Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 1:13

"Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O inhabitant of Lachish: she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." — Micah 1:13 (ASV)

O you inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast (steed).

Lachish was always a strong city, as its name probably denoted (likely meaning “compact”). It was one of the royal cities of the Amorites, and its king was one of the five who went out to battle with Joshua (Joshua 10:3).

It lay in the low country, the Shephelah, of Judah (Joshua 15:33, 39), between Adoraim and Azekah (2 Chronicles 11:9; 2 Chronicles 11:7), seven Roman miles south of Eleutheropolis (Onomasticon). Thus, it was probably close to the hill-country, although on the plain, perhaps partaking of the advantages of both.

Rehoboam fortified it. Amaziah fled to it from the conspiracy at Jerusalem (2 Kings 14:19) as a place of strength.

Lachish, with Azekah, alone remained when Nebuchadnezzar had taken the rest, just before the capture of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 34:7). When Sennacherib took all the fortified cities of Judah, it seems to have been his last and proudest conquest, for from it he sent his contemptuous message to Hezekiah (Isaiah 36:1–2).

The whole power of the great king seems to have been called forth to take this stronghold. The Assyrian bas-reliefs, the record of the conquests of Sennacherib, if (as the accompanying inscription is deciphered), they represent the taking of Lachish, exhibit it as “a city of great extent and importance, defended by double walls with battlements and towers, and by fortified riggings. In no other sculptures were so many armed warriors drawn up in array against a besieged city.”

“Against the fortifications, as many as ten banks or mounts had been thrown up, compactly built—and seven battering-rams had already been rolled up against the walls.”

Its situation, probably on the extremity of the plain, fitted it to be a depot for cavalry. The swift steeds, to which it was commanded to bind the chariot, are mentioned as part of the magnificence of Solomon, distinct from his ordinary horses (1 Kings 4:28 in English, 1 Kings 5:8 in Hebrew).

These steeds were used by the posts of the king of Persia (Esther 8:10, 14).

They were doubtless part of the strength of the kings of Judah, the cavalry in which their statesmen trusted instead of God. Now, its swift horses, in which it prided itself, would serve only to flee.

Probably, this is an ideal picture. Lachish is commanded to bind its chariots to horses of the utmost speed, which should carry them far away if their strength were equal to their swiftness. It had great need, for under Sennacherib it was subjected to the consequences of Assyrian conquest.

If the Assyrian accounts relate to its capture, impalement and flaying alive were among the tortures of the captive people; and Sennacherib, in his pride, awfully avenged the sins against God, whom he disbelieved.

She is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion. Jerome says: “She was at the gate through which the transgressions of Israel flooded Judah.”

How she first came to apostatize and to be the source of infection for Judah, Scripture does not tell us. She scarcely bordered on Philistia; Jerusalem lay between her and Israel. But the course of sin follows no geographical lines.

It was the greater sin for Lachish that she, locally so far removed from Israel’s sin, was the first to import the idolatries of Israel into Judah. Scripture does not say what seduced Lachish herself—whether the pride of military strength, her importance, or commercial intercourse (because of her swift steeds) with Egypt, the common parent of Israel’s and her sin.

Scripture does not give the genealogy of her sin but stamps her as the heresiarch of Judah. We know the fact from this place only: that she, apparently so removed from the occasion of sin, became, like the propagators of heresy, the author of evil, the cause of countless loss of souls.

Beginning of sin to—what a world of evil lies in these three words!