4 The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, Even your visitation, has come; Now is the time of their confusion.
For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.
You, son of man, don't be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: don't be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.
What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will you flee for help? and where will you leave your glory?
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to Yahweh for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
Tell them therefore, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but tell them, The days are at hand, and the fulfillment of every vision. For there shall be no more any false vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel.
The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, And the man who is inspired to be insane, Because of the abundance of your sins, And because your hostility is great. A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler's snare is on all of his paths, And hostility in the house of his God.
He said, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then Yahweh said to me, "The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.
For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Micah 7
Commentary on Micah 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
In this chapter,
Mic 7:1-6
This is such a description of bad times as, some think, could scarcely agree to the times of Hezekiah, when this prophet prophesied; and therefore they rather take it as a prediction of what should be in the reign of Manasseh. But we may rather suppose it to be in the reign of Ahaz (and in that reign he prophesied, ch. 1:1) or in the beginning of Hezekiah's time, before the reformation he was instrumental in; nay, in the best of his days, and when he had done his best to purge out corruptions, still there was much amiss. The prophet cries out, Woe is me! He bemoans himself that his lot was cast in such a degenerate age, and thinks it his great unhappiness that he lived among a people that were ripening apace for a ruin which many a good man would unavoidably be involved in. Thus David cries out, Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech! He laments,
Mic 7:7-13
The prophet, having sadly complained of the wickedness of the times he lived in, here fastens upon some considerations for the comfort of himself and his friends, in reference thereunto. The case is bad, but it is not desperate. Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.
Mic 7:14-20
Here is,