11. Et ego non parcerem Nineveh urbi magnae, in qua sunt duodecies decem (continued)
Micah 1
Micah 1:1
1. The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
1. Sermo Jehovae qui factus est (vel, directus) ad Michah Morasthitem, diebus
Jotham, Achaz, Jehizkiae, regum Judae, quem vidit super Samariam et Jerusalem.
This inscription, in the first place, shows the time in which Micah lived, and during which God employed his labors. And this deserves to be noticed: for at this day his sermons would be useless, or at least frigid, except his time were known to us, and we be thereby enabled to compare what is alike and what is different in the men of his age, and in those of our own: for when we understand that Micah condemned this or that vice, as we may also learn from the other Prophets and from sacred history, we are able to apply more easily to ourselves what he then said, inasmuch as we can view our own life as it were in a mirror. This is the reason why the Prophets are wont to mention the time in which they executed their ofÏce.
But how long Micah followed the course of his vocation we cannot with certainty determine. It is, however, probable that he discharged his ofÏce as a Prophet for thirty years: it may be that he exceeded forty years; for he names here three kings, the first of whom, that is Jotham, reigned sixteen years; and he was followed by Ahab, who also reigned as many years. If then Micah was called at the beginning of the first reign, he must have prophesied for thirty-two years, the time of the two kings.
Then the reign of Hezekiah followed, which continued to the twenty-ninth year: and it may be, that the Prophet served God to the death, or even beyond the death, of Hezekiah. 135 We hence see that the number of his years cannot with certainty be known; though it be sufÏciently evident that he taught not for a few years, but that 135It is probable that the greater part of his Prophecy was written in the days of this king; for a portion of what is contained in the third chapter is referred to in Jeremiah 26:18, 19, as having been delivered "in the days of Hezekiah."—Ed.