Micah Chapter 3
From The Open Bible Project
3:1 I said, "Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn't it for you to know justice?
- (a) That thing which is just and lawful, both to govern my people properly, and also to clear your own conscience.
3:2 You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;
- (b) The Prophet condemns the wicked governors not only of covetousness, theft, and murder, but compares them to wolves, lions, and most cruel beasts.
3:3 who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
3:4 Then they will cry to Yahweh, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil."
- (c) That is, when I will punish their wickedness: for though I hear the godly before they cry (Isaiah 65:24), yet I will not hear these even though they cry; (Isaiah 1:15) (Ezekiel 8:18; James 2:13; 1 Peter 3:11-12).
3:5 Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, "Peace!" and whoever doesn't provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
- (d) They devour all their substance, and then flatter them, promising that all will go well. But if someone does not feed them, then they invent all ways to do evil.
3:6 "Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.
- (e) As you have loved to walk in darkness, and to prophesy lies, so God will reward you with gross blindness and ignorance, so that when all others will see the bright beams of God’s grace, you will as blind men grope as in the night.
3:7 The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from [4] God [See Micah Footnotes 4]."
- (f) When God will reveal them to the world, they will be afraid to speak: for all will know that they were but false prophets, and did give a false notion of the word of God.
3:8 But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.
- (g) The Prophet being assured of his vocation by the Spirit of God, sets himself alone against all the wicked, showing how God gave him gifts, ability and knowledge, to discern between good and evil, and also steadfastness and endurance to reprove the sins of the people, and not to flatter them.
3:9 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.
3:10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
- (h) They will say that they are the people of God, and abuse his name, as a pretence to disguise their hypocrisy.
3:11 Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, "Isn't Yahweh in the midst of us? No disaster will come on us."
3:12 Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- (k) Read (Jeremiah 26:18).
