For her wounds are incurable; for it is come even unto Judah, it reacheth unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.
Micah's opening prophecy watches judgment fall on Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. Then it sees the same judgment spread south into Judah, right up to Jerusalem's gate. Two hard questions follow. Why is the wound called incurable? And who has come to the gate?
The judgment did not stay where the sin began. One writer names the cause of the disaster and then follows how far it travelled.
Samaria's sin and her carved images are the cause of this terrible punishment, and it falls by the just judgment of God. The waves of this flood reach even to Judah.
One Hebrew word lies behind "incurable" here and behind "desperately wicked" in Jeremiah. One writer traces how translators handled it.
In the King James Version, the word here translated "desperately wicked" is rendered "desperate" in Isaiah 17:11 and "woeful" in Jeremiah 17:16. Everywhere else it is translated "incurable," as in Job 34:6, Jeremiah 15:18, and Micah 1:9. Clearly "desperately wicked" represents the Hebrew participle well when the word is applied to moral evil and not physical evil.
The wound is the wound of God's own people, and that is what makes it so serious. The same writer looks at the two capital cities and at how far each had gone.
Sin is always evil, but never so humiliating as in the people of God. "What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?" Samaria was the chief seat of Israel, as Jerusalem was of Judah, where the house of David reigned; yet both had become high places of sin against Jehovah — Samaria completely, and Jerusalem more and more.
What reaches the gate is not only a disaster, and the gate is the gate of Micah's own people. Older English translations read "he is come to the gate of my people" — a person is meant. The verse also sits inside a lament. One writer holds both together: the prophet's grief, and the name of the army on the march.
Here is the lamentation of Micah as directed by the Spirit of God, not only over the fate of Samaria, but over Judah as well. He weeps for both Samaria and Judah… It shows how these men of God took the messages God gave them fully to heart. It stirred them deeply. Faith in the prophetic word must do the same in all His people at all times. In verse nine the prophet speaks of one who comes to carry out the threatened judgment… This enemy is the Assyrian, whom Micah sees advancing and who came up before the gates of Jerusalem… God used the Assyrian to end the kingdom of Israel. Sennacherib came against Jerusalem, but it was Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who carried Israel away into captivity.
Another writer reads those kings as only the starting point of a prophecy that reaches much further:
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are certainly in view here. But when we look at the prophecy in its full extent, they are only its occasion. The Assyrian comes up to the gates of Jerusalem.
The same writer explains why one prophecy can point at two events at once.
Notice here that the events of the prophet's own day have the same moral character as the final judgment of the last days. So they serve to introduce that great judgment, and they also warn the people living at that time.
An incurable wound raises the question of blame. One writer sets this verse beside Jeremiah's words and beside Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.
This is the cry of a broken heart clearing God of blame. According to Jeremiah, Jerusalem has only herself to blame for her captivity and exile. Her sin has been her ruin. And so with the lamentation of Jesus over her. She had killed the prophets and stoned the messengers of God, and after all, she "would not." Her wound is incurable, but she herself has done it.
- Spread. Samaria's sin and her carved images started a flood whose waves reached Judah. Sin does not stay where it starts.
- Incurable. The word for the wound is the same word for desperate wickedness. The sickness is moral, and the city gave it to herself.
- Closest to home. Sin is always evil. It is never so humiliating as it is in the people of God.
- At the gate. The one who comes to carry out the sentence is the Assyrian, advancing while the prophet weeps for his people.
- Beyond. Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are only the occasion. The near invasion warns Micah's own generation and points on to the judgment of the last days.
Tell it not in Gath, weep not at all; at Beth-le-aphrah roll thyself in the dust.
Micah's first chapter turns from judgment on Samaria and Jerusalem to the prophet's own grief, and this verse opens a roll call of towns whose names spell out their fate. Two questions press on the reader: why must the news be kept from Gath, and why is a town told to roll in dust?
Here the prophet does not describe someone else's sorrow. He enters it himself.
Here is the lamentation of Micah, directed by the Spirit of God, not only over the fate of Samaria but over Judah as well. "I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a mourning like the owls (ostriches)." It shows how these men of God entered with their whole soul into the revelations God gave them. It stirred them deeply. This must be the result of faith in the prophetic word with all His people at all times.
The order not to weep sits oddly beside an order to roll in dust — until the Hebrew town names are heard. This verse and the ones after it form a chain of puns, each name matched to what happens there.
Verses 10-13 correspond to Isaiah 10:28-34; it is a description of the advance of the Assyrian. News of the coming disaster must not reach Gath; the Philistines are not to hear of it. (See 2 Sam. 1:20.) There is a remarkable play of words in these statements. A literal rendering would read: "Weep not in Weep-town; in Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust." Then comes a contrast: "In Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be in nakedness and shame; and in March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) march not forth."
The name of the town in the second half of the verse carries the pun on its face:
The margin of Micah 1:10 explains the name as 'house of dust,' so there is a play upon the word 'dust': 'in the house of dust roll yourself in the dust.' The Septuagint reads 'the house in derision.' It may refer to Ophrah in Joshua 18:23 and 1 Samuel 13:17, a city in the tribe of Benjamin.
Gath was a Philistine city, so the fall of God's people had to be kept from Philistine ears. What makes the news unbearable is whose collapse it is.
It is in vain therefore for Israel to build themselves up in the conceit of impunity. This cannot be where Jehovah is the judge. "For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel." Sin is always evil, but never so humiliating as in the people of God.
But the wish to hide such shame is seldom granted:
Does the news that honours God and His people travel far, while their disgrace stays hidden or unknown? Far from it. There is one who makes sure that anything which lowers God in His people races through a world like this! Nor is it good for evil to be hidden. Grace makes it morally good for God's people to carry the burden and to prove themselves clear, besides the discipline of the people concerned.
Rolling in dust was a recognised act of grief, and God never asked His people to feel nothing — only to be real.
The Hebrews made a great show of their mourning. They would beat their breasts, cover their heads, fast, put dust and ashes on their heads, tear their clothes, and wear sackcloth. God does not desire those who are bereaved to be without feeling: the Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, but He would have reality in all things. He had to say to His people, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." Joel 2:13.
The towns named here lay on the path of a real army. Commentators read that march as a pattern of something later.
In the latter part of Micah 1 we have a very animated account of the approach of the great enemy typified by the Assyrian of those days.
Notice here that the events of the prophet's own day have the same moral character as the final judgment of the last days. So they are used to introduce the great action of that judgment, and they also serve as a warning to the people of that time.
- Cause. The disaster is not bad luck. It comes from the transgression of Jacob, and sin is never so humiliating as in the people of God.
- Grief. Micah does not just report the judgment. He wails and mourns, and that is what faith in the prophetic word produces.
- Silence. "Tell it not in Gath" is the wish to keep the fall from Philistine ears. But disgrace in God's people spreads fast, and hiding evil is not the better path.
- Dust. Beth-le-aphrah means "house of dust," so the town is told to do what its own name says. God asks for torn hearts, not just torn clothes.
- Horizon. The Assyrian advancing in Micah's day has the same moral character as the final judgment. The warning outlives the towns it names.
Pass away, inhabitress of Shaphir, in nakedness [and] shame. The inhabitress of Zaanan is not come forth for the lamentation of Beth-ezel he will take from you its shelter.
Micah's warning turns local here: the prophet names small towns in Judah one by one and tells each what is about to happen to it. Their names carry the message — a town called "beauty" must go out in shame, and a town called "march" will not march out.
The town names trace the route of an Assyrian army closing in on Jerusalem. The prophet keeps pausing to say why each place falls.
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are certainly in view here. But they are only the occasion of the prophecy, when it is taken in its full extent. The Assyrian comes up to the gates of Jerusalem. Verses 11-16 describe his advance, as Isaiah does. The difference is that here the description mixes in the reasons for the judgment on the different cities he attacks far more than Isaiah does; Isaiah lists them simply as the stages of his march.
Another writer sets the same stretch of verses beside Isaiah's description of the Assyrian advance, and notes that the disaster is not to be broadcast to Judah's old enemies on the coast.
Verses 10-13 correspond to Isaiah 10:28-34; it is a description of the advance of the Assyrian. The coming disaster is not to be published in Gath, that is, the Philistines are not to hear of it.
Each town's own name turns against it. In the original, the wordplay runs through the whole list.
There is a remarkable play on words in these statements. Word for word it can be read like this: "Do not weep in Weep-town; in Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust." Then comes a contrast: "in Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be in nakedness and shame; and in March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) do not march out."
Zaanan's name promised marching out; the verse leaves its people shut in. Shaphir's name promised beauty, and beauty is exactly what it loses.
City mentioned in Micah 1:11, the inhabitants of which are addressed, "Pass on your way... in nakedness and shame," when judgements are being proclaimed against Judah and Israel. The name signifies 'fair, beautiful': it should be changed into 'shame.'
The ruin spreading through these villages started somewhere else. Samaria, the northern capital, had given itself to idols, and the judgment did not stay in the north.
The sin of Samaria and her carved idols are the cause of the terrible punishment, and it falls by the just judgment of God. The waves of this flood reach even to Judah.
God moves against His own people because they were meant to be His witness on the earth.
It is because His own people, the witness for His name on the earth, are in transgression against Him. They have given themselves up to the service of other gods, or to sin. There is no longer any testimony to God on the earth, unless it is a false testimony; and so God must render that testimony to Himself.
Micah does not announce this coldly. One writer points to the prophet's own wailing earlier in the chapter, quoted here in an older translation, and draws a lesson for every reader of prophecy.
"I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a mourning like the owls (ostriches)." It shows how these men of God entered with their whole soul into the revelations God gave them. It stirred them deeply within. This is what faith in the prophetic word must produce in all His people at all times.
The invasion Micah announced was not the end of the story.
Notice here that the events which took place in the days of the prophet who speaks have the same moral character as the final judgment of the last days. So they are used to introduce that great judgment, and at the same time they serve as a warning to the people of that day.
- Cause. Samaria's idols brought the punishment, and "the waves of this flood reach even to Judah." Sin in one part of God's people does not stay contained.
- Advance. The town list traces the Assyrian's march to the gates of Jerusalem. Each city's fall comes with its reason attached.
- Shame. "Beauty-town" must go out in nakedness and shame; "March-town" does not march. A name is no shelter when God judges.
- Tears. Micah wails and goes stripped as he speaks. Faith in the prophetic word should produce that depth of feeling, not detachment.
- Horizon. The invasion of Micah's own day was both a warning then and an opening picture of the judgment of the last days.
For the inhabitress of Maroth waited anxiously for good; but evil hath come down from Jehovah unto the gate of Jerusalem.
Micah names town after town as the invading army sweeps past, and he turns each name into a grim play on words. Maroth watches the road for relief, but the disaster that arrives comes from God — and it has already reached the gate of Jerusalem.
Micah is not just listing places. He turns each town's name against it, and the wordplay only works in Hebrew. One commentator puts the names into English:
There is a remarkable play on words in these statements. It may be literally translated like this: "Weep not in Weep-town. In Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust." Then a contrast: "In Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be in nakedness and shame. In March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) march not forth."
Maroth belongs to that same series, and its name carries the sting:
Maroth means bitterness. In the Assyrian cylinder known as Taylor's cylinder, Sennacherib mentions the great gate of Jerusalem.
A town called Bitterness waits for good news, and its own name answers. The cylinder is the invader's own record, and it names the very gate Micah names.
The ESV calls it disaster; older translations read "evil has come down from the LORD." That wording has caused trouble. One commentator answers it where Amos uses the same words:
It is hard to believe that some men have taken this statement and used it to teach that God is the author of moral evil — of sin. The context shows that this is not in view here at all. God is holy. He cannot be tempted with evil. He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. He does not put moral evil in the world. The evil here is punishment: invasion by enemy armies, the sword, famine and disease.
Naming God as the source moves the eye off the invading army:
Others may look at the secondary instruments; but there is nothing without Him. The highest authority, the Lord Jesus Himself, tells us that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. How much less can any judgment that covers a city take place without Him?
The disaster has a name and an army behind it. Micah sees the invader arriving and identifies him:
In verse nine the prophet speaks of one who comes to execute the threatened judgment. "He has come to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem." This enemy is the Assyrian, whom Micah sees advancing and who came before the gates of Jerusalem.
The whole closing section of the chapter moves at the pace of that march:
In the latter part of Micah 1 we have a very lively account of the approach of the great enemy pictured by the Assyrian of those days. We know that they were one of the most formidable adversaries Israel ever had.
Maroth waited for good because it belonged to God's people. That privilege was the problem:
Sin is always evil, but never so humiliating as in the people of God.
The blow that fell on Samaria did not stop at the border:
Judah had transgressed as well as Israel, and the Lord has now prepared the Assyrian rod in righteous anger and raised it against Jerusalem as well as Samaria. The day of Ahaz there had been like the day of Hoshea here. But Hezekiah came after Ahaz, and he did right in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord took up the matter with His rod, and the Assyrian did not prevail over Judah as he had over Israel.
Disaster came down to the gate of Jerusalem. Under Hezekiah it did not pass through it.
Maroth waited for good news to come down the road. One writer points Christians to a different kind of waiting:
The world looks to its millions and its munitions, its armies and its navies, to end the war. Let Christians wait on God, that His end may be reached: "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him" (Ps. 62:5). Let us look beyond all second causes, and accept this terrible discipline from God.
- Bitterness named. Maroth means bitterness. Micah sets it in a chain of towns — Weep-town, Dust-town, Beauty-town, March-town — and turns each name against its people.
- Bitterness sent. The evil is punishment, not sin: invasion, sword, famine, disease. God does not author sin. He does send judgment.
- Bitterness traced. The Assyrian at the gate is only the instrument; nothing reaches a city without the hand of God behind it.
- Bitterness deserved. Judah sinned like Israel, and the Lord raised the Assyrian rod over Jerusalem too. Sin is never so humiliating as in the people of God.
- Bitterness answered. Maroth waited for good and got disaster. Under Hezekiah the Assyrian did not prevail. Wait past second causes, on God Himself.
Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O inhabitress of Lachish she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for in thee were found the transgressions of Israel.
Micah names town after town as an invading army moves toward Jerusalem. At Lachish he stops to lay a charge he lays on no other city. This was where the sin of the northern kingdom first crossed into Judah. So the question is not only what Lachish suffered, but what Lachish started.
The command to Lachish carries a bitter pun. Its own name and its own strength turn against it in the same breath.
Then comes a call to Lachish to escape. "Bind the chariot to the swift beast." Lachish was a fortified city, as the excavations have shown, and Sennacherib took it. Here is still another play on words in the original. Lachish means "Horse-town," so it can be translated, "Bind the chariot to the horse, O inhabitant of Horse-town." Some think the sin connected with Lachish was this: the city kept "the horses of the sun," used in idolatry (2 Kings 23:11).
Where the ESV has "steeds," older translations read "swift beast." One Hebrew word lies behind both:
rekesh. This was probably a swift horse used for carrying messages, Esther 8:10, 14. The word is once translated "dromedary," 1 Kings 4:28, and once "swift beast," Micah 1:13.
So the fortress that kept the fastest horses must hitch them — not for war, but for escape.
The prophet traces an army's march by naming the towns in its path. He turns each name into a warning.
Verses 10-13 correspond to Isaiah 10:28-34; it is a description of the advance of the Assyrian. They are not to announce the coming disaster in Gath, that is, the Philistines are not to hear of it (see 2 Sam. 1:20). There is a remarkable play on words in these statements. Word for word it runs: "Do not weep in Weep-town; in Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust." Then comes a contrast: "in Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be naked and ashamed; and in March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) do not march out."
The march does not stop there. The prophecy starts against Samaria, then widens:
This prophecy is mainly about what the Assyrian does to Samaria, and what follows from it. But then, in verse 9, it comes to Judah and reaches Jerusalem, and it stands as the judgment of the whole nation.
Why does Micah call one town the starting point of Zion's guilt? The history of Judah's kings answers that, and it explains a strange detail in one king's death.
Lachish was the first of the cities of Judah to adopt the idolatries of the kingdom of Israel. It was "the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel" (Micah 1:13). So it was natural for the idolatrous Amaziah to seek shelter there.
An imported sin became a national sin. The same city later sheltered Amaziah, a king who had turned from the Lord. There his pursuers killed him.
Micah says these transgressions were found in Lachish. Sin among God's own people carries a special shame — and this wound spread:
Sin is always evil, but never so humiliating as in the people of God… "For her wound is incurable; it has come to Judah. He has come to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem."
Micah's judgment scene begins with the Lord leaving His place. Why does He come out at all?
And why this intervention in judgment? Why does He not leave the nations still to walk in their own ways, far from Him, bearing long with their folly? It is because His own people are in transgression against Him. They are the witness for His name on the earth, yet they have given themselves up to the service of other gods, or to iniquity. There is no longer any testimony of God on the earth, except a false one; and God must therefore render it to Himself.
Yet judgment is not what God prefers:
In His own nature God is not a judge, but One who gives and blesses. Judgment is "His strange work," as it is said elsewhere… Man's wickedness compels this painful necessity.
- Beginning. Lachish was the first city of Judah to copy the idolatry of the north. It was the door through which Israel's sin entered Zion.
- Borrowed. Micah's charge is that Israel's transgressions were found in her. Lachish borrowed the evil, kept it, then passed it on.
- Spread. What starts in one town does not stay there: the wound reached Judah and came right up to the gate of Jerusalem.
- Flight. "Horse-town" must harness its swift horses. The strength it trusted now serves only its escape from the Assyrian.
- Reason. God leaves His place to judge because His own people, His witness on earth, had turned elsewhere. Judgment is His strange work, not His delight.
Therefore shalt thou give parting-gifts to Moresheth-Gath the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.
Micah's lament runs through a string of small towns in Judah, and verse 14 names two of them: his own birthplace, and a town whose name means a lie. The question it raises is what "parting gifts" and "a deceitful thing" mean when an army is already on the road.
One writer reads these verses as the Assyrian's advance, and marks where Micah differs from Isaiah:
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are doubtless in view here; but they are only the occasion of the prophecy, looked at in its full extent. The Assyrian comes up to the gates of Jerusalem. Micah describes his progress in verses 11-16, as Isaiah does. But Micah mixes that description far more with the causes of the judgment on the different cities the Assyrian attacks. Isaiah lists those cities more as the stages of his march.
Another writer sorts out which power did what:
The Assyrian was the instrument that ended the kingdom of Israel; Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar was the instrument against Judah and Jerusalem. Sennacherib came against Jerusalem, but it was Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who carried Israel away into captivity.
Micah is not just listing places on a map:
There is a remarkable play of words in these statements. Word for word, it runs like this: "Weep not in Weep-town; in Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust." Then comes a contrast: "in Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be in nakedness and shame; and in March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) march not out."
Verse 14 keeps the same method going, and explains both halves of the line at once:
In verse 14 the prophet mentions his home town Moresheth-gath; there is to be a parting gift for she shall go into captivity. And Achzib will not keep the invader back; Achzib means a lie — the "Lie-town" shall be a lie to the kings of Israel, a false hope.
Commentators differ on how the name works. One writer links the name to a stream that dries up in summer, then argues it really means the opposite:
Most take Achzib to be the same as Chezib, and to mean "that which fails or deceives" — like a winter stream dried up by the summer heat. People quote Micah 1:14 for this: "the houses of Achzib shall be (achzab) a lie to the kings of Israel." Yet the true meaning is almost the exact opposite, and it fits the prophet perfectly. Taken as two words joined together, ach zib would mean "a flowing indeed." The Holy Spirit as living water is just that; the "houses of Achzib" were not — they made a mockery of their own name.
Either way the point lands the same: what the kings leaned on gave way under them. The ESV has "a deceitful thing" where these writers have "a lie."
Moresheth-gath is Micah's own home town, and it gave him his name:
Micah gets the name "the Morasthite" from Moresheth-Gath, a small town in southern Judea, not far from Jerusalem.
Micah does not report this news calmly. He weeps over it, and one writer takes that as the mark of how God's messengers received what they were shown:
Here is Micah's lamentation, directed by the Spirit of God, not only over the fate of Samaria but over Judah as well. He weeps for both Samaria and Judah. It shows how these men of God entered in a whole-souled manner into the divine revelations they received. It created deep soul exercise. This must be the result of faith in the prophetic word with all His people at all times.
The army is not the reason for all this. Micah names the reason earlier in the chapter:
Sin is always evil, but never so humiliating as in the people of God. "What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?"
- Cause. The invasion is not bad luck. Sin among God's own people brought it, and sin is never more shameful than there.
- Sentence. Verse 14 is a farewell. Moresheth-gath gets a parting gift because she is going into captivity.
- Lie. The kings counted on Achzib to hold the invader back. The town made a mockery of its own name and proved a false hope.
- Method. Micah names town after town and turns each name into its own verdict. The map itself spells out the sentence.
- Cost. The prophet's own birthplace is on the list, and he weeps as he names it. Faith in the prophetic word feels it first, then repeats it.
I will yet bring unto thee an heir, O inhabitress of Mareshah; the glory of Israel shall come even unto Adullam.
Micah names one town after another, and at each name he announces what is coming. Here the announcement turns on ownership and honour. An heir arrives to take Mareshah, and Israel's glory ends up at Adullam.
Where the ESV has "a conqueror," older translations read "an heir" — the one who arrives to take possession of the town. The commentators work from that older wording. So who is this heir?
The heir who is to possess Moreshah is the Assyrian, and "the glory of Israel shall come to Adullam" — the nobles of Israel shall gather in the cave of Adullam, like outcasts. (See 1 Sam. 22:1.)
Through these verses Micah plays on what each town's name means. The name itself announces the judgment.
There is a remarkable play of words in these statements. It may be literally rendered as follows: "Weep not in Weep-town; in Dust-town (the meaning of Aphrah) roll yourself in dust"; then a contrast, "in Beauty-town (Saphir means beauty) be in nakedness and shame; and in March-town (the meaning of Zaanan) march not forth."
The same method reaches its sting a verse earlier, where the town whose name means falsehood becomes exactly that to those who lean on it:
And Achzib will not keep the invader back; Achzib means a lie — the "Lie-town" shall be a lie to the kings of Israel, a false hope.
Adullam was not just any hiding place. Its name carried a memory.
The "Cave of Adullam" has become a proverbial expression for a refuge in distress, because there gathered to David, besides his relatives, "everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul," and he became their captain. David was God's anointed king, and the prophet Gad went to him, and Abiathar the priest. So with that outcast company were God's prophet, priest, and king, though all the outward forms of worship were elsewhere. This pictures the Lord Jesus in His rejection.
So Israel's honoured men end up where David's ruined company once gathered.
The invader is only the tool. The reason for the blow lies inside Israel.
Why this intervention in judgment? Why does He not leave the nations still to walk in their own ways, far from Him, patiently bearing with their folly? It is because His own people, the witness for His name on the earth, are in transgression against Him. They have given themselves up to the service of other gods, or to iniquity. There is no longer any testimony of God in the earth, except a false testimony. So God must bear that testimony Himself. He leaves His people to the consequences of their sin, so that they fall under the power of their enemies.
Verse 15 sits inside a description of the Assyrian army on the move. Micah tells it differently from Isaiah.
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are doubtless in view here; but they are only the occasion of the prophecy, looked at in its full extent. The Assyrian comes up to the gates of Jerusalem. Verses 11-16 describe his progress, as Isaiah does. But Micah mixes the description more with the causes of the judgment on the different cities that he attacks. Isaiah lists those cities as the stages of his march.
The towns fell in Micah's own lifetime, yet the prophecy does not stop there.
Notice here that the events of the prophet's own day have the same moral character as the final judgment of the last days. So they introduce the great action of that judgment, and they also warn the people of that time.
Micah does not leave the nation's glory in a cave. Three chapters later he names where that glory truly rests.
Each nation, they say, will boast of its God: but the Lord is our God for ever and ever. The Lord is the glory of His people. In that day the Lord will accept the remnant of His people; He will gather the poor, feeble, limping Jacob, and reunite what He had scattered and afflicted.
- Cause. The invader is only the instrument. God acts because His own people, meant to be His witness, had turned to other gods and to iniquity.
- Claim. The "heir" coming to Mareshah is the Assyrian — a conqueror taking possession of a town that was never his.
- Wordplay. Micah makes each name indict its own town: Dust-town rolls in dust, and Beauty-town stands in shame.
- Collapse. Israel's glory reaches Adullam, the refuge of the distressed, the indebted and the bitter of soul. Honour ends in the cave where God's prophet, priest and king once were.
- Continuation. These towns fell with the same moral character as the judgment of the last days. But the book ends elsewhere: the Lord Himself is the glory of His people.
Make thee bald, and poll thee for the children of thy delights; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle, for they are gone into captivity from thee.
Micah's first chapter ends with a command for grieving parents, not for soldiers or kings. It turns the whole account of the invading army into one picture inside the home — and it asks what such a warning should do in the people who read it.
Where the ESV says "cut off your hair," older translations use the word "poll." One reference work defines that old word in a line:
To cut the hair of the head. 2 Sam. 14:26; Ezek. 44:20; Micah 1:16.
In Israel that action carried weight. The law forbade it as a mourning custom, and Scripture also counts baldness among the judgments God sends:
The Israelites were forbidden to cut themselves or to make themselves bald for the dead, as the nations around them did. This was because they were a holy people to the Lord. Lev. 21:5; Deut. 14:1; Jer. 16:6. Baldness is one of the judgements of the Lord. Perhaps they would make themselves bald in their distress. Isa. 3:24; Isa. 15:2; Isa. 22:12; Ezek. 7:18; Amos 8:10; Micah 1:16.
The bird named at the end of the verse may not be the one you picture. One dictionary explains which bird fits the description:
This is supposed to be the bird known as the Griffon Vulture, or Great Vulture... The vulture also agrees with Micah 1:16, which speaks of its baldness, because its head and neck have no feathers. Its swiftness is proverbial, Lam. 4:19, and it rests on the highest rocks.
One writer gathers what the law and Isaiah say about a shaved head:
It was against the law for an Israelite to "make baldness on their head, or shave off the corner of their beard." Leviticus 21:5; 19:27. It was a mark of shame and reproach; see Isaiah 15:2 — "On all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off."
An army stands behind this mourning. The verse comes at the close of a march traced city by city:
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib are doubtless in view here; but they are only the occasion of the prophecy, looked at in its full extent. The Assyrian comes up to the gates of Jerusalem. His progress is described in verses 11-16, as in Isaiah...
One writer puts the reason in a line, with the exile spoken of as already done:
They were now to mourn, expressed in making themselves bald (Job 1:20; Isa. 15:2; 22:12; Jer. 16:6), for they are gone into captivity.
Before Micah tells anyone else to grieve, he is already grieving himself:
Here is the lamentation of Micah, as directed by the Spirit of God, not only over the fate of Samaria, but over Judah as well... It shows how these men of God entered with their whole soul into the revelations God gave them. It stirred them deeply within. This must be the result of faith in the prophetic word with all His people at all times.
God takes no pleasure in this kind of work. One writer explains why He does it anyway:
His true place is that of Blesser. It is His delight to bestow benefits upon His people with a hand that knows no stint. Judgment is His strange work. But holiness and truth demand that He put His hand to that work in which He finds no pleasure. They demand that He come out from His place, where He sits as the kind Source of blessing, to punish wrongdoing and to rebuke wrongdoers. So sweeping destruction is foretold, both for Samaria and Judah.
One writer names a second thing such warnings do for God's people:
Second, by separating them, heart and soul, from the thing that judgment is coming on. In Revelation we see that certain things — the great world system and the professing church that has fallen away — are to be visited with unsparing judgment. The effect of that upon us is that we gladly keep apart from both. We have no wish to be mixed up with anything which is soon to be disastrously overthrown.
- Cause — An Assyrian army marched city by city up to the gates of Jerusalem, and the blow fell on Samaria and on Judah too.
- Sign — "Poll" means cut the hair. A shaved head was a mark of shame and grief, and Scripture lists baldness among the judgments God sends.
- Image — "Bald as the eagle" points to the vulture. Its head and neck carry no feathers, and its speed is proverbial.
- Reach — The blow lands on the children. The mourning is commanded because they have already gone into captivity.
- Purpose — Judgment is God's strange work; His own place is that of Blesser. So the warning comes to separate His people from what is about to be overthrown.