Micahchapter 1
16 verses · Micah · 750 to 686 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
It stands in The LORD comes down and the mountains melt like wax, verses 1 to 7.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Micah of Moresheth, a village prophet contemporary with Isaiah, sees the word 'concerning Samaria and Jerusalem,' and God comes out of his place to tread the high places of the earth, mountains melting under him like wax. The question is diagnostic: what is the transgression of Jacob (is it not Samaria? and the high places of Judah), are they not Jerusalem? The capitals themselves are the disease. Samaria becomes a heap in a field, and 'her wound is incurable; for it is come even unto Judah… even to Jerusalem.' The prophet strips and wails like the jackals, then names the doomed towns of his own countryside in a chain of grim puns.
Context
Prophecy · Micah · Micah overview
The world behind this chapter
Micah 1The history
Micah came from Moresheth-gath, a small town in the Shephelah, the belt of low hills and broad valleys between the coastal plain and Judah's central ridge. This was farm country, and it was also the front door: any army coming from the coast had to come through it. Micah was a village man warning villagers, and his contemporary Isaiah was working in the capital.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The opening is a courtroom scene staged on a cosmic scale. God comes out of his place and treads on the high places of the earth, and the mountains melt under him like wax. The witnesses summoned are not people but the earth and everything in it.
Samaria's sentence is described as demolition: her stones poured into the valley and her foundations laid bare. That is what the site looks like when a hilltop capital is thrown down the slope, and Assyria did it in 722 BC after a three-year siege.
The list of towns in the second half is a procession of grim wordplays on real place names, and hearers knew every one. Tell it not in Gath plays on the sound of tell; Beth-le-aphrah, house of dust, is where you roll in dust; Shaphir means pleasant, and its people go by stripped; Lachish is told to harness the chariot to the swift horse. Lachish was the great fortress of the Shephelah, and Assyria's siege of it is carved in relief on the walls of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, battering rams up a ramp, defenders impaled, captives filing out. The ramp is still there.
What it meant to them
For hearers in these small towns, the message was that the disaster in the north was not a northern problem. The wound is incurable, Micah says, and it has come to Judah, right up to the gate of Jerusalem.
The prophet grieves rather than gloats. He says he will go stripped and naked and wail like the jackals, the man announcing the judgment is the one mourning loudest.
Sources cited
- The Lachish reliefs from Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh (British Museum)
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
Micah 1 falls in Three judgment-and-hope cycles (chapters 1–7). Judgment on Samaria and Jerusalem (1–2); hope of the latter-day mountain (4); Bethlehem and the Ruler out of her (5); the LORD's controversy and ‘what doth the LORD require’ (6); hope closing with ‘who is a God like unto thee?’ (7).
The whole shape of Micah→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. The LORD comes down and the mountains melt like wax
1. (v. 1)
Micah 1:1
“The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite,.... So called, either from Mareshah, mentioned Mic 1:15; and was a city in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:44; as the Targum, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Zacutus (i); or rather from Moresheth, from which Moreshethgath, Mic 1:14; is distinguished; which Jerom (k) says was in his time a small village in the land of Palestine, near Eleutheropolis. Some think these two cities to be one and the same; but they appear to be different from the account of Jerom (l) elsewhere.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Micah 1:1
“But how long Micah followed the course of his vocation we cannot with certainty determine. It is, however, probable that he discharged his office as a Prophet for thirty years: it may be that he exceeded forty years; for he names here three kings, the first of whom, that is Jotham, reigned sixteen years; and he was followed by Ahab, who also reigned as many years.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Micah the Morasthite: The heading anchors the book in real history: Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah in the eighth century BC, the same era as his contemporary Isaiah. Morasthite marks him a native of Moresheth-gath, a town in the Judean lowlands he names again in his own oracle at 1:14, a prophet from a farming village rather than the capital. The double address, concerning Samaria and Jerusalem, sets the book's scope from its first line: both kingdoms, north and south, stand under one word.
2. (vv. 2-4)
Micah 1:2
“Hear, all ye people - The very commencement of this prophecy supposes preceding exhortations and predictions. Hearken, O earth - ארץ arets, here, should be translated land, the country of the Hebrews being only intended. And let the Lord God be Witness - Let him who has sent me with this message be witness that I have delivered it faithfully; and be a witness against you, if you take not the warning. The Lord from his holy temple - The place where he still remains as your King, and your Judge; and where you profess to pay your devotions.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah 1:3
“For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place,.... Out of heaven, the place of the house of his Shechinah or Majesty, as the Targum; where his throne is prepared; where he keeps his court, and displays his glory; from whence he removes, not by local motion, since he is everywhere; but by some manifest exertion of his power, either on the behalf of his people, or in taking vengeance on his and their enemies; or on them sinning against him, in which sense it is probably to be understood.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:3
“For, behold, the Lord comth forth - that is, (as we now say,) “is coming forth.” Each day of judgment, and the last also, are ever drawing nigh, noiselessly as the nightfall, but unceasingly. “Out of His Place.” Dionysius: “God is hidden from us, except when He sheweth Himself by His Wisdom or Power of Justice or Grace, as Isaiah saith, ‘Verily, Thou art a God who hidest Thyself’ Isa 45:15.” He seemeth to be absent, when He doth not visibly work either in the heart within, or in judgments without; to the ungodly and unbelieving He is absent, “far above out of their sight” Psa 10:5, when He does not avenge their scoffs, their sins, their irreverence.”
Micah 1:4
“Imagery from earthquakes and volcanic agency, to describe the terrors which attend Jehovah's coming in judgment (compare Jud 5:5). Neither men of high degree, as the mountains, nor men of low degree, as the valleys, can secure themselves or their land from the judgments of God. as wax-- (Ps 97:5; compare Isa 64:1-3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:4
“And the mountains shall be molten under Him - It has been thought that this is imagery, taken from volcanic eruptions ; but, although there is a very remarkable volcanic district just outside of Gilead, it is not thought to have been active at times so late as these; nor were the people to whom the words were said, familiar with it.”
Hear, all ye people: The prophecy opens as a courtroom summons addressed to the whole earth, not Israel alone: hear, all ye people, hearken, O earth, with the Lord himself the witness against his own covenant people from his holy temple. Verses 3 and 4 answer with theophany, the Lord coming forth from his place and treading the high places of the earth while the mountains melt like wax before fire, imagery the commentators trace to Sinai's own descent and to later theophanies such as Habakkuk 3's. The scale is deliberately cosmic, framing what follows, judgment on two small kingdoms, as an act with universal witnesses.
3. (v. 5)
Micah 1:5
“For the transgression of Jacob is all this--All these terrors attending Jehovah's coming are caused by the sins of Jacob or Israel, that is, the whole people. What is the transgression of Jacob?--Taking up the question often in the mouths of the people when reproved, "What is our transgression?" (compare Mal 1:6, 7), He answers, Is it not Samaria?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:5
“What - Or, who is the spring, and cause of that overflowing transgression? Of Jacob - The kingdom of the ten tribes, the head of which was Samaria, where the kings had their residence, where they worshiped idols, and set an example to the rest of the Israelitish kingdom. And what - Or, who is the cause of the high places, and the idolatry there practiced?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the transgression of Jacob: The oracle names the sin and the place together: the transgression of Jacob is Samaria itself, the high places of Judah are Jerusalem itself, the two capitals identified as the source of the nation's guilt rather than mere geography. The bench reads this as an indictment of centralized power and cultic corruption spreading outward from the throne cities to the countryside. Judah is not spared by the comparison to Samaria; the same question and the same answer fall on both.
4. (vv. 6-7)
Micah 1:6
“Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard,.... As a field ploughed, and laid in heaps; see Mic 3:12; or as stones gathered out of a field, and out of a vineyard planted, and laid in a heap; so should this city become a heap of stones and rubbish, being utterly demolished; and this being done according to the will of God, and through his instigation of Shalmaneser king of Assyria to it, and by his providence succeeding his army that besieged it, is said to be done by him.”
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 1:6
“Vineyards were cultivated on the sides of hills exposed to the sun. The hill on which Samaria was built by Omri, had been, doubtless, planted with vines originally; now it is to be reduced again to its original state (1Ki 16:24). pour down--dash down the stones of the city into the valley beneath.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Micah 1:6
“As an heap - As a heap of ruins. Of a vineyard - In planting vineyards, they dig up the earth, and cast it up in hillocks; so shall they make this city. Into the valley - The city was built on a high hill, and a deep valley beneath it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 1:7
“And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces - Its idols in whom she trusts, so far from protecting her, shall themselves go into captivity, broken up for the gold and silver whereof they were made. The wars of the Assyrians being religious wars , the idolatry of Assyria destroyed the idolatry and idols of Israel.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:7
“GROTIUS explains it, The offerings sent to Israel's temple by the Assyrians, whose idolatry Israel adopted, shall go back to the Assyrians, her teachers in idolatry, as the hire or fee for having taught it. The image of a harlot's hire for the supposed temporal reward of spiritual fornication, is more common in Scripture (Ho 9:1).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
an heap of the field: Samaria's judgment is pictured as agricultural reversal, a capital city turned back into an heap of the field and plantings of a vineyard, its stones poured into the valley and its foundations laid bare. The idols fall with the city: graven images beaten to pieces, the hires burned with fire, for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot. The commentators read the harlot's hire as the temple offerings and cult objects funded by pagan tribute, wealth gained in spiritual adultery returning to the same use when Samaria's spoils are carried off to Assyria's own shrines.
B. Stripped and wailing like the jackalsvv. 8-9
I will wail and howl: Micah steps into his own oracle as a mourner, stripped and naked, wailing like the dragons and the owls, the prophet enacting the grief he announces rather than merely predicting it. Verse 9 turns the wound from Samaria toward home: her wound is incurable, for it is come unto Judah, unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem, the disaster no longer someone else's. The commentators mark this as the hinge of the chapter, the north's fall now read as a warning already arriving at the south's own gate.
Micah 1:8
“I will make a wailing like the dragons - Newcome translates: - I will make a wailing like the foxes, (or jackals), And mourning like the daughters of the ostrich. This beast, the jackal or shiagal, we have often met with in the prophets. Travellers inform us that its howlings by night are most lamentable; and as to the ostrich, it is remarkable for its fearful shrieking and agonizing groanings after night. Dr. Shaw says he has often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:8
“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. stripped--that is, of shoes, or sandals, as the Septuagint translates. Otherwise "naked" would be a tautology. naked--"Naked" means divested of the upper garment (Isa 20:2).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Micah 1:9
“Her wound - The wounds of Samaria, her own sins, and God's just displeasure. It is come - The contagion of her sins, and the indignation of God against it, have reached to Judah also, yea, to Jerusalem.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:9
“For her - Samaria’s Wound - o, (literally, her wounds, or strokes, (the word is used especially of those inflicted by God, (Lev 26:21; Num 11:33; Deu 28:59, Deu 28:61, etc.) each, one by one,) is incurable The idiom is used of inflictions on the body politic (Nahum 3 ult.; Jer 30:12, Jer 30:15) or the mind , for which there is no remedy. The wounds were very sick, or incurable, not in themselves or on God’s part, but on Israel’s.”
C. A roll call of doomed towns, each name a wound
1. (vv. 10-13)
Micah 1:10
Declare ye it not at Gath - Do not let this prediction be known among the Philistines, else they will glory over you. House of Aphrah - Or, Beth-aphrah. This place is mentioned Jos 18:23, as in the tribe of Benjamin. There is a paronomasia, or play on words, here: בבית לעפרה עפר bebeith leaphrah aphar, “Roll thyself in the dust in the house of dust.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah 1:11
"Zaanan" is the same as Zenan, in Judah (Jos 15:37), meaning the "place of flocks." The form of the name used is made like the Hebrew for "came forth." Though in name seeming to imply that thou dost come forth, thou "camest not forth." Beth-ezel--perhaps Azal (Zec 14:5), near Jerusalem.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:11
“Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir,.... A village, according to Eusebius (l), between Eleutheropolis and Ashkelon; perhaps the same with Sephoron; it is mentioned among the cities of Judah, in the Greek version of Jos 15:48. Calmet (m) conjectures the prophet intends the city of Sephoris or Sephora in Galilee.”
Micah 1:12
“This accords with the meaning of Maroth, "bitterness," to which allusion is made in "is grieved." But the antithesis favors English Version, "waited carefully (that is, anxiously) for good, but evil came down." from the Lord--not from chance. unto the gate of Jerusalem--after the other cities of Judah have been taken.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 1:12
“For the inhabitant of Maroth - (bitterness) waited carefully for good She waited carefully for the good which God gives, not for the Good which God is. She looked, longed for, good, as men do; but therewith her longing ended. She longed for it, amid her own evil, which brought God’s judgments upon her. Maroth is mentioned here only in Holy Scripture, and has not been identified. It too was probably selected for its meaning.”
Micah 1:12
“The village of the bitter spring, for that is probably the meaning of this name, Maroth, experienced a bitter disappointment. At the time when the Assyrians invaded the land, the inhabitants expected that deliverance would come to them from some quarter or other. From the context, I judge that they placed some sort of reliance upon the Philistines. They possibly had some hope that the king of Egypt would come up to attack Sennacherib.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3184: “Maroth—or, the Disappointed” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Micah 1:13
“O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast - (steed.) Lachish was always a strong city, as its name probably denoted, (probably “compact.” It was one of the royal cities of the Amorites, and its king one of the five, who went out to battle with Joshua Jos 10:3. It lay in the low country, Shephelah, of Judah Jos 15:33, Jos 15:39, between Adoraim and Azekah 2Ch 11:9, 2Ch 11:7 Roman miles south of Eleutheropolis (Onomasticon), and so, probably, close to the hill-country, although on the plain; partaking perhaps of the advantages of both.”
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 1:13
“Bind the chariot - To fly from the sword of the enemy. She - Lachish, which being the nearest to idolatrous Israel, took the infection of them, and conveyed it to Jerusalem. The transgressions - Not only the idolatry, but other sins also.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 1:13
“Note, Those that help to bring sin into a country do but thereby prepare for the throwing of themselves out of it. Those must expect to be first in the punishment who have been ringleaders in sin. The transgressions of Israel were found in thee; when they came to be traced up to their original they were found to take rise very much from that city.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Declare ye it not at Gath: The oracle turns to a string of town names along the Shephelah, Sennacherib's likely invasion route in 701 BC, each name played on in Hebrew for the fate it suits: do not tell it in Gath echoes David's own lament over Saul, Aphrah's name plays on dust for rolling in the dust, and Saphir, meaning beautiful, goes out in naked shame. Zaanan sounds like going out for a town that stays put in fear, Beth-ezel's neighborly help fails, and Maroth waited for good and got evil at Jerusalem's own gate. Lachish is told to harness the chariot to the swift beast, a city the commentators identify from the Assyrian reliefs at Sennacherib's own palace as one of the campaign's real conquests, and it is named the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion, the readings naming an early alliance with the calf worship of the north.
2. (vv. 14-15)
Micah 1:14
“Give presents to Moresheth-gath - Calmet says that Moresa or Morashti, and Achzib, were cities not far from Gath. It is possible that when Ahaz found himself pressed by Pekah, king of Israel, he might have sent to these places for succor, that by their assistance he might frustrate the hopes of the king of Israel; and this may be the meaning of “The houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.” In these verses there are several instances of the paronomasia. See Mic 1:10, עפר aphar, dust, and עפרה aphrah, the name of the city.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:14
“Give presents - The inhabitants of Lachish courted the assistance of the Philistines against the Assyrian. Moresheth-gath - A known city of the Philistines, called Moresheth-gath, to distinguish it from a town of the same name in the tribe of Judah. Achzib - This was also a city of the Philistines.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 1:15
“Other heirs will supplant us in every inheritance but that of heaven. There is a play upon the meaning of Mareshah, "an inheritance": there shall come the new heir of the inheritance. Adullam the glory of Israel--so called as being superior in situation; when it and the neighboring cities fell, Israel's glory was gone.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 1:15
“An heir - The Assyrian, who in the right of conquest shall possess thee. Mareshah - A town of the Philistines. Adullam - Perhaps this city was considerable enough at that time, to be the glory of Israel.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 1:15
“Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah,.... Another city in the tribe of Judah, mentioned with Achzib in Jos 15:44; and by many thought to be the birth place of this prophet; and, if so, his faithfulness may be observed in declaring the whole counsel of God, though against his own fire place; and this must be an aggravation of the sin of the inhabitants of it, that they had such a prophet that arose from them, and they regarded him not.”
Two more towns close the wordplay, Micah naming his own hometown in the string: Moresheth-gath is to give parting gifts, a dowry paid out as the town is lost, and Achzib, whose name means a lie or a deceitful brook, becomes a lie to the kings of Israel exactly as its name warned. Mareshah's name plays on heir or possessor, and an heir now comes to dispossess Mareshah in turn, a reversal of its own name's promise. The oracle ends at Adullam, the cave where David once hid from Saul, the glory of Israel now driven to hide in the same refuge, which the commentators read as a mark of how far the nation's glory has fallen.
3. (v. 16)
Micah 1:16
“Make thee bald - Cutting off the hair was a sign of great distress, and was practised on the death of near relatives; see Amo 8:10. The desolation should be so great that Israel should feel it to her utmost extent; and the mourning should be like that of a mother for the death of her most delicate children. Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle - Referring to the mounting of this bird, when in casting its feathers and breeding new ones, it is very sickly, and its strength wholly exhausted.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 1:16
“Mourn, O land, for thy darling children. poll--shave off thy hair. enlarge thy baldness--Mourn grievously. The land is compared to a mother weeping for her children. as the eagle--the bald eagle, or the dark-winged vulture. In the moulting season all eagles are comparatively bald (compare Ps 103:5).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Make thee bald: The chapter closes on the ritual of mourning for exile, shaving the head bald for the delicate children who are being taken away, the grief a parent's own. Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle refers to the vulture's molting season, when the bird loses its head feathers entirely, the commentators reading it as the completeness of the coming baldness rather than any majesty in the comparison. The captivity named plainly at the verse's end is Assyria's deportation of the northern kingdom, the judgment announced across the whole chapter now given its historical name.
This page carries no textual note on Micah 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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