The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.
The breaker is come up before them - "the breaker," Yahweh-Messiah, who breaks through every obstacle in the way of their restoration: not as formerly breaking forth to destroy them for transgression (Exodus 19:22; Judges 21:15), but breaking a way for them through their enemies.
They have broken up - "they," the returning Israelites and Jews.
And have passed through the gate - i:e., through the gate of the foe's city in which they had been captives. So the image of the resurrection in Hosea 13:14 represents Israel's restoration.
And their King - "the Breaker," peculiarly "their King" (Hosea 3:5; Matthew 27:37).
Shall pass before them - as He did when they went up out of Egypt (Exodus 13:21; Deuteronomy 1:30; Deuteronomy 1:33). And the Lord on the head of them - Yahweh at their head (Isaiah 52:12). Messiah, the second person, is meant (cf. Exodus 23:20; Exodus 33:14; Isaiah 63:9, "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old")
Remarks:
(1) Bad as it is to do evil under any circumstances, it is worse when it is premeditated. From the conception and the maturing of the iniquitous plan upon the bed at night, the transgressor passes on to the execution of it in the daylight (Micah 2:6). Covetousness and selfishness are the parents of violence and oppression. The greedy self-seeker's only restraint is inability, not regard to right. Fear of man, not fear of God, is the sole controlling principle of the carnal heart.
(2) They who will not bend their neck willingly to the easy yoke of the Lord, shall, against their will, be forced to bear the iron yoke of the enemy of souls, to whom God will judicially give them up. They who now go haughtily (Micah 2:3) shall in the coming evil day be brought low. Those most proud in prosperity are often the most abject in adversity.
(3) Since Israel had apostatized from the Lord, who had originally divided the land among His people, the land was now, in just retribution, to be divided among Israel's enemies (Micah 2:4-5). Blessings abused are at last removed and withdrawn by the Almighty Giver.
(4) They who, like Israel (Micah 2:6), wish the ministers of God no longer to importune them, shall be righteously punished by getting their wish. It is well for the profane that God does not immediately take them at their word. Let all see that they prize the ministry of preaching, even when it condemns their pleasant sins. For the time of probation is short: and now, or else never, must pardon and peace be obtained.
(5) The prophet appeals to the conscience of the people, once the elect of God, and asks whether the fault of their dislike to those who spoke by the Spirit of God lies with God or themselves. Conscience, if it be not seared, must convince every backslider that the true cause of alienation between himself and God is not that "the Spirit of the Lord is straitened" or "shortened" (Micah 2:7), but that his own heart is straitened by the practice of sin, so as to grieve and exclude the entrance of the blessed Spirit.
Thus ministers may say to such, in the language of the apostle (2 Corinthians 6:12), "Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels." The "words of God do good," not to him who accepts them with the lips and ignores them in his heart and life, but to him alone "who walketh uprightly."
(6) As Israel treated the unoffending passers by "as an enemy," so should she be treated herself as an enemy by God (Micah 2:8). As she had stripped the poor, and those "averse from war," of their all in times of peace, so should she be stripped of all which once was hers by the invader. As she had "cast out from their pleasant houses" helpless women, so the voice of Omnipotence pronounces her own corresponding doom;" Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest, because it is polluted" (Micah 2:10). When sinners have "polluted" a land, the land itself, which they had looked upon as their home, proves to be the scene of their "sore destruction." Where sin is, there no lasting rest can be. So in the case of this sin defiled earth, which the carnal make to be their resting-place, God its Lord shall say to them at last, "Depart;" and fire shall consume both their earthly habitation and themselves, previously to the setting up of the kingdom of God and His Christ on the regenerated earth. They who make the present defiled world their rest and home shall perish with the world. They who live in it as pilgrims now shall have their abiding rest in the "new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13).
(7) How many there are who would gladly attend the ministry of one who should promise carnal indulgences, but who, like Israel, dislike the faithfulness of him who preaches self-denial as necessary for the realization of spiritual joys! (Micah 2:11.)
(8) Yet such is the grace of God to His elect nation, that He closes this chapter with promises of their complete restoration through Messiah their Shepherd (Micah 2:12). How comforting to the spiritual sheep of Christ's "flock" to know that they shall "all" at last be safely "gathered" into the heavenly "fold!" The Breaker, who hath burst through the gates of hell and death for them, and broken the fetters of Satan, shall, as their Lord going before them, make a safe and easy passage for them through the grave and gate of death to a joyful resurrection. Be this our continual hope and confidence!