Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 7:1

"Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat; my soul desireth the first-ripe fig." — Micah 7:1 (ASV)

Woe is me! For I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage. “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts,” Isaiah said at the same time, “is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plants” (Isaiah 5:7). Isaiah said it brought forth wild grapes; Micah, that there are only gleanings, few and poor.

It is as though Satan pressed the vineyard of the Lord, and made most of them his prey, and few were left to those who glean for Christ; “the foxes have eaten the grapes” (Song of Solomon 2:15). Some few remain too high out of their reach, or hidden behind the leaves, or, it may be, falling in the time of gathering—fouled, sullied, marred, and stained, yet left.

So in the gleaning there may be three sorts of souls: “two or three in the top of the uppermost bough” (Isaiah 17:6), which were not touched; or those unripe, which are only imperfect and poor; or those who had fallen, yet were not wholly carried away. These too are all sought with difficulty; they had escaped the gatherer’s eye, and they are few and rare. It might seem at first sight, as though there were none.

There is no cluster to eat; for the vintage is past, and the best is only like a sour grape which sets the teeth on edge.

My soul desired the first-ripe fig. These are those which, having survived the sharpness of winter, ripen early, around the end of June; they are the sweetest, but he longed for them in vain.

He addressed a carnal people, who could understand only carnal things, in terms they could understand. Our longings, though we pervert them, are God’s gift.

As they desired those things which refresh or revive the thirsty body, as their whole self was gathered into the craving for that which was to restore them, so it was with him. Such is the longing of God for man’s conversion and salvation; such is the thirst of His ministers; such are their pains in seeking, their sorrow in not finding.

Dionysius writes: “There were none through whose goodness the soul of the prophet might be spiritually refreshed, in joy at his growth in grace, as Paul says to Philemon, ‘refresh my bowels in the Lord’ (Philemon 1:20). So our Lord says in Isaiah, ‘I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain’ (Isaiah 49:4). ‘Jesus was grieved at the hardness of their hearts’ (Mark 3:5).”

Ribera says: “The first-ripe fig may be the image of the righteous of old, such as the Patriarchs or the Fathers, whom in later days we would gladly see.”