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Expositor's Bible Commentary Micah 2:1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. THE PROPHET OF THE POOR Micah 2:1-13 ; Micah 3:1-12 WE have proved Micah’s love for his countryside in the effusion of his heart upon her villages with a grief for their danger greater than his grief for Jerusalem. Now in his treatment of the sins which give that danger its fatal significance, he is inspired by the same partiality for the fields and the folk about him. While Isaiah chiefly satirizes the fashions of the town and the intrigues of the court, Micah scourges the avarice of the landowner and the injustice which oppresses the peasant. He could not, of course, help sharing Isaiah’s indignation for the fatal politics of the capital, any more than Isaiah could help sharing his sense of the economic dangers of the provinces; { Isaiah 5:8 } but it is the latter with which Micah is most familiar and on which he spends his wrath. These so engross him, indeed, that he says almost nothing about the idolatry, or the luxury, or the hideous vice, which, according to Amos and Hosea, were now corrupting the nation. 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 open, 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 centers, but the first springs of the social revolt are nearly always found among the 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 organized; 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 laborer’s opportunities and means of work, his home, his very standing-ground, are often all of them 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 countryside. This is precisely the state of wrong which Micah attacks. The social changes of the eighth century in Israel were peculiarly favorable to its growth. The enormous increase of money which had been produced by the trade of Uzziah’s reign threatened to overwhelm the simple economy under which every family had its croft. As in many another land and period, the social problem was the descent of wealthy men, land-hungry, upon the rural districts. They made the poor their debtors, and bought out the peasant proprietors. They absorbed into their power numbers of homes, and had at their individual disposal the lives and the happiness of thousands of their fellow-countrymen. Isaiah had cried. "Woe upon them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room" for the common people, and the inhabitants of the rural districts grow fewer and Isaiah 5:8 . Micah pictures the recklessness of those plutocrats - the fatal ease with which their wealth enabled them to dispossess the yeomen of Judah. The prophet speaks:- "Woe to them that plan mischief, And on their beds work out evil! As soon as morning breaks they put it into execution, For-it lies to the power of their hands!" "They covet fields and-seize them, Houses and-lift them up. So they crush a good man and his home, A man and his heritage." 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." And what is it that they get so easily-not merely field and house, so much land and stone and lime: it is human life, with all that makes up personal independence, and the security of home and of the family. That these should be at the mercy of the passion or the caprice of one man-this is what stirs the prophet’s indignation. We shall presently see how the tyranny of wealth was aided by the bribed and unjust judges of the country; and how, growing reckless, the rich betook themselves, as the lords of the feudal system in Europe continually did, to the basest of assaults upon the persons of peaceful men and women. But meantime Micah feels that by themselves the economic wrongs explain and justify the doom impending on the nation. When this doom falls, by the Divine irony of God it shall take the form of a conquest of the land by the heathen, and the disposal of these great estates to the foreigner. The prophet speaks:- "Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold I am planning evil against this race, From which ye shall not withdraw your necks, Nor walk upright: For an evil time it is! In that day shall they raise a taunt-song against you And wail out the wailing ("It is done"); and say, We be utterly undone: My people’s estate is measured off! How they take it away from me! To the rebel our fields are allotted. So thou shalt have none to cast the line by lot In the congregation of Jehovah." No restoration at time of Jubilee for lauds taken away in this fashion! There will be no congregation of Jehovah left! At this point the prophet’s pessimist discourse, that must have galled the rich, is interrupted by their clamor to him to stop. The rich speak:- "Prate not, they prate, let none prate of such things! Revilings will never cease! O thou that speakest thus to the house of Jacob, Is the spirit of Jehovah cut short? Or are such His doings? Shall not His words mean well with him that walketh uprightly?" So the rich, in their immoral confidence that Jehovah was neither weakened nor could permit such a disaster to fall on His own people, tell the prophet that his sentence of doom on the nation, and especially on themselves, is absurd, impossible. They cry the eternal cry of Respectability: "God can mean no harm to the like of us! His words are good to them that walk uprightly-and we are conscious of being such. What you, prophet, have charged us with are nothing but natural transactions." The Lord Himself has His answer ready. Upright indeed! They have been unprovoked plunderers! God speaks:- "But ye are the foes of My people, Rising against those that are peaceful; The mantle ye strip from them that walk quietly by, Averse to war! Women of My people ye tear from their happy homes, From their children ye take My glory forever. Rise and begone-for this is no resting-place! Because of the uncleanness that bringeth destruction. Destruction incurable." Of the outrages on the goods of honest men, and the persons of women and children, which are possible in a time of peace, when the rich are tyrannous and abetted by mercenary judges and prophets, we have an illustration analogous to Micah’s in the complaint of Peace in Langland’s vision of English society in the fourteenth century. The parallel to our prophet’s words is very striking:- "And thanne come Pees into parlement and put forth a bille, How Wronge ageines his wille had his wyf taken. "Both my gees and my grys his gadelynges feccheth; I dar noughte for fere of hym fyghte ne chyde. He borwed of me bayard he broughte hym home nevre, Ne no ferthynge therefore or naughte I couthe plede. He meynteneth his men to marther myne hewen, Forstalleth my feyres and fighteth in my chepynge, And breketh up my bernes dore and bereth aweye my whete, And taketh me but a taile for ten quarters of ores, And yet he bet me ther-to and lythbi my mayde, I nam noughte hardy for hym "uneth to loke.’" They pride themselves that all is stable and God is with them. How can such a state of affairs be stable! They feel at ease, yet injustice can never mean rest. God has spoken the final sentence, but with a rare sarcasm the prophet adds his comment on the scene. These rich men had been flattered into their religious security by hireling prophets, who had opposed himself. As they leave the presence of God, having heard their sentence, Micah looks after them and muses in quiet prose. The prophet speaks:- "Yea, if one whose walk is wind and falsehood were to try to cozen "thee, saying, "I will babble to thee of wine and strong drink, then he might be the prophet of such a people." At this point in chapter 2 there have somehow slipped into the text two verses ( Micah 2:12-13 ), which all are agreed do not belong to it, and for which we must find another place. They speak of a return from the Exile, and interrupt the connection between Micah 2:11 and the first verse of chapter 3 ( Micah 3:1 ). With the latter Micah begins a series of three oracles, which give the substance of his own prophesying in contrast to that of the false prophets whom he has just been satirizing. He has told us what they say, and he now begins the first of his own oracles with the words, "But I said." It is an attack upon the authorities of the nation, whom the false prophets flatter. Micah speaks very plainly to them. Their business is to know justice, and yet they love wrong. They flay the people with their exactions; they cut up the people like meat. The prophet speaks:- "But I said, Hear now, O chiefs of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel: Is it not yours to know justice? Haters of good and lovers of evil, Tearing their hide from upon them." (he points to the people) "And their flesh from the bones of them; And who devour the flesh of my people, And their hide they have stripped from them And their bones have they cleft, And served it up as if from a pot, Like meat from the thick of the caldron! At that time shall they cry to Jehovah, And He will not answer them; But hide His face from them at that time, Because they have aggravated their deeds." These words of Micah are terribly strong, but there have been many other ages and civilizations than his own of which they have been no more than true. "They crop us," said a French peasant of the lords of the great Louis’ time, "as the sheep crops grass." "They treat us like their food," said another on the eve of the Revolution. Is there nothing of the same with ourselves? While Micah spoke he had wasted lives and bent backs before him. His speech is elliptic till you see his finger pointing at them. Pinched peasant faces peer between all his words and fill the ellipses. And among the living poor today are there not starved and bitten faces-bodies with the blood sucked from them, with the Divine image crushed out of them? Brothers, we cannot explain all of these by vice. Drunkenness and unthrift do account for much; but how much more is explicable only by the following facts! Many men among us are able to live in fashionable streets and keep their families comfortable only by paying their employs a wage upon which it is impossible for men to be strong or women to be virtuous. Are those not using these as their food? They tell us that if they are to give higher wages they must close their business, and cease paying wages at all; and they are right if they themselves continue to live on the scale they do. As long as many families are maintained in comfort by the profits of businesses in which some or all of the employees work for less than they can nourish and repair their bodies upon, the simple fact is that the one set are feeding upon the other set. It may be inevitable, it may be the fault of the system and not of the individual, it may be that to break up the system would mean to make things worse than ever-but all the same the truth is clear that many families of the middle class, and some of the very wealthiest of the land, are nourished by the waste of the lives of the poor. Now and again the fact is acknowledged with as much shamelessness as was shown by any tyrant in the days of Micah. To a large employer of labor who was complaining that his employees, by refusing to live at the low scale of Belgian workmen, were driving trade from this country, the present writer once said: "Would it not meet your wishes if, instead of your workmen being leveled down, the Belgians were leveled up? This would make the competition fair between you and the employers in Belgium." His answer was, "I care not so long as I get my profits." He was a religious man, a liberal giver to his Church, and he died leaving more than one hundred thousand pounds. Micah’s tyrants, too, had religion to support them. A number of the hireling prophets, whom we have seen both Amos and Hosea attack, gave their blessing to this social system, which crushed the poor, for they shared its profits. They lived upon the alms of the rich, and flattered according as they were fed. To them Micah devotes the second oracle of chapter 3, and we find confirmed by his words the principle we laid down before, that in that age the one great difference between the false and the true prophet was what it has been in every age since then till now-an ethical difference; and not a difference of dogma, or tradition, or ecclesiastical note. The false prophet spoke, consciously or unconsciously, for himself and his living. He sided with the rich; he shut his eyes to the social condition of the people; he did not attack the sins of the day. This made him false - robbed him of insight and the power of prediction. But the true prophet exposed the sins of his people. Ethical insight and courage, burning indignation of wrong, clear vision of the facts of the day-this was what Jehovah’s spirit put into him, this was what Micah felt to be respiration. The prophet speaks:- "Thus saith Jehovah against the prophets who lead my people astray, Who while they have aught between their teeth proclaim peace, But against him who will not lay to their mouths they sanctify war! Wherefore night shall be yours without vision, And yours shall be darkness without divination; And the sun shall go down on the prophets, And the day shall darken about them; And the seers shall be put to the blush, And the diviners be ashamed: All of them shall cover the beard, For there shall be no answer from God. But I am full of power by the spirit of Jehovah, and justice and might, To declare to Jacob his transgressions and to Israel his sin." In the third oracle of this chapter rulers and prophets are combined-how close the conspiracy between them! It is remarkable that, in harmony with Isaiah, Micah speaks no word against the king. But evidently Hezekiah had not power to restrain the nobles and the rich. When this oracle was uttered it was a time of peace, and the lavish building, which we have seen to be so marked a characteristic of Israel in the eighth century, was in process. Jerusalem was larger and finer than ever. Ah, it was a building of God’s own city in blood! Judges, priests, and prophets were all alike mercenary, and the poor were oppressed for a reward. No walls, however sacred, could stand on such foundations. Did they say that they built her so grandly, for Jehovah’s sake? Did they believe her to be inviolate because He was in her? They should see. Zion-yes, Zion-should be ploughed like a field, and the Mountain of the Lord’s Temple become desolate. The prophet speaks:- "Hear now this, O chiefs of the house of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel, Who spurn justice and twist all that is straight, Building Zion in blood, and Jerusalem with crime! Her chiefs give judgment for a bribe," "And her priests oracles for a reward, And her prophets divine for silver; And on Jehovah they lean, saying: ‘Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? Evil cannot come at us.’ Therefore for your sakes shall Zion be ploughed like a field, And Jerusalem become heaps, And the Mount of the House mounds in a jungle." It is extremely difficult for us to place ourselves in a state of society in which bribery is prevalent, and the fingers both of justice and of religion are gilded by their suitors. But this corruption has always been common in the East. "An Oriental state can never altogether prevent the abuse by which officials, small and great, enrich themselves in illicit ways." The strongest government takes the bribery for granted, and periodically prunes the rank fortunes of its great officials. A weak government lets them alone. But in either case the poor suffer from unjust taxation and from laggard or perverted justice. Bribery has always been found, even in the more primitive and puritan forms of Semitic life. Mr. Doughty has borne testimony with regard to this among the austere Wahabees of Central Arabia. "When I asked if there were no handling of bribes at Hayil by those who are nigh the prince’s ear, it was answered, ‘Nay.’ The Byzantine corruption cannot enter into the eternal and noble simplicity of this people’s (airy) life, in the poor nomad country; but (we have seen) the art is not unknown to the subtle-headed Shammar princes, who thereby help themselves with the neighbor Turkish governments." The bribes of the ruler of Hayil "are, according to the shifting weather of the world, to great Ottoman government men; and now on account of Kheybar, he was gilding some of their crooked fingers in Medina." Nothing marks the difference of Western government more than the absence of all this, especially from our courts of justice. Yet the improvement has only come about within comparatively recent centuries. What a large space, for instance, does Langland give to the arraigning of "Mede," the corrupter of all authorities and influences in the society of his day! Let us quote his words, for again they provide a most exact parallel to Micah’s, and may enable us to realize a state of life so contrary to our own. It is Conscience who arraigns Mede before the King:- " By ihesus with here jeweles youre justices she shendeth, And lith agein the lawe and letteth hym the gate, That leith may noughte have his forth here floreines go so thikke, She ledeth the lawe as hire list and lovedays maketh And doth men lese thorw hire love that law myghte wynne, The mase for a mene man though he mote hit cure. Law is so lordeliche and loth to make ende, Without presentz or pens she pleseth wel fewe. For pore men mowe have no powere to pleyne hem though the smerte; Suche a maistre is Mede amonge men of gode " The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

And they covet fields, and take them by violence Micah 2:1-4 Avarice 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. ) The wrong which Micah attacks G. A. Smith, D. D. 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. ) Therefore, thus saith the Lord: Behold, against this family do I devise evil Micah 2:3 The great antagonist J. H. Jowett, M. A. Here is Micah, the flesh child of the country, who has communed with the Lord God in the ploughed field in the flagrant vineyard, amid the primeval forest, in lonely wilderness, and in secluded height. He comes to human affairs with keen and unblunted perceptions. Through this man's eyes we may gaze at the outlines and colours of the golden age, we may look upon the causes of lukewarm and congealed affection, and we may also contemplate the fated and inevitable consequences of sin. It is this latter awful vision which I want to bring before yore "Behold, against this family do I devise an evil." Let us get the connection of this word. In an earlier chapter I come upon this indictment: "Woe to them that devise iniquity upon their beds." The people are busy devising, planning, plotting, scheming. They are building upon falsehood. They are arranging the items of their life in evil sequence. But there is a Counter plotter! "Against this family do I devise an evil." The human schemer is confronted by a great Antagonist, God. The Antagonist evidences His working in adversities, disappointments, dissatisfactions, in failures, in fundamental and ignominious defeat. Micah's initial teaching is therefore this: Every sin has its deliberately planned penalty. We cannot isolate the bacillus of sin; it makes its appointed ravages, and no human ministry can fashion an escape. Man devises iniquity; God devises the appropriate issue. One is as certain as the other. Prussic acid is not more certain in its ravages than sin, Now, with this expression of a general and unescapable law before us, let us see what this sharp-eyed prophet regards as some of the inevitable consequences of sin. "Uncleanness that destroyeth with a grievous destruction." All sin is uncleanness, and uncleanness is a monster of destruction. As sure as a moth eats away the fabrics of a garment, so sin consumes the robes and habits of the soul. As sure as rust corrodes an instrument of steel, so sin destroys the implements of life. What does sin destroy? Our philosophers arrange the powers and endowments of man in a heightening scale. They begin with mere animal vitality, sheer naked energy, the basal aptitudes and passions, and they ascend through the senses, the intellectual perceptions, the powers of reasoning, the aesthetic tastes, alp to the moral realm, and higher still to the peerless sphere of reverence and veneration, where life looks out upon God! It is all-important that we remember this range of endowment when we are considering the destructiveness of sin. And I will tell you why. When sin breaks out in the life there are parts of this extensive range which appear to be untouched and if a man looked at these alone it might appear that sin has committed no ravages at all. Let us look at this. When a noxious gas gets into a greenhouse the most delicate things are the first things to suffer. When the coarser plants are smitten the finer, ones have long been dead. It is so in the life. When destructive uncleanness enters, the coarsest thing is the last to be hit. The body preserves its life the longest. Let us assume that a man has become ridden by lust. When that man's body begins to shake the more delicate things of the soul are already destroyed. When the passion for drink shows itself in the face, other parts are already in ashes. The fire of sin always begins to flame in the upper chambers, and burns down towards the basement. The first thing to suffer is our affection. When purity goes out of life love droops like a bird whose cage is near the ceiling, and which faints amid the accumulated fumes of the burning gas. Let a man live an impure life, for one day; let falsehood, passion, malice, bear down upon him, and let him watch the effect upon his affection for wife and child. "Uncleanness," according to this prophet, "destroyeth with a grievous destruction." "It shall be night unto you, and ye shall have no vision. You will not be surprised to he taken this second step under the guidance of the prophet Micah. The sentence is descriptive of a second penalty. What is that? It is the loss of spiritual perception. In the higher realms of our being we are like instruments to be played upon by the Spirit of God. But what is the worth of the harp when the strings are eaten away? What is the use of a piano when the wires are corroded? The executant is unable to convey his message because the instrument is unable to receive it. And when the instrument of our higher self is corrupted or impaired we cannot perceive the approaches of the Spirit or discern the whispering counsels of our God. This is a law whose working I have proved by sad experience in my own life. There have been days when the Book of Scripture seemed closed before me. The page appears commonplace; it does not glow with the heavenly Presence. But on the day of moral alertness and strenuousness of spiritual nearness to my God the common bush is aflame, and His word becomes "a light unto my path." Sin spoils our spiritual eyes and ears, and makes us poor receivers. "Thou shalt eat and not be satisfied." This is the third of the penalties of sin. Sin issues in deep-seated weariness and unrest. The man makes money, but he sighs amid his abundance. His friends speak of him in terms of admiration: "He has got everything that heart could wish." Ah, that is just what he has not got! He has got everything that flesh could wish, but the heart is mourning in secret impoverishment. These dissatisfied souls are all about us, in the pulpit and out of it. But our very dissatisfaction is more than the issue of sin; it is the merciful judgment of infinite grace and love. If our Father left us in satisfaction our perdition would be hopeless and complete. ( J. H. Jowett, M. A. ) O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Micah 2:7 The criminality and folly of limiting the Holy Spirit D. Fraser, D. D. 1. Amongst the numerous instances in which Christians conduct themselves as if they imagined that the Spirit of the Lord is straitened, notice the following.(1) Their conduct is of this description, when they expect little or no benefit from the Word of God and the ordinances of His worship.(2) When they shrink from the discharge of necessary duty.(3) When they are unduly afraid of their enemies.(4) When they sink under the pressure of adversity.(5) When they limit the operations of the Spirit to particular periods of time, or to any particular denomination of professed Christians. 2. The unreasonableness of such conduct. It is at once sinful and selfish, unreasonable and absurd. Consider —(1) That the Spirit of Jehovah is a Spirit of unbounded intelligence and power. Dependent and limited creatures may soon become straitened.(2) He is a Spirit of infinite goodness and love.(3) He is a Spirit sent forth by the Father and the Son.(4) The Scriptures contain rich promises of the continued agency of the Holy Spirit.(5) The gracious and mighty works which have already been effected by the Spirit of Jehovah. Let us all be impressed with a sense of the necessity and importance of the Spirit's agency. It deeply concerns us to inquire whether or not it is our privilege to have the Spirit dwelling and operating in us. ( D. Fraser, D. D. ) The influence of the Spirit, B. Beddome, M. A. 1. The work of the Lord, the Spirit, is wide, extended, and extensive. He is emphatically the "Comforter"; this is His principal work. He comforts the soul, made conscious how little there is in himself to nourish and strengthen; stripped, in a sense, of his self-wisdom, self-power, self-importance, and self-complacency. He testifies of Jesus as having "all fulness" in Him. He comforts the poor, tried, and harassed soul, in the midst of its trial, sorrow, and affliction, by unfolding the man of sympathy, the sympathy of the God-man Mediator. He comforts the soul by revealing the character of God; in His gracious character; in His sin-forgiving character; in His tenderness, compassion, gentleness, and holiness. He comforts His saints as they pass through the changes of a changing world, by revealing the covenant, "ordered in all things and sure." He unfolds the gracious promises of the God of grace. He is called "the Comforter," because it belongs to Him especially to comfort the saints of the Most High. But He is a Rebuker as well as a Comforter. Here it is to be feared that He is not glorified as He ought to be. He is a "Spirit of judgment" in our souls. There is no court that a natural man so dislikes as the court of an enlightened conscience. It is a solemn place. Not only in the first awakening of the soul, but in all after revealings of the Lord Jesus Christ to our hearts, there is still something of a rebuking Spirit. We have to learn out our truths in the school of God, who will be a light to guide in the way. 2. God's Word yields to the spiritual pilgrim food and nourishment, as well as light. 3. As the pilgrim's way lies through an enemy's country he is liable to various assaults, and the Word of God will furnish him with armour of defence. It is his shield and buckler, to ward off and repel the fiery darts of the wicked one. 4. When the Christian begins to be weary and faint in his mind, God's Word becomes his stay and support. 5. It is a comfort to travellers to have a prospect, though a distant and imperfect one, of the place whither they are going. The Divine Word is both a map of the heavenly country and a perspective glass through which we may view it. It is the prospect of that better country which cheers the Christian by the way, and quickens his steps through the wilderness. ( B. Beddome, M. A. ) The plenitude of the Holy Spirit's influence Essex Remembrancer. The prophet is reproving the people for their opposition to the servants of God, and their attachment to false prophets. Their rulers would silence the prophets of the Lord, because they wished to hear no more of their alarming predictions, but to be told only smooth and flattering things. Micah is therefore commissioned to declare that they should be deprived of this privilege. I. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR SALVATION. The recovery of fallen men to the love and likeness of God is usually expressed by the word "salvation." Salvation is ascribed in Scripture to the love of God the Father, in whose infinite benevolence it originated. It was, however, necessary that an adequate atonement should be made for human transgressions. This work, assigned to Christ in the economy of redemption, He voluntarily undertook, and He alone could execute it. All the blessings of salvation are ascribed to Him. But the death of Christ would have been fruitless without the work of the Holy Ghost. Without this there could be no conviction of our need of salvation, no discernment of the way in which alone it can be obtained, no desire to possess it, no faith, no hope, no love, nothing of that purity of heart, destitute of which no man can see the Lord. The Spirit proceedeth from the Father. He gave His Son that He might send His pure and Holy Spirit into our depraved hearts to form us for communion with, and the everlasting enjoyment of Himself. We are equally indebted for the Spirit to the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. II. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE PLENITUDE OF HIS INFLUENCE. It is perfectly consistent with the practical design of Scripture to apply a truth spoken on a particular occasion to the general purposes of the Christian life. Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? No; we are to set no bounds to His power; we are not to circumscribe the measure of His influence; our expectations and our endeavours should correspond to the fulness of His grace. We may infer that the influences of the Holy Spirit are not straitened from the extent and merit of the Saviour's sufferings, and the greatness and design of His exaltation; from the abundant measure in which the gifts of the Spirit were communicated on the day of Pentecost; from the predictions of Scripture concerning the future prosperity of the Christian Church, and from the eminence in piety and usefulness to which many have attained. The truth we press on attention is, that every one may, through faith in the Saviour, and in answer to prayer, certainly obtain all the assistance from the Holy Spirit which he needs. This is evident from a multitude of promises. The subject calls for an admonitory application. 1. It condemns an undue dependence on instruments. 2. It forbids an exclusive attachment to particular subjects. 3. It censures those who despair of the conversion of others. 4. It remonstrates with such as are ready to abandon their efforts to do good from a feeling of their own insufficiency. 5. It should urge us to unite in all scriptural plans of usefulness, instead of confining ourselves to particular methods. 6. It frowns on a bigoted party spirit. 7. Beware of resisting and grieving the Spirit. ( Essex Remembrancer. ) The straitened Spirit W. D. Horwood. Regard the Holy Spirit as that most glorious and blessed agency by which our depraved nature is purified, our bondage of evil turned into freedom, our spiritual darkness enlightened, our penitent sorrows exchanged for feelings of joyousness, and our rugged path on life's upward journey made smooth and plain. In the time of Micah the inspiration of prophecy was regarded by the people of the Jews as the result of this agency; but they were not always pleased with it. The prophets who were faithful were men who did not seek to please the public ear by prophesying what was most palatable to its pride and luxury, but what was calculated to humble and alarm. And if this offended some, was their offence to be the guide and rule of the prophet's teaching? Was the Spirit of God to be straitened or limited in His operations because His inspired messages were not acceptable? Hence the question of the text. I. THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD ACTS WITH UNLIMITED SOVEREIGNTY. He is not bound by human laws and human opinions, neither is He fettered in His movements by any dogmatic assumption or priestly power. What is to hinder Him from doing His Will? An earnest seeking for His aid, an humble trust in His love, a devout prayer for His deliverance, and a persevering hold upon Christ as our Sacrifice and Mediator may soon bring to the soul that bright light of life which speaks of His indwelling presence and resurrection power. II. THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD ACTS WITH AN UNCHANGEABLENESS OF LOVE. And who can give any bounds to this love, not only in its objects but in its intensity? It never changes. Time can never alter it, and nothing in the great universe about us can either divert it from its course or weaken its power. III. THOUGH THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS NOT STRAITENED, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT IT MAY APPEAR SO. But this arises from our own disobedience. We may have stifled His convictions. We may have deserted His counsels. We may have rejected His offers, His promises, and His invitations. IV. SOME WISH THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD TO BE STRAITENED TO THEIR OWN VIEW OF THINGS. Some would straiten the Lord in the execution of His judgments. To the fainting, weak, and doubting spirit of the Christian there is something very exhilarating in the thought that the Spirit of the Lord is not straitened in His power and love and wisdom. Troubled as He oftentimes is from a deceitful heart and powerful temptations, how great a privilege to feel His nearness and to realise His inspiration in the prayer that goes up like incense to the throne of heaven. In the infinitude of the Spirit's power there is liberty — a vast ocean of life, that seems to spread out more and more before the eager and aspiring soul. But, on the contrary, this very truth of the Holy Spirit's illumitability will be a cause of condemnation to those who continue to reject Him. ( W. D. Horwood. ) The Spirit of the Lord not straitened A. L. R. Foote. Here God is expostulating with His Church, when in a low and languishing state, as to the cause of this. He is vindicating Himself from all share of blame in the matter, — He is showing them where the blame lies, even with His professing people themselves, in their want of faith and prayer. It is their unbelief that mars all. This straitens, shuts up, in prisons their spirits, so that their desires do not flow forth with any enlargement after Divine communications. It is not the Spirit of the Lord that is straitened. There is a straitening, but it is all on their part. I. THE QUESTION IN THE TEXT IMPLIES THAT THE SPIRIT IS NOT STRAITENED IN THE SENSE WHICH OUR UNBELIEF WOULD SUGGEST. 1. The Spirit is not straitened in respect of His own inherent sufficiency. All grace, wisdom, might, and faithfulness are in Him. The creature is limited in duration; He is eternal. The creature is limited in respect of knowledge. "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." The creature is limited in respect of power; not so the Spirit. The creature is limited in respect of moral excellence; the Spirit is distinctively and supereminently the Spirit of holiness. 2. In respect of the Saviour's purchase of Him for the Church. As the Head of His Church, Christ is its source of spiritual influence. In Him, for the use of His Church, the Spirit dwells in immeasurable degree. Mark the encouragement afforded us by the death of Christ to expect free and full communications of the Holy Spirit. 3. In respect of the offer of Him in the Gospel. (1) He is offered universally. (2) Freely. (3) Largely. II. THE QUESTION IMPLIES THAT HE IS OFTEN STRAITENED OR DIMINISHED IN RESPECT OF HIS ACTUAL COMMUNICATIONS TO THE CHURCH. It is a fact that the presence and power of the Spirit are not enjoyed by the Church at some periods as much as at others. Point out some of the characteristics of a Church from which the Spirit has withdrawn much of His presence and power. 1. In such a Church the truth will not generally be preached with evangelical purity, faithfulness, and power. 2. There will be a general departure from the simple and scriptural principles of government and discipline on which the Church is founded. 3. There will be a sad lack of zeal in propagating religion and extending the means of grace. The missionary spirit will be all but extinct. 4. There will be few conversions. 5. Even the people of God themselves will not be possessed of so high a tone of spirituality as they ought to be. In short, there will be little personal piety and family prayer; but, on the contrary, much worldliness, much unGodliness, much hostility to anything like zealous Christianity. In the same proportion as the Spirit departs will spirituality decay and carnality increase. What should we learn from this but our entire dependence upon this blessed agent? III. THE QUESTION IS INTENDED TO CONVEY A REBUKE TO THE CHURCH FOR ITS NOT HAVING SUFFICIENTLY VALUED, AND THEREFORE ASKED AND RECEIVED, THE HOLY SPIRIT. If the Spirit is restrained in His actual communications, this must be either because He is unwilling to bestow His influences upon us, or because we are unwilling to accept of them. It cannot be the first; it must be the last. Apply — 1. To the unconverted; there are some who are entirely destitute of any work of the Spirit of God upon their hearts. Dare they say that they have long been willing to receive Him, but have found it impossible? Their consciences would not suffer them to say so. 2. To those who have in some measure received the Spirit. They often complain of the low state of religion in their own hearts, and in the world around them. Hard thoughts of God suggest themselves to them, as if He had become careless of the interests of His Church. But they will find reason to exonerate God of all blame, and to place it to their own account. Have they cherished, as they ought to have done, the visits of this Divine Person to their own souls? Is it not true that they have, in a great measure, ceased to realise their dependence on Him? Thus religion decaying in their own hearts, they become less concerned about the progress of religion in the hearts of others. IV. THE QUESTION IS INTENDED TO CONVEY AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO US TO ASK HIM — TO ASK HIM CONFIDENTLY AND LARGELY. The encouragement is twofold, drawn — 1. From the form of the question itself. It is evidently designed to teach us that the Spirit of the Lord is not straitened, not limited nor confined in the sense our unbelief suggests. It is as if it were said — Set no bounds to your desires; ask more and more; ask again and again. 2. Notice to whom the question is addressed. "O thou that art named the house of Israel." It is addressed to the professing Church and people of God, and it is designed to put them in mind of the relation God bears to them as their God, and the warrant thereby afforded them to ask and expect the Holy Spirit. There must be a want, and what can that want be but the want of sufficiently earnest and believing prayer? Immediately, then, let this want be supplied. ( A. L. R. Foote. ) Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened A. Maclaren, D. D. ? — I. THE PROMISE OF PENTECOST. What did it declare and hold forth for the faith of the Church? 1. The promise of a Divine Spirit by symbols which express some, at all events, of the characteristics and wonderfulness of His work. The "rushing of a mighty wind" spoke of a power which varies in its manifestations from the gentlest breath that scarce moves the leaves on the summer trees to the wildest blast that casts down all which stands in its way. The natural symbolism of the wind, to popular apprehension, the least material of all material forces, and of which the connection with the immaterial part of a man's personality has been expressed in all languages, points to a Divine, immaterial, mighty, life-giving power which is free to blow where it listeth, and of which men can mark the effects, though they are all ignorant of the force itself. The twin symbol of the fiery tongues which parted and sat upon each of them speaks in like manner of the Divine influence, not as destructive, but full of quick, rejoicing energy and life, the power to transform and to purify. Whithersoever the fire comes, it changes all things into its own substance. Wherever the fiery spirit comes there is energy, swift life, rejoicing activity, transforming and transmuting power which changes the recipient of the flame into flame itself. In the fact of Pentecost there is the promise of a Divine Spirit which is to influence all the moral side of humanity. This is the distinction between the Christian doctrine of inspiration and all others which have, in heathen lands, partially reached similar conceptions — that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has laid emphasis upon the Holy Spirit, and has declared that holiness of heart is the touchstone and test of all claims of Divine inspiration. Gifts are much, graces are more. An inspiration which makes wise is to be coveted, an inspiration which makes holy is transcendently better. There we find the safe guard against all the fanaticisms which have at times invaded the Christian Church. The Spirit that came at Pentecost is not merely a spirit of rushing might, and of swift flaming energy; it is a Spirit of holiness. Pentecost also carried in it the promise and prophecy of a Spirit granted to all the Church. "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Further, the promise of the early history was that of a Spirit which should fill the whole nature of the men to whom He was granted. Each man, according to his character, stature, circumstances, and all the varying conditions which determine his power of receptivity, will receive a varying measure of that gift. Yet it is meant that all shall be full. II. THE APPARENT FAILURE OF THE PROMISE. Will anyone say that the religious condition of any body of believers at this moment corresponds to Pentecost? Do any existing Churches present the final perfect form of Christianity as embodied in a society? Estimate by three tests. 1. Does the ordinary tenour of our own religious life look as if we had that Divine Spirit in us which transforms everything into its own beauty, and makes men, through all the regions of their nature, holy and pure? Does the standard of devotion and consecration in any Church witness of the presence of a Divine Spirit? 2. Do the relations of modern Christians and their churches to one another attest the presence of a unifying Spirit? 3. Look at the comparative impotence of the Church in its conflict with the growing worldliness of the world. III. THE SOLUTION OF THE CONTRADICTION. It is sometimes urged that the Spirit of the Lord is straitened. Some say, Christianity is effete. Others say, God in His sovereignty is pleased to withhold His Spirit for reasons which we cannot trace. But there is always the same flow from God. There are ebbs and flows in the spiritual power of the Church. It is our own fault, and the result of evil in ourselves that may be remedied, that we have so little of this Divine gift. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) Why is the Spirit straitened Samuel Charles Wilks, M. A. ? — In view of the large effusion of religious knowledge in our days, we inquire, Why does not the fear of God more abound? Whence is it that, even where true piety really exists, it is so little deep, spiritual, and full of love, warmth, and holy unction? Shall we reply that the blessing must be from above, and that God alone can remodel the human heart? This indeed is true; but then occurs the question, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" If He be not straitened, whence comes it to pass that His gracious influences are not more fully manifested? Is the fault in ourselves or in God? The influences of the Holy Spirit are His miraculous and His ordinary manifestations. Is He straitened in either of these? I. Is HE STRAITENED IN HIS MIRACULOUS INFLUENCES? Miracles, we say, are not now to be expected. They have done their work. But God is not therefore straitened. He could, if He saw fit, revive His miraculous influences. And even now we have remarkable effusions of grace, as in revival times. He could, if He so willed, bring back even a second day of Pentecost, with all its miraculous outpourings. II. IS HE STRAITENED IN THOSE ORDINARY PROMISED INFLUENCES UNDER WHICH WE OURSELVES LIVE? Take the following influences — as a Teacher, as a Sanctifier, as a Comforter. Is the Holy Spirit less an Enlightener, a Sanctifier, and a Guide now than He was in the days of Abraham, or David, or St. Paul? Is He less powerful? Is He less willing? Is He less gracious in His promises? Whence, then, comes it to pass that, after so many centuries of nominal Christianity, more spiritual good has not been effected? In particular, what are the causes which impede in our own age, our own country, our own families and congregations, and above all, in our own hearts, the operations of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of the Lord may be straitened, on account of the finite capacity of the recipient. If the Holy Ghost consecrates our hearts for His temple, He chooses a shrine in which He can exhibit, so to speak, but a small portion of His glory; it will be enlarged in heaven, but even there it will be finite. Take the love of St. John, the fervour of David, the heavenly mindedness of St. Paul; these fruits of the Spirit in those blessed men were eminently great; but they were bounded by the mortal mould, and for them to be enlarged to the elevation of a Gabriel death must intervene. But the littleness of the human heart is not the only cause why the Divine manifestations appear straitened. Its corruption and sinfulness are far more powerful causes. Think of the innate workings of human depravity; the stubbornness of the soil which is to be broken up and cultivated; the natural enmity of the human heart to God, and all that is like God; the prejudices which exist against the Gospel of Christ; the evil devices of Satan; the "infection of nature" which remains "even in them that are regenerate." In addition to the deadening effects of sin generally, every age and country has its own special temptations, which in a peculiar manner seem to restrain the effusion of the Divine influences at that particular place and season. 1. Being satisfied with a low standard of spiritual attainment. Look at apostles and prophets; look at saints and professors and martyrs. Are we like them? 2. Another cause of check to the Spirit's work in our day is excitement, Not religious excitement so much as the rush and hurry and worry of modern business and social life. The Spirit needs quiet times and moods in which to carry on His hallowing work. ( Samuel Charles Wilks, M. A. ) The Holy Spi

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. 2:6-11 Since they say, Prophesy not, God will take them at their word, and their sin shall be their punishment. Let the physician no longer attend the patient that will not be healed. Those are enemies, not only to God, but to their country, who silence good ministers, and stop the means of grace. What bonds will hold those who have no reverence for God's word? Sinners cannot expect to rest in a land they have polluted. You shall not only be obliged to depart out of this land, but it shall destroy you. Apply this to our state in this present world. There is corruption in the world through lust, and we should keep at a distance from it. It is not our rest: it was designed for our passage, but not for our portion; our inn, but not our home; here we have no continuing city; let us therefore arise and depart, let us seek a continuing city above. Since they will be deceived, let them be deceived. Teachers who recommend self-indulgence by their doctrine and example, best suit such sinners. 2:12,13 These verses may refer to the captivity of Israel and Judah. But the passage is also a prophecy of the conversion of the Jews to Christ. The Lord would not only bring them from captivity, and multiply them, but the Lord Jesus would open their way to God, by taking upon him the nature of man, and by the work of his Spirit in their hearts, breaking the fetters of Satan. Thus he has gone before, and the people follow, breaking, in his strength, through the enemies that would stop their way to heaven.