Micahchapter 3
12 verses · Micah · 750 to 686 BC · The Twelve
Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?
Introduction
Micah, The Twelve, Micah Overview.
Micah speaks in this chapter to the men who ran Judah, the judges, the priests and the prophets of Jerusalem. He was a countryman, and the capital's courts were where his neighbours lost their cases. The people who heard him had been taught that the temple made their city safe. Listen for the three groups of leaders and what each one takes for his work. Listen for the one place where the prophet speaks of himself. Read the last verse slowly, because a later generation remembered it and it saved a prophet's life.
Context
- Who
- The rulers, prophets, and priests of the capital
- What
- Three oracles against the rulers, the prophets and the priests of Jerusalem, ending with the sentence that Zion will be plowed like a field.
- Where
- Jerusalem, addressed to the leaders of the house of Jacob and the rulers of Israel, with the temple mount named in the last verse.
- When
- The reign of Hezekiah, about 715 to 686 BC, by the report of Jeremiah 26:18, which quotes the last verse of this chapter.
- Why
- To expose leaders who sold justice and prophecy for money while claiming the LORD's protection, and to announce that their city would fall.
Historical context
The butchery image in the opening is deliberately unbearable, and it is drawn from a kitchen. Tearing the skin off, stripping flesh from the bones, breaking the bones in pieces, and chopping them up like meat for the pot describes preparing a carcass for a stew. Micah says this is what the leaders are doing to the people they govern.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Paid prophecy was an ordinary profession across the region. A seer was consulted for a fee, and Micah's charge is that the fee decided the message: they cry peace when they have something to eat, and declare war against whoever puts nothing in their mouths. The market was setting the oracle.
The three offices named, rulers who judge for a bribe, priests who teach for a price, prophets who divine for money, cover the whole leadership of the nation. And each of them leaned on the same sentence: is not the LORD among us? No disaster shall come upon us. The temple's presence was being used as an insurance policy.
Micah's own credential is stated in contrast: I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression. He is not claiming a technique. He is claiming a source.
Significance
The final sentence, Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the temple mount a wooded height, was unthinkable to hearers who believed the city could not fall while the house of God stood in it.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
This is one of the few Old Testament sermons whose effect is recorded. A century later, when Jeremiah was on trial for his life for saying the same thing, elders stood up and quoted this verse, naming Micah and Hezekiah, and argued that Hezekiah had feared the LORD and God relented. The quotation saved Jeremiah's life.
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 3 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 the chapter to the teaching of the Talmud at several points. The eleventh verse names the heads who judge for a bribe and the priests who teach for a price. On it the corpus carries Yoma 9b:9 and three passages of the Jerusalem Talmud, at Demai 6:2:7, Kiddushin 2:9:4 and Nedarim 11:3:5. On the twelfth, Zion ploughed as a field, it carries Eikhah Rabbah 5:18 and Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 24, the Midrash on Lamentations.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. His notes here are few and short.
He reads the skin that is torn as the skin of the house of Israel, torn by its own heads and officers (Rashi on Micah 3:2:1). The bones are broken for a reason: "They opened [them] to take out the marrow." (Rashi on Micah 3:3:2).
The false prophets are read by what feeds them. They "eat the flesh of fattened animals, which my people who stray after them feed them." (Rashi on Micah 3:5:1). When they are fed, "they herald and prophesy peace for them." (Rashi on Micah 3:5:2). The crying out of the fourth verse Rashi sets at the time of the gathering promised in chapter 2. They will ask the Lord for good, "but He shall not respond to them." (Rashi on Micah 3:4:1). At the seventh verse he notes that the Hebrew word for an answer takes its vowel because it is joined to the name of God (Rashi on Micah 3:7:1).
The corpus carries 16 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 3:1:1, 3:4:1, 3:6:1, 3:7:1, 3:8:1, 3:9:1, 3:10:1, 3:11:1 and 3:12:1 and Radak on Micah 3:1:1, 3:2:1, 3:6:1, 3:8:1, 3:9:1, 3:10:1 and 3:11:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 40 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 9 in the Talmud and 31 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 2 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 33:1:2, Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 18:12:1, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 33:1:6 and Sifrei Devarim 342:2. It also holds Tractate Soferim 7:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 949:6. On verse 3 it holds Berakhot 56b:8, Ein Yaakov, Ketubbot 4:2, Ketubot 47b:10 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 21:10. It also holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 3:23, Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 21:10:1, Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 6:11:4 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 21:10:2. It also holds Sifra, Bechukotai, Chapter 4 5 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 321:1.
On verse 5 it holds Tractate Kallah Rabbati 4:4. On verse 6 it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 4:2. On verse 9 it holds Otzar Midrashim, Hashkem, Midrash Hashkem ('Arise Early') 12 and Shabbat 139a:2.
On verse 11 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:3, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 1:6, Ein Yaakov, Yoma 1:10 and Jerusalem Talmud Demai 6:2:7. It also holds Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 2:9:4, Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 11:3:5, Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 4:13:1 and Pesikta Rabbati 27:1. It also holds Pesikta Rabbati 33:1 and Yoma 9b:9.
On verse 12 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 7:10, Bereshit Rabbah 22:7, Bereshit Rabbah 65:23 and Eikhah Rabbah 5:18. It also holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 24, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Makkot 3:9, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 20:3 and Ein Yaakov, Makkot 3:12. It also holds Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 20:2 and Kohelet Rabbah 5:8:3.
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 3:2:1 to 3:12:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Micah 3:1:1, 3:4:1, 3:6:1, 3:7:1, 3:8:1, 3:9:1, 3:10:1, 3:11:1 and 3:12:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Micah 3:1:1, 3:2:1, 3:6:1, 3:8:1, 3:9:1, 3:10:1 and 3:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/micah/3.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 3 with parashotForChapter, haftarahUsesForChapter and festivalReadingForBook.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Rulers who tear the skin off my people
Micah 3:1-3
Micah turns to the nation's rulers, whose office is to "know justice". Verses 2 and 3 answer with a butcher's picture: "You tear the skin from my people". The figure describes legal and economic oppression, the rulers set to protect the weak now living off them.
Micah 3:1
“And I said - God’s love for us is the great incitement, constrainer, vivifier of His creature’s love. Micah had just spoken of God’s love of Israel; how He would gather them into one fold under One Shepherd, guard them, lead them, remove all difficulties before them, be Himself their Head and enable them to follow Him. He turns then to them. These are God’s doings; this, God has in store for you hereafter. Even when mercy itself shall require chastisement, He doth not cast off forever. The desolation is but the forerunner of future mercy. What then do ye?”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Micah 3:1
"Is it not for you to know judgment? Yes, it is; therefore stand still, and hear your own judgment, and judge if it be not right, whether any thing can be objected against it." 2. How wretchedly they had transgressed the rules of judgment, though they knew what they were.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
You hate good and love evil: The leaders' first duty was to know justice, and Micah says they have turned the moral order upside down. They hate good itself and love evil for its own sake. The pictures of flaying that follow show how they strip the poor of everything.
Micah 3:2
“Who hate the good and love the evil - that is, they hate, for its own sake, that which is good, and love that which is evil.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:2
“The good - Ye who hate not only to do good, but the good which is done, and those that do it. The evil - Chuse, and delight in, both evil works and evil workers.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
flesh for the cooking pot: The rulers treat the people as a butcher treats a carcass, cutting them up for the pot. The figure describes cruel oppression, the taking of goods and livelihood. Ezekiel 24 uses the same pot for the punishment, so the sin and its judgment match.
Micah 3:3
“Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skins from off them,.... Like cannibals, flay them alive, and then eat their flesh: this signifies, as before, devouring their substance, only expressed in terms which still more set forth their savageness, inhumanity, barbarity, and cruelty.”
Then they will cry out to the LORD: The judgment answers the crime in kind: rulers deaf to the cries "will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them". He will "hide His face from them because of the evil they have done". Proverbs 21:13 states the same rule.
Micah 3:4
“Then shall they cry - When calamity comes upon these oppressors, they shall cry for deliverance: but they shall not be heard; because, in their unjust exactions upon the people, they went on ruthlessly, and would not hear the cry of the oppressed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:4
“Their prayer shall be rejected, because it is the mere cry of nature for deliverance from pain, not that of repentance for deliverance from sin. ill in their doings--Men cannot expect to do ill and fare well.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Prophets who cry peace when fed: but I am full of power
Micah 3:5-7
The prophets sell their message: they "proclaim peace while they chew with their teeth, but declare war against one who puts nothing in their mouths". Verses 6 and 7 answer with darkness, for "night will come over you without visions". The gift they sold is taken from them.
Micah 3:5
“The prophets that make My people err - Flattering them in their sins and rebellions, promising that they shall go unpunished, that God is not so strict, will not put in force the judgments tie threatens. So Isaiah saith Isa 3:12; O my? people, they which lead thee, mislead thee; and (Isa 9:16, (Isa 9:15 in Hebrew)), the leaders of this people are its misleaders, and they that are led of them are destroyed.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:5
"They make them to err by crying peace, by telling them that they do well, and that all shall be well with them; whereas they are in the paths of sin, and within a step of ruin. They cry peace, but they bite with their teeth, " which perhaps is meant of their biting their own lips, as we are apt to do when we would suppress something which we are ready to speak.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
night will come over you without visions: The false prophets promised peace and light. God answers them with night, when no vision comes and the sun goes down on the prophets themselves. The calamity they said would never come will silence them.
Micah 3:6
“Night shall be unto you - Ye shall have no spiritual light, nor will God give you any revelation of his will. The sun shall go down over the prophets - They prospered for a while, causing the people to err; but they shall also be carried into captivity, and then the sun of their prosperity shall go down for ever, and the very day that gives light and comfort to others, shall be darkness and calamity to them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
cover their mouths: Covering the lip was the sign of the leper in Leviticus 13:45 and a sign of mourning in Ezekiel 24:17. The seers who lied with their lips will cover them in shame. They have nothing to say, because God gives them no answer.
Micah 3:7
“They shall cover their lips - Literally, the hair of the upper lip . This was an action enjoined on lepers Lev 13:45, and a token of mourning Eze 24:17, Eze 24:22; a token then of sorrow and uncleanness. With their lips they had lied, and now they should cover their lips, as men dumb and ashamed. “For there is no answer of God,” as these deceivers had pretended to have. When all things shall come contrary to what they had promised, it shall be clear that God did not send them.”
I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD: Micah sets himself against the hired prophets: "I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage". His authority rests on the Spirit, where theirs rests on the payment of verse 5. He names the sin they covered with cries of peace.
Micah 3:8
“But - I am full of power - Here is the character of the true prophet. He is filled, all his soul is occupied with power, כח coach, with heavenly energy; by the Spirit of the Lord, the fountain of all truth and might; and of judgment, which enables him to make a proper discernment between the precious and the vile; and of might, גבורה geburah, prevalent power, against which vice shall not be able to prevail, and before which iniquity shall not be able to stand: but all shall fall together, and be confounded.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 3:8
“If, further, one works through the twelve minor prophets, many testimonies to the Holy Spirit are to be found. Thus Micah speaks as God's mouthpiece and says, "Truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord." Joel cries, " 'And it shall come to pass afterwards,' says God, 'that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh' " and what follows.”
Cyril of Jerusalem · written before 386 · Catechetical Lecture 15:29patristic
Micah 3:8
“Or, "judgment" to discern between graver and lighter offenses, and to denounce punishments accordingly [GROTIUS]. might--moral intrepidity in speaking the truth at all costs (2Ti 1:7). to declare unto Jacob his . . . sin-- (Isa 58:1). Not to flatter the sinner as the false prophets do with promises of peace.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Zion plowed like a field on their account
Micah 3:9-11
Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob: The third charge gathers rulers, priests and prophets: "Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination". Verse 10 puts the charge in one line. Verse 11 shows the presumption under it, as they say, "Is not the LORD among us".
Micah 3:9
“Hear this, I pray you - The prophet discharges upon them that “judgment” whereof, by the Spirit of God, he was full, and which they “abhorred; judgment” against their perversion of judgment. He rebukes the same classes as before “the heads and judges” Mic 3:1, yet still more sternly.”
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:9
“Hear--resumed from Mic 3:1. Here begins the leading subject of the prophecy: a demonstration of his assertion that he is "full of power by the Spirit of Jehovah" (Mic 3:8).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
build Zion with bloodshed: The rulers were building fine houses in Jerusalem with wealth taken from the poor by violence and false judgment. They may have claimed that the building served Zion, the city of God. Jeremiah 22:13 brings the same charge against a later king.
Micah 3:10
“They build up Zion with blood - They might cry out loudly against that butchery practiced by Pekah, king of Israel, and Pul coadjutor of Rezie, against the Jews. See on Mic 2:9 (note). But these were by no means clear themselves; for if they strengthened the city, or decorated the temple, it was by the produce of their exactions and oppressions of the people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:10
“They - The heads and great ones enlarge, beautify, and fortify, the house in Zion, particularly the temple and the royal palace. Blood - With wealth, which they made themselves masters of by violence, taking away the life of the owners.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges, priests and prophets all work for money, though the priests were bound to teach the law freely. Yet they lean on the LORD all the same. They say no disaster can come, trusting the temple in their city while they break the covenant it stands for.
Micah 3:11
“The Apostle Paul: Those who serve the altar, he says, partake of the altar and live by it (1 Corinthians 9:13). It is permitted for you, O priest, to live by the altar, not to indulge in luxury. The mouth of the ox that treads out the grain is not muzzled (ibid., 9). We know these things, and yet the Apostle does not abuse this permission: he is content with food and clothing. He labors night and day with his own hands so as not to be a burden to anyone.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Micahpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Micah 3:11
“The heads thereof judge for reward - Every class was corrupted. One sin, the root of all evil 1Ti 6:10, covetousness, entered into all they did. It, not God, was their one end, and so their God.”
Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field: The verse is the book's harshest word on Zion: "Zion will be plowed like a field". Jeremiah 26:18-19 quotes it, naming Micah and recalling that Hezekiah feared the LORD and the disaster was withheld. The elders cite that precedent to spare Jeremiah's life, and the temple fell to Babylon.
Micah 3:12
Hence again the divine Micah was unable to brook the building of Zion with blood, however you interpret the phrase, and of Jerusalem with iniquity. Meanwhile, these heads of the house of Jacob abhorred justice. The priests were teaching for hire. The prophets were prophesying for money! What does Micah say will be the result of this? "Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a storehouse of fruit, and the mountain of the house shall be as the grove of the forest."
Gregory of Nazianzus · written before 390 · In Defense of His Flight to Pontus, Oration 2:58patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Micah 3:12
“Therefore shall Zion - be ploughed as a field - It shall undergo a variety of reverses and sackages, till at last there shall not be one stone left on the top of another, that shall not be pulled down; and then a plough shall be drawn along the site of the walls, to signify an irreparable and endless destruction. Of this ancient custom Horace speaks, Odar. lib. i., Od. 16, ver.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Micah 3:12
“For your sake - Because of your sins. The mountain - The mountain, on which the temple stood. This is that passage, which is quoted, Jer. xxvi, 18, which Hezekiah and his princes took well: yea, they repented and so the execution of it did not come in their days.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Keep studying
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.