Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 1:15

"I will yet bring unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah, him that shall possess thee: the glory of Israel shall come even unto Adullam." — Micah 1:15 (ASV)

Yet will I bring an heir—(the heir, him whom God had appointed to be the heir, Sennacherib)—to you, O inhabitant of Mareshah Mareshah. (As the original form of its name denotes, it lay on the summit of a hill. “Its ruins only were still seen,” in the time of Eusebius and Jerome, “in the second mile from Eleutheropolis” (Onomasticon)).

“Foundations still remain on the south-eastern part of the remarkable Tell, south of Beth-Jibrin.” Rehoboam also fortified it (2 Chronicles 11:8). Zerah the Ethiopian had come to it (2 Chronicles 14:9 and following), probably to besiege it, when Asa met him, and God smote the Ethiopians before him in the valley of Zephathah there. In the wars of the Maccabees, it was in the hands of the Edomites. Its capture and that of Adora are mentioned as the last act of the war, before the Edomites submitted to John Hyrcanus and were incorporated into Israel. It was a powerful city when the Parthians took it.

As Micah writes the name, it looked nearer to the word “inheritance.” Mareshah (inheritance) shall yet have the heir of God’s appointment: the enemy.

It shall not inherit the land, as promised to the faithful, but shall itself be inherited, its people dispossessed. While it (and so also the soul now) held fast to God, they were the heritage of the Lord by His gifts and grace. When, of their own free will, those who were once God’s heritage become slaves of sin, they passed and still pass, against their will, into the possession of another master, the Assyrian or Satan.

He (that is, the heir, the enemy) shall come to Adullam, the glory of Israel—that is, he who shall dispossess Mareshah shall come right up to Adullam, where, as in a place of safety, the glory of Israel, all in which she gloried, should be laid up. Adullam was a very ancient city, being mentioned in the history of the patriarch Judah (Genesis 38:1, Genesis 38:12, Genesis 38:20), and a royal city (Joshua 12:15).

It too lay in the Shephelah (Joshua 15:35). It was said to be 10 (according to Eusebius) or 12 (according to Jerome) miles east of Eleutheropolis; but this location leaves hardly any room for it in the Shephelah. It was one of the 15 cities fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:7) and one of the 16 towns (with their dependent villages) in which Judah settled after the captivity (Nehemiah 11:30). It contained the whole army of Judas Maccabeus .

Like Lachish, it probably had the double advantages of proximity to both the hills and the plain, seated perhaps at the roots of the hills, since near it, undoubtedly, was the large cave of Adullam, named after it. The line of caves fit for human habitation, which extended from Eleutheropolis to Petra, began westward of it: “The valley which runs up from Eleutheropolis eastward is full of large caves; some would hold thousands of men.”

“They are very extensive, and some of them had evidently been inhabited.”: “The outer chamber of one cavern was 270 feet long by 126 wide; and behind this were recesses and galleries, probably leading to other chambers which we could not explore. The massive roof was supported by misshapen pieces of the native limestone left for that purpose, and at some places was domed all the way through to the surface, admitting both light and air by the roof.” The name of Adullam suggested the memory of that cave, the refuge of the Patriarch David, the first of their line of kings, in extreme isolation and peril of his life. There—the refuge now of the remaining glory of Israel, its wealth, its trust, its boast—the foe should come. And so there remained only one common dirge for all.