Micah 2:2
 Micah 2:2 
New International Version (©2011)
They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud people of their homes, they rob them of their inheritance.

New Living Translation (©2007)
When you want a piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone's house, you take it by fraud and violence. You cheat a man of his property, stealing his family's inheritance.

English Standard Version (©2001)
They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
They covet fields and then seize them, And houses, and take them away. They rob a man and his house, A man and his inheritance.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
They covet fields and seize them; they also take houses. They deprive a man of his home, a person of his inheritance.

International Standard Version (©2012)
They covet fields and seize them; they covet houses, and grab them, too. They harass the valiant man, along with his household, an individual and his estate.

NET Bible (©2006)
They confiscate the fields they desire, and seize the houses they want. They defraud people of their homes, and deprive people of the land they have inherited.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
They desire [other people's] fields, so they seize them. They desire [people's] houses, so they take them. They cheat a man and his family, a man and his inheritance.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

American King James Version
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

American Standard Version
And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they have coveted fields, and taken them by violence, and houses they have forcibly taken away: and oppressed a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.

Darby Bible Translation
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away; and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

English Revised Version
And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Webster's Bible Translation
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

World English Bible
They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Young's Literal Translation
And they have desired fields, And they have taken violently, And houses, and they have taken away, And have oppressed a man and his house, Even a man and his inheritance.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-5 Woe to the people that devise evil during the night, and rise early to carry it into execution! It is bad to do mischief on a sudden thought, much worse to do it with design and forethought. It is of great moment to improve and employ hours of retirement and solitude in a proper manner. If covetousness reigns in the heart, compassion is banished; and when the heart is thus engaged, violence and fraud commonly occupy the hands. The most haughty and secure in prosperity, are commonly most ready to despair in adversity. Woe to those from whom God turns away! Those are the sorest calamities which cut us off from the congregation of the Lord, or cut us short in the enjoyment of its privileges.


Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - They carry out by open violence the fraud which they have devised and planned (comp. Isaiah 5:8; Amos 4:1). Covet fields. Compare the case of Ahab and Naboth (1 Kings 21.). The commandment against coveting (Exodus 20:17) taught the Jews that God regarded sins of thought as well as of action. The Law forbade the alienation of landed property and the transfer of estates from tribe to tribe (Leviticus 25:23-28; Numbers 36:7). A rich man might buy a poor man's estate subject to the law of jubilee; but these grandees seem to have forced the sale of property, or else seized it by force or fraud. Oppress; Vulgate, calumniabantur. The Hebrew word involves the idea of violence.


Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they covet fields, and take them by violence,.... The fields of their poor neighbours, which lie near them, and convenient for them; they wish they were theirs, and they contrive ways and means to get them into their possession; and if they cannot get them by fair means, if they cannot persuade them to sell them, or at their price, they will either use some crafty method to get them from them, or they will take them away by force and violence; as Ahab got Naboth's vineyard from him:

and houses, and take them away; they covet the houses of their neighbours also, and take the same course to get them out of their hands, and add them to their own estates:

so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage; not only dispossess him of his house to dwell in, but of his paternal inheritance, what he received from his ancestors, and should have transmitted to his posterity, being unalienable; and so distressed a man and his family for the present, and his posterity after him. The Vulgate Latin version is, "they calumniate a man and his house"; which seems to be designed to make it agree with the story of Ahab, 1 Kings 21:13.


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Parallelism, "Take by violence," answers to "take away"; "fields" and "houses," to "house" and "heritage" (that is, one's land).


Micah 2:2 Parallel Commentaries

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Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible


Woe to the Oppressors
1Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil on their beds! when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. 3Therefore thus said the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which you shall not remove your necks; neither shall you go haughtily: for this time is evil. …

1 Kings 21:1 Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
Isaiah 5:8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.
Jeremiah 22:17 "But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion."
Ezekiel 8:17 He said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually arouse my anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose!
Ezekiel 22:13 "'I will surely strike my hands together at the unjust gain you have made and at the blood you have shed in your midst.
Ezekiel 33:26 You rely on your sword, you do detestable things, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Should you then possess the land?'
Ezekiel 46:18 The prince must not take any of the inheritance of the people, driving them off their property. He is to give his sons their inheritance out of his own property, so that not one of my people will be separated from their property.'"
Amos 2:7 They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name.
Amos 8:4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land,
Micah 6:12 Your rich people are violent; your inhabitants are liars and their tongues speak deceitfully.