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Matthew Henry |
M I C A H.
CHAP. III.
What the apostle says of another of the prophets is true of this, who
was also his contemporary–“Esaias is very bold,”
So, in this chapter, Micah is very bold in reproving and threatening
the great men that were the ringleaders in sin; and he gives the reason
(ver. 8)
why he was so bold, because he had commission and instruction from God
to say what he said, and was carried out in it by a higher spirit and
power than his own. Magistracy and ministry are two great ordinances of
God, for good to his church, but these were both corrupted and the
intentions of them perverted; and upon those that abused them, and so
abused the church with them, the prophet is very severe, and justly so.
I. He gives them their lesson severally, reproving and threatening
princes
(ver. 1-4)
and false flattering prophets,
II. He gives them their lesson jointly, putting them together, as
acting in conjunction for the ruin of the kingdom, which they should
see the ruins of,
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1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye
princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know
judgment?
2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their
skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from
off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as
for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
4 Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them:
he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have
behaved themselves ill in their doings.
5 Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my
people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he
that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against
him.
6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a
vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine;
and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be
dark over them.
7 Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded:
yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of
God.
Princes and prophets, when they faithfully discharge the duty of their
office, are to be highly honoured above other men; but when they betray
their trust, and act contrary to it, they should hear of their faults
as well as others, and shall be made to know that there is a God above
them, to whom they are accountable; at his bar the prophet here, in his
name, arraigns them.
I. Let the princes hear their charge and their doom. The heads of
Jacob, and the princes of the house of Israel, are called
upon to hear what the prophet has to say to them,
v. 1.
The word of God has reproofs for the greatest of men, which the
ministers of that word ought to apply as there is occasion. The prophet
here has comfort in the reflection upon it, that, whatever the success
was, he had faithfully discharged his trust: And I said, Hear, O
princes! He had the testimony of his conscience for him that he had
not shrunk from his duty for fear of the face of men. He tells
them,
1. What was expected from them: Is it not for you to know
judgment? He means to do judgment, for otherwise the
knowledge of it is of no avail. “Is it not your business to administer
justice impartially, and not to know faces” (as the Hebrew
phrase for partiality and respect of persons is), “but to know
judgment, and the merits of every cause?” Or it may be taken for
granted that the heads and rulers are well acquainted with the rules of
justice, whatever others are; for they have those means of knowledge,
and have not those excuses for ignorance, which some others have, that
are poor and foolish
(Jer. v. 4);
and, if so, their transgression of the laws of justice is the more
provoking to God, for they sin against knowledge. “Is it not for you
to know judgment? Yes, it is; therefore stand still, and hear your own
judgment, and judge if it be not right, whether any thing can be
objected against it.”
2. How wretchedly they had transgressed the rules of judgment, though
they knew what they were. Their principle and disposition are bad: They
hate the good and love the evil; they hate good in others, and
hate it should have any influence on themselves; they hate to do good,
hate to have any good done, and hate those that are good and do good;
and they love the evil, delight in mischief. This being their
principle, their practice is according to it; they are very cruel and
severe towards those that are under their power, and whoever lies at
their mercy will find that they have none. They barbarously devour
those whom they should protect, and, as unfaithful shepherds, fleece
the flock they should feed; nay, instead of feeding it, they feed upon
it,
It is fit indeed that he who feeds a flock should eat of the milk of
the flock
(1 Cor. ix. 7),
but that will not content them: They eat the flesh of my people.
It is fit that they should be clothed with the wool, but that will not
serve: They flay the skin from off them,
v. 3.
By imposing heavier taxes upon them than they can bear, and exacting
them with rigour, by mulcts, and fines, and corporal punishments, for
pretended crimes, they ruined the estates and families of their
subjects, took away from some their lives, from others their
livelihoods, and were to their subjects as beasts of prey, rather than
shepherds. “They break their bones to come at the marrow, and
chop the flesh in pieces as for the pot.” This intimates
that they were,
(1.) Very ravenous and greedy for themselves, indulging themselves in
luxury and sensuality.
(2.) Very barbarous and cruel to those that were under them, not caring
whom they beggared, so they could but enrich themselves; such evil is
the love of money the root of.
3. How they might expect that God should deal with them, since they had
been thus cruel to his subjects. The rule is fixed, Those shall have
judgment without mercy that have shown no mercy
(v. 4):
“They shall cry to the Lord, but he will not hear them, in the
day of their distress, as the poor cried to them in the day of their
prosperity and they would not hear them.” There will come a time when
the most proud and scornful sinners will cry to the Lord, and
sue for that mercy which they once neither valued nor copied out. But
it will then be in vain; God will even hide his face from them at that
time, that time when they need his favour, and see themselves undone
without it. At another time they would have turned their back upon
him; but at that time he will turn his back upon them, as they have
behaved themselves ill in their doings. Note, Men cannot expect to
do ill and fare well, but may expect to find, as Adoni-bezek did, that
done to them which they did to others; for he is righteous who takes
vengeance. With the froward God will show himself froward, and he
often gives up cruel and unmerciful men into the hands of those who are
cruel and unmerciful to them, as they themselves have formerly been to
others. This agrees with
Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall cry himself
and shall not be heard; but the merciful have reason to hope that
they shall obtain mercy.
II. Let the prophets hear their charge too, and their doom; they were
such as prophesied falsely, and the princes bore rule by their means.
Observe,
1. What was their sin.
(1.) They made it their business to flatter and deceive the people:
They make my people err, lead them into mistakes, both
concerning what they should do and concerning what God would do with
them. It is ill with a people when their leaders cause them to err, and
those draw them out of the way that should guide them and go before
them in it. “They make them to err by crying peace, by telling them
that they do well, and that all shall be well with them; whereas they
are in the paths of sin, and within a step of ruin. They cry
peace, but they bite with their teeth,” which perhaps is
meant of their biting their own lips, as we are apt to do when we would
suppress something which we are ready to speak. When they cried
peace their own hearts gave them the lie, and they were just
ready to eat their own words and to contradict themselves, but they bit
with their teeth, and kept it in. They were not blind leaders of the
blind, for they saw the ditch before them, and yet led their followers
into it.
(2.) They made it all their aim to glut themselves, and serve their own
belly, as the seducers in St. Paul’s time
(Rom. xvi. 18),
for their god is their belly,
Phil. iii. 19.
They bite with their teeth, and cry peace; that is, they will
flatter and compliment those that will feed them with good bits, will
give them something to eat; but as for those that put not into their
mouths, that are not continually cramming them, they look upon them
as their enemies; to them they do not cry peace, as they do to
those whom they look upon as their benefactors, but they even
prepare war against them; against them they denounce the judgments
of God, but as they are to them, as the crafty priests of the church of
Rome, in some places, make their image either to smile or frown upon
the offerer according as his offering is. Justly is it insisted on as a
necessary qualification of a minister
(1 Tim. iii. 3, and again Tit. i. 7)
that he be not greedy of filthy lucre.
2. What is the sentence passed upon them for this sin,
It is threatened,
(1.) That they shall be involved in troubles and miseries with those to
whom they had cried peace: Night shall be upon them, a dark cold
night of calamity, such as they, in their flattery, led the people to
hope would never come. It shall be dark unto you, darker to you
than to others; the sun shall go down over the prophets, shall
go down at noon; all comfort shall depart from them, and they shall be
deprived of all hope of it. The day shall be dark over them, in
which they promised themselves light. Nor shall they be surrounded
with outward troubles only, but their mind shall be full of confusion,
and they shall be brought to their wits’ end; their heads shall be
clouded, and their own thoughts shall trouble them; and that is trouble
enough. They kept others in the dark, and now God will bring them into
the dark.
(2.) That thereby they shall be silenced, and all their pretensions to
prophecy for ever shamed. They never had any true vision; and now, the
event disproving their predictions of peace, it shall be made to appear
that they never had any, that there never was an answer of God to them,
but it was all a sham, and they were cheats and impostors. Their
reputation being thus quite sunk, their confidence would of course fail
them. And, their spirits being ruffled and confused, their invention
would fail them too; and by reason of this darkness, both without and
within too, they shall not divine, they shall not have so much
as a counterfeit vision to produce, they shall be ashamed, and
confounded, and cover their lips, as men that are quite
baffled and have nothing to say for themselves. Note, Those who deceive
others are but preparing confusion for their own faces.
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8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and
of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his
transgression, and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and
princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert
all equity.
10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof
teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet
will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among
us? none evil can come upon us.
12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house
as the high places of the forest.
Here,
I. The prophet experiences a divine power going along with him in his
work, and he makes a solemn profession and protestation of it, as that
which would justify him, and bear him out, in his plain dealing with
the princes and rulers. He would not, he durst not, make thus bold with
the great men, but that he was carried out to do it by a prophetical
impulse and impression. It was not he that said it, but God by him, and
he could not but speak the word that God put into his mouth. It comes
in likewise by way of opposition to the false prophets, who were full
of shame when they lived to see themselves proved liars, and who never
had courage to deal faithfully with the people, but flattered them in
their sins; they were sensual, not having the Spirit, but truly
(says Micah) I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord,
v. 8.
Having in himself an assurance of the truth of what he said, he said it
with assurance. Compare him with those false prophets, and you will
say, There is no comparison between them. What is the chaff to the
wheat?
Jer. xxiii. 28.
What is painted fire to real fire? Observe here,
1. What the qualifications were with which this prophet was endured: He
was full of power, and of judgment, and of might; he had an
ardent love to God and to the souls of men, a deep concern for his
glory and their salvation, and a flaming zeal against sin. He had
likewise courage to reprove it and witness against it, not fearing the
wrath either of great men or of great multitudes; whatever difficulties
or discouragements he met with, they did not deter him nor drive him
from his work; none of these things moved him. And all this was
guided by judgment and discretion; he was a man of wisdom as well as
courage; in all his preaching there was light as well as heat, and a
spirit of wisdom as well as of zeal. Thus was this man of God
thoroughly furnished for every good word he had to say, and
every good work he had to do. Those he preached to could not but
perceive him to be full both of power and judgment, for
they found both their understandings opened and their
hearts made to burn within them, with such evidence and
demonstration, and with such power, did the word come from him.
2. Whence he had these qualifications, not from and of himself, but he
was full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. Knowing that it was
indeed the Spirit of the Lord that was in him, and spoke by him,
that it was a divine revelation that he delivered, he spoke it boldly,
and as one having authority, set his face as a flint, knowing he
should be justified and borne out in what he said,
Note, Those who act honestly may act boldly; and those who are sure
that they have a commission from God need not be afraid of opposition
from men. Nay, he had not only a Spirit of prophecy, which was the
ground of his boldness, but the Spirit of sanctification endued him
with the boldness and wisdom which were requisite for him. It was not
in any strength of his own that he was strong; for who is sufficient
for these things? but in the Lord, and in the power of his
might; for from him all our sufficiency is. Are we
full of power at any time, for that which is good? It is purely by
the Spirit of the Lord, for of ourselves we are weak as water;
it is the God of Israel that gives strength and power both to his
people and to his ministers.
3. What use he made of these qualifications–this judgment and this
power; he declared to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his
sin. If transgression be found in Jacob and Israel, they must be
told of it, and it is the business of God’s prophets to tell them of
it, to cry aloud and not to spare,
Isa. lviii. 1.
Those who come to hear the word of God must be willing to be told of
their faults, and must not only give their ministers leave to deal
plainly and faithfully with them, but take it kindly, and be thankful;
but, since few have meekness enough to receive reproof, those have need
of a great deal of boldness who are to give reproofs, and must pray for
a spirit both of wisdom and might.
II. The prophet exerts this power in dealing with the heads of the
house of Jacob, both the princes and the prophets, whom he had
drawn up a high charge against in the former part of the chapter. He
repeats the summons of their attendance and attention
(v. 9),
the same that we had
v. 1,
directing himself to the princes of the house of Israel, yet he
means those of Judah; for it appears
where
is quoted) that this was spoken in Hezekiah’s kingdom; but, the ten
tribes being gone into captivity, Judah is all that is now left of
Jacob and Israel. The prophet speaks respectfully to them (hear, I
pray you) and gives them their titles of heads and
princes. Ministers must be faithful to great men in reproving
them for their sins, but they must not be rude and uncivil to them. Now
observe here,
1. The great wickedness that these heads of the house of Jacob were
guilty of, princes, priest, and prophets; in short, they
were covetous and prostituted their offices to their love of money.
(1.) The princes abhorred all judgment; they would not be
governed by any of its laws, either in their own practice or in passing
sentence upon appeals made to them; they perverted all equity,
and scorned to be under the direction or correction of justice, when it
could not be made pliable to their secular interests. When, under
pretence of doing right, they did the most palpable wrongs, then they
perverted equity, and made it serve a purpose contrary to the intention
of the founder of magistracy and fountain of power. It is laid to their
charge
(v. 10)
that they build up Zion with blood. “They pretend, in
justification of their extortion and oppressions, that they build up
Zion and Jerusalem; they add new streets and squares to the holy
cities, and adorn them; they establish and advance the public interests
both in church and state, and think that therein they do God and Israel
good service. But it is with blood and with iniquity, and
therefore it cannot prosper; nor will their intentions of good to the
city of God justify their contradictions to the law of God.” Those
mistake who think that a burning zeal for holy church, and the
propagating of the faith, will serve to consecrate robberies and
murders, massacres and depredations; no, Zion’s walls owe those no
thanks that build them up with blood and iniquity. The sin of man works
not the righteousness of God. “The office of the princes is to judge
upon appeals made to them; but they judge for reward
(v. 11);
they give judgment on the side of those that give the bribe; the most
righteous cause shall not be carried without a fee, and for a fee the
most unrighteous cause shall be carried.” Miserable is the people’s
case when the judge’s enquiry upon a cause is not, “What is to be done
in it?” but, “What is to be got by it?”
(2.) The priests’ work was to teach the people, and for that the law
had provided them a very honourable comfortable maintenance; but that
will not content them, they teach for hire over and above, and
will be hired to teach anything, as an oracle of God, which they know
will please and gain them an interest.
(3.) The prophets, it should seem, had honorary fees given them by way
of gratuity
but these prophets governed themselves in their prophesying by the
prospect of temporal advantage and that was the main thing they had in
their eye: They divine for money. Their tongues were mercenary;
they would either prophesy or let it alone, according as they found it
most for their advantage; and a man might have what oracle he would
from them if he would but pay them for it. Thus they were fit
successors of Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.
Note, Though that which is wicked can never be consecrated by a zeal
for the church, yet that which is sacred may be, and often is,
desecrated, by the love of the world. When men do that which in itself
is good, but do it for filthy lucre, it loses its excellency, and
becomes an abomination both to God and man.
2. Their vain presumption and carnal confidence, notwithstanding: They
lean upon the Lord, and because they are, in profession, his
people, they think there is neither harm nor danger in these their
wicked practices. Faith builds upon the Lord, rests in him, and relies
upon him, as the soul’s foundation; presumption only leans upon the
Lord as a prop, makes use of him to serve a turn, while still the
world is the foundation that is built upon. They speak with a great
deal of confidence,
(1.) Of their honour: “Is not the Lord among us? Have we not the
tokens of his presence with us, his temple, his ark, his lively
oracles?” They are haughty because of the holy mountain and its
dignities
as if their church-privileges would palliate the worst of practices, or
as if God’s presence with them were intended to make the priests and
people rich with the sale of their performances. It was true that the
Lord was among them by his ordinances, and this puffed them up with
pride; but, if they imagined that he was among them by his favour and
love, they were mistaken: but it is a cheat the children of men often
put upon themselves to think they have God with them, when they have by
their sin provoked him to depart from them.
(2.) They are confident of their own safety: No evil can come upon
us. Many are rocked asleep; in a fatal security by their
church-privileges, as if those would protect them in sin, and shelter
them from punishment, which are really, and will be, the greatest
aggravations both of their sin and of their punishment. If men’s having
the Lord among them will not restrain them from doing evil, it can
never secure them from suffering evil for so doing; and it is very
absurd for sinners to think that their impudence will be their
impunity.
3. The doom passed upon them for their real wickedness, notwithstanding
their imaginary protection
(v. 12):
Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field. This
is that passage which is quoted as a bold word spoken by Micah
which yet Hezekiah and his princes took well, though in another reign
it might have gone near to cost him his head; nay, they repented and
reformed, and so the execution of this threatening was prevented, and
did not come in those days.
(1.) It is the ruin of holy places that is here foretold, places that
had been highly honoured with the tokens of God’s presence and the
performances of his worship; it is Zion that shall be ploughed as a
field, the building burnt to the ground and levelled with it. Some
observe that this was literally fulfilled in the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans, when the ground on which the city stood was
ploughed up in token of its utter desolation, and that no city should
be built upon that ground without the emperor’s leave. Even
Jerusalem, the holy city, shall become heaps of ruins,
and the mountain of the house, on which the temple is built,
shall be overgrown with briars and thorns, as the high places of the
forest. If sacred places be polluted by sin, they must expect to be
wasted and ruined by the judgments of God.
(2.) It is the wickedness of those who preside in them that brings the
ruin: “It is for your sake that Zion shall be ploughed as a
field; you pretend to build up Zion, but, doing it by blood and
iniquity, you pull it down.” Note, The sin of priests and princes is
often the ruin of states and churches. Delirant reges, plectuntur
Achivi—The kings act foolishly and the people suffer for
it.
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