Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin (continued)
MINOR PROPHETS
Micah 2:11
11. If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.
11. Si vir ambulans in spiritu et fallaciter mantiens, stillem tibi pro vino et pro sicera, tunc erit stillans populi hujus (hoc est, hic demum erit Propheta populi hujus: sicut etiam priore membro proprie vertendum est, si prophetem.)
The Prophet points out here another vice by which the people were infected --- that they wished to be soothed with flatteries: for all the ungodly think that they are in a manner exempt from God's judgment, when they hear no reproof; yea they think themselves happy, when they get flatterers, who are indulgent to their vices.
This is now the disease which the Prophet discovers as prevailing among the people.
Jerome sought out a meaning quite different here, as in the former verses; but I will not stop to refute him, for it is enough to give the real meaning of the Prophet. But as before he rendered women, princes, and thus perverted entirely the meaning, so he says here, I would I were a vain Prophet, that is, walking in vanity, and mendacious; as though Micah said ``I wish I were false in denouncing on you the calamities of which I speak; for I would rather announce to you something joyful and favorable: but I cannot do this, for the Lord commands what is different.'' But there is nothing of this kind in the words of the Prophet. Let us then return to the text.
If a man walks in the spirit, and deceitfully lies, 166 etc. Almost all interpreters agree in this, --- that to walk in the spirit, is to announce any thing proudly and presumptuously; and they take spirit for wind or for deceits. But I doubt not, but that to walk in the spirit was then a common mode of speaking, to set forth the exercise of the prophetic ofÏce. When therefore any one was a Prophet, or one who discharged that ofÏce, or sustained the character of a teacher, he professed himself to have been sent from above. The Prophets were indeed formerly called the men of the spirit, and for this reason, because they adduced nothing from themselves or from their own heads; but only delivered faithfully, as from hand to hand, what they had received from God. To walk in the spirit then means, in my view, the same thing as to profess the ofÏce of a teacher. When therefore any one professed the ofÏce of a teacher, what was he to do? ``If I,'' says Micah, ``being endued with the Spirit, and called to teach, wished to ingratiate myself with you, and preached that there would be an abundant increase of wine and strong drink, all would applaud me; for if any one promises these things, he becomes the prophet of this people.''
In short, Micah intimates that the Israelites rejected all sound doctrine, for they sought nothing but flatteries, and wished to be cherished in their vices; yea, they desired to be deceived by false adulation to their own ruin. It hence appears that they were not the people they wished to be deemed, that is, the people of God: for the first condition in God's covenant was, --- that he should rule among his people.
166Perhaps a more literal rendering would be thus,— If a man, the follower of the spirit and of deception, Speaks falsely, "I will prophesy to thee of wine and of strong drink," He then becomes the prophet of this people. To walk after, or to follow, "the wind," as some render {,{רוחseems by no means proper. The phrase means the same as ``the man of the spirit'' in Hosea 9:7 Newcome changes the whole form of the passage, though not the meaning, except in one instance. Guided by the Syriac version, Houbigant and the Septuagint, without the sanction of any MS., he gives this version, --- If a man, walking in the spirit of falsehood and lies, Prophesy unto thee for wine and for strong drink, He shall be the prophet of this people. He puts ``for wine,'' etc., and not ``of wine:'' but the latter rendering is much more suitable to the context. --- Ed.