Micah 1

Micah 1:2-4 . Hear, all ye people — All ye of Israel and Judah. Hearken, O earth — Or, O land, [of Israel:] and all that therein is — That is, all its inhabitants. Let the Lord be witness against you — “I call him to witness, that I have forewarned you of the judgments that hang over your heads, unless you speedily repent. And he himself will become a witness against you, and convince you of your sins in such a manner that you shall not be able to deny the charge.” The Lord from his holy temple — Heaven, his holy habitation. The Lord cometh forth out of his place — God is said, in Scripture, to come out of his place, or heaven, when he makes his judgments or mercies to be remarkably conspicuous, by visible effects on the earth. And will tread upon the high places of the earth — He will cause places of the greatest strength to be destroyed, and men of the highest rank to be brought down. And the mountains shall be molten under him, &c. — An allusion to God’s coming down upon mount Sinai, when thunder and lightning shook the mountain, and violent rains, which accompanied this tempest, made the hills look as if they were melted down. Or the words may be referred to the general judgment, of which all particular judgments are an earnest, when the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved at Christ’s appearing.

Micah 1:5 . For the transgression of Jacob — That is, of the sons of Jacob; for the many transgressions committed among them; is all this — All these many, great, and irresistible judgments of God foretold and executed. What is the transgression of Jacob — Where is the chief cause of Israel’s sin and apostacy? Is it not Samaria — Is it not in that city, the chief seat of the kingdom, the residence of the king and his princes, who have set up the idolatry of the golden calves, and made it the established religion of the kingdom? What are the high places of Judah, &c. — Doth not the idolatrous worship, practised in the high places of Judah, receive its chief encouragement from the city of Jerusalem, even from Ahaz, and the great men who there join with him in that idolatry?

(2) Hear, all ye people. —The three-fold repetition of the appeal, “Hear ye,” seems to mark three divisions in the book: 1. “Hear, all ye people” ( Micah 1:2 ); 2. “Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob” ( Micah 3:1 ); 3. Hear ye now what the Lord saith” ( Micah 6:1 ). From his holy temple—i.e., from heaven; for “the Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven” (Psalm 11:4). Micaiah, the son of Imlah, ended his appeal to Ahab and Jehoshaphat with the words with which Micah opens his prophecy, “Hearken, O people, every one of you” (1Kings 22:28).

(4) The mountains shall be molten. —The manifestations of the presence of God are taken from the description of the giving of the Law, when “the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth” ( Psalm 97:5 ). Dean Stanley refers the imagery to the memorable earthquake mentioned in Amos 1:1 :—“Mountains and valleys are cleft asunder, and melt as in a furnace; the earth heaving like the rising waters of the Nile; the sea bursting over the land; the ground shaking and sliding as, with a succession of shocks, its solid framework reels to and fro like a drunkard” ( Jewish Church, Lect. 37).

Hear, {b} all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. (b) Because of the malice and obstinacy of the people, whom he had so often exhorted to repentance, he summons them to God's judgments, taking all creatures, and God himself as witness, that the preaching of the Prophets, which they have abused, will be avenged.