Micah 2:9

The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) The women of my people.—They spared not even the widows and fatherless, the objects of God’s tender care.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:6-11 Since they say, Prophesy not, God will take them at their word, and their sin shall be their punishment. Let the physician no longer attend the patient that will not be healed. Those are enemies, not only to God, but to their country, who silence good ministers, and stop the means of grace. What bonds will hold those who have no reverence for God's word? Sinners cannot expect to rest in a land they have polluted. You shall not only be obliged to depart out of this land, but it shall destroy you. Apply this to our state in this present world. There is corruption in the world through lust, and we should keep at a distance from it. It is not our rest: it was designed for our passage, but not for our portion; our inn, but not our home; here we have no continuing city; let us therefore arise and depart, let us seek a continuing city above. Since they will be deceived, let them be deceived. Teachers who recommend self-indulgence by their doctrine and example, best suit such sinners.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses - (literally, from her pleasant house,) each from her home. These were probably the widows of those whom they had stripped. Since the houses were their's, they were widows; and so their spoilers were at war with those whom God had committed to their special love, whom He had declared the objects of His own tender care, "the widows and the fatherless." The widows they "drove vehemently forth", as having no portion in the inheritance which God had given them, as God had driven out their enemies before them, each "from her pleasant house," the home where she had lived with her husband and children in delight and joy.

From (off) their (young) children have ye taken away My glory - Primarily, the glory, comeliness, was the fitting apparel which God had given them (as Hosea 2:11), and laid upon them , and which these oppressors stripped off from them. But it includes all the gifts of God, wherewith God would array them. Instead of the holy home of parental care, the children grew up in want and neglect, away from all the ordinances of God, it may be, in a strange land. "For ever." They never repented, never made restitution; but so they incurred the special woe of those who ill-used the unprotected, the widow, and the fatherless. The words "forever" anticipate the punishment. The punishment is according to the sin. They never ceased their oppression. They, with the generation who should come after them, should be deprived of God's "glory," and cast out of His land forever.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. The women of my people—that is, the widows of the men slain by you (Mic 2:2) ye cast out from their homes which had been their delight, and seize on them for yourselves.

from their children—that is, from the orphans of the widows.

taken away my glory—namely, their substance and raiment, which, being the fruit of God's blessing on the young, reflected God's glory. Thus Israel's crime was not merely robbery, but sacrilege. Their sex did not save the women, nor their age the children from violence.

for ever—There was no repentance. They persevered in sin. The pledged garment was to be restored to the poor before sunset (Ex 22:26, 27); but these never restored their unlawful booty.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The women; the poor disconsolate widows, whose husbands you had first slain with the sword of war, or unjustly condemned to death; or else the wives of husbands whom you had oppressed, and by perverted judgment had condemned to forfeit their estates.

Of my people: this aggravates the sin, that this was done against Israelitish women, not strangers, against those that were by peculiar provision of God’s law to be tenderly and mercifully dealt with, Exodus 22:22.

Cast out; disseised, and turned out, as if unworthy to dwell longer in their old habitations, which they pretend forfeited, as Paradise by Adam, who was therefore in this very word east out, Genesis 3:24, or as Hagar out of Abraham’s family, Genesis 21:14.

Pleasant houses; either pleasant for situation, such seats were to these as dangerous as Naboth’s vineyard was to him, or else pleasant to them because they were their own, where they enjoyed their husbands and children, and wished no more preferment, content with their beloved habitation, and domestic conveniencies,

From their children have ye taken away; you have by your violence and oppression ruined their posterity, turned their children out of houses and estates, which were secured by the law of God from any legal alienation and sale beyond the jubilee; you have confiscated them for ever.

My glory; which was the glory of my bounty to them, in use of which they did give glory to me, and by continuance of which they might have lived above contempt.

For ever; either continually you have done this, or what you have done you intend to stand for ever.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses,.... Not content to slay their husbands, they took their wives or widows captive, dispossessed them of their habitations, where they had lived delightfully with their husbands and children; so we find that, at the time before referred to, the people of Israel carried captive of their brethren two hundred thousand women, and brought them to Samaria, 2 Chronicles 28:8. Some understand this of divorce, which those men were the cause of, either by committing adultery with them, which was a just reason for their husband's divorcing them; or by frequenting their houses, which caused suspicion and jealousy:

from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever; that which God would have had glory from, and they would have given it to him on account of; as their being brought up in a religious way; their liberties, both civil and religious; their paternal estates and inheritances, and the enjoyment of their own land; and especially the worship of God in the temple, of which they were deprived by being carried away from their own country: or it may be understood of the glory that accrues to God by honourable marriage, and the bed undefiled; and the dishonour cast upon him by the contrary, as well as upon children, who may be suspected to be illegitimate.

Geneva Study Bible

The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away {k} my glory for ever.

(k) That is, their substance and living, which is God's blessing, and as it were part of his glory.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. The women of my people] i.e. the unprotected widows. A similar complaint is made in Isaiah (Isaiah 10:2).

my glory] i.e. the privileges which every Israelite possessed as a member of God’s people. The prophet implies that the children of the widows have been sold into foreign slavery, which virtually annulled their glorious birthright. ‘How could they sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - The women of my people. The prophet refers to the widows, who ought to have been protected and cared for (comp. Isaiah 10:2). The LXX., with which the Arabic agrees, renders, ἡγούμενοι λαοῦ μου, "the leaders of my people." Have ye cast out. The word expresses a violent expulsion, as Genesis 3:24. Their pleasant houses; literally, the house of their delights (Micah 1:16). The house which was very dear to them, the scene of all their joys. My glory. All the privileges which they enjoyed as God's people and his peculiar care are called "the ornament" of the Lord (comp. Ezekiel 16:14). The "glory" is by some commentators, but not so appositely, referred to vesture exclusively. These fatherless children had been ruthlessly stripped of their blessings either by being forced to grow up in want and ignorance, or by being sold into slavery and carried away from their old religious associations. Forever. The oppressors never repented or tried to make restitution; and so they incurred the special woe of those who injure the poor, the fatherless, and the widow (Pusey). The Septuagint has no connection with the present Hebrew text of this verse, reading, Ἐγγίσατε ὄρεσιν αἰωνίοις, "Draw ye near to the everlasting hills," and previously introducing a gloss, Διὰ τὰ πονηρὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα αὐτῶν ἐξώσθησαν, "They were rejected because of their evil practices." Jerome explains the Greek mystically, despairing of the literal interpretation in its present connection. Micah 2:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"But yesterday my people rises up as en enemy: off from the garment ye draw the cloak from those who pass by carelessly, averted from war. Micah 2:9. The women of my people ye drive away out of the house of their delights; from their children ye take my ornament for ever." 'Ethmūl, yesterday, lately, not equals long ago, but, as yeqōmēm shows, denoting an action that is repeated, equivalent to "again, recently." קומם is not used here in a causative sense, "to set up," but as an intensified kal, to take a standing equals to stand up or rise up. The causative view, They set up my people as an enemy (Ewald), yields no fitting sense; and if the meaning were, "My people causes me to rise up as its enemy" (Caspari), the suffixes could not be omitted. If this were the thought, it would be expressed as clearly as in Isaiah 63:10. There is no valid ground for altering the text, as Hitzig proposes. It is not stated against whom the people rise up as an enemy, but according to the context it can only be against Jehovah. This is done by robbing the peaceable travellers, as well as the widows and orphans, whereby they act with hostility towards Jehovah and excite His wrath (Exodus 22:21.; Deuteronomy 27:19). ממּוּל שׂלמה, from before, i.e., right away from, the garment. Salmâh is the upper garment; אדר equals אדּרת the broad dress-cloak. They take this away from those who pass carelessly by. שׁוּבי is an intransitive participle: averted from the war, averse to conflict, i.e., peaceably disposed (see Psalm 120:7). We have not only to think of open highway robbery, but also of their taking away the cloak in the public street from their own poor debtors, when they are walking peaceably along, suspecting nothing, for the purpose of repaying themselves. The "wives of my people" are widows, whom they deprive of house and home, and indeed widows of the people of Jehovah, in whose person Jehovah is injured. These children are fatherless orphans (עלליה with a singular suffix: the children of the widow). Hădârı̄, my ornament, i.e., the ornament which I have given them. The reference, as מעל shows, is to the garment or upper coat. The expression "for ever" may be explained from the evident allusion to the Mosaic law in Exodus 22:25, according to which the coat taken from the poor as a pledge was to be returned before sunset, whereas ungodly creditors retained it for ever.