John Calvin Commentary Micah 7:1-2

"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. 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 7:1-2 (ASV)

The meaning of the first verse is somewhat doubtful: some refer what the Prophet says to punishment, and others to the wickedness of the people. The first group thinks that the calamity with which the Lord had visited the sins of the people is lamented, as though the Prophet looked on the disordered state of the whole land. But it can be easily gathered from the second verse that the Prophet speaks here of the wickedness of the people, rather than of the punishment already inflicted. I have therefore put the two verses together, so that the full meaning may be more evident to us.

Then Woe to me! Why? I have become like the gatherings. This version is too free, or rather too unrestrained: “I have become as one who seeks to gather summer fruits and finds none,” so that, being disappointed in his hope, he burns with desire. This cannot possibly be considered the rendering of the Prophet’s words.

There is indeed some difficulty in the expressions. Their import, however, seems to be this: that the land, which the Prophet undertakes here to represent and personify, was like a field, or a garden, or a vineyard, that was empty. He therefore says that the land was stripped of all its fruit, as it is after harvest and the vintage. So by gatherings we must understand the collected fruit. Some understand the gleanings which remain, as when one carelessly leaves a few clusters on the vines; and thus, they say, a few just men remained alive on the land. But the former comparison harmonizes better with the rest of the passage, namely, that the land was now stripped of all its fruit, as it is after the harvest and the vintage. Then I have become like the gatherings of summer, that is, as in the summer, when the fruit has already been gathered; and like the clusters of the vintage, that is, when the vintage is over.

There is no cluster, he says, to eat. The Prophet refers here to the scarcity of good men; indeed, he says that there were no longer any righteous men living. For though God had always preserved some hidden seed, yet it might have been justly declared with regard to the whole people that they were like a field after gathering the grain, or a vineyard after the vintage. Some residue, indeed, remains in the field after harvest, but there are no ears of grain; and in the vineyard some bunches remain, but they are empty; nothing remains but leaves. Now this personification is very powerful when the Prophet comes forth as though he represented the land itself; for he speaks in his own name and person, Woe to me, he says, for I am like summer-gatherings! It was then the same thing as though he deplored his own nakedness and lack, since there were no longer any upright and righteous men.

In the second verse he expresses his mind more clearly: Perished, he says, has the righteous from the land, and there is none upright among men. Here now he does not personify the land. It was indeed a powerful and emphatic language when he complained at the beginning that he groaned as though the land was ashamed of its barrenness.

But the Prophet now performs the office of a teacher: Perished, he says, has the righteous from the land; there is no one upright among men; all lay in wait for blood; every one hunts his brother as with a net. In this verse, the Prophet briefly shows that all were full of both cruelty and perfidy, that there was no care for justice, as though he said, "In vain are good men sought among this people, for they are all bloody, they are all fraudulent."

When he says that they all did lay in wait for blood, he no doubt intended to show their cruelty, as though he had said that they were thirsting for blood. But when he adds that each laid wait for their brothers, he alludes to their frauds or to their perfidy.

We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet. The manner he adopts is more emphatic than if God, in his own name, had pronounced the words. For, as men were fixed, and as though drowned, in their own carelessness, the Prophet here introduces the land as speaking, which accuses its own children and confesses its own guilt. Indeed, it anticipates God’s judgment and acknowledges itself to be contaminated by its own inhabitants, so that nothing pure remained in it.