Micah 1:10 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Declare ye it not at Gath; do what you can to keep your griefs to yourselves, let them not be public, that the Philistines, your bitter enemies, should know how sad it is with you and rejoice at it. Gath was a principal city of the Philistines, and though this only is mentioned the rest are understood: such phrase you have 2 Samuel 1:20. Weep ye not at all; you that are of Israel or Judah, make no public weeping, that your cries and tears should inform your enemies in Palestine how deplorable your state is, let not your griefs be their joys. In the house of Aphrah: we render it as a proper name of some city or town; though of no great note, yet we meet with one, 1 Samuel 13:23, in the tribe of Benjamin; a second we find in Manasseh's lot, and was the place where Gideon's father dwelt, Judges 6:11: these towns were somewhat remote from the Philistines, and there the prophet does direct then, to weep with the greatest expressions of it, and to keep it private from the Philistines. Others account the word to be a common name denoting dust, and so give the sense, in the house of dust roll thyself in dust. Roll thyself, or, I have rolled myself, viz. in compassion to the miserable Israelites, or as a pattern to which they shall conform; so the word as written, but as by direction of the Masorets it is read, and as there it is rendered, roll thyself, it directs and foretells; it foretells what they shall do at last, and directs what they should do at present. They shall be brought to sit, nay, to wallow in the dust, and in foresight of this it would become them to sit in the dust now.

Micah 1:10

10 Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrahb roll thyself in the dust.