The Purging of Israel. Some modern commentators, e.g. Wellhausen and Nowack, refer this to Micah; if so, it would anticipate the Deuteronomic denunciation of the pillars and Asherim (Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3); but the general character of this Divine intervention, to secure a community purified from warfare and idolatry, rather suggests a post-exilic date, when similar references to Asherim, etc., continued to be made (e.g. Isaiah 27:9), Yahweh will remove from Israel its means of warfare (Zechariah 9:10; Hosea 14:3; cf. Isaiah 2:7), that it may depend on Himself alone; He will bring to an end its sorceries (i.e. magical use of spells and mixtures) and its soothsayers (lit. murmurers). He will destroy images (Micah 1:7; Judges 17:3; Hosea 11:2; Deuteronomy 12:3), stone pillars (Genesis 28:18; Deuteronomy 16:22; Isaiah 19:19), and wooden posts (Asherim, Deuteronomy 16:21; Jeremiah 17:2), with their associations of heathenism. Outside Israel, He will take vengeance on the disobedient heathen (cf. Isaiah 60:12; this verse, introducing a new subject, may be a later addition)
Micah 5:14. cities should probably be idols, an easy emendation, for the sake of the parallelism.