Micah 1:2 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

The Judgment of Israel. The nations of the earth are summoned to take warning from the Divine judgment to be executed on Israel. Yahweh comes forth from heaven (His holy temple; cf. Habakkuk 2:20; Isaiah 63:15, Psalms 114), and down (cf. Exodus 19:11) upon the heights (Amos 4:13), His presence being revealed as by earthquake shock (cf. Isaiah 24:19) and volcanic eruption (Micah 1:2-4). The moral rebellion of the northern kingdom is concentrated in its capital, Samaria, and that of the southern in Jerusalem. Samaria shall be utterly destroyed, its site becoming a place for vine-growing, its foundations bared, its idols broken and burned (Micah 1:5-7). Because of this judgment, the prophet goes mourning, barefoot and cloakless (2 Samuel 15:30; Isaiah 20:2) and loudly lamenting (Job 30:29), because the irretrievable disaster to Samaria extends to his own land, to Jerusalem, the gate (i.e. the centre of the life) of Judah (Micah 1:8 f.; see Introduction for historical occasion)

Micah 1:5. Read sin, both for sins, and for high places, with VSS.

Micah 1:7 may be interpolated, since it breaks the connexion. the hire of an harlot seems to be figuratively used of religious infidelity to Yahweh, as in Hosea 2:12; it denotes the produce of the land regarded as the gift of the Baalim; the idols, etc. derived from such wealth are called hires, and their material will pass to the service of other heathen deities in the hands of the conquerors. Some, however, refer to the actual prostitution of Deuteronomy 23:18.

Micah 1:2-9

2 Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

3 For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.

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.

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?

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.

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.

8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.a

9 For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.