Charles Spurgeon Commentary Micah 7
Charles Spurgeon Commentary
Micah 7
Charles Spurgeon Commentary
Micah 7
"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)
It is a terrible thing for a good man to find good men growing very scarce, and to see wicked men becoming more wicked than ever. It makes him feel his loneliness very keenly, and joy seems to be banished from his heart.
"The godly man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net." — Micah 7:2 (ASV)
Those were sad times in which Micah lived; and yet, in some respects, one might be willing and even glad to live in such times, for, if ever one could be useful to one's fellows, surely it would be then. God had need of a voice like that of the prophet Micah in the days when his worship was forsaken, and the true faith had almost died out among people. Unless God had left a Micah here and there, the land would have been as Sodom, and have been made like Gomorrah. So the more unpleasant the age was to the good man, the more necessary and profitable he was to that age.
"Their hands are upon that which is evil to do it diligently; the prince asketh, and the judge [is ready] for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth the evil desire of his soul: thus they weave it together." — Micah 7:3 (ASV)
That they may do evil with both hands earnestly,
I wish the professed followers of Christ did good with both hands, that is, with every faculty, with every capacity, in every way, and at every opportunity, just as wicked men do evil with both hands earnestly.
The prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
Honesty seemed to have died out of the nation; the highest people in the land, who ought to have been beyond the power of bribery, sold the administration of justice to the highest bidder. Ah, those were ill times indeed.
"The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is [worse] than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen, even thy visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity." — Micah 7:4 (ASV)
Sin brings sorrow in its wake; and as nations will have no future as nations, God deals with national sin here on earth and visits it with national punishments.
Now that sin had become so rampant in Israel, it would be the time of their perplexity. And when sins, like chickens, come home to roost, then will be the time of the sinner's perplexity.
He lets his sins fly abroad and thinks that, like the wandering birds of the air, they will soon be gone, and he will never see them again. But they will all come home to him, and he will be made bitterly to rue the day in which he thought that he could profit by transgressing the righteous law of the Lord.
"Trust ye not in a neighbor; put ye not confidence in a friend; keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom." — Micah 7:5 (ASV)
So saturated with dishonesty had the nation become that the evil had penetrated even into domestic life, with the result that, where all should have been in a state of mutual happy confidence, the prophet felt bound to tell them that such confidence could not exist between those who appeared to be friends, or even between husbands and wives.
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