Micahchapter 2
13 verses · BSBMicah book hub →
Speaks with:Isaiah 30×2Psalms 36×1Isaiah 32×1Psalms 7×1Isaiah 5×1Amos 8×1
Summary
Chapter summary
'Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds!': plotting by night and executing at dawn 'because it is in the power of their hand.' The specific crime is land theft: they covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away, evicting a man from his heritage. So God devises against that family an evil they cannot shrug off their necks. Their preachers order Micah to stop, and he answers: do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly? A prophet of wine and strong drink is the one they would welcome. Yet the chapter ends gathering the remnant like a flock, their king passing on before them.
Context
Prophecy · Micah — Micah overview
- A. 1–5 Woe to those who plan iniquity on their beds
- B. 6–11 Do not prophesy, they say — a windy liar would suit them
- C. 12–13 The breaker goes up before them
The outline
A.Woe to those who plan iniquity on their bedsvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Do not prophesy, they say — a windy liar would suit themvv. 6 to 11
Read vv. 6 to 11 →C.The breaker goes up before themvv. 12 to 13
Read vv. 12 to 13 →
The world behind this chapter
Micah 2The history
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.
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Micah 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.