever is omicron instead of epsilon, but this is just a spelling variant of a foreign proper name.
ABLXX reads “sin” with the Peshitta and Targum, but Symmachus translated it ‘υψηλα “high places” with the Vulgate and English versions.
AC “transgression of Jacob” cf. Gen. 31:36; Isa. 58:1; Mic. 3:8
AD“House of Israel” could refer to all Israel (1 Sam. 7:2-3) or just to northern Kingdom (1 Ki. 12:21). Owen thought it could refer to the tribe of Judah based on 2 Chron. 28:19, and Waltke agreed based on his interest on it being a merisums together with “Jacob” for both kingdoms. (But I think it unlikely. It could just as well be a parallel which means the same thing as Jacob.) One contemporary passage mentions “sin” together with “house” and “Israel” - 2 Kings 13:6. (Cf. NT references on God’s bringing salvation to the house of Israel: Matt. 10:6; 15:24; Acts 2:36; 7:42; Heb. 8:8, 10.) On their “transgression” and “sin” cf. Isa. 58:1; Mic. 3:8.
AECalvin and Fausset suggested that this was a blameshifting question from the apostate people themselves (As in, “What did we do? We didn’t do anything wrong!”), but that seems too much of a stretch. Most commentaries suggested this was an elliptical expression for “What is the source of…?” (Gilby saying this explicitly, although his comment about “Who” being masculine does not seem to be accurate.) However, translating the interrogative as “where” (as the Targums did אֵיכָא / היכא) makes the most sense since the answer is “Samaria/Jerusalem.”
AFTargum,
Peshitta, and LXX render “sin,” whereas English versions follow
the Vulgate with “high places.” Nahal Hever is illegible
at this point, but its spacing suggests “high places” instead of
the LXX’s “sin of the house.”
About 100 years before
Micah, King Jehoram “...made high places in the mountains of
Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit harlotry,
and led Judah astray.” (2 Chron. 21:11), and then in Micah’s
time, King “...Ahaz... cut in pieces the articles of the house of
God, shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and made for
himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every single
city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and
provoked to anger the LORD God of his fathers. (2 Chron 28:24-25)
These and perhaps other kings of Judah has also commissioned a whole
network of “idolatrous priests... to burn incense on the high
places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around
Jerusalem... who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to
the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.” (2 Kings 23:5,
NKJV)
AGcf. Aquila: σωραυς (“heap/pile”) and Symmachus: βουνους (“hill”).
AHNahal Hever reads (with the MT, Vulgate, Targum, and English versions) “the valley” - την φαραγγα.
AIThis word only occurs 4 other places in the HOT: Job 30:24; Ps. 79:1; Jer. 26:18; and Mic. 3:12 (where it is predicated of Jerusalem in addition to Samaria).
AJThis word ties together with the promise of future replanting from the Lord in the only other places it occurs in the HOT: Isa. 60:21; 61:3; and Ezek. 17:7; 31:4; 34:29.
AKThe Hiphil stems of this verb “I will cause to pour out” and the following “I will cause to be bare/exposed” match the indirectness of the previous verb “I will make/position/put into a pile.” The destruction of the city of Samaria would not be a direct act of God (like the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was); instead it would be an indirect act of God, “caused” by Him, but by the direct agency of the Assyrian army under Shalmaneser V (and others like Nebuchadnezzar and John Hyrcanus).
ALCities were typically built on hills with walls made of stones held together with mortar, so “the stones being poured down into a valley” is the result of an army razing the city and rolling its stones down the hill.
AMCf. Ezek. 13:14.
ANNahal Hever reads εως “until” (agreeing with the MT and all the other versions) instead of the LXX “out of.”
AOThe LXX is actually closer to the MT with “she will turn together,” but it should have been plural (“they will turn together”) instead of singular.
APKeil noted that the verb “smitten to pieces” would apply better to stone idols (Ex. 34:1) than to wooden ones. Wood, metal, and stone statues were in use at the time.
AQJosiah did this in 2 Chronicles 34:7.
ARThis word only occurs in four other passages: Deut. 23:19; Isa. 23:17-18; Ezek. 16:31-41; and Hos. 9:1. Commentators seem to fall into two camps, considering it either “The hires were her wealth which she considered to have been given her by the baalim which she worshiped… the people had sold themselves as prostitutes to the baalim for the hire of material blessings” (Hailey, cf. Fausset, Grotius) or the hires were “gifts presented by the idolaters. The acquisition of all this is described as the gain of prostitute's wages, according to the scriptural view that idolatry was spiritual whoredom... Micah had in his mind ... the worship of Jehovah under the symbols of the golden calves.” (Keil, cf. Kimchi, Gill, Cohen) Pusey went both ways. Waltke took an exceptional third view that it was literal temple prostitution monies, and I am inclined to agree with him in light of the scriptural and historical evidence of that practice. The Aramaic Targums also seem to support this literal view.
ASVulgate, Syriac, and Targums read “they were gathered” instead of “she gathered,” but it doesn’t change the meaning.
ATCommentators agree (Gilby, Hailey, Keil, Henry, Gill, Pusey, Cohen, Waltke, etc.) that this meant that foreign nations who sacked Israel would take the treasures out of Jehovah’s places of worship and display them in the temples of their pagan gods, perpetuating the cycle of spiritual idolatry (Hosea 10:6).