Ver. 1. The word of the Lord, &c.] [See Trapp on “Ho 1:1”] To Micah the Morasthite] To distinguish him from Micaiah, the son of Imlah, who prophesied in Ahab’s days, over a hundred years before this. Micah the Morasthite, so called from the place of his birth or abode, which is made famous by him (as Abder was by Democritus, Hippo by Austin), and not he by it. Ambrose saith his name signifieth Quis iste? Who is this? Who (saith that father in answer)? not one of the common sort, but an elect vessel to carry God’s name to his people. Jerome, from his title, Morasthite, interpreted, calleth him cohaeredem Christi, co-heir with Christ, of whom and his kingdom he sweetly prophesieth; and may, therefore, be called the evangelical prophet; as was Isaiah, his contemporary, with whom he hath many things common; and this one thing above him, that he nameth Bethlehem, Christ’s birthplace, Micah 5:2, for the which (as well as for his boldness, Jeremiah 26:18) he was famous in the Church, Matthew 2:6 Joh 7:42. In the days of Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah] Ahaz standeth between Jotham and Hezekiah, as a thistle or thorn between two lilies, or roses. Manasseh comes after, and degenerates into his grandfather Ahaz. To his time Micah attained not, much less to Josiah’s, as Isidore hath it; for between Jotham and Josiah were a hundred and twenty years at least. It is probable that Micah prophesied forty years, if not more; wherein he saw many changes and met with many molestations; had cause enough to cry out with his colleague, “Who hath believed our report?” “My leanness, my leanness,” &c. Yet held he on his course; as being of Latimer’s mind, who, speaking in one of his sermons of a minister that gave this answer why he left off preaching? viz. because he saw he did no good. This, saith Latimer, is a naughty, a very naughty answer. Which he saw] sc. with the eyes of his mind for the use of the Church; whereto this prophecy comes commended, first, as “the word of the Lord,” and, secondly, as extraordinarily revealed to this prophet. Concerning Samaria and Jerusalem] Samaria seemeth to be first named because most guilty before God. They are yoked together, because there was scarcely ever a better (Aholah and Aholibah, sisters in sin), and one the much worse for the other’s neighbourhood. Jerusalem would take it in high scorn, likely, to be matched with Samaria, so much slighted and shunned by her, John 4:9, as Papists now do to be set by Protestants, Turks by Christians (the word of a Mussulman bears down all other testimony among them). But this prophet is very bold (as it is said of Isaiah’s contemporaries, Romans 10:20), binds them both up in one bundle, and spareth not to show Judah their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Ver. 2. Hear, all ye people] He beginneth as Isaiah, in a lofty and stately style, pouring himself out in a golden flood of words (as Cicero speaketh of Aristotle’s Politics), and calling for utmost attention and affection; as knowing that he had to do with men more deaf than sea monsters, and more dull than the very earth they trod on; which is therefore here commanded to hearken, since men (that habitable part of God’s earth, Proverbs 8:31) will not hear and give ear; wherein they are worse than the insensible creatures, Psalms 119:91. And let the Lord God be witness against you] Here he turneth his speech to the refractory Jews; speaking to God as a righteous judge and swift witness, Iudex, Iudex, vindex, against them if they hearkened not to his message: nisi pareant, ideoque pereant. The Lord from his holy temple] That is, let him testify from heaven, Psalms 11:4, that he is displeased with you, and that I have carefully sought your soul’s health. Or, from his temple at Jerusalem, wherein ye glory, and where ye think ye have him as fast bound to you as the Tyrians had their idol Apollo, whom they chained and nailed to a post, that he might not forsake them, when Alexauder besieged their town, and took it (Macrob. lib. 8, cap. 9). The heathens had a trick, when they besieged a city, to call the tutelar gods out of it by a certain charm, as believing that it could not otherwise be taken (Virg. Aen. 2). In a like sense whereunto some have interpreted the following verses here.
Ver. 3. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place] That is, say they, out of Judea and his temple there, leaving it to the Chaldeans and Assyrians. See Ezekiel 3:12, and chapters 9-11, where God makes various withdrawals from the cherubins to the threshold, from thence to the east gate, from thence to mount Olivet, quite out of the city, Ezekiel 11:23, and when God was gone, then followed the fatal calamity, in the ruin of the city. But by God’s coming forth out of his place here I conceive is meant his descending from heaven to do justice on this hypocritical nation, Isaiah 26:21, and because hypocritis nihil stupidius; hypocrites, resting on their external performances and privileges, will hardly be persuaded of any evil toward them. Micah 3:11, “Is not the Lord,” say they, “among us? none evil can come upon us”; therefore we have here an emphatic Ecce, “Behold, the Lord cometh”; he is even upon the way already, and will be here with the first. He will come down as once at Sodom, when their sin was very grievous, Genesis 18:20, when they were overcharged with the superfluity of naughtiness; God came from heaven to give their land a vomit; and so he would do here; for unregenerate Israel was to God as Ethiopia, Amos 9:7, as the rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, Isaiah 1:10. And tread upon the high places of the earth] The high and mighty ones, that, having gotten on the top of their hillocks as so many ants, think themselves so much the better and safer, repose confidence in their high places and strongholds, as Nebuchadnezzar did in his Babel, Edom in his clefts of the rocks, munitions of rocks, Obadiah 3, the rich fool in his heaps and hoards, Luke 12:19; these, with their false confidences, God will tread down in his anger, and trample them in his fury, as the mire of the streets; he will bring down their strength to the earth, and lay their honour in the dust, Isaiah 63:3,6.