Micah 2:5

Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) Thou shalt have none . . .—i.e., thou shalt have no part or inheritance in the congregation of the Lord—apparently referring to the ancient division of the land by lot.

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

Therefore thou shalt have none that shall east a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord - Thou, in the first instance, is the impenitent Jew of that day. God had promised by Hosea to restore Judah; shortly after, the prophet himself foretells it Micah 2:12. Now he forewarns these and such as these, that they would have no portion in it. They had "neither part nor lot in this matter" Acts 8:21. They, the not-Israel then, were the images and ensamples of the not-Israel afterward, those who seem to be God's people and are not; members of the body, not of the soul of the Church; who have a sort of faith, but have not love. Such was afterward the Israel after the flesh, which was broken off, while the true Israel was restored, passing out of themselves into Christ. Such, at the end, shall be those, who, being admitted by Christ into "their portion," renounce the world in word not in deed. Such shall have "no portion forever "in the congregation of the Lord." For "nothing defiled shall enter there, nor whatsoever worketh abomination or a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life" Revelation 21:27.

The ground of their condemnation is their resistance to light and known truth. These not only "entered not in" Luke 11:52, themselves, but, being hinderers of God's word, them that were entering in, they hindered.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. Therefore—resumed from Mic 2:3. On account of your crimes described in Mic 2:1, 2.

thou—the ideal individual ("me," Mic 2:4), representing the guilty people in whose name he spoke.

none that … cast a cord by lot—none who shall have any possession measured out.

in the congregation of the Lord—among the people consecrated to Jehovah. By covetousness and violence (Mic 2:2) they had forfeited "the portion of Jehovah's people." This is God's implied answer to their complaint of injustice (Mic 2:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Therefore; because your sins, so great, universal, and incorrigible, have provoked God to frame and design this desolation against you, and because he will punish you according to your ways.

Thou; either oppressor, spoken thus as to one, that it might comprehend every one of them, who are described Micah 2:2, or else this thou is the whole family, spoken of Micah 2:3; perhaps both these may best be meant here.

None that shall cast a cord by lot; none that shall ever return to this land, to claim an inheritance there, or to see it allotted by line, and given to them to possess it. The prophet here alludes to the manner of dividing fields and inheritance of old in use among them, as in Joshua’s time. So both the whole family in general, and the great ones, oppressors and extortioners, are more particularly menaced with an utter and perpetuated exclusion out of the land in which they sinned, and whence they are carried captives; whoever do, neither they, nor their posterity, shall possess inheritances in it.

In the congregation of the Lord; they should no more be the congregation of the Lord, nor should their children be so, or stand in the congregation of the Lord at any time hereafter, to claim their portion among God’s people. Thus they are rejected and disinherited, and this to this day is verified on the main body of this people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot,.... This confirms what was before delivered in a parabolical way, and as a lamentation; and is spoken either to the false prophet, as Kimchi; who should not be, nor have any posterity to inherit by lot the land of Israel; or to those oppressors that took away houses and fields from others, these should have no part nor lot in the land any more; or rather to the whole, people of Israel, who should no more inherit their land after their captivity, as they have not to this day. The allusion is to the distribution of the land by lot, and the dividing of it by a cord or line, as in Joshua's time; but now there should be no land in the possession of Israelites to be divided among them; nor any people to divide it to, being scattered up and down in the world, and so no need of any person to be employed in such service; nor any sanhedrim or court of judicature to apply unto for a just and equal division and distribution, who perhaps may be meant in the next clause:

in the congregation of the Lord; unless this is to be understood of the body of the people, who were formerly called the congregation of the Lord, Deuteronomy 23:1; though now they had forfeited this character, and are only called so ironically, as some think. Aben Ezra interprets it, when the Lord returns the captivity of his people; and so Kimchi, who applies it to the false prophet, as before observed, who at this time should have no part nor lot in the land.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in {c} the congregation of the LORD.

(c) You will have no more lands to divide as you had in times past, and as you used to measure them in the Jubilee.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. Therefore thou shall have none, &c.] Because the Israelites have violated the divinely sanctioned law of land-tenure, ‘therefore’ they shall have no future opportunity of redistributing the soil in accordance with equity. And this, because the ‘congregation of Jehovah,’ from which such a redistribution should proceed, is itself about to be dissolved.

that shall cast a cord by lot] Rather, that shall cast the measuring-line upon a lot (i.e. an allotment); alluding to the original distribution of Canaan by lot. Of course, the redistribution of the land in the year of Jubilee was governed, not by lot, but by regard for the old family-rights; still the primitive term ‘lot’ held its ground (so Psalm 16:5; Psalm 125:3).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - Therefore thou. BECAUSE thou, the tyrannical, oppressive grandee (vers. 1, 2), hast dealt with thy neighbour's land unjustly, therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord (the line) by lot (for a lot); i.e. thou shalt have no more inheritance in Israel. The "line" is the measuring line used in dividing land, as Amos 7:17. The reference is to the original distribution of the land by lot in Joshua's time (see Joshua 14:2, etc.). In the congregation of the Lord. The Lord's own people, whose polity was now about to be dissolved. Hitzig, Reuss, and Orelli suppose that this verse contains a threat against Micah himself on the part of the ungodly Jews, intimating that they will punish him for presuming to prophesy against them, and that he shall die without leaving children. But this seems far fetched and inadmissible. Micah 2:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Therefore wilt thou have none to cast a measure for the lot in the congregation of Jehovah." With lâkhēn (therefore) the threat, commenced with lâkhēn in Micah 2:3, is resumed and applied to individual sinners. The whole nation is not addressed in לך, still less the prophet, as Hitzig supposes, but every individual among the tyrannical great men (Micah 2:1, Micah 2:2). The singular is used instead of the plural, to make the address more impressive, that no one may imagine that he is excepted from the threatened judgment. For a similar transition from the plural to the singular, see Micah 3:10. The expression, to cast the measure begōrâl, i.e., in the nature of a lot (equivalent to for a lot, or as a lot), may be explained on the ground that the land was divided to the Israelites by lot, and then the portion that fell to each tribe was divided among the different families by measure. The words are not to be taken, however, as referring purely to the future, as Caspari supposes, i.e., to the time when the promised land would be divided afresh among the people on their return. For even if the prophet does proclaim in Micah 2:12, Micah 2:13 the reassembling of Israel and its restoration to its hereditary land, this thought cannot be arbitrarily taken for granted here. We therefore regard the words as containing a general threat, that the ungodly will henceforth receive no further part in the inheritance of the Lord, but that they are to be separated from the congregation of Jehovah.