Micah 7:19 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

He will turn again - who seemed to be turned away from us when we were turned away from Him. “He will subdue, or trample under foot” Joel 2:14, our worst enemy, “our iniquities”, as He saith, “He shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” Romans 16:20. Hitherto, sinful passions had not rebelled only, but had had the mastery over us. Sin subdued man; it was his lord, a fierce tyrant over him; he could not subdue it. Holy Scripture says emphatically of man under the law, that he was sold under sin Romans 7:14, a slave under a hard master, oppressed, weighed down, and unable to throw off the bondage. “We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” Romans 3:9; “the Scripture hath concluded all under sin” Galatians 3:22. Under the Gospel, God, he says, would subdue sin “under us,” and make it, as it were, our “footstool .” It is a Gospel before the Gospel. God would pardon; and He, not we, would subdue sin to us. He would bestow, “of sin the double cure, Save us from its guilt and power” . “Not I, but the grace of God, which was with me” 1 Corinthians 15:10.

And Thou wilt cast - - Not, some ( “for it is impious to look for a half-pardon from God”) but - “all their sins into the depths of the sea”, so that as in the passage of the Red Sea there was not one Egyptian left of those who pursued His people, so neither shall there be one sin, which, through Baptism and on Repentance, shall not through His free mercy be pardoned. As they, which “sank as lead in the mighty waters” Exodus 15:10, never again rose, so shall the sins, unless revived by us, not rise against us to condemnation, but shall in the Day of Judgment be sunk in the abyss of hell, as if they had never been.

Micah 7:19

19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.