Albert Barnes Commentary Micah 7:17

"They shall lick the dust like a serpent; like crawling things of the earth they shall come trembling out of their close places; they shall come with fear unto Jehovah our God, and shall be afraid because of thee." — Micah 7:17 (ASV)

They shall lick the dust like a (the) serpent - To lick the dust, by itself, pictures the extreme humility of persons who cast themselves down to the very earth (Isaiah 49:23). To lick it “like the serpent” seems rather to represent the condition of those who share the serpent’s doom (Genesis 3:14; Isaiah 65:25), whose lot, namely earth and things of earth, they had chosen (Rup.).

They shall move out of their holes—or, better, shall tremble (that is, “come tremblingly”) out of their close places, whether these are strong places or prisons, as the word, varied in one vowel, means. If it refers to strong places, it means that “the enemies of God’s people should, in confusion and tumultuously with fear, leave their strongholds in which they thought themselves to be secure, not able to lift themselves up against God and those sent by Him against them.”

Like worms of the earth—literally, creeping things, or, as we say, reptiles, contemptuously. They shall be afraid of, or rather come trembling to, the Lord our God; it is not said their God, but our God, who has done such great things for us.

And they will fear because of (literally, from) You, O Lord, of whom they had before said, Where is the Lord your God?

It is doubtful whether these last words express a “servile fear,” by which a man turns away and flees from the person or thing which he fears, or whether they simply describe fear of God, the first step toward repentance. In Hosea’s words, they shall fear toward the Lord and His goodness (Hosea 3:5), the addition, “and His goodness,” determines the character of the fear. In Micah, it is not said that the fear brings them into any relation to God. He is not spoken of as becoming, in any way, their God, and Micah closes with a thanksgiving for God’s pardoning mercy, not to them but to His people.

And so the prophet ends, as he began, with the judgments of God: to those who would repent, chastisement; to the impenitent, punishment— “sentencing Samaria, guilty and not repenting” (Rup.), to perpetual captivity; to Jerusalem, guilty but repenting, promising restoration.

So from the beginning of the world God did; so He does; so He will do to the end. So He showed Himself to Cain and Abel, who both, as we all, sinned in Adam. Cain, being impenitent, He wholly cast away; Abel, being penitent, and through faith offering a better sacrifice than Cain, and “bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance, He accepted.” So He has foreshown this concerning the end (Matthew 25).

Rup.: “And that we may know how uniformly our Judge so distinguishes, at the very moment of His own death while hanging between the two thieves, the one, impenitent and blaspheming, He left; to the other, penitent and confessing, He opened the gate of paradise; and, soon after, leaving the Jewish people unrepentant, He received the repentance of the Gentiles.”

Thus the prophet parts with both out of sight: the people of God, feeding on the rich bounty and abundance of God, and His marvelous gifts of grace above and beyond nature, multiplied to them above all the wonders of former times; the enemies of God’s people looking on, not to admire, but to be ashamed—not to be healthfully ashamed, but to be willfully deaf to the voice of God.

For, however, laying the hand on the mouth might be a token of reverent silence, the deafness of the ears can hardly be other than the emblem of hardened obstinacy.

What follows, then, seems more like the unwilling creeping-forth into the Presence of God, when they cannot keep away, than conversion.

It seems to picture the reprobate, who would not hear the Voice of the Son of God and live (John 5:25), but who, in the end, will be forced to hear it out of their close places or prisons (that is, the grave) and come forth in fear, when they will say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us (Luke 23:30; Revelation 6:16).

Thus the prophet brings us to the close of all things: the gladness and joy of God’s people, the terror of His enemies, and adds only the song of thanksgiving of all the redeemed.