Volume III
The Book of the Prophet Micah
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. III, p. 1452
This prophet began his predictions a little after Isaiah, and continued prophesying along with him about fifty years. His scope is to convince the Israelites, and especially the Jews, of their wickedness and danger, and so to bring them to repentance, ch. i.-iii. vi. vii. 1-6: and to comfort the people of God with promises of mercy and deliverance, of the incarnation of the Messiah, and the grace of the gospel through him, ch. ii. 12, 13; iv. v. vii. 7-20. [Micah is an abbreviated form of Micaiah, the name given to him in Je. 26. 18 (Hebrew), and also of Micaiyahu, the full form, which signifies 'who is like Jehovah.' He is called 'the Morasthite,' because he was born at Moresheth-Gath, a village situated in the plain of Philistia, at the foot of the mountains of Judah, and, according to Jerome, a short distance east of Eleutheropolis. In his prophecy he mentions no less than ten towns or villages in the neighbourhood of his home, warning them of the approaching calamities. But while he thus lingers for a time near home, Samaria and Jerusalem form the chief subjects of his prophetic denunciations. P.]