Micah 2:3

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) I devise an evil.—As they devise evil against their brethren, so am I devising an evil against them: they shall bow their necks under a hostile yoke.

Benson Commentary

Micah 2:3. Therefore, behold, against this family do I devise evil — As they devise mischief against others, so will I devise an evil against them, as a due punishment for their sin. As they have unjustly deprived others of their inheritances, so a conquering enemy shall dispossess them and carry them into captivity. The word family is equivalent to people, as appears from Jeremiah 1:15. From which ye shall not remove your necks — They laid snares for others, where open force would not suffice, so that the poor could not get out of their hands, but were empoverished and enslaved; and God here threatens that he will deal thus with them by the Assyrians, from whose power they should not be able to defend themselves or to escape. Neither shall ye go haughtily — You have made others hang down their heads, and so shall you now; for this time is evil — You have made it an evil time for sins committed against me, and against the poor and innocent: and I will make it an evil time for calamities and miseries on the whole family of Jacob.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-5 Woe to the people that devise evil during the night, and rise early to carry it into execution! It is bad to do mischief on a sudden thought, much worse to do it with design and forethought. It is of great moment to improve and employ hours of retirement and solitude in a proper manner. If covetousness reigns in the heart, compassion is banished; and when the heart is thus engaged, violence and fraud commonly occupy the hands. The most haughty and secure in prosperity, are commonly most ready to despair in adversity. Woe to those from whom God turns away! Those are the sorest calamities which cut us off from the congregation of the Lord, or cut us short in the enjoyment of its privileges.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as one continuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers of evil. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought; by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They do it. But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was one unbroken course of acting. And so he also uses the form, in which the Hebrews spoke of uninterrupted habits, They have coveted, they have robbed, they have taken. Now came God's part.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord - Since they oppress whole families, behold I will set Myself against this whole family ; since they devise iniquity, behold I too, Myself, by Myself, in My own Person, am devising. Very awful is it, that Almighty God sets His own Infinite Wisdom against the devices of man and employs it fittingly to punish. "I am devising no common punishment, but one to bow them down without escape; "an evil from which" - He turns suddenly to them, "ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye go haughtily." Ribera: "Pride then was the source of that boundless covetousness," since it was pride which was to be bowed down in punishment. The punishment is proportioned to the sin. They had done all this in pride; they should have the liberty and self-will wherein they had wantoned, tamed or taken from them. Like animals with a heavy yoke upon them, they should live in disgraced slavery.

The ten tribes were never able to withdraw their necks from the yoke. From the two tribes God removed it after the 70 years. But the same sins against the love of God and man brought on the same punishment. Our Lord again spake the woe against their covetousness Luke 16:13-14; Luke 11:39; Matthew 23:14, Matthew 23:23, Matthew 23:25; Mark 12:40. It still shut them out from the service of God, or from receiving Him, their Redeemer. They still spoiled the goods Hebrews 10:34 of their brethren. In the last dreadful siege , "there were insatiable longings for plunder, searching-out of the houses of the rich; murder of men and insults of women were enacted as sports; they drank down what they had spoiled, with blood." And so the prophecy was for the third time fulfilled. They who withdraw from Christ's easy yoke of obedience shall not remove from the yoke of punishment; they who, through pride, will not bow down their necks, but make them stiff, shall be bent low, that they go not upright or haughtily anymore Isaiah 2:11. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that Day. For it is an evil time. Perhaps he gives a more special meaning to the words of Amos Amo 5:13, that a time of moral evil will be, or will end in, a time, full of evil, that is, of sorest calamity.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. against this family—against the nation, and especially against those reprobated in Mic 2:1, 2.

I devise an evil—a happy antithesis between God's dealings and the Jews' dealings (Mic 2:1). Ye "devise evil" against your fellow countrymen; I devise evil against you. Ye devise it wrongfully, I by righteous retribution in kind.

from which ye shall not remove your necks—as ye have done from the law. The yoke I shall impose shall be one which ye cannot shake off. They who will not bend to God's "easy yoke" (Mt 11:29, 30), shall feel His iron yoke.

go haughtily—(Compare Note, see on [1152]Jer 6:28). Ye shall not walk as now with neck haughtily uplifted, for the yoke shall press down your "neck."

this time is evil—rather, "for that time shall be an evil time," namely, the time of the carrying away into captivity (compare Am 5:13; Eph 5:16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Therefore; for this great, inhuman, cruel oppression. Thus saith the Lord; the Lord by his prophet declareth what he will do, and adviseth them to consider it, for it is a most manifest retaliation or punishing the offenders, so that every one may see God deals with them, as they dealt with their oppressed neighbours.

Against this family do I devise an evil; they devised, now God will devise; theirs was evil against others, God will devise evil against them; theirs was evil of sin, God’s is an evil of just punishment, against their family, as they devised evil against the family of their poor neighbours. God will bring the Assyrian power upon them.

From which ye shall not remove your necks; they laid snares where open force would not suffice, so that the poor could not get out of their hands, but were impoverished and enslaved; so God will deal with them by the Assyrian, from whose power they shall not escape.

Neither shall ye go haughtily; you have made others hang the head, so shall you now. For this time is evil; you great ones have made it all evil time, evil for sin against me and the innocent, and for cries and griefs to the poor; I will make it an evil time, full of penal calamities and miseries on the whole family or posterity of Jacob.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord, behold, against this family do I devise an evil,.... Because of those evils of covetousness, oppression, and injustice, secretly devised, and deliberately committed, the Lord, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, declares, and would have it observed, that he had devised an evil of punishment against the whole nation of Israel, the ten tribes particularly, among whom these sins greatly prevailed; even an invasion of their land by the Assyrians, and the carrying of them captive from it into foreign parts:

from which ye shall not remove your necks; that is, they should not be able to deliver themselves from it; they would not be able to stop the enemy in his progress, having entered their land; nor oblige him to break up the siege of their city, before which he would sit, and there continue till he had taken it; and being carried captive by him, they would never be able to free themselves from the yoke of bondage put upon them, and under which they remain unto this day. The allusion is to beasts slipping their necks out of the collar or yoke put upon them: these sons of Belial had broke off the yoke of God's commandments, and now he will, put another yoke upon them, they shall never be able to cast off until the time of the restitution of all things, when all Israel shall be saved:

neither shall ye go haughtily; as they now did, in an erect posture, with necks stretched out, and heads lifted up high, and looking upon others with scorn and contempt; but hereafter it should be otherwise, their heads would hang down, their countenances be dejected, and their backs bowed with the burdens upon them:

for this time is evil; very calamitous, afflictive, and distressing; and so not a time for pride and haughtiness, but for dejection and humiliation; see Ephesians 5:16.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. Therefore, &c.] The ‘devising’ of the dishonest grandees is met by the ‘devising’ of Jehovah; oppression is punished by oppression. Comp. the striking correspondences between sins and their punishments in Isaiah 5.

against this family] The grandees, as the heads and representatives of the nation (Isaiah 9:15), have involved all ranks in a common ruin. Israel is disparagingly called ‘this family’ (instead of ‘my family’). Comp. Isaiah 6:10; Isaiah 28:14; Isaiah 29:13, Jeremiah 8:5; Jeremiah 13:10 (where the phrase is used of Judah), Isaiah 8:6; Isaiah 9:16 (where it seems to refer to the northern kingdom), and Jeremiah 33:24 (where it is applied even to the heathen neighbours of the Jews). Here it evidently refers to the northern and southern kingdoms alike—‘the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt’ (Amos 3:1).

your necks] The ‘evil,’ then, is a foreign yoke; comp. Jeremiah 27:12. They are likened to cattle (as Amos 4:1).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - The sin shall be followed by its appropriate punishment. As they devised evil, God will devise a penalty. This family. The whole people (Amos 3:1). An evil. A chastisement, a judgment (Amos 3:6). Ye. The prophet suddenly addresses them, the "family." Your necks. He speaks of the calamity as a heavy, galling yoke, from which they should be unable to free themselves (comp. Hosea 10:11). This yoke is their conquest and exile at the hands of foreigners (comp. Jeremiah 27:12). Haughtily. With head erect. Septuagint, ὀρθοί. Their pride shall be brought low. This time is evil; full of calamity, which is announced in the following verses. The words occur in Amos 5:13, but the evil there spoken of is moral (comp. Ephesians 5:16). Micah 2:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I devise evil concerning this family, from which ye shall not withdraw your necks, and not walk loftily, for it is an evil time. Micah 2:4. In that day will men raise against you a proverb, and lament a lamentation. It has come to pass, they say; we are waste, laid waste; the inheritance of my people he exchanges: how does he withdraw it from me! To the rebellious one he divides our field." The punishment introduced with lâkhēn (therefore) will correspond to the sin. Because they reflect upon evil, to deprive their fellow-men of their possessions, Jehovah will bring evil upon this generation, lay a heavy yoke upon their neck, out of which they will not be able to necks, and under which they will not be able to walk loftily, or with extended neck. המּשׁפּחה הזּאת is not this godless family, but the whole of the existing nation, whose corrupt members are to be exterminated by the judgment (see Isaiah 29:20.). The yoke which the Lord will bring upon them is subjugation to the hostile conqueror of the land and the oppression of exile (see Jeremiah 27:12). Hâlakh rōmâh, to walk on high, i.e., with the head lifted up, which is a sign of pride and haughtiness. Rōmâh is different from קוממיּוּת, an upright attitude, in Leviticus 27:13. כּי עת רעה, as in Amos 5:13, but in a different sense, is not used of moral depravity, but of the distress which will come upon Israel through the laying on of the yoke. Then will the opponents raise derisive songs concerning Israel, and Israel itself will bewail its misery. The verbs yissâ', nâhâh, and 'âmar are used impersonally. Mâshâl is not synonymous with nehı̄, a mournful song (Ros.), but signifies a figurative saying, a proverb-song, as in Isaiah 14:4; Habakkuk 2:6. The subject to ישּׂא is the opponents of Israel, hence עליכם; on the other hand, the subject to nâhâh and 'âmar is the Israelites themselves, as נשׁדּנוּ teaches. נהיה is not a feminine formation from נהי, a mournful song, lamentum lamenti, i.e., a mournfully mournful song, as Rosenmller, Umbreit, and the earlier commentators suppose; but the niphal of היה (cf. Daniel 8:27): actum est! it is all over! - an exclamation of despair (Le de Dieu, Ewald, etc.); and it is written after 'âmar, because נהיה as an exclamation is equivalent in meaning to an object. The omission of the copula Vav precludes our taking 'âmar in connection with what follows (Maurer). The following clauses are a still further explanation of נהיה: we are quite laid waste. The form נשׁדּנוּ for נשׁדּונוּ is probably chosen simply to imitate the tone of lamentation better (Hitzig). The inheritance of my people, i.e., the land of Canaan, He (Jehovah) changes, i.e., causes it to pass over to another possessor, namely, to the heathen. The words receive their explanation from the clauses which follow: How does He cause (sc., the inheritance) to depart from me! Not how does He cause me to depart. לשׁובב is not an infinitive, ad reddendum, or restituendum, which is altogether unsuitable, but nomen verbale, the fallen or rebellious one, like שׁובבה in Jeremiah 31:22; Jeremiah 49:4. This is the term applied by mourning Israel to the heathenish foe, to whom Jehovah apportions the fields of His people. The withdrawal of the land is the just punishment for the way in which the wicked great men have robbed the people of their inheritance.