Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 6:10

"Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a scant measure that is abominable?" — Micah 6:10 (ASV)

Are there yet - Still after all the warnings and long-suffering of God, are “the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked?” “Treasures of wickedness” are treasures obtained by wickedness. Yet it also means that the wicked shall have no treasure, no fruit, but his wickedness.

He treasures up treasures, but of wickedness. As James says, You have heaped treasure together for the last days (James 5:3)—that is, of the miseries that shall come upon them (James 1:0).

The words stand in contrast to one another: “house of the wicked, treasures of wickedness,” as though the whole house of the wicked was nothing but a “treasure-house of wickedness.” In it, it began; in it and in its rewards, it shall end.

“Are there yet?” the prophet asks. Soon they shall cease to be. The treasure shall be plundered; the iniquity alone shall remain.

And the scant ephah - (literally, “ephah of leanness,” as the English margin notes) which is abominable? It is scant itself and, by the just judgment of God, produces scantness, emaciated and emaciating .

As He says, He gave them their desire, and sent leanness withal into their soul (Psalms 106:15); and James says, it shall eat your flesh as it were fire (James 5:3).

Even a pagan said, “Gain obtained by wickedness is loss.” And that is because it is “abominable” or “accursed,” or, one might say, subject to divine wrath—lying under the wrath and curse of God.

Rib.: “What they diminish from the measure, that they add to the wrath of God and the vengeance which shall come upon them; what is lacking to the measure shall be supplied out of the wrath of God.”

The Ephah was a corn-measure (Amos 8:5), containing about six bushels. The rich, in whose house it was, were the sellers. They were selling the necessaries of life dishonestly, at the price of the lives of the poor.

Our subtler ways of sin cheat ourselves, not God. In what ways do not competitive employers use the scant measure which is accursed? What else is all our competitive trade, our cheapness, our wealth, but scant measure to the poor, making their wages lean, full and overflowing with the wrath of God?