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Micah 2:9

in Micah 2

You drive the women of My people from their pleasant homes. You take away My blessing from their children forever.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

The women of my people ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their young children ye take away my glory for ever.

KJV

The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever.

This verse in Micah 2

Commentary

9 notes on this verse
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses,.... Not content to slay their husbands, they took their wives or widows captive, dispossessed them of their habitations, where they had lived delightfully with their husbands and children; so we find that, at the time before referred to, the people of Israel carried captive of their brethren two hundred thousand women, and brought them to Samaria, 2Ch 28:

This site's exposition

my people is risen up as an enemy

on Micah 2:8-9

The accusation sharpens into detail: a people who should know covenant loyalty instead behave as an enemy, stripping the robe from peaceable travelers as if plunder were owed them. Verse 9 turns to the most vulnerable, women driven from their pleasant houses and children stripped of my glory for ever, the commentators reading this glory as the inheritance and honor a family passed down, taken permanently rather than for a season. The reversal from chapter 1's national mourning to chapter 2's household cruelty shows the same sin working at every scale.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers2 voices

A commentator

Jerome

Homily 60, on Psalm 10 (Alternate Series) · Written before 420.

proposed

In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul: Flee away to the mountains like a sparrow? The crafty adversary both tempted the Lord and Savior in the wilderness, and wishes all the saints to depart from the land of Judah and to dwell in the desert of the virtues, that there he may more easily strike them down. But even his very counsel is deceitful: for he does not exhort that one take the wings of the dove — a bird gentle, simple, and domestic, said to lack gall, and which is offered for the Lord in the temple — but the wings of a sparrow, a bird chattering and roving, which after the rearing of its young knows nothing of the fidelity of wedlock; although Aquila and Symmachus rendered "bird" generally in place of "sparrow." By the mountains, however, we can understand those of which it is said in another place, "Draw near to the eternal mountains," and in the second psalm of the steps, "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains from whence help shall come to me": and to which, after the abomination of desolation shall stand in the holy place, we ought to migrate.

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Micah · Written before 420.

proposed

(Versed 9, 10.) You have expelled the women of my people from their delightful homes, and you have taken their praise from their children forever. Arise and go, for you have no rest here, because of your uncleanness. It will be corrupted with the worst decay. The interpretation of the Septuagint (if indeed it is Septuagint; for Josephus writes, and the Hebrews affirm, that only five books of the law of Moses were translated by them and given to King Ptolemy, or rather contradicted) differs so greatly in this passage from the Hebrew truth, that we cannot put the chapters equally nor explain their meanings together. Therefore, let us first discuss our translation, and afterwards we will come to the same points. This is still in opposition to the people of God, of whom he had already said: On the contrary, my people have risen up against me as an adversary: you have taken away their outer garment, not only that, but also the women, that is, the once delicate matrons, have made them go as captives, or under the metaphor of the cities of Judea, which he also calls the daughters of Zion in Isaiah (Isaiah 26), because Zion was the metropolis. You have also taken away the praise of them from their little ones, he says, forever, there remained no one in the people, all being either killed or captured, who would sing my psalms; but even the few who remained in Babylon testify that they cannot sing. How, they say, shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land (Ps. 136:4)? Arise and go into captivity, for in this land you shall not have rest, which has been defiled because of your sins, and it cannot be cleansed unless it has first observed a long sabbath. […]

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

A commentator

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)

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.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

It was the glory of the Israelites' children that they were free, but they enslaved them--that they were born in God's house, and had a right to the privileges of it, but they sold them to strangers, sent them into idolatrous countries, where they were deprived for ever of that glory; at least the oppressors designed their captivity should be perpetual.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

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.
2 more voices on this verse

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

The women of my people - Ye are the cause of the women and their children being carried into captivity - separated from their pleasant habitations, and from my temple and ordinances - and from the blessings of the covenant, which it is my glory to give, and theirs to receive. These two verses may probably relate to the war made on Ahaz by Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel. They fell suddenly upon the Jews; killed in one day one hundred and twenty thousand, and took two hundred thousand captive; and carried away much spoil. Thus, they rose up against them as enemies, when there was peace between the two kingdoms; spoiled them of their goods, carried away men, women, and children, till, at the remonstrances of the prophet Oded, they were released. See 2Ch 28:6, etc. Micah lived in the days of Ahaz, and might have seen the barbarities which he here describes.
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses - (literally, from her pleasant house,) each from her home. These were probably the widows of those whom they had stripped.

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

On the verses either side of this one

Arise and go, for this is not the tranquility —Arise and go into exile from the land, for it was not in this manner that I gave it to you for tranquility.
Rashi: France, 1040–1105 · Rashi on Micah 2:10:1, via Sefaria, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 3 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

10 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • נְשֵׁ֤י[the] women of

    nesheiH802

  • עַמִּי֙people my

    ʾamiH59711873 times

  • תְּגָ֣רְשׁ֔וּןyou drive out !

    tegareshunH1644

  • מִבֵּ֖יתfrom [the] house of

    mibeitH10042046 times

  • תַּֽעֲנֻגֶ֑יהָdelights her

    taanugeihaH8588

  • מֵעַל֙from with

    mealH59215755 times

  • עֹֽלָלֶ֔יהָchildren her

    ʾolaleihaH5768

  • תִּקְח֥וּyou take away

    tikchuH3947

  • הֲדָרִ֖יglory my

    hadariH1926

  • לְעוֹלָֽם׃for ever

    leolamH5769438 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    2 Corinthians 4:6

    For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of…

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 60:2

      For behold, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you, and His glory will appear over you.

    • Genesis 1:3

      And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

    • 1 Peter 2:9

      But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

    • 2 Peter 1:19

      We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day…

    • Ephesians 5:8

      For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,

  • Through

    Habakkuk 2:14

    For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 11:9

      They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is full of water.

    • Psalms 22:27

      All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him.

    • Psalms 72:19

      And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.

Where this verse is studied

On this page

About Micah

Micah Exhorts the Israelites to Repent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Micah Exhorts the Israelites to Repent, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Homily 60, on Psalm 10 (Alternate Series); Jerome, Commentary on Micah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.