A Lament For The Cities of Judah (Micah 1:10-16).
These cities lay in the path of Sennacherib as he advanced on Jerusalem after defeating the Egyptian army, and subjugating Philistia, and they illuminate something of the resulting situation.
We will first present the verses, which are in typical Hebrew poetic form as much prophecy was, as a whole so as to retain the beauty and sadness of them. And then we will consider them one by one.
‘Tell it not in Gath,
Weep not at all,
At Beth le aphrah,
Have I rolled myself in the dust.'
‘Go on your way, O inhabitant of Shaphir,
In nakedness and shame,
The inhabitant of Zaanan is not come forth,
The wailing of Beth ezel shall take from you its stay.'
‘For the inhabitant of Maroth,
Waits anxiously for good,
Because evil is come down from YHWH,
Unto the gate of Jerusalem.'
‘Bind the chariot to the swift steed,
O inhabitant of Lachish,
She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion,
For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.'
‘Therefore will you give a parting gift,
To Moresheth gath,
The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing,
To the kings of Israel.'
‘I will yet bring to you,
O inhabitant of Mareshah,
Him who will possess you,
The glory of Israel will come even to Adullam.'
‘Make yourself bald, and cut off your hair,
For the children of your pampering,
Enlarge your baldness as the carrion vulture,
For they are gone into captivity from you.'
It will be noted that ten selected cities are noted, indicating the completeness of the disaster. They are clearly selected on the basis of the meaning of their names. Lists of ten regularly indicated a total picture (compare Genesis 5; Genesis 11). They are divided into five and five (note Micah 1:12 and compare Micah 1:9). Five is the number of covenant, and these are God's covenant people. But the division may also indicate different regions.
‘Tell it not in Gath,
Weep not at all,
‘Tell it not in Gath.' Compare 2 Samuel 1:20. The misery of Judah is to be such that it is not to be told in Gath lest the people of Gath mock them over their situation. Gath was a Philistine city. So the point is that no one should take news to Gath, or arrive there as though in mourning. Their misery would be best kept to themselves. Gath had their own troubles. They also were the subject of the invasion. It may also include the thought that they would be in such shock that they would be unable to weep. When reading of the deliverance of Jerusalem itself we often overlook the awful devastation that has been previously wrought on Judah.
The next cities in line of advance are now described.
At Beth le aphrah,
Have I rolled myself in the dust.'
Beth-le-Aphrah means ‘house of dust' and there is a deliberate play on words. Rolling in the dust (‘wallowing in ashes') was a typical way of expressing grief (Jeremiah 6:26 Ezekiel 27:30).
‘Go on your way, O inhabitant of Shaphir,
In nakedness and shame,
Shaphir means ‘beautiful. But there will be no beauty in the way in which they are carried off into captivity. Their beautiful city has become a nightmare.
The inhabitant of Zaanan is not come forth,
Zaanan means ‘one who goes out' (i.e. to face the enemy). But these people do not go out to face the enemy. This may indicate that they remained in their town, refusing the call to arms, and surrendered immediately in return for more merciful treatment. Resistance melted at the sight of the Assyrian armies. There are always some who will not stand up bravely for what is right.
The wailing of Beth ezel shall take from you its stay.'
Beth-ezel mean ‘house by the side of another.' The idea is of one who gives mutual assistance. But Zaanan has surrendered and not come out to battle. So Beth-ezel's anticipated friends have failed her, and she herself cannot therefore ‘stand her ground' and be a stay to Hezekiah's attempts at resistance. She cannot help the daughter of Zion. She can only dissolve into weeping. She is useless.
Alternately it could be rendered, ‘The wailing of Beth-ezel will take its stopping away from you,' i.e., will not allow you the stopping of the lamentation.
‘For the inhabitant of Maroth,
Waits anxiously for good,
Because evil is come down from YHWH,
Unto the gate of Jerusalem.'
Maroth means ‘bitterness.' Her inhabitants wait anxiously for good. Perhaps there were hopes of another Egyptian army. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. But all they would enjoy is bitterness. And the reason for this is that YHWH has deserted Judah because of her disobedience, and is allowing her to suffer right up to the gates of Jerusalem (compare Micah 1:3, ‘the Lord will come down' in judgment, and Micah 1:9).
‘Bind the chariot to the swift steed,
O inhabitant of Lachish,
She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion,
For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.'
Lachish means ‘horses'. The city was south west of Jerusalem in the Shephelah, and was the second largest in Judah. It could be expected to hold out against the Assyrians for an appreciable time. She was clearly a chariot city (being in the lowlands chariots were usable there). They are now being called on to prove themselves, or sarcastically to provide a quick means of escape for the nobles. She has been proud of her self-sufficiency. Let her now demonstrate her worth.
We do not know in what way she had been the beginning of sin to Zion. Being on the trade routes she may have been receptive to foreign ideas which she had passed on to Jerusalem. And she is specifically linked with the transgressions of Israel. This is confirmed by the reference to her having shared in the sins of the northern kingdom. She too had had her own Temple and a syncretistic religion, and in fact the remains of a Temple have been found on the site of Lachish. And their turning away from God and His covenant had in some way affected the daughter of Zion, Jerusalem and its people.
Lachish does seem to have defended itself bravely. But even mighty Lachish had to yield eventually, and her defeat was vividly depicted in inscriptions in Assyria celebrating Sennacherib's triumphs (an important witness to the fact that Jerusalem was never taken). See 2 Kings 19:8. Assyria departed from Lachish once victory had been obtained, and moved on to the next victim waiting coweringly behind its walls.
‘Therefore will you give a parting gift,
To Moresheth gath,
Moresheth-gath was probably the birth place of Micah, Moresheth is similar in sound to the word which means ‘possession, dowry, gift'. But now the gift would be a parting one, because she was going into captivity. This must have been an especially bitter blow to Micah.
The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing,
To the kings of Israel.'
Achzib is very similar to the Hebrew word for ‘lie, deceive'. She will prove a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel. Note the loose way in which Micah can equate Judah with the name Israel. The writing prophets never really accepted the division of Israel into two. They saw them as all God's people, and would sometimes use the names interchangeably. ‘The kings of Israel' might indicate the petty kings of cities who were organising the resistance.
But Achzib will prove unreliable, a deceitful thing. She will surrender to Sennacherib and fight her own people. Compare Zaanan above. Judah were divided as to whether to resist or yield. Why should they suffer to defend a king hidden in his mountain fastness?
‘I will yet bring to you,
O inhabitant of Mareshah,
Him who will possess you,
The glory of Israel will come even to Adullam.'
Mareshah is similar to the word meaning ‘possession'. But the possessor is now about to become the possessed, and her inhabitants will flee with what wealth they can carry for refuge in the cave of Adullam. This is all that remains of the ‘glory of Israel'. For this use of the word ‘glory' as signifying prosperity compare Isaiah 17:1-3.
‘Make yourself bald, and cut off your hair,
For the children of your pampering,
Enlarge your baldness as the carrion vulture,
For they are gone into captivity from you.'
The whole picture is one of defeat and misery. And so the daughter of Zion, waiting in her mountain stronghold for when it is her turn, is called on to make herself bald and cut off her hair, an extreme form of registering despair. And she it to do it for the sake of her pampered children who are now pampered no more. She is to make herself bald as an expression of having lost everything. The hair was seen as indicating life and vitality. But now all life and vitality will have left her because her children have been taken into captivity.
The picture behind these verses is a depressing one. The cruel soldiers of Assyria remorselessly advancing, the cities take one by one after bitter but hopeless resistance, with large numbers put in chains, trudging barefoot and only half clothed in long weary lines, mile after mile, urged on by the whips of their captors, with people dying by the wayside, others seeking to assist their aged relatives lest they too be left to die, and with little to look forward to. These were the exiles of Judah long before the destruction of Jerusalem. Eventually, however, those who survived would be resettled in other lands so that they could labour and pay taxes, and form a community, or would be lost among the nations.
And all this has been brought on them because they had forgotten God's covenant and had turned to idolatry and sin. Something of that sin will now be described in the following verses.