Micah 1:8 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

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.

Therefore I will wail. The prophet first shows how the coming judgment affects himself, in order that he might affect the minds of his countrymen similarly, so that they should shed tears of true repentance.

I will go stripped - i:e., of shoes or sandals, as the Septuagint translate. Otherwise, "naked," which follows, would be a tautology. Pusey prefers the English version, stripped - i:e., despoiled by the enemy. For, Micah does not use the ordinary Hebrew term for 'barefoot.' Micah represents in his own person that was about to befall his people. "Naked" means divested of the upper garment (Isaiah 20:2, "At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot"). Isaiah's symbolic acts herein correspond to his contemporary Micah's symbolical language. "Naked and barefoot," the sign of mourning (2 Samuel 15:30, "And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered; and he went barefoot"). The prophet's upper garment was usually rough and coarse-haired (2 Kings 1:8, "He (Elijah) was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins;" Zechariah 13:4).

I will make a wailing like the dragons - so Jerome. Rather, 'the wild dogs,' jackals or wolves, which wail like an infant when in distress or alone (Maurer). (See note, Job 30:29, "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.")

And mourning as the owls - rather, 'female ostriches,' which give a shrill and long-drawn sigh-like cry, especially at night.

Micah 1:8

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