Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 1:3

"For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth." — Micah 1:3 (ASV)

For, behold, the Lord comes forth - that is, (as we now say,) “is coming forth.” Each day of judgment, and the last also, are ever drawing near, noiselessly as the nightfall, but unceasingly. “Out of His Place.”

Dionysius: “God is hidden from us, except when He shows Himself by His Wisdom or Power of Justice or Grace, as Isaiah says, Verily, You are a God who hide Yourself (Isaiah 45:15).” He seems to be absent when He does not visibly work either in the heart within or in judgments without. To the ungodly and unbelieving He is absent, far above out of their sight (Psalms 10:5), when He does not avenge their scoffs, their sins, their irreverence.

Again, He seems to go forth when His Power is felt. Dionysius: “Thus it is said, Bow Your heavens, O Lord, and come down (Psalms 144:5; Isaiah 64:1); and the Lord says of Sodom, I will go down now and see, whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to Me (Genesis 18:21).”

Or, the Place of the Infinite God is God Himself. For the Infinite sustains Itself, nor does anything out of Itself contain It. God dwells also in light unapproachable (1 Timothy 6:16).

When then Almighty God does not manifest Himself, He abides, as it were, in ‘His own Place.’ When He manifests His Power or Wisdom or Justice by their effects, He is said ‘to go forth out of His Place,’ that is, out of His hiddenness.

Again, since the Nature of God is Goodness, it is proper and co-natural to Him to be propitious, have mercy, and spare. In this way, the Place of God is His mercy.

When then He passes from the sweetness of pity to the rigor of equity, and, on account of our sins, shows Himself severe (which is, as it were, alien from Him), He ‘goes forth out of His Place.’

Jerome: “For He who is gentle and gracious, and whose Nature it is to have mercy, is constrained, on your account, to take the seeming of hardness, which is not His.”

He comes invisibly now, in that it is He who punishes through whatever power or will of man He uses; He shows forth His Holiness through the punishment of unholiness.

But the words, which are image-language now, shall be most exactly fulfilled in the end, when, in the Person of our Lord, He shall come visibly to judge the world.

Jerome, Theoph.: “In the Day of Judgment, Christ ‘shall come down,’ according to that Nature which He took, ‘from His Place,’ the highest heavens, and shall cast down the proud things of this world.”

And will come down - not by change of place, or in Himself, but His coming will be felt in the punishment of sin. He will tread upon the high places of the earth to bring down the pride of those (Job 9:8) who, “being lifted up in their own conceit and lofty, sinning through pride and proud through sin, were yet created out of earth. For why is earth and ashes proud?” .

What seems mightiest and most firm is to God less than the dust under a person's feet. The high places were also the special scenes of unceasing idolatry.

“God treads in the good and humble, in that He dwells, walks, and feasts in their hearts (2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 3:20). But He treads upon the proud and the evil, in that He casts them down, despises, and condemns them.”