Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
Micah 6
Micah 6:1-2
1. Hear ye now what the Lord saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.
1. Audite nunc (vel, quaeso) quod dicit Jehova, --- Surge, litiga coram montibus, et colles audiant vocem tuam:
2. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.
2. Audite montes disceptationem Jehovae, et fortia undamenta terrae: quia disceptatio Jehovae cum populo suo, et cum Israele contendet.
Here the Prophet avowedly assumes that the people were sufÏciently proved guilty; and yet they resisted through a hardiness the most obdurate, and rejected all admonitions without shame, and without any discretion. He is therefore commanded to direct his discourse to the mountains and to the hills; for his labor had now for a long time been useless as to men. The meaning then is that when the Prophet had spent much labor on the people and derived no fruit, he is at length bidden to call the mountains and the hills to bear their testimony to God; and thus before the elements is made known and proved the ungodliness and the obstinacy of the people.
But before he relates what had been committed to him, he makes a preface, in order to gain attention.
Hear ye what Jehovah says. The Prophets are wont, on very serious subjects, to make such a preface as is here made by Micah: and it is indeed sufÏciently evident from the passage, that he has here no ordinary subject for his teaching, but that, on the contrary, he rebukes their monstrous stupidity; for he had been addressing the deaf without any advantage. As then the Prophet was about to declare no common thing, but to be a witness of a new judgment, --- this is the reason why he bids them to be unusually attentive. Hear, he says, what Jehovah saith. What is it? He might have added, ``Jehovah has very often spoken to you, he has tried all means to bring