Micah 2:10

Arise ye, and depart,....

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.

But it is to be so no longer. Thus God refutes the people's self-confidence, as if God were bound to them inseparably. The promise (Ps 132:14) is quite consistent with temporary withdrawal of God from Israel for their sins. it shall destroy you--The land shall spew you out, because of the defilements wherewith ye "polluted" it (Le 18:25, 28;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

THERE is a miserable tendency in men to cling to things that are seen. Though that which we behold is only temporal and shadowy, lacking any true substance or permanence—though the things round about us can only endure for a little while and then will vanish away—yet we give our hearts to them and are ensnared by their false glitter and glamour. Like the poor birds that light on birdlime and cannot get away, we are entangled by the things of time and sense, instead of rising, as on eagle wings, to a higher sphere. Forgetting that the soul of man cannot be satisfied with the poor baubles of earth, nor his yearning heart filled with the fleeting joys of time, we often put away from us the things that are unseen and eternal. One of the most necessary words for us to hear at such a time is this, "Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest." Suppose that the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt and were on the way to Canaan, instead of living in tents and moving as the fiery cloudy pillar guided them, had taken it into their heads to build houses and cities and temples wherever they stopped—as if they were to stop in the wilderness forever? Would they not have missed much by such a plan? In the wilderness, not only would all who came out of Egypt have perished, but their children and their children's children would also have found graves in the desert, nor ever have seen the goodly land promised to their fathers. On the contrary, as you know, they lived in their canvas cities and when the cloud moved, every tent was struck, and they began the march. When the cloud halted, they rested under canvas, never knowing how long they would continue in any one place, always expecting that they would be on the move, again, seeing that they had not yet come to the land that flowed with milk and honey.

THERE is a miserable tendency in men to cling to things that are seen. Though that which we behold is only temporal and shadowy, lacking any true substance or permanence—though the things round about us can only endure for a little while and then will vanish away—yet we give our hearts to them and are ensnared by their false glitter and glamour. Like the poor birds that light on birdlime and cannot get away, we are entangled by the things of time and sense, instead of rising, as on eagle wings, to a higher sphere.

Arise ye and depart - Go your way, as being cast out of God’s care and land. It matters not where they went. “For this is not your rest.” As ye have done, so shall it be done unto you. As ye cast out the widow and the fatherless, so shall ye be cast out; as ye gave no rest to those “averse from war,” so shall ye have none Rev 13:10. “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” The land was given to them as a temporary rest, a symbol and earnest of the everlasting rest to the obedient. So Moses spake, “ye are not as yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when He giveth you rest from your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety ...” (Deu 12:9-10, add 1Ki 8:56). And Joshua, “Remember the word which Moses commanded you, saying, The Lord your God giveth you rest” Jos 1:13. But the Psalmist had warned them, that, if they hardened their hearts like their forefathers, they too would “not enter into His rest” Psa 95:11. Because it is polluted - (Literally, because of its pollution ) by idolatry, by violence, by uncleanness. So Moses (using the same word) says, “the land is defiled” by the abominations of the pagan; and warns them, “that the land spue you not out, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations which were before you.” Ezekiel speaks of that “defilement” Eze 36:17, as the ground why God expelled Israel. “It shall destroy you, even with a sore (literally sharp) destruction” (Eze 36:18, add Jer 2:7). . It is a sore thing to abuse the creatures of God to sin, and it is unfit that we should use what we have abused. […]