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Selected Verse: Micah 7:2 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Mic 7:2 |
King James |
The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
The Hebrew expresses "one merciful and good in relation to man," rather than to God.
is perished out of the earth-- (Psa 12:1). |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
The, good - or godly, or merciful, the English margin
Man - The Hebrew word contains all. It is "he who loveth tenderly and piously" God, for His own sake, and man, for the sake of God. Mercy was probably chiefly intended, since it wits to this that the prophet had exhorted, and the sins which he proceeds to speak of, are against this. But imaginary love of God without love of man, or love of man without the love of God, is mere self-deceit. "Is perished out of the earth," that is, by an untimely death. The good had either been withdrawn by God from the evil to come Isa 57:1, or had Leon cut off by those who laid wait for blood; in which case their death brought a double evil, through the guilt which such sin contracted, and then, through the loss of those who might be an example to others, and whose prayers God would hear. The loving and upright, all, who were men of mercy and truth, had ceased. They who were left, "all lie in wait for blood," literally, bloods , that is, bloodshedding; all, as far as man can see; as Elijah complains that he was left alone.
Amid the vast number of the wicked, the righteous were as though they were not. Isaiah, at the same time, complains of the like sins, and that it was as though there were none righteous; "Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips hate spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth" Isa 59:2-3. Indirectly, or directly, they destroyed life . To violence they add treachery. The good and loving had perished, and all is now violence; the upright had ceased, and all now is deceit. "They hunt every man his brother with a net." Every man is the brother of every man, because he is man, born of the same first parent, children of the same Father: yet they lay wait for one another, as hunters for wild beasts (Compare Psa 35:7; Psa 57:7; Psa 140:6; Jer 5:26). |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
| "The godly man has disappeared from the earth, and there is no more a righteous man among men. All lie in wait for blood, they hunt every man his brother with the net. Mic 7:3. Their hands are after evil, to make it good. The prince asks, and the judge is for reward; and the great man, he speaks the evil of his soul: and they twist it together." The grape and the early fig signify the good and the righteous man. חסיד is not the God-fearing man, but, according to the context, the man who cherishes love and fidelity. אבד, not "to have perished," but to be lost, to have disappeared. מן הארץ, not "out of the land," but, as the parallel בּאדם shows, from the earth, out of the world. For the fact itself, compare Psa 12:2 and Isa 57:1. They all lie in wait for blood, i.e., not that they all go about committing murder, but simply that they set their minds upon quarrels, cheating, and treachery, that they may rob their neighbour of his means of existence, so that he must perish (cf. Mic 3:2-3; Mic 2:1-2); at the same time, even murderous thoughts are not excluded. The same thing is implied in the hunting with the net. אח, the brother, is the fellow-countryman (for this figure, compare Psa 10:9; Psa 35:7-8, etc.). In Mic 7:3 the words from על הרע to להיטיב are not to be joined to what follows so as to form one sentence. Such a combination is not only opposed to the accents, but is at variance with the structure of the whole verse, which consists of several short clauses, and it does not even yield a natural thought; consequently Ewald proposes to alter the text (שׁואל). הרע is hardly the inf. hiph. "to do evil," but most likely a noun with the article, "the evil;" and the thought is therefore either "both hands are (sc., busy) with evil," or "both hands are stretched out to evil," to make it good, i.e., to carry out the evil well (היטיב as in Jer 2:33), or to give evil such a form that it shall appear to be good, or right. This thought is then made special: the prince, the judge, and the great man, i.e., the rich man and mighty man (Lev 19:15; Sa1 25:2), weave a thing to make evil good. עבּת, to weave, to twist together, after עבות, twist or string. The subject to ויעבּתוּה is to be found in the three classes already named, and not merely in the judge and the great man. There is just as little reason for this limitation as for the assumption that the great man and the prince are one person. The way in which the three twist the thing or the evil plan together is indicated in the statements of the three previous clauses. The prince asks, sc. for the condemnation of a righteous or innocent man; and the judge grants this for recompense against compensation; and the rich man co-operates by speaking havvath napshō. Havvâh in most passages is universally allowed to signify hurt, mischief, destruction; and the only question is, whether this meaning is to be traced to הוה = אוה, to breathe (Hupfeld on Psa 5:10), or to הוה, to occur, an occurrence, then specially an evil occurrence (Hengstenberg, Diss. on the Pentateuch, vol. i. p. 252). Only in Pro 10:3 and the passage before us is havvâh said to signify desire in a bad sense, or evil lust. But, as Caspari has shown, the meaning is neither necessary nor established in either of these two passages. In Pro 10:3 the meaning aerumna activa aliisque inferenda is quite sufficient; and C. B. Michaelis has adopted it for the present passage: "The great man speaks the mischief of his soul," i.e., the injury or destruction of another, for which he cherishes a desire. Nephesh, the soul as the seat of desire. הוּא is not introduced to strengthen the suffix attached to נפשׁו, "of his, yea of his soul" (Ewald, Hitzig, Umbreit); for not only are the accents against this, but also the thought, which requires no such strengthening. It is an emphatic repetition of the subject haggâdōl. The great man weaves evil with the king and judge, by desiring it, and expressing the desire in the most open manner, and thereby giving to the thing an appearance of right. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
The good man is perished out of the earth - A similar sentiment may be found, Psa 12:1; Isa 57:1. As the early fig of excellent flavor cannot be found in the advanced season of summer, or a choice cluster of grapes after vintage, so neither can the good and upright man be discovered by searching in Israel. This comparison, says Bp. Newcome, is beautifully implied.
They hunt every man his brother with a net - This appears to be an allusion to the ancient mode of duel between the retiarius and secutor. The former had a casting net, which he endeavoured to throw over the head of his antagonist, that he might then despatch him with his short sword. The other parried the cast; and when the retiarius missed, he was obliged to run about the field to get time to set his net in right order for another throw. While he ran, the other followed, that he might despatch him before he should be able to recover the proper position of his net; and hence the latter was called secutor, the pursuer, as the other was called retiarius, or the net man. I have explained this before on Job, and other places; but because it is rarely noticed by commentators, I explain the allusion here once more. Abp. Newcome by not attending to this, has translated איש את אחיהו יצודו חרם ish eth achihu yatsudu cherem, "They hunt every man his brother for his destruction;" though he put net in the margin. |
1 To the chief Musician upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
26 For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
6 I said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD.
7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
3 The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.
3 The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.
10 Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.
2 And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
33 Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.
3 That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.
9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
2 And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.
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.
1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
2 They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
3 That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
1 To the chief Musician upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.