Believe ye not in a companion, put not confidence in a familiar friend keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
Micah 7 mourns a nation where honesty has died, and this verse is its low point: a man cannot speak safely to a friend, an adviser, or even his own wife. How does a people sink this far, why did Jesus later quote these lines, and where can trust go when every human tie fails?
The verse sits in a section where the prophet stops accusing and starts pleading. One writer follows the movement from lament to prayer, and then to broken bonds.
It is a lament of the prophet that turns at last into a prayer. Then he describes, in the most striking way, the terrible breakdown of all bonds and the treachery common among the Jews… Here is a solemn thought: these are the words that Jesus applies to the effect of His message of the kingdom. What an awful proof of man's evil.
Micah is not standing apart from the ruin he describes. Another writer notes that he speaks from inside it.
In Micah 7 the prophet takes the place of intercessor before God, in the name of the people — presenting to Him at once their deep misery and their iniquities — speaking in their name, and identifying himself with them… He searches anxiously among the people for something suitable to their title of the people of God; he finds nothing but fraud and deceit.
Why has trust collapsed? One writer traces it back to a single root.
Where God does not have His place in the soul, we assert our independence. Then our weakness and inconsistency open the way to the cunning of the enemy, and the mind does not see that it has left the truth… So again, Micah 7, where corruption of every kind is found… They had departed from God. To learn what sin is to any purpose is to learn the source from which we have departed. We have departed from God.
Commentators point out that Christ quoted this passage. Micah wrote of the worst of human corruption. Jesus said His own message would produce it.
The Lord Jesus declares in the Gospel that the preaching of the gospel would produce what the prophet describes as the height of iniquity. Such is the iniquity of the heart that the light stirs into action. It rouses a hatred that only grows worse the nearer its object is.
That timing is worth weighing. Micah described a state still ahead of him, yet it broke out while Jesus walked among His people.
The Lord is alluding to the prophecy of Micah, who describes in similar terms the worst evil of the last days… It is solemn to find, therefore, that before the days spoken of by the prophet arrive, the evil had already come, and that the presence of Divine love in the person of Jesus provokes it. This could not be if men were not thoroughly bad; but Jesus is the Truth, and therefore brings all things to a head.
The same broken confidence appears twice in Scripture from two different causes. One writer sets the two side by side.
The prophet Micah, in describing the moral corruption that prevailed in his day, declares that all confidence between friends, and even between husband and wife, had completely vanished… The gospel of Matthew shows the same state of things, but this time it follows the presentation of Christ… When Christ is presented to men, they either receive Him or reject Him. So He brings, not peace, but a sword. It draws out from those who refuse Him all the enmity, all the hidden corruption, of the human heart, both against Christ and against His followers.
If the closest ties can turn hostile, the disciple has a decision to make early. One writer reads Christ's call to discipleship as an echo of these verses.
There may be an allusion here to Micah 7:5-6. A person must give up friends for Christ… you cannot have two hearts — a heart for the world, and a heart for Me — Christ would say. I tremble when I see people who have not counted the cost, setting out in the profession of following Christ. It is God's way to put the barrier at the very start.
The warning is not the end. Verse 7 answers it: the collapse of human trust is what drives a person to God. One writer applies this to the remnant — the faithful few left in Israel.
This forces the remnant to look to the Lord as their only resource, and to bow until He pleads. When we have fallen in anything, that is the only thing we have to do.
Another writer names the prophet's refuge, and sees the same pattern for God's people in a coming day of trouble.
In the middle of the conditions the prophet describes, we read that his refuge was prayer. He looks to the Lord, sure that He will hear. "But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me" (verse 7). This will be the attitude of the godly Israelites during the time of trouble.
- Departure. The distrust starts further back. A people who have left God can no longer be truthful with each other, and the ruin shows first in the closest ties.
- Description. Micah is not giving advice about friendship. He is recording a fact: trust between friends, and even between husband and wife, was gone.
- Division. Christ quoted this passage about His own message. Where people refuse Him, the light draws out their hidden hatred, and He brings a sword rather than peace.
- Decision. The nearest ties can turn hostile. So following Christ means counting the cost at the start, not halfway through.
- Dependence. The verse strips away every human support. The next verse supplies the only one that holds: look to the Lord, and wait for the God of salvation.
For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies are the men of his own household.
Micah's picture of a corrupt nation ends at the family, the one place where trust should be safest. The Lord Jesus later applies these same words to the effect of His own coming.
The verse is the last step in a downward list. The prophet has already warned against trusting a friend, and against speaking freely even to a wife. Now he moves inward, to father, mother, and the ties formed by marriage.
Then he describes in the most striking way the terrible breaking of all bonds and the treachery common among the Jews. "Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms... a man's enemies are the men of his own house." It is a solemn thought that these are the words Jesus applies to the effect of His message of the kingdom. What an awful proof of man's evil! The state of things that will bring God's final judgment on the Jews at the end is the very thing the Lord tells His disciples to expect now, wherever this gospel is preached.
Commentators read these lines first as a report on Micah's own generation, before any wider application.
The prophet Micah, describing the moral corruption of his own day (vv. 2-4), declares that all confidence between friends, and even between husband and wife, had completely vanished, and that in this state of things the most sacred ties of relationship were openly violated, so that a man's enemies were the men of his own house. It is a dark though true picture of how strongly evil ruled in the prophet's day.
Jesus echoes this verse in His own teaching. The evil Micah set in the last days had already surfaced, and His presence is what drew it out.
The nearest relationships, sex, age, or youth, made no difference. Grace works freely, according to the sovereign will of God. In the same way, man's hatred makes no distinctions, and shows up in the most unlikely places. The Lord is alluding to the prophecy of Micah, who describes in similar terms the worst evil of the last days (Micah 7:6). It is solemn to find, then, that the evil had already come before the days the prophet spoke of. And the presence of divine love in the person of Jesus is what provokes it. This could not happen if men were not thoroughly bad; but Jesus is the Truth, and so He brings everything to a head.
The division starts with how people answer Christ.
When Christ is put before men, they either receive Him or reject Him. So He brings not peace, but a sword. It draws out from those who refuse Him all the enmity, all the hidden corruption, of the human heart, both against Christ and against His followers... In such circumstances sons have betrayed their fathers, daughters their mother, and parents their children. In this way the Lord's words have often come true.
The verse still lands in ordinary houses. A shared home does not mean a shared walk with God.
What is happier than a Christian home, where Christ is acknowledged as Lord?... Contrast this with the divided house, where the world is allowed. Faith must stand firm, but oh, the sorrow and the strife that the world brings in. A faithful Christian parent is trying to keep the world out of his home. A wife is trying to walk with God, while her husband does everything he can to draw her into the world. Will there not be strife? Must there not be, if one is to be faithful to the Lord and His truth?
Verse 6 is not the end of the paragraph. The collapse of every human tie leaves the godly one place to turn.
The grace and presence of Christ brought out the full iniquity of chapter 7:6. This forces the remnant to look to the Lord as their only resource, and to bow until He pleads their cause. If we have fallen in anything, that is the only thing we have to do.
The prophet's own answer comes in the next verse.
In the middle of the conditions the prophet describes, we read that his refuge was prayer, looking to the Lord with the assurance that He will hear. "But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me" (verse 7).
- House — evil reaches its last refuge, the family. Son, daughter, and daughter-in-law turn on their own, and a man's enemies are the men of his own house.
- Then — Micah is reporting the treachery of his own nation. Not a friend, not even a wife, could be trusted.
- Now — Jesus takes up the same words, because His presence provokes the same hatred. Men receive Him or refuse Him, and the sword follows.
- Home — the divided house is still the cost of faithfulness. Where the world is let in, strife comes with it.
- Refuge — when every human bond fails, the faithful look to the Lord alone: "I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me."