Micah 2:1
Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning's light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
Sermons
Deliberate Sins Bringing Predestined PunishmentsE.S. Prout Micah 2:1-3
AvariceHomilistMicah 2:1-4
AvariceD. Thomas Micah 2:1-4
The Wrong Which Micah AttacksG. A. Smith, D. D.Micah 2:1-4














We see here -

I. THE GENESIS OF CRIME. Three stages are described.

1. Sinful desires are cherished in the heart. These sinners "devise iniquity," think over it (Psalm 7:14), imagine it (the same word as in 1 Samuel 18:25, referring to Saul's thought and plan to secure David's death), dwell on it; for wickedness is "sweet in their mouth" (Job 20:10-12). Illustrate from the licentious thoughts of David (2 Samuel 11:2, 3) or Amnon (2 Samuel 13:1, 2), the covetous thoughts of Ahab (1 Kings 21), or the envious and revengeful thoughts of Haman (Esther 3:5, 6; see James 1:14, 15). Here sin is not traced during its growth. From its birth St. James passes on to its maturity: "The sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death." But Micah points out stages in its growth.

2. Plans of wickedness are deliberately contrived. They "work," prepare or fabricate, "evil upon their beds." In their hours of rest they "cannot cease from sin." On their beds, where they might enjoy the sleep of God's beloved, where in wakeful hours they might commune with God and their own hearts (Psalm 4:4; Psalm 16:7; Psalm 63:6; Psalm 104:34), they plot their crimes (Psalm 36:4; Proverbs 4:16). If they want allies they hesitate not to secure the aid of the false witness, the procuress, the dishonest lawyer, the bribed judge. Illust.: Jezebel; the priests (Matthew 28:11-14); the assassins (Acts 23:12-15).

3. The plot is executed in a crime. They act promptly, early, showing no signs of repentance or reflection (Jeremiah 8:6); in the daylight, without shame (Esther 6:4; Matthew 27:1, 2) - "swift to shed blood," or defraud, or debauch. Might constitutes their right; "impiously mighty and mighty in impiety," "because it is in the power of their hands." "Dextra mihi Deus" (Virgil). They are reckless of the ruin caused to an innocent man or a whole family robbed of their heritage (Nehemiah 5:1-5), or of their head (1 Kings 21:13), or of the flower of the flock, some beloved child more precious than any heritage (2 Samuel 12:1-9).

II. ITS INEVITABLE CONNECTION WITH RETRIBUTION. While sinners are coveting, plotting, plundering, God is watching, devising, and framing punishment. This is:

1. Predestined; on the ground of deliberate sin. God's "therefores" have all the force of demonstrative reasoning (Proverbs 1:31; Isaiah 65:12, etc.).

2. Hard to be borne. Compared to a yoke. Contrast the yoke of the Father's discipline (Lamentations 3:27), and of the Redeemer's service (Matthew 11:29, 30). If these yokes are contemptuously cast away, the evil yoke of punishment, a "yoke of iron," is prepared (Deuteronomy 28:48; Jeremiah 28:14).

3. Inevitable. See the striking figures in Amos 9:1-4 and Zechariah 14:16-18 (God's manifold instruments of punishment); cf. 1 Timothy 6:9, 10.

4. Humiliating. "Neither shall ye go haughtily." How often the retribution on the proud or the extortioner is strikingly appropriate to their sin! Man's skill in successful sinning is outmatched by God's wisdom in punishing (Job 9:4). When God's wisdom and power are both arrayed against us, it is an evil time indeed.

5. Utterly disastrous. A revolution in their entire circumstances (ver. 4). Thus the consequences of sin may be irreparable in this world; but the gospel of the grace of God tells of a forgiveness whereby sin may be righteously forgiven, and the eternal consequences may be cut off (Isaiah 43:25; John 5:24). - E.S.P.

And they covet fields, and take them by violence
Homilist.
Greed is the spring and spirit of all oppression. Here rapacious avarice is presented in three aspects.

I. SCHEMING IN THE NIGHT. When avarice takes possession of a man, it works the brain by night as well as by day. What schemes to swindle, defraud, and plunder men are fabricated every night upon the pillow!

II. WORKING IN THE DAY. The idea esteemed most is the worldly gain of avaricious labour. So it ever is; gain is the God of the greedy man. He sacrifices all his time and labour on its altar. Shakespeare compares such a man to a whale which plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful.

III. SUFFERING IN THE JUDGMENT. For judgment comes at last, and in the judgment these words give us to understand the punishment will correspond with the sin. "Because they reflect upon evil," says Delitzsch, "to deprive their fellow men of their possessions, Jehovah will bring evil upon this generation, lay a heavy yoke upon their necks, under which they will not be able to walk loftily or with extended neck." Ay, the time will come when the avaricious millionaire will exclaim, "We be utterly spoiled." "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you," etc.

(Homilist.)

Micah scourges the avarice of the landowner, and the injustice which oppresses the peasant. Social wrongs are always felt most acutely, not in the town, but in the country. It was so in the days of Rome, whose earliest social revolts were agrarian. It was so in the Middle Ages; the fourteenth century saw both the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants' rising in England; Langland, who was equally familiar with town and country, expends nearly all his sympathy upon the poverty of the latter, "the poure folk in cotes." It was so after the Reformation, under the new spirit of which the first social revolt was the Peasants' war in Germany. It was so at the French Revolution, which began with the march of the starving peasants into Paris. And it is so still, for our new era of social legislation has been forced upon us, not by the poor of London and the large cities, but by the peasantry of Ireland and the crofters of the Scottish Highlands. Political discontent and religious heresy take their start among industrial and manufacturing centres, but the first springs of the social revolt are nearly always found among rural populations. Why the country should begin to feel the acuteness of social wrong before the town is sufficiently obvious. In the town there are mitigations, and there are escapes. If the conditions of one trade become oppressive, it is easier to pass to another. The workers are better educated and better organised; there is a middle class, and the tyrant dare not bring matters to so high a crisis. The might of the wealthy, too, is divided; the poor man's employer is seldom at the same time his landlord. But in the country power easily gathers into the hands of the few. The labourer's opportunities and means of work, his house, his very standing ground are often all the property of one man. In the country the rich have a real power of life and death, and are less hampered by competition with each other, and by the force of public opinion. One man cannot hold a city in fee, but one man can affect for evil or for good almost as large a population as a city's, when it is scattered across a country side. This is precisely the state of wrong which Micah attacks. This is the evil, the ease with which wrong is done in the country. "It lies to the power of their hands; they covet and seize." Micah feels that by themselves the economic wrongs explain and justify the doom impending on the nation.

(G. A. Smith, D. D.)

People
Jacob, Micah
Places
Adullam
Topics
Beds, Carry, Curse, Dawns, Designers, Devise, Devising, Evil, Execute, Hands, Iniquity, Morning, Morning's, Perform, Plan, Plot, Power, Practice, Practise, Scheme, Wickedness, Wo, Woe, Working
Outline
1. Against oppression.
4. A lamentation.
7. A reproof of injustice and idolatry.
12. A promise to restore Jacob.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Micah 2:1

     5229   bed
     5457   power, human
     5817   conspiracies
     5917   plans
     6186   evil scheming
     8736   evil, warnings against

Micah 2:1-2

     5838   disrespect
     5847   enthusiasm
     5975   violence

Micah 2:1-3

     5310   exploitation
     5350   injustice, hated by God
     5870   greed, condemnation
     8792   oppression, God's attitude
     9250   woe

Micah 2:1-5

     8812   riches, ungodly use

Library
Christ the Breaker
'The Breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.'--MICAH ii. 13. Micah was contemporary with Isaiah. The two prophets stand, to a large extent, on the same level of prophetic knowledge. Characteristic of both of them is the increasing clearness of the figure of the personal Messiah, and the increasing fulness of detail with which His functions are described.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Is the Spirit of the Lord Straitened?
'O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?'--MICAH ii. 7. The greater part of so-called Christendom is to-day[1] celebrating the gift of a Divine Spirit to the Church; but it may well be asked whether the religious condition of so-called Christendom is not a sad satire upon Pentecost. There seems a woful contrast, very perplexing to faith, between the bright promise at the beginning and the history of the development in the future. How few
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

"Is the Spirit of the Lord Straitened?"
THERE MAY BE SOME who think they can convert the world by philosophy; that they can renew the heart by eloquence; or that, by some witchcraft of ceremonies, they can regenerate the soul; but we depend wholly and simply and alone on the Spirit of God. He alone worketh all our works in us; and in going forth to our holy service we take with us no strength, and we rely upon no power, except that of the Spirit of the Most High. When Asher's foot was dipped in oil, no wonder he left a foot-mark wherever
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891

The Earliest Chapters in Divine Revelation
[Sidenote: The nature of inspiration] Since the days of the Greek philosophers the subject of inspiration and revelation has been fertile theme for discussion and dispute among scholars and theologians. Many different theories have been advanced, and ultimately abandoned as untenable. In its simplest meaning and use, inspiration describes the personal influence of one individual upon the mind and spirit of another. Thus we often say, "That man inspired me." What we are or do under the influence
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

Standing with the People
We have found two simple and axiomatic social principles in the fundamental convictions of Jesus: The sacredness of life and personality, and the spiritual solidarity of men. Now confront a mind mastered by these convictions with the actual conditions of society, with the contempt for life and the denial of social obligation existing, and how will he react? How will he see the duty of the strong, and his own duty? DAILY READINGS First Day: The Social Platform of Jesus And he came to Nazareth, where
Walter Rauschenbusch—The Social Principles of Jesus

Redemption for Man Lost to be Sought in Christ.
1. The knowledge of God the Creator of no avail without faith in Christ the Redeemer. First reason. Second reason strengthened by the testimony of an Apostle. Conclusion. This doctrine entertained by the children of God in all ages from the beginning of the world. Error of throwing open heaven to the heathen, who know nothing of Christ. The pretexts for this refuted by passages of Scripture. 2. God never was propitious to the ancient Israelites without Christ the Mediator. First reason founded on
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Micah
Micah must have been a very striking personality. Like Amos, he was a native of the country--somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gath; and he denounces with fiery earnestness the sins of the capital cities, Samaria in the northern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the southern. To him these cities seem to incarnate the sins of their respective kingdoms, i. 5; and for both ruin and desolation are predicted, i. 6, iii. 12. Micah expresses with peculiar distinctness the sense of his inspiration and the object
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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