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Selected Verse: Micah 4:9 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
Mic 4:9	Strong Concordance	Now why dost thou cry [07321] out aloud [07452]? is there no king [04428] in thee? is thy counsellor [03289] perished [06]? for pangs [02427] have taken [02388] thee as a woman in travail [03205].
	King James	Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Addressed to the daughter of Zion, in her consternation at the approach of the Chaldeans. is there no king in thee?--asked tauntingly. There is a king in her; but it is the same as if there were none, so helpless to devise means of escape are he and his counsellors [MAURER]. Or, Zion's pains are because her king is taken away from her (Jer 52:9; Lam 4:20; Eze 12:13) [CALVIN]. The former is perhaps the preferable view (compare Jer 49:7). The latter, however, describes better Zion's kingless state during her present long dispersion (Hos 3:4-5).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Addressed to the daughter of Zion, in her consternation at the approach of the Chaldeans.

is there no king in thee?--asked tauntingly. There is a king in her; but it is the same as if there were none, so helpless to devise means of escape are he and his counsellors [MAURER]. Or, Zion's pains are because her king is taken away from her (Jer 52:9; Lam 4:20; Eze 12:13) [CALVIN]. The former is perhaps the preferable view (compare Jer 49:7). The latter, however, describes better Zion's kingless state during her present long dispersion (Hos 3:4-5).

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Now - The prophet places himself in the midst of their deepest sorrows, and out of them he promises comfort. "Why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no King in thee? is thy Counsellor perished?" . Is then all lost, because thou hast no visible king, none to counsel thee or consult for thee? . Very remarkably he speaks of their "King and Counsellor" as one, as if to say, "When all beside is gone, there is One who abides. Though thou be a captive, God will not forsake thee. When thou hadst no earthly king, "the Lord thy God was thy King" Sa1 12:12. He is the First, and He is the Last. When thou shalt have no other, He, thy King, ceaseth not to be." Montanus: "Thou shouldest not fear, so long as He, who counselleth for thee, liveth; but He liveth forever." Thy "Counsellor," He, who is called "Counsellor" Isa 9:6, who counselleth for thee, who counselleth thee, will, if thou obey His counsel, make birth-pangs to end in joy. For pangs have taken thee, as a woman in travail - Resistless, remediless, doubling the whole frame, redoubled until the end, for which God sends them, is accomplished, and then ceasing in joy. The truest comfort, amid all sorrow, is in owning that the travail-pains must be, but that the reward shall be afterward. Montanus: "It is meet to look for deliverance from God's mercy, as certainly as for punishment from our guilt; and that the more, since He who foretold both, willingly saves, punishes unwillingly." So the prophets adds.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
But before this takes place, the daughter Zion will lose her king, and wander into captivity to Babylon; but there she will be redeemed by the Lord out of the power of her enemies. Mic 4:9. "Now why dost thou cry a cry? Is there no king in thee, or is thy counsellor perished, that pangs have seized thee like the woman in labour? Mic 4:10. Writhe and break forth, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labour! For how wilt thou go out of the city and dwell in the field, and come to Babel? there wilt thou be rescued; there will Jehovah redeem thee out of the hand of thine enemies." From this glorious future the prophet now turns his eye to the immediate future, to proclaim to the people what will precede this glorification, viz., first of all, the loss of the royal government, and the deportation of the people to Babylon. If Micah, after announcing the devastation of Zion in Mic 3:12, has offered to the faithful a firm ground of hope in the approaching calamities, by pointing to the highest glory as awaiting it in the future, he now guards against the abuse which might be made of this view by the careless body of the people, who might either fancy that the threat of punishment was not meant so seriously after all, or that the time of adversity would very speedily give place to a much more glorious state of prosperity, by depicting the grievous times that are still before them. Beholding in spirit the approaching time of distress as already present, he hears a loud cry, like that of a woman in labour, and inquires the cause of this lamentation, and whether it refers to the loss of her king. The words are addressed to the daughter Zion, and the meaning of the rhetorical question is simply this: Zion will lose her king, and be thrown into the deepest mourning in consequence. The loss of the king was a much more painful thing for Israel than for any other nation, because such glorious promises were attached to the throne, the king being the visible representative of the grace of God, and his removal a sign of the wrath of God and of the abolition of all the blessings of salvation which were promised to the nation in his person. Compare Lam 4:20, where Israel calls the king its vital breath (Hengstenberg). יועץ (counsellor) is also the king; and this epithet simply gives prominence to that which the Davidic king had been to Zion (cf. Isa 9:5, where the Messiah is designated as "Counsellor" par excellence). But Zion must experience this pain: writhe and break forth. Gōchı̄ is strengthened by chūlı̄, and is used intransitively, to break forth, describing the pain connected with the birth as being as it were a bursting of the whole nature (cf. Jer 4:31). It is not used transitively in the sense of "drive forth," as Hitzig and others suppose; for the determination that Jerusalem would submit, and the people be carried away, could not properly be represented as a birth or as a reorganization of things. With the words כּי עתּה וגו the prophet leaves the figure, and predicts in literal terms the catastrophe awaiting the nation. עתּה (now), repeated from Lam 4:9, is the ideal present, which the prophet sees in spirit, but which is in reality the near or more remote future. קריה, without an article, is a kind of proper name, like urbs for Rome (Caspari). In order to set forth the certainty of the threatened judgment, and at the same time the greatness of the calamity in the most impressive manner, Micah fills up the details of the drama: viz., going out of the city, dwelling in the field, without shelter, delivered up to all the chances of weather, and coming to Babel, carried thither without delay. Going out of the city presupposes the conquest of the city by the enemy; since going out to surrender themselves to the enemy (Kg2 24:12; Sa1 11:3) does not fit in with the prophetic description, which is not a historical description in detail. Nevertheless Israel shall not perish. There (shâm, i.e., even in Babel) will the Lord its God deliver it out of the hand of its foes. The prediction that the daughter Zion, i.e., the nation of Israel which was governed from Zion, and had its centre in Zion - the covenant nation which, since the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, existed in Judah only - should be carried away to Babylon, and that at a time when Assyria was in the field as the chief enemy of Israel and the representative of the imperial power, goes so far beyond the bounds of the political horizon of Micah's time, that it cannot be accounted for from any natural presentiment. It is true that it has an analogon in Isa 34:6-7, where Isaiah predicts to king Hezekiah in the most literal terms the carrying away of all his treasures, and of his sons (descendants), to Babylon. At the same time, this analogy is not sufficient to explain the prediction before us; for Isaiah's prophecy was uttered during the period immediately following the destruction of the Assyrian forces in front of Jerusalem and the arrival of Babylonian ambassadors in Jerusalem, and had a point of connection in these events, which indicated the destruction of the Assyrian empire and the rise of Babylon in its stead, at all events in the germ; whereas no such connecting link exists in the case of Micah's prophecy, which was unquestionably uttered before these events. It has therefore been thought, that in Mic 3:12 Micah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem, and here in Mic 4:10 the carrying away of Judah to Babylon by the Assyrians; and this opinion, that Micah expected the judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah to be executed by the Assyrians, and not by the Babylonians, has been supported partly by such passages as Mic 5:4-5, and Jer 26:18-19, and partly by the circumstance that Micah threatens his own corrupt contemporaries with the judgment which he predicts on account of their sins; whereas in his time the Assyrians were the only possible executors of a judgment upon Israel who were then standing on the stage of history (Caspari). But these arguments are not decisive. All that can be inferred from Mic 5:4-5, where Asshur is mentioned as the representative of all the enemies of Israel, and of the power of the world in its hostility to the people of God in the Messianic times, is that at the time of Micah the imperial power in its hostility to the kingdom of God was represented by Assyria; but it by no means follows that Assyria would always remain the imperial power, so that it could only be from her that Micah could expect the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of Judah to Babylon. Again, Jer 26:18, Jer 26:19 - where the chief men of Judah, in order to defend the prophet Jeremiah, quote Micah's prophecy, with the remark that king Hezekiah did not put him to death in consequence, but feared the Lord and besought His face, so that the Lord repented of the evil which He had spoken concerning Jerusalem - simply proves that these chief men referred Micah's words to the Assyrians, and attributed the non-fulfilment of the threatened judgment by the Assyrians to Hezekiah's penitence and prayer, and that this was favoured by the circumstance that the Lord answered the prayer of the king, by assuring him that the Assyrian army should be destroyed (Isa 37:21.). But whether the opinion of these chief men as to the meaning and fulfilment of Micah's prophecy (Mic 3:12) was the correct one or not, cannot be decided from the passage quoted. Its correctness is apparently favoured, indeed, by the circumstance that Micah threatened the people of his own time with the judgment (for your sakes shall Zion be ploughed into a field, etc.). Now, if he had been speaking of a judgment upon Judah through the medium of the Babylonians, "he would (so Caspari thinks) not only have threatened his contemporaries with a judgment which could not fall upon them, since it was not possible till after their time, inasmuch as the Assyrians were on the stage in his day; but he would also have been most incomprehensibly silent as to the approaching Assyrian judgment, of which Isaiah spoke again and again." This argument falls to the ground with the untenable assumptions upon which it is founded. Micah neither mentions the Assyrians nor the Babylonians as executing the judgment, nor does he say a word concerning the time when the predicted devastation or destruction of Jerusalem will occur. In the expression בּגללכם, for your sakes (Mic 3:12), it is by no means affirmed that it will take place in his time through the medium of the Assyrians. The persons addressed are the scandalous leaders of the house of Israel, i.e., of the covenant nation, and primarily those living in his own time, though by no means those only, but all who share their character and ungodliness, so that the words apply to succeeding generations quite as much as to his contemporaries. The only thing that would warrant our restricting the prophecy to Micah's own times, would be a precise definition by Micah himself of the period when Jerusalem would be destroyed, or his expressly distinguishing his own contemporaries from their sons and descendants. But as he has done neither the one nor the other, it cannot be said that, inasmuch as the destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of the people was not effected by the Assyrians, but by the Babylonians (Chaldaeans), he would have been altogether silent as to the approaching Assyrian judgment, and only threatened them with the Chaldaean catastrophe, which did not take place till a long time afterwards. His words refer to all the judgments, which took place from his own time onwards till the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of the people to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. The one-sided reference of the prophecy to the Assyrians is simply based upon an incorrect idea of the nature of prophecy, and its relation to the fulfilment, and involves the prophet Micah in an irreconcilable discrepancy between himself and his contemporary the prophet Isaiah, who does indeed predict the severe oppression of Judah by the Assyrians, but at the same time foretels the failure of the plans of these foes to the people of Jehovah, and the total destruction of their army. This contradiction, with the consequence to which it would inevitably lead, - namely, that if one of the prophets predicted the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, whereas the other prophesied that it would not be destroyed by them, the two contemporary prophets would necessarily lead the people astray, and render both the truth of their contradictory utterances and their own divine mission doubtful, - cannot be removed by the assumption that Isaiah uttered the prophecies in ch. 28-32 at a somewhat later period, after Micah had published his book, and the terribly severe words of Micah in Mic 3:12 had produced repentance. For Isaiah had predicted that the Assyrian would not conquer Jerusalem, but that his army would be destroyed under its walls, not only in Isaiah 28-32, at the time when the Assyrians are approaching with threatening aspect under Shalmaneser or Sennacherib, but much earlier than that, - namely, in the time of Ahaz, in Isaiah 10:5-12:6. Moreover, in Isaiah 28-32 there is not a single trace that Micah's terrible threatening had produced such repentance, that the Lord was able to withdraw His threat in consequence, and predict through Isaiah the rescue of Jerusalem from the Assyrian. On the contrary, Isaiah scourges the evil judges and false prophets quite as severely in Isa 28:7. and Isa 29:9-12 as Micah does in Mic 3:1-3 and Mic 3:5-8. And lastly, although the distinction between conditional prophecies and those uttered unconditionally is, generally speaking, correct enough, and is placed beyond all doubt by Jer 18:7-10; there is nothing in the addresses and threatenings of the two prophets to indicate that Micah uttered his threats conditionally, i.e., in case there should be no repentance, whereas Isaiah uttered his unconditionally. Moreover, such an explanation is proved to be untenable by the fact, that in Micah the threat of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the desolation of the temple mountain (Mic 3:12) stands in the closest connection with the promise, that at the end of the days the mountain of God's house will be exalted above all mountains, and Jehovah reign on Zion as king for ever (Mic 4:1-3 and Mic 7:1). If this threat were only conditional, the promise would also have only a conditional validity; and the final glorification of the kingdom of God would be dependent upon the penitence of the great mass of the people of Israel, - a view which is diametrically opposed to the real nature of the prophecies of both, yea, of all the prophets. The only difference between Isaiah and Micah in this respect consists in the fact that Isaiah, in his elaborate addresses, brings out more distinctly the attitude of the imperial power of Assyria towards the kingdom of God in Israel, and predicts not only that Israel will be hard pressed by the Assyrians, but also that the latter will not overcome the people of God, but will be wrecked upon the foundation-stone laid by Jehovah in Zion; whereas Micah simply threatens the sinners with judgment, and after the judgment predicts the glorification of Zion in grand general terms, without entering more minutely into the attitude of the Assyrians towards Israel. In the main, however, Micah goes hand in hand with his contemporary Isaiah. In Isa 32:14, Isaiah also foretels the devastation, or rather the destruction, of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the fact that he has more than once announced the deliverance of the city of God from Asshur, and that without getting into contradiction with himself. For this double announcement may be very simply explained from the fact that the judgments which Israel had yet to endure, and the period of glory to follow, lay, like a long, deep diorama, before the prophet's mental eye; and that in his threatenings he plunged sometimes more, sometimes less, deeply into those judgments which lay in perspective before him (see Delitzsch on Isaiah, at Isa 32:20). The same thing applies to Micah, who goes to a great depth both in his threats and promises, not only predicting the judgment in all its extremity, - namely, the utter destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of the people to Babel, - but also the salvation in its ultimate perfection, viz., the glorification of Zion. We must therefore not restrict his threats in Mic 3:12 and Mic 4:10 even to the Chaldaean catastrophe, nor the promise of Israel's deliverance in Babel out of the hands of its foes to the liberation of the Jews from Babylon, which was effected by Cyrus, and their return to Palestine under Zerubbabel and Ezra; but must also extend the threat of punishment to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and the attendant dispersion of the Jews over all the world, and the redemption out of Babel promised in Mic 4:10 to that deliverance of Israel which, in the main, is in the future still. These two judgments and these two deliverances are comprehended in an undivided unity in the words of the prophet, Babel being regarded not only in its historical character, but also in its typical significance, as the beginning and the hearth of the kingdom of the world. Babel has this double significance in the Scriptures from the very commencement. Even the building of the city with a tower intended to reach to heaven was a work of human pride, and an ungodly display of power (Gen 11:4.); and after its erection Babel was made by Nimrod the beginning of the empire of the world (Gen 10:10). It was from these two facts that Babel became the type of the imperial power, and not because the division of the human race into nations with different languages, and their dispersion over the whole earth, had their origin there (see A. ch. Lmmert, Babel, das Thier und der falsche Prophet. Goth. 1862, p. 36ff.); and it is in this typical significance of Babel that we have to seek not only for the reason for the divine purpose to banish the people of God to Babel, when they were given up to the power of the kingdom of the world, but also for a point of connection for the prophetic announcement when this purpose had been communicated to the prophet's mind. Micah accordingly predicts the carrying away of the daughter Zion to Babel, and her deliverance there out of the power of her enemies, not because Babel along with Nineveh was the metropolis of the world-empire of his time, or a chief city of that empire, but because Babel, from its very origin, was a type and symbol of the imperial power. That the words of Micah, in their deepest sense, should be so interpreted, is not only warranted, but necessitated, by the announcement which follows in Mic 4:11-13 of the victorious conflict of Zion with many nations, which points far beyond the conflicts of the Jews in the times succeeding the captivity.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

But before this takes place, the daughter Zion will lose her king, and wander into captivity to Babylon; but there she will be redeemed by the Lord out of the power of her enemies. Mic 4:9. "Now why dost thou cry a cry? Is there no king in thee, or is thy counsellor perished, that pangs have seized thee like the woman in labour? Mic 4:10. Writhe and break forth, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labour! For how wilt thou go out of the city and dwell in the field, and come to Babel? there wilt thou be rescued; there will Jehovah redeem thee out of the hand of thine enemies." From this glorious future the prophet now turns his eye to the immediate future, to proclaim to the people what will precede this glorification, viz., first of all, the loss of the royal government, and the deportation of the people to Babylon. If Micah, after announcing the devastation of Zion in Mic 3:12, has offered to the faithful a firm ground of hope in the approaching calamities, by pointing to the highest glory as awaiting it in the future, he now guards against the abuse which might be made of this view by the careless body of the people, who might either fancy that the threat of punishment was not meant so seriously after all, or that the time of adversity would very speedily give place to a much more glorious state of prosperity, by depicting the grievous times that are still before them. Beholding in spirit the approaching time of distress as already present, he hears a loud cry, like that of a woman in labour, and inquires the cause of this lamentation, and whether it refers to the loss of her king. The words are addressed to the daughter Zion, and the meaning of the rhetorical question is simply this: Zion will lose her king, and be thrown into the deepest mourning in consequence. The loss of the king was a much more painful thing for Israel than for any other nation, because such glorious promises were attached to the throne, the king being the visible representative of the grace of God, and his removal a sign of the wrath of God and of the abolition of all the blessings of salvation which were promised to the nation in his person. Compare Lam 4:20, where Israel calls the king its vital breath (Hengstenberg). יועץ (counsellor) is also the king; and this epithet simply gives prominence to that which the Davidic king had been to Zion (cf. Isa 9:5, where the Messiah is designated as "Counsellor" par excellence). But Zion must experience this pain: writhe and break forth. Gōchı̄ is strengthened by chūlı̄, and is used intransitively, to break forth, describing the pain connected with the birth as being as it were a bursting of the whole nature (cf. Jer 4:31). It is not used transitively in the sense of "drive forth," as Hitzig and others suppose; for the determination that Jerusalem would submit, and the people be carried away, could not properly be represented as a birth or as a reorganization of things. With the words כּי עתּה וגו the prophet leaves the figure, and predicts in literal terms the catastrophe awaiting the nation. עתּה (now), repeated from Lam 4:9, is the ideal present, which the prophet sees in spirit, but which is in reality the near or more remote future. קריה, without an article, is a kind of proper name, like urbs for Rome (Caspari). In order to set forth the certainty of the threatened judgment, and at the same time the greatness of the calamity in the most impressive manner, Micah fills up the details of the drama: viz., going out of the city, dwelling in the field, without shelter, delivered up to all the chances of weather, and coming to Babel, carried thither without delay. Going out of the city presupposes the conquest of the city by the enemy; since going out to surrender themselves to the enemy (Kg2 24:12; Sa1 11:3) does not fit in with the prophetic description, which is not a historical description in detail. Nevertheless Israel shall not perish. There (shâm, i.e., even in Babel) will the Lord its God deliver it out of the hand of its foes.

The prediction that the daughter Zion, i.e., the nation of Israel which was governed from Zion, and had its centre in Zion - the covenant nation which, since the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, existed in Judah only - should be carried away to Babylon, and that at a time when Assyria was in the field as the chief enemy of Israel and the representative of the imperial power, goes so far beyond the bounds of the political horizon of Micah's time, that it cannot be accounted for from any natural presentiment. It is true that it has an analogon in Isa 34:6-7, where Isaiah predicts to king Hezekiah in the most literal terms the carrying away of all his treasures, and of his sons (descendants), to Babylon. At the same time, this analogy is not sufficient to explain the prediction before us; for Isaiah's prophecy was uttered during the period immediately following the destruction of the Assyrian forces in front of Jerusalem and the arrival of Babylonian ambassadors in Jerusalem, and had a point of connection in these events, which indicated the destruction of the Assyrian empire and the rise of Babylon in its stead, at all events in the germ; whereas no such connecting link exists in the case of Micah's prophecy, which was unquestionably uttered before these events. It has therefore been thought, that in Mic 3:12 Micah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem, and here in Mic 4:10 the carrying away of Judah to Babylon by the Assyrians; and this opinion, that Micah expected the judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah to be executed by the Assyrians, and not by the Babylonians, has been supported partly by such passages as Mic 5:4-5, and Jer 26:18-19, and partly by the circumstance that Micah threatens his own corrupt contemporaries with the judgment which he predicts on account of their sins; whereas in his time the Assyrians were the only possible executors of a judgment upon Israel who were then standing on the stage of history (Caspari). But these arguments are not decisive. All that can be inferred from Mic 5:4-5, where Asshur is mentioned as the representative of all the enemies of Israel, and of the power of the world in its hostility to the people of God in the Messianic times, is that at the time of Micah the imperial power in its hostility to the kingdom of God was represented by Assyria; but it by no means follows that Assyria would always remain the imperial power, so that it could only be from her that Micah could expect the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of Judah to Babylon. Again, Jer 26:18, Jer 26:19 - where the chief men of Judah, in order to defend the prophet Jeremiah, quote Micah's prophecy, with the remark that king Hezekiah did not put him to death in consequence, but feared the Lord and besought His face, so that the Lord repented of the evil which He had spoken concerning Jerusalem - simply proves that these chief men referred Micah's words to the Assyrians, and attributed the non-fulfilment of the threatened judgment by the Assyrians to Hezekiah's penitence and prayer, and that this was favoured by the circumstance that the Lord answered the prayer of the king, by assuring him that the Assyrian army should be destroyed (Isa 37:21.). But whether the opinion of these chief men as to the meaning and fulfilment of Micah's prophecy (Mic 3:12) was the correct one or not, cannot be decided from the passage quoted. Its correctness is apparently favoured, indeed, by the circumstance that Micah threatened the people of his own time with the judgment (for your sakes shall Zion be ploughed into a field, etc.). Now, if he had been speaking of a judgment upon Judah through the medium of the Babylonians, "he would (so Caspari thinks) not only have threatened his contemporaries with a judgment which could not fall upon them, since it was not possible till after their time, inasmuch as the Assyrians were on the stage in his day; but he would also have been most incomprehensibly silent as to the approaching Assyrian judgment, of which Isaiah spoke again and again." This argument falls to the ground with the untenable assumptions upon which it is founded. Micah neither mentions the Assyrians nor the Babylonians as executing the judgment, nor does he say a word concerning the time when the predicted devastation or destruction of Jerusalem will occur. In the expression בּגללכם, for your sakes (Mic 3:12), it is by no means affirmed that it will take place in his time through the medium of the Assyrians. The persons addressed are the scandalous leaders of the house of Israel, i.e., of the covenant nation, and primarily those living in his own time, though by no means those only, but all who share their character and ungodliness, so that the words apply to succeeding generations quite as much as to his contemporaries. The only thing that would warrant our restricting the prophecy to Micah's own times, would be a precise definition by Micah himself of the period when Jerusalem would be destroyed, or his expressly distinguishing his own contemporaries from their sons and descendants. But as he has done neither the one nor the other, it cannot be said that, inasmuch as the destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of the people was not effected by the Assyrians, but by the Babylonians (Chaldaeans), he would have been altogether silent as to the approaching Assyrian judgment, and only threatened them with the Chaldaean catastrophe, which did not take place till a long time afterwards. His words refer to all the judgments, which took place from his own time onwards till the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of the people to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. The one-sided reference of the prophecy to the Assyrians is simply based upon an incorrect idea of the nature of prophecy, and its relation to the fulfilment, and involves the prophet Micah in an irreconcilable discrepancy between himself and his contemporary the prophet Isaiah, who does indeed predict the severe oppression of Judah by the Assyrians, but at the same time foretels the failure of the plans of these foes to the people of Jehovah, and the total destruction of their army.

This contradiction, with the consequence to which it would inevitably lead, - namely, that if one of the prophets predicted the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, whereas the other prophesied that it would not be destroyed by them, the two contemporary prophets would necessarily lead the people astray, and render both the truth of their contradictory utterances and their own divine mission doubtful, - cannot be removed by the assumption that Isaiah uttered the prophecies in ch. 28-32 at a somewhat later period, after Micah had published his book, and the terribly severe words of Micah in Mic 3:12 had produced repentance. For Isaiah had predicted that the Assyrian would not conquer Jerusalem, but that his army would be destroyed under its walls, not only in Isaiah 28-32, at the time when the Assyrians are approaching with threatening aspect under Shalmaneser or Sennacherib, but much earlier than that, - namely, in the time of Ahaz, in Isaiah 10:5-12:6. Moreover, in Isaiah 28-32 there is not a single trace that Micah's terrible threatening had produced such repentance, that the Lord was able to withdraw His threat in consequence, and predict through Isaiah the rescue of Jerusalem from the Assyrian. On the contrary, Isaiah scourges the evil judges and false prophets quite as severely in Isa 28:7. and Isa 29:9-12 as Micah does in Mic 3:1-3 and Mic 3:5-8. And lastly, although the distinction between conditional prophecies and those uttered unconditionally is, generally speaking, correct enough, and is placed beyond all doubt by Jer 18:7-10; there is nothing in the addresses and threatenings of the two prophets to indicate that Micah uttered his threats conditionally, i.e., in case there should be no repentance, whereas Isaiah uttered his unconditionally. Moreover, such an explanation is proved to be untenable by the fact, that in Micah the threat of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the desolation of the temple mountain (Mic 3:12) stands in the closest connection with the promise, that at the end of the days the mountain of God's house will be exalted above all mountains, and Jehovah reign on Zion as king for ever (Mic 4:1-3 and Mic 7:1). If this threat were only conditional, the promise would also have only a conditional validity; and the final glorification of the kingdom of God would be dependent upon the penitence of the great mass of the people of Israel, - a view which is diametrically opposed to the real nature of the prophecies of both, yea, of all the prophets. The only difference between Isaiah and Micah in this respect consists in the fact that Isaiah, in his elaborate addresses, brings out more distinctly the attitude of the imperial power of Assyria towards the kingdom of God in Israel, and predicts not only that Israel will be hard pressed by the Assyrians, but also that the latter will not overcome the people of God, but will be wrecked upon the foundation-stone laid by Jehovah in Zion; whereas Micah simply threatens the sinners with judgment, and after the judgment predicts the glorification of Zion in grand general terms, without entering more minutely into the attitude of the Assyrians towards Israel.

In the main, however, Micah goes hand in hand with his contemporary Isaiah. In Isa 32:14, Isaiah also foretels the devastation, or rather the destruction, of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the fact that he has more than once announced the deliverance of the city of God from Asshur, and that without getting into contradiction with himself. For this double announcement may be very simply explained from the fact that the judgments which Israel had yet to endure, and the period of glory to follow, lay, like a long, deep diorama, before the prophet's mental eye; and that in his threatenings he plunged sometimes more, sometimes less, deeply into those judgments which lay in perspective before him (see Delitzsch on Isaiah, at Isa 32:20). The same thing applies to Micah, who goes to a great depth both in his threats and promises, not only predicting the judgment in all its extremity, - namely, the utter destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of the people to Babel, - but also the salvation in its ultimate perfection, viz., the glorification of Zion. We must therefore not restrict his threats in Mic 3:12 and Mic 4:10 even to the Chaldaean catastrophe, nor the promise of Israel's deliverance in Babel out of the hands of its foes to the liberation of the Jews from Babylon, which was effected by Cyrus, and their return to Palestine under Zerubbabel and Ezra; but must also extend the threat of punishment to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and the attendant dispersion of the Jews over all the world, and the redemption out of Babel promised in Mic 4:10 to that deliverance of Israel which, in the main, is in the future still. These two judgments and these two deliverances are comprehended in an undivided unity in the words of the prophet, Babel being regarded not only in its historical character, but also in its typical significance, as the beginning and the hearth of the kingdom of the world. Babel has this double significance in the Scriptures from the very commencement. Even the building of the city with a tower intended to reach to heaven was a work of human pride, and an ungodly display of power (Gen 11:4.); and after its erection Babel was made by Nimrod the beginning of the empire of the world (Gen 10:10). It was from these two facts that Babel became the type of the imperial power, and not because the division of the human race into nations with different languages, and their dispersion over the whole earth, had their origin there (see A. ch. Lmmert, Babel, das Thier und der falsche Prophet. Goth. 1862, p. 36ff.); and it is in this typical significance of Babel that we have to seek not only for the reason for the divine purpose to banish the people of God to Babel, when they were given up to the power of the kingdom of the world, but also for a point of connection for the prophetic announcement when this purpose had been communicated to the prophet's mind. Micah accordingly predicts the carrying away of the daughter Zion to Babel, and her deliverance there out of the power of her enemies, not because Babel along with Nineveh was the metropolis of the world-empire of his time, or a chief city of that empire, but because Babel, from its very origin, was a type and symbol of the imperial power. That the words of Micah, in their deepest sense, should be so interpreted, is not only warranted, but necessitated, by the announcement which follows in Mic 4:11-13 of the victorious conflict of Zion with many nations, which points far beyond the conflicts of the Jews in the times succeeding the captivity.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Now - Now I have promised such great things to you. No king - Thou hast lost thy king Zedekiah, but thy God, thy king is with thee. Thy counsellor - Hast thou none among thy wise counsellors left? Yet the Wonderful Counsellor is with thee. Messiah, the wisdom of his father, hath the conduct of thy sufferings, deliverance and re - establishment.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Is there no King in thee? - None. And why? Because thou hast rejected Jehovah thy king. Is thy counsellor perished? - No: but thou hast rejected the words and advices of the prophets. Pangs have taken thee - He is speaking of the desolations that should take place when the Chaldeans should come against the city; and hence he says, "Thou shalt go to Babylon;" ye shall be cast out of your own land, and sent slaves to a foreign country, He represents the people under the notion of a woman in travail.

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⁴ For the children [01121] of Israel [03478] shall abide [03427] many [07227] days [03117] without a king [04428], and without a prince [08269], and without a sacrifice [02077], and without an image [04676], and without an ephod [0646], and without teraphim [08655]:
⁵ Afterward [0310] shall the children [01121] of Israel [03478] return [07725], and seek [01245] the LORD [03068] their God [0430], and David [01732] their king [04428]; and shall fear [06342] the LORD [03068] and his goodness [02898] in the latter [0319] days [03117].

⁷ Concerning Edom [0123], thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] of hosts [06635]; Is wisdom [02451] no more in Teman [08487]? is counsel [06098] perished [06] from the prudent [0995]? is their wisdom [02451] vanished [05628]?

¹³ My net [07568] also will I spread [06566] upon him, and he shall be taken [08610] in my snare [04686]: and I will bring [0935] him to Babylon [0894] to the land [0776] of the Chaldeans [03778]; yet shall he not see [07200] it, though he shall die [04191] there.

²⁰ The breath [07307] of our nostrils [0639], the anointed [04899] of the LORD [03068], was taken [03920] in their pits [07825], of whom we said [0559], Under his shadow [06738] we shall live [02421] among the heathen [01471].

⁹ Then they took [08610] the king [04428], and carried him up [05927] unto the king [04428] of Babylon [0894] to Riblah [07247] in the land [0776] of Hamath [02574]; where he gave [01696] judgment [04941] upon him.

⁶ For unto us a child [03206] is born [03205], unto us a son [01121] is given [05414]: and the government [04951] shall be upon his shoulder [07926]: and his name [08034] shall be called [07121] Wonderful [06382], Counsellor [03289], The mighty [01368] God [0410], The everlasting [05703] Father [01], The Prince [08269] of Peace [07965].

¹² And when ye saw [07200] that Nahash [05176] the king [04428] of the children [01121] of Ammon [05983] came [0935] against you, ye said [0559] unto me, Nay; but a king [04428] shall reign [04427] over us: when the LORD [03068] your God [0430] was your king [04428].

¹¹ Now also many [07227] nations [01471] are gathered [0622] against thee, that say [0559], Let her be defiled [02610], and let our eye [05869] look [02372] upon Zion [06726].
¹² But they know [03045] not the thoughts [04284] of the LORD [03068], neither understand [0995] they his counsel [06098]: for he shall gather [06908] them as the sheaves [05995] into the floor [01637].
¹³ Arise [06965] and thresh [01758], O daughter [01323] of Zion [06726]: for I will make [07760] thine horn [07161] iron [01270], and I will make [07760] thy hoofs [06541] brass [05154]: and thou shalt beat in pieces [01854] many [07227] people [05971]: and I will consecrate [02763] their gain [01215] unto the LORD [03068], and their substance [02428] unto the Lord [0113] of the whole earth [0776].

¹⁰ And the beginning [07225] of his kingdom [04467] was Babel [0894], and Erech [0751], and Accad [0390], and Calneh [03641], in the land [0776] of Shinar [08152].

⁴ And they said [0559], Go to [03051], let us build [01129] us a city [05892] and a tower [04026], whose top [07218] may reach unto heaven [08064]; and let us make [06213] us a name [08034], lest we be scattered abroad [06327] upon the face [06440] of the whole earth [0776].

¹⁰ Be in pain [02342], and labour to bring forth [01518], O daughter [01323] of Zion [06726], like a woman in travail [03205]: for now shalt thou go forth [03318] out of the city [07151], and thou shalt dwell [07931] in the field [07704], and thou shalt go [0935] even to Babylon [0894]; there shalt thou be delivered [05337]; there the LORD [03068] shall redeem [01350] thee from the hand [03709] of thine enemies [0341].

¹² Therefore shall Zion [06726] for your sake [01558] be plowed [02790] as a field [07704], and Jerusalem [03389] shall become heaps [05856], and the mountain [02022] of the house [01004] as the high places [01116] of the forest [03293].

²⁰ Blessed [0835] are ye that sow [02232] beside all waters [04325], that send forth [07971] thither the feet [07272] of the ox [07794] and the ass [02543].

¹⁴ Because the palaces [0759] shall be forsaken [05203]; the multitude [01995] of the city [05892] shall be left [05800]; the forts [06076] and towers [0975] shall be for dens [04631] for [05704] ever [05769], a joy [04885] of wild asses [06501], a pasture [04829] of flocks [05739];

¹ Woe [0480] is me! for I am as when they have gathered [0625] the summer fruits [07019], as the grapegleanings [05955] of the vintage [01210]: there is no cluster [0811] to eat [0398]: my soul [05315] desired [0183] the firstripe fruit [01063].

¹ But in the last [0319] days [03117] it shall come to pass, that the mountain [02022] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068] shall be established [03559] in the top [07218] of the mountains [02022], and it shall be exalted [05375] above the hills [01389]; and people [05971] shall flow [05102] unto it.
² And many [07227] nations [01471] shall come [01980], and say [0559], Come [03212], and let us go up [05927] to the mountain [02022] of the LORD [03068], and to the house [01004] of the God [0430] of Jacob [03290]; and he will teach [03384] us of his ways [01870], and we will walk [03212] in his paths [0734]: for the law [08451] shall go forth [03318] of Zion [06726], and the word [01697] of the LORD [03068] from Jerusalem [03389].
³ And he shall judge [08199] among many [07227] people [05971], and rebuke [03198] strong [06099] nations [01471] afar off [07350]; and they shall beat [03807] their swords [02719] into plowshares [0855], and their spears [02595] into pruninghooks [04211]: nation [01471] shall not lift up [05375] a sword [02719] against nation [01471], neither shall they learn [03925] war [04421] any more.

⁷ At what instant [07281] I shall speak [01696] concerning a nation [01471], and concerning a kingdom [04467], to pluck up [05428], and to pull down [05422], and to destroy [06] it;
⁸ If that nation [01471], against whom I have pronounced [01696], turn [07725] from their evil [07451], I will repent [05162] of the evil [07451] that I thought [02803] to do [06213] unto them.
⁹ And at what instant [07281] I shall speak [01696] concerning a nation [01471], and concerning a kingdom [04467], to build [01129] and to plant [05193] it;
¹⁰ If it do [06213] evil [07451] in my sight [05869], that it obey [08085] not my voice [06963], then I will repent [05162] of the good [02896], wherewith I said [0559] I would benefit [03190] them.

⁵ Thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] concerning the prophets [05030] that make my people [05971] err [08582], that bite [05391] with their teeth [08127], and cry [07121], Peace [07965]; and he that putteth [05414] not into their mouths [06310], they even prepare [06942] war [04421] against him.
⁶ Therefore night [03915] shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision [02377]; and it shall be dark [02821] [02821] unto you, that ye shall not divine [07080]; and the sun [08121] shall go down [0935] over the prophets [05030], and the day [03117] shall be dark [06937] over them.
⁷ Then shall the seers [02374] be ashamed [0954], and the diviners [07080] confounded [02659]: yea, they shall all cover [05844] their lips [08222]; for there is no answer [04617] of God [0430].
⁸ But truly [0199] I am full [04390] of power [03581] by the spirit [07307] of the LORD [03068], and of judgment [04941], and of might [01369], to declare [05046] unto Jacob [03290] his transgression [06588], and to Israel [03478] his sin [02403].

¹ And I said [0559], Hear [08085], I pray you, O heads [07218] of Jacob [03290], and ye princes [07101] of the house [01004] of Israel [03478]; Is it not for you to know [03045] judgment [04941]?
² Who hate [08130] the good [02896], and love [0157] the evil [07451]; who pluck off [01497] their skin [05785] from off them, and their flesh [07607] from off their bones [06106];
³ Who also eat [0398] the flesh [07607] of my people [05971], and flay [06584] their skin [05785] from off them; and they break [06476] their bones [06106], and chop them in pieces [06566], as for the pot [05518], and as flesh [01320] within [08432] the caldron [07037].

⁹ Stay [04102] yourselves, and wonder [08539]; cry ye out [08173], and cry [08173]: they are drunken [07937], but not with wine [03196]; they stagger [05128], but not with strong drink [07941].
¹⁰ For the LORD [03068] hath poured out [05258] upon you the spirit [07307] of deep sleep [08639], and hath closed [06105] your eyes [05869]: the prophets [05030] and your rulers [07218], the seers [02374] hath he covered [03680].
¹¹ And the vision [02380] of all is become unto you as the words [01697] of a book [05612] that is sealed [02856], which men deliver [05414] to one that is learned [03045], saying [0559], Read [07121] this, I pray thee: and he saith [0559], I cannot [03201]; for it is sealed [02856]:
¹² And the book [05612] is delivered [05414] to him that is not learned [03045] [05612], saying [0559], Read [07121] this, I pray thee: and he saith [0559], I am not learned [03045].

⁷ But they [0428] also have erred [07686] through wine [03196], and through strong drink [07941] are out of the way [08582]; the priest [03548] and the prophet [05030] have erred [07686] through strong drink [07941], they are swallowed up [01104] of [04480] wine [03196], they are out of the way [08582] through strong drink [07941]; they err [07686] in vision [07203], they stumble [06328] in judgment [06417].

²¹ Then Isaiah [03470] the son [01121] of Amoz [0531] sent [07971] unto Hezekiah [02396], saying [0559], Thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] God [0430] of Israel [03478], Whereas thou hast prayed [06419] to me against Sennacherib [05576] king [04428] of Assyria [0804]:

¹⁹ Did Hezekiah [02396] king [04428] of Judah [03063] and all Judah [03063] put him at all [04191] to death [04191]? did he not fear [03373] the LORD [03068], and besought [02470] the LORD [03068] [06440], and the LORD [03068] repented [05162] him of the evil [07451] which he had pronounced [01696] against them? Thus [0587] might we procure [06213] great [01419] evil [07451] against our souls [05315].

⁴ And he shall stand [05975] and feed [07462] in the strength [05797] of the LORD [03068], in the majesty [01347] of the name [08034] of the LORD [03068] his God [0430]; and they shall abide [03427]: for now shall he be great [01431] unto the ends [0657] of the earth [0776].
⁵ And this man shall be the peace [07965], when the Assyrian [0804] shall come [0935] into our land [0776]: and when he shall tread [01869] in our palaces [0759], then shall we raise [06965] against him seven [07651] shepherds [07462], and eight [08083] principal [05257] men [0120].

¹⁸ Micah [04320] the Morasthite [04183] prophesied [05012] in the days [03117] of Hezekiah [02396] king [04428] of Judah [03063], and spake [0559] to all the people [05971] of Judah [03063], saying [0559], Thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] of hosts [06635]; Zion [06726] shall be plowed [02790] like a field [07704], and Jerusalem [03389] shall become heaps [05856], and the mountain [02022] of the house [01004] as the high places [01116] of a forest [03293].
¹⁹ Did Hezekiah [02396] king [04428] of Judah [03063] and all Judah [03063] put him at all [04191] to death [04191]? did he not fear [03373] the LORD [03068], and besought [02470] the LORD [03068] [06440], and the LORD [03068] repented [05162] him of the evil [07451] which he had pronounced [01696] against them? Thus [0587] might we procure [06213] great [01419] evil [07451] against our souls [05315].

⁶ The sword [02719] of the LORD [03068] is filled [04390] with blood [01818], it is made fat [01878] with fatness [02459], and with the blood [01818] of lambs [03733] and goats [06260], with the fat [02459] of the kidneys [03629] of rams [0352]: for the LORD [03068] hath a sacrifice [02077] in Bozrah [01224], and a great [01419] slaughter [02874] in the land [0776] of Idumea [0123].
⁷ And the unicorns [07214] shall come down [03381] with them, and the bullocks [06499] with the bulls [047]; and their land [0776] shall be soaked [07301] with blood [01818], and their dust [06083] made fat [01878] with fatness [02459].

³ And the elders [02205] of Jabesh [03003] said [0559] unto him, Give us seven [07651] days [03117]' respite [07503], that we may send [07971] messengers [04397] unto all the coasts [01366] of Israel [03478]: and then, if there be no man to save [03467] us, we will come out [03318] to thee.

¹² And Jehoiachin [03078] the king [04428] of Judah [03063] went out [03318] to the king [04428] of Babylon [0894], he, and his mother [0517], and his servants [05650], and his princes [08269], and his officers [05631]: and the king [04428] of Babylon [0894] took [03947] him in the eighth [08083] year [08141] of his reign [04427].

⁹ They that be slain [02491] with the sword [02719] are better [02896] than they that be slain [02491] with hunger [07458]: for these [01992] pine away [02100], stricken [01856] through for want of the fruits [08570] of the field [07704].

³¹ For I have heard [08085] a voice [06963] as of a woman in travail [02470], and the anguish [06869] as of her that bringeth forth her first child [01069], the voice [06963] of the daughter [01323] of Zion [06726], that bewaileth [03306] herself, that spreadeth [06566] her hands [03709], saying, Woe [0188] is me now! for my soul [05315] is wearied [05888] because of murderers [02026].

⁵ For every battle [05430] of the warrior [05431] is with confused noise [07494], and garments [08071] rolled [01556] in blood [01818]; but this shall be with burning [08316] and fuel [03980] of fire [0784].

⁹ Now why dost thou cry [07321] out aloud [07452]? is there no king [04428] in thee? is thy counsellor [03289] perished [06]? for pangs [02427] have taken [02388] thee as a woman in travail [03205].