Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
Micah 7
Micah 7:1-2
1. Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit.
1. Vae mihi (alii deducunt a {,}יללululare meum; sed est particula dolentis apud
Hebraeos; Vae mihi ergo,) quia fui sicut collectiones aestatis (sic est ad verbum,) et sicuti racemi vindemiae; nullus botrus ad comedendum; maturos fructus (vel, primitias frugum) desideravit anima mea.
2. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
2. Periit humanus (vel, mansuetus) e terra, et rectus in hominibus nemo est; et omnes sanguinibus insidiantur, quisque fratrem suum venatur reti (alii, ad perniciem; et {,}הרםetiam Hebraeis interdum est occisio.)
The meaning of the first verse is somewhat doubtful: some refer what the Prophet says to punishment; and others to the wickedness of the people. The first think that the calamity, with which the Lord had visited the sins of the people, is bewailed; as though the Prophet looked on the disordered state of the whole land. But it may be easily gathered from the second verse, that the Prophet speaks here of the wickedness of the people, rather than of the punishment already inflicted. I have therefore put the two verses together, that the full meaning may be more evident to us.
Woe then to me! Why? I am become as gatherings Too free, or rather too licentious is this version, --- ``I am become as one who seeks to gather summer-fruits, and finds none;'' so that being disappointed of his hope, he burns with desire. This cannot possibly be considered as the rendering of the Prophet's words. There is indeed some difÏculty in the expressions: their import, however, seems to be this, --- that the land, which the Prophet undertakes here to represent and personify, was like to a field, or a garden, or a vineyard, that was empty. He therefore says, that