Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

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What should I learn from this chapter?

• How history repeats itself and ultimately comes to God’s desired purposes.
• These prophecies occur in history and again in time’s future. Men are disobedient, inviting in spiritual demons, they suffer the consequences, and after suffering they return to God.
• Spiritual demons never die, they just wait for their next opportunity.
• This chapter focuses on the consequences of disobedience in tribulation and the return of Jesus.
• Micah uses the meanings of the names of cities and towns to reveal God’s word.
• See BIBLE: Micah Chapter 1- Prophecy
• See BIBLE: Micah Chapter 1- Symbolism

Micah 1

• Prologue:
  Israel and Judah are two separate nations; Israel to the North and Judah to the south. Micah is the prophet to Judah.

Judgment on Israel and Judah

Micah 1:¹ The word of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Chart of Kings below for Israel and Judah. Micah was the prophet to the kings with the arrows:
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

The Coming Judgment on Israel

Micah 1:² Hear, all you peoples!
Listen, O earth, and all that is in it!
Let the Lord God (Yᵊhōvâ ‘ăḏōnāy) be a witness against you,
The Lord (‘ăḏōnāy) from His holy temple.

Micah 1:³ For behold, the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) is coming out of His place;
He will come down
And tread on the high places of the earth.

Micah 1:⁴ The mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before the fire,
Like waters poured down a steep place.

Micah 1:⁵ All this is for the transgression of Jacob
And for the sins of the house of Israel.

What is the transgression of Jacob?
Is it not Samaria?
And what are the high places (where idols are worshiped) of Judah?
Are they not Jerusalem (the holiest place)?

Micah 1:⁶ “Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field,
Places for planting a vineyard;
I will pour down her stones into the valley,
And I will uncover her foundations.

Micah 1:⁷ All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,
And all her pay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire;
All her idols I will lay desolate,
For she gathered it from the pay of a harlot,
And they shall return to the pay of a harlot.”

Mourning for Israel and Judah

Micah 1:⁸ Therefore I will wail and howl,
I will go stripped and naked;
I will make a wailing like the jackals
And a mourning like the ostriches,

Micah 1:⁹ For her wounds are incurable.
For it has come to Judah;
It has come to the gate of My people—
To Jerusalem.

Micah 1:¹⁰ Tell it not in Gath,
Weep not at all;
In Beth Aphrah (Lit. House of Dust)
Roll yourself in the dust.

1. Gath or Gat = “Crushing”
   (Hebrew: גַּת‎, romanized: Gaṯ, lit. ‘wine press‘; Latin: Geth, Philistine: 𐤂𐤕 *Gīt), often referred to as Gath of the Philistines, was a major Philistine city and one of the five Philistine city-states during the Iron Age.
   • The Garden of Gethsemane comes from the word “Gath”, a place of crushing olives to make olive oil used to anoint kings and priests.
   • Jesus was crushed and poured out his soul unto death like an anointed olive.
2. Beth Aphrah = “House of Dust”

Micah 1:¹¹ Pass by in naked shame, you inhabitant of Shaphir (Lit. Beautiful);
The inhabitant of Zaanan (Lit. Going Out) does not go out.
Beth Ezel mourns;
Its place to stand is taken away from you.

1. Shaphir = Beautiful
2. Zaanan = Going Out
3. Beth Ezel = “House of Separation”
   Ezel = A separation, ( 1 Samuel 20:19 ), a stone, or heap of stones, in the neighborhood of Saul’s residence, the scene of the parting of David and Jonathan. The margin of the Authorized Version reads, “The stone that sheweth the way,” in this rendering following the Targum.

• Beautiful is not beautiful, but shamed, Going Out does not Go Out, The Stone that shows the way becomes the mourning house of separation.

Micah 1:¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth (Lit. Bitterness) pined for good (Lit. was sick),
But disaster came down from the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ)
To the gate of Jerusalem.

1. Maroth = “Bitterness”

Micah 1:¹³ O inhabitant of Lachish,
Harness the chariot to the swift steeds
(She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion),
For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

Micah 1:¹⁴ Therefore you shall give presents to Moresheth Gath (Lit. Possession of Gath);
The houses of Achzib (Lit. Lie) shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

1. Moresheth Gath = “Possession of Gath”
2. Achzib = “Lie”

Micah 1:¹⁵ I will yet bring an heir (Jesus) to you, O inhabitant of Mareshah (Lit. Inheritance);
The glory of Israel shall come to Adullam (Lit. Refuge, Hiding aka “Justice of the People”).

1. Adullam = “justice of the people”
   1. a town of the Canaanites allotted to Judah and lying in the lowlands; site of the cave where David hid.
2. The glory of Israel is Jesus.
   • Is “Adullam” the place where the remnant of Jews are hiding during the 3-1/2 years of the “Great” “Tribulation”. This may be the reason the incident is mentioned in the most valuable real estate in the world: the Bible.
   • If so, then Jesus would go to those, his people, who are in hiding.
3. The faithful are “Joint heirs”, the name of “Mareshah”.

Micah 1:¹⁶ Make yourself bald and cut off your hair (to mourn),
Because of your precious children;
Enlarge your baldness like an eagle,
For they shall go from you into captivity.

• Micah 1:16 returns to Micah’s present time in his prophecy.