The reasons for God’s severe judgments
2
📚Woe to those who devise iniquity,and work out evil on their beds!
When morning light comes,
they do it, because it is in the power
of their hand.
2 📚And they covet 📖 fields and take
them by violence,
and covet houses
and seize them 📖;
so they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
3 📚Therefore thus says the LORD:
“See, I am devising 📖 a disaster against
this family,
from which you will not remove
your necks 📖;
nor will you walk haughtily 📖,
for it will be a time of disaster.
4 📚In that day they will take up
a proverb against you,
and mourn with a bitter lament,
and say, ‘We are utterly
ruined!
He has changed the portion
of my people.
How he has removed it
from me!
He has divided our fields to a traitor 📖.’ ”
5 📚Therefore you will have no one
in the congregation of the LORD
who will cast a measuring
line by lot 📖.
6 📚“Do not prophesy 📖”,
they say to those who prophesy.
“Do not prophesy to them”,
so that they will not be
ashamed.
7 📚“O you who are named
the house of Jacob,
is the Spirit of the LORD impatient?
Are these his deeds?
Do not my words do good to him
who walks uprightly?
2:7 Now God speaks through Micah. The people were badly mistaken if they thought God could not be angry with them. God’s words would do good only to those who were obedient to Him and straight in their dealings with others. But the wicked would not be able to escape from disaster by trying to silence God’s prophets – they would only make that disaster more certain to come.⚜
8 📚Lately my people have risen up
like an enemy 📖.
You pull off the robe with the garment
from those who pass by
feeling secure,
like men returning from war.
9 📚You cast out the women of my people
from their pleasant homes.
You have taken away my glory
from their children forever.
10 📚Arise and depart, for this is not
your rest, because it is defiled.
It will destroy you with a
great destruction.
2:10 There was no longer any security for them in the land of Israel. By their sin they had defiled and ruined it.⚜
11 📚If a man who is a liar, walking
in the spirit of falsehood,
says, ‘I will prophesy to you
of wine and strong drink’,
2:11 The people wanted to be told only what they wanted to hear, not the truth they needed to hear. Compare 2 Tim 4:3.⚜
he will become the prophet
of this people.
The future well-being of the remnant of Israel
12 📚“I will surely assemble all of you,
O Jacob. I will surely gather 📖 the remnant
of Israel.
I will put them together like the sheep 📖
of Bozrah, like the flock in the middle
of their pasture.
Because the men will be so many
they will make a great noise.
2:12 As God often did, here in the middle of prophecies of disaster He promises eventual deliverance and blessing for the people of Israel.⚜
13 📚The one who breaks will go up
before them.
They will break out, pass through
the gate, and go out by it;
and their king will pass before them,
with the LORD at their head”.
2:13 This verse probably looks forward to the end of this age. Compare Isa 11:10-16; Amos 9:14-15. “One who breaks” seems to refer to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. He will remove all obstacles to the permanent settlement of Israel in their land. “Their king” and “the LORD” (Jehovah) also refer to Him.⚜