Micahchapter 2
13 verses · Micah · 750 to 686 BC · The Twelve
They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.
Introduction
Micah, The Twelve, Micah Overview.
Micah spoke for the small farmers of Judah, men whose land had been in their families since the tribes first divided it. This chapter is addressed to the powerful people who were buying and seizing that land. Its hearers knew the law that each family's inheritance was to stay with it, and they knew how often the courts ignored it. Listen for the argument between the prophet and the preachers who want him silent. Listen also for the sudden change of voice near the end. Read it as God taking the side of the family that lost its field.
Context
- Who
- Small farmers losing family land, and the men taking it
- What
- An oracle of woe against the men who seize fields and houses, with the quarrel over what a prophet may preach and a closing promise that God will gather the remnant.
- Where
- Judah, among the landholders and the courts of the countryside and of Jerusalem, where large estates were being built out of small family plots.
- When
- The time of Micah's ministry under Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, about 750 to 686 BC; the chapter carries no date of its own.
- Why
- To condemn the theft of family land and the preaching that excused it, and to promise that God would still gather and lead a remnant of His people.
Historical context
Family land in Israel was not supposed to be for sale. Each clan held its portion as an inheritance from the conquest, marked by boundary stones, and the Law built in protections, a jubilee that returned land to its original family, and a nearest relative's right to buy it back. Naboth refusing to sell his vineyard to a king is the same principle in a story.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
What the chapter describes is the legal machinery being used to defeat that. Men lie awake devising the scheme, then covet fields and seize them, and houses and take them away, meaning foreclosure on debt, manipulated courts, and pressure on families who had a bad harvest. It was, in the strict sense, all above board.
The measuring line and the casting of lots in the assembly refer to how land was allotted in the first place. Micah's sentence is that the men who took land by the line will have the line used on them by a conqueror, and their portions divided among strangers.
The complaint that women are driven from their pleasant houses and children stripped of God's glory forever names the human end of the process: a widow with no land had no income, and children who lost the inheritance lost the only thing that made them part of the covenant community's economy.
Significance
The men being accused had a reply, and Micah quotes it: do not preach, one should not preach of such things. Their argument was that disgrace would not overtake the house of Jacob, because they were God's people.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The kind of prophet they wanted is named exactly: if a man went about uttering wind and lies and said, I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for this people. It is one of the sharpest descriptions in Scripture of a congregation choosing its own teacher.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records no synagogue reading from this chapter. Probed for this lane, it printed no weekly portion, no Haftarah use for chapter 2 and no festival reading for the book. A congregation following that table does not hear this chapter read aloud on a Sabbath.
The corpus ties one verse of the chapter to a ruling of the Talmud. On the fifth verse, the line cast for a portion in the assembly of the Lord, it carries Kiddushin 39a:3. On the second verse it carries Gittin 58a:18 beside nine passages of the Midrash.
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY.
He reads the opening as a scheme laid at night: "All night they decide in their hearts how they will perform evil in the morning." (Rashi on Micah 2:1:1). The land is divided by a measuring line, which he calls the custom for dividing a heritage (Rashi on Micah 2:5:1).
The quarrel over prophecy is read as a report of what the people say. "Preach not" is their word to the prophets: "Do not prophesy to reprove them." (Rashi on Micah 2:6:1). Rashi notes that every use of this verb in the Hebrew is an expression of prophecy, citing Amos 7:16 and Ezekiel 21:2 (Rashi on Micah 2:6:2). The seventh verse asks whether the Lord has lost His power: "Is He now unable to do good" (Rashi on Micah 2:7:2).
The ninth verse carries two readings in one note. Either the husbands are slain and the wives sit as widows, or the husbands are robbed and grieve and bring no joy to their wives (Rashi on Micah 2:9:1). The call to arise and go is read as a call to exile, "for it was not in this manner that I gave it to you for tranquility." (Rashi on Micah 2:10:1). Of a false prophet who promised wine and strong drink, Rashi says that "he would be an acceptable prophet to this people." (Rashi on Micah 2:11:1).
The chapter turns at its end. The gathering of the twelfth verse is future: "Days will yet come when I will assemble you." (Rashi on Micah 2:12:1). The breaker of the thirteenth is "Their savior, who breaks the fences of thorns and the hedges of briers, to straighten the road before them." (Rashi on Micah 2:13:1).
The corpus carries 5 further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Micah 2:1:1, 2:3:1, 2:5:1 and 2:11:1 and Rashi on Micah 2:9:2.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 40 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 6 in the Talmud and 34 in the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 1 it holds Bereshit Rabbah 28:5, Midrash Tehillim 30:4 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4:3. On verse 2 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 74:1, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 26, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Gittin 5:21 and Ein Yaakov, Gittin 5:24. It also holds Gittin 58a:18, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:14, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 8:23 and Midrash Aggadah, Deuteronomy 1:1:12. It also holds Pesikta DeRav Kahana 13:8, Pesikta Rabbati 24:1 and Pesikta Rabbati 27:1. On verse 4 it holds Esther Rabbah 1:10.
On verse 5 it holds Kiddushin 39a:3. On verse 6 it holds Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:2:7. On verse 7 it holds Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 21:9:5. On verse 8 it holds Shemot Rabbah 42:7. On verse 9 it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayetze 23, Ein Yaakov, Eiruvin 6:4, Eruvin 63b:8 and Pesikta Rabbati 43:1.
On verse 10 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:7. On verse 11 it holds Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 2:7:5, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 1:4:3 and Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 11:4:3. On verse 12 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 83:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Tazria 9:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 231:1.
On verse 13 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 64:3, Bamidbar Rabbah 13:17, Bamidbar Rabbah 2:10 and Bereshit Rabbah 48:10. It also holds Bereshit Rabbah 69:5, Bereshit Rabbah 73:11, Bereshit Rabbah 85:14 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayeshev 36. It also holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 30 and Eikhah Rabbah 1:57.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Micah 2:1:1 to 2:13:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Micah 2:1:1, 2:3:1, 2:5:1 and 2:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Rashi, Rashi on Micah 2:9:2, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/micah/2.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Micah 2 with parashotForChapter, haftarahUsesForChapter and festivalReadingForBook.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Woe to those who plan iniquity on their beds
Micah 2:1-2
Woe to those who devise iniquity: The chapter opens with a woe on planned crime: they "devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds" and act "At morning’s light". Verse 2 names the crime as land seizure, fields taken from "a fellow man of his inheritance". Plotting at night and acting at dawn marks settled intent.
Micah 2:1
“The prophet had declared that evil should come down on Samaria and Jerusalem for their sins. He had pronounced them sinners against God; he now speaks of their hard unlovingness toward man, as our Blessed Lord in the Gospel speaks of sins against Himself in His members, as the ground of the condemnation of the wicked. The time of warning is past. He speaks as in the person of the Judge, declaring the righteous judgments of God, pronouncing sentence on the hardened, but blessing on those who follow Christ.”
They covet fields and seize them: The sin runs straight from the heart to the hand. They want a field, and they take it. Each family's land was its inheritance under the law, so taking a man's home took his family's share in Israel, as Ahab took Naboth's vineyard.
Micah 2:2
“They covet fields and houses, as Ahab did Naboth's vineyard. "Oh that such a one's field and house were mine! It lies convenient for me, and I would manage it better than he does; it is fitter for me than for him." 2.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 2:2
“And his house - His family, which by this means is left to poverty. And his heritage - And this is done against ancient right and possession, nay, in a case where God hath forbidden them to sell their heritage.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 2:3-5
The Lord answers the schemers of verse 1 with the same Hebrew verb: He is "planning against this nation a disaster". Verse 4 gives the taunt sung over the fallen landowners, "We are utterly ruined", and "He has allotted our fields to traitors". Verse 5 makes the loss lasting.
Micah 2:3
“Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as one continuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers of evil. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought; by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They do it. But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was one unbroken course of acting. And so he also uses the form, in which the Hebrews spoke of uninterrupted habits, They have coveted, they have robbed, they have taken. Now came God’s part.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 2:3
“Against this family - God will devise evil against their family, as they devised evil against the family of their neighbours. Haughty - You have made others hang the head; so shall you now. Is evil - Full of miseries on the whole family of Jacob.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
take up a proverb against you: The men who seized their neighbours' fields will become a byword, and others will mock them with their own lament. They will cry that they are ruined and that their fields have gone to traitors. The punishment matches the sin exactly.
Micah 2:4
“Take up a parable against you - Your wickedness and your punishment shall be subjects of common conversation; and a funeral dirge shall be composed and sung for you as for the dead. The lamentation is that which immediately follows: We be utterly spoiled; and ends, Are these his doings? Mic 2:7.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 2:4
“So "backsliding," that is, backslider (Jer 49:4). English Version gives a good sense; and is quite tenable in the Hebrew.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
divide the land by lot: Israel's land was first shared out by lot, family by family, in the days of Joshua. Those who took fields by violence will have no one left in the assembly of the LORD to cast the measuring line for them. They have forfeited their portion.
Micah 2:5
“By covetousness and violence (Mic 2:2) they had forfeited "the portion of Jehovah's people." This is God's implied answer to their complaint of injustice (Mic 2:4).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Do not prophesy, they say: a windy liar would suit them
Micah 2:6-7
The men Micah has accused try to silence the prophets, saying "Do not preach these things". Verse 7 asks whether "the Spirit of the LORD" is "impatient". The Lord's reply turns the fault back on the hearers: "Do not My words bring good to him who walks uprightly?"
The people ask whether God has run short of patience, as though judgment were unlike Him. The LORD answers with a question of His own. His words still bring good to the one who walks uprightly, so the fault lies in how they walk.
Micah 2:7
“Also, bearing the name which ought to remind thee of God's favors granted to thee because of His covenant with Jacob. is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?--Is His compassion contracted within narrower limits now than formerly, so that He should delight in your destruction (compare Ps 77:7-9; Isa 59:1, 2)? are these his doings?--that is, Are such threatenings His delight?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 2:7
“What they are threatened with for this sin; God also will choose their delusions, and, (1.) They shall be deprived of the benefit of a faithful ministry. Since they say, Prophesy not, God will take them at their word, and they shall not prophesy to them; their sin shall be their punishment.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Micah 2:7
“BROTHERS AND SISTERS, what a stern rebuke to the people of Israel is contained in the title with which the Prophet addressed them—"O you that are named the House of Jacob"! It is as much as to say to them—"You wear the name, but you do not bear the character of Jacob." It is the Old Testament version of the New Testament saying, "You have a name to live and are dead." They gloried that they were the seed of Israel! They vaunted the peculiar privileges which came to them as the descendants of God's honored and chosen servant Jacob!”
Micah 2:8-9
But of late My people have risen up like an enemy: The charge turns to detail, for "My people have risen up like an enemy", stripping "the splendid robe from unsuspecting passersby". Verse 9 names the weakest victims, women driven "from their pleasant homes". The sin that brought national mourning in chapter 1 now works inside the household.
Micah 2:8
“GROTIUS translates, "as men returning from war," that is, as captives over whom the right of war gives the victors an absolute power. English Version is supported by the antithesis.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 2:8
“Is risen up - They have risen up, Israel against Judah, and Judah against Israel, and of late the tribes have conspired against one another; subjects against their kings, and great ones against the meaner sort.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the women of My people: The women driven from their homes were probably the widows of men already stripped of their land, and their children lost the inheritance with them. God calls that inheritance My blessing. The oppressors took from orphans what God Himself had given.
Micah 2:9
“The women of my people--that is, the widows of the men slain by you (Mic 2:2) ye cast out from their homes which had been their delight, and seize on them for yourselves. from their children--that is, from the orphans of the widows. taken away my glory--namely, their substance and raiment, which, being the fruit of God's blessing on the young, reflected God's glory.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 2:9
“Cast out - You have turned out of their old habitations. From their children - You have turned their children out of their houses, and estates, which were secured by the law of God from any sale beyond the jubilee; yet you have confiscated them forever. My glory - Which was the glory of my bounty to them.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Arise and depart: The sentence falls in the land's own voice: "Arise and depart, for this is not your place of rest", the land defiled by the crimes. Leviticus 18:25-28 warns that the land vomits out a people for its defilement. The verse ends on "a grievous destruction", which is exile.
Micah 2:10
“Arise ye, and depart - Prepare for your captivity; ye shall have no resting place here: the very land is polluted by your iniquities, and shall vomit you out, and it shall be destroyed; and the destruction of it shall be great and sore. Some think this is an exhortation to the godly, to leave a land that was to be destroyed so speedily.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Micah 2:10
“Let him who cannot fly like an eagle fly like a sparrow. Let him who cannot fly to heaven fly to the mountains. Let him flee before the valleys that are quickly destroyed by water. Let him pass over the mountains. Abraham's nephew passed over the mountain of Segor and was saved. But Lot's wife could not climb it, for she looked back in womanly fashion and lost her salvation. "Draw near the everlasting mountains," the Lord says through the prophet Micah, "arise from here, for this is not a rest for you by reason of uncleanness.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Flight from the World 5:31patristic
Micah 2:10
“Arise ye - Ye inhabitants of Israel, prepare for your departure out of this land. Your rest - Though it was given this people for a rest under God's wing; yet it was on condition of continued obedience. Polluted - With many, and great, and old sins.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 2:10
“After threatenings of wrath, the chapter here concludes, as is usual in the prophets, with promises of mercy, which were in part fulfilled when the Jews returned out of Babylon, and had their full accomplishment in the kingdom of the Messiah.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
If a man of wind: A prophet of wind and lies would be welcomed as this people's prophet of choice. The commentators read wine and strong drink as a stand-in for an easy message, prosperity promised without repentance demanded. The verse indicts not only the false prophet but the appetite that prefers him.
The breaker goes up before them
Micah 2:12-13
I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob: The chapter turns from judgment to promise: "I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob". In verse 13 "One who breaks open the way will go up before them". Some readers hear a leader home from exile, others the ruler of 5:2, and the text does not choose.
Micah 2:12
“I will surely assemble - This is a promise of the restoration of Israel from captivity. He compares them to a flock of sheep rushing together to their fold, the hoofs of which make a wonderful noise or clatter. So when one hundred sheep run, eight hundred toes or divisions of these bifid animals make a clattering noise. This appears to be the image.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 2:12
“As the sheep - ln great numbers. Their fold - Their own fold, where they are safe. The multitude of men - This was fulfilled in part, when the Jews returned out of Babylon, but more fully when Christ by his gospel gathered together in one, all the children of God that were scattered abroad.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 2:12
“YOU will remember, dear Friends, from our reading last Sabbath morning, [Sermon #1952, The Holy Spirit—The need of the Age] in the second chapter of the Book of Micah, that the Prophet was delivering reproofs and rebukes against a sinful people, a people who tried to straiten the Spirit and silence the voice of prophecy and refused to listen to the messengers of God. He threatened them with deserved punishment from the Most High. To our surprise, in the very midst of the threat, he delivers a prediction brimming with mercy!”
One who breaks open the way: The picture is of a flock penned in and a leader who breaks the wall open so the sheep can go out. The King passes through at their head. The LORD Himself leads them out, as He led Israel out of Egypt, and the scene is one of deliverance.
Micah 2:13
“The breaker up is come up before them,.... Not the enemy, either the Assyrian or Chaldean army, or any part thereof, going up before the rest, breaking down the walls of the city, either of Samaria or Jerusalem, so making way for entrance therein; nor Zedekiah, as Joseph Kimchi, who made his escape through the wall broken down; nor the Maccabees, who were instruments of great salvation and deliverance to the Jews after the captivity, and before the coming of Christ.”
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 2:13
“The gate - The door of escape out of their captivity. No cities so strong, which the Assyrians shall not take and possess, and enter in through the gates. The Lord - Even Jehovah, as he was at the head of Israel, when he brought them out of Egypt.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Micah 2:13
“John was the breaker; he broke the ice, prepared the way of the Lord by the baptism of repentance; in him the gospel began; from his time the kingdom of heaven suffered violence; and so the Christian church is introduced, with Messiah the Prince before it, on the head of it, going forth conquering and to conquer.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Keep studying
People and groups1
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; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.