Micah 7:1

Woe is me!.... Alas for me unhappy man that I am, to live in such an age, and among such a people, as I do!

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.

MICAH CHAPTER 7 The church, complaining of the scarcity of good men, ,2, and the general corruption, ,4, putteth not confidence in man, but in God, . She triumpheth in hopes of restoration after affliction, . She prayeth to God, . God answereth her with promises of confounding her enemies, . God’ s mercies to his people, . All are agreed in the scope and meaning of these words, that they are designed a complaint for the great scarcity of men that feared God, did justice, and loved mercy; and so the prophet begins with a pathetical complaint, Woe is me! ordinarily this phrase is minatory, but here it is lamentation, as every eye may see who discerns the propriety of the Hebrew. For I; either the prophet in his own person, or else in the person of the good man; or, by a usual figure, the land may be brought in, complaining, that whereas it was once well stored, now it hath few right good in it. Am as when they have gathered the summer fruits; all the fair, goodly, and ripe fruit gathered, none left, or none but evil fruit, such as the labourers thought not worth gathering up. So is the harvest of Israel and Judah too; though I and other prophets have sown good seed abundantly, yet goodness comes up very thin and scarce: so ,16. As the grape-gleanings of the vintage, the same complaint in a like elegant metaphor, drawn from the vintage-gatherer, who leaves but few scattering single grapes. So Israel and Judah, which in bringing forth good men should have been as a fruitful vine full of clusters, but barren they have been, and are; and good men, i.e. just, compassionate, and humble men, are as grapes after the vintage is gathered. There is no cluster to eat; such good men’ s converse would as much delight, refresh, and encourage me, as a fair cluster of grapes doth a thirsty and hungry person, but there is not one such cluster. My soul desired; it speaks a vehement desire. The first-ripe fruit; it is an ellipsis or aposiopesis, and to be supplied thus, but there was, or I found, none.

Micah 7:1 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.Ver. 1. Woe is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits] Allai li, Alas for me. This last sermon of his the prophet begins with a pathetic queritation, bewailing his own unhappiness in the little good success of his ministry. Mirifice autem nostris temporibus hic sermo convenit, saith Gualther. This discourse suits well with these times; wherein we may justly cry out with the prophet Isaiah, "Who hath believed our report?" And again, "O my leanness, my leanness! woe is me, for there is only as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done," Isaiah 24:13; Isaiah 24:16. Hei mihi quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo. Though he had worn himself to a very skeleton in the Lord’ s work; yet had he laboured in vain, Israel was not gathered, Isaiah 49:4-5, and hence his woeful complaint. The like we read of Elias, 1 Kings 19:10, where he bitterly bewails his aloneness; so did Athanasius in his age; and Basil in his Fasciculus temporum, A. D. 884, cries out, for the paucity of good people, Heu, heu, Domine Deus, Alas, Lord, how few appear to be on thy side. “ Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. ” And Gualther complains, that the Anabaptists in Germany urged this as a chief argument to draw people from communion with our Churches, that there was so little good done by preaching, and so few souls converted. Hence some ministers despond, and are ready to kick up all. Latimer tells of one who gave this answer why he left off preaching, because he saw he did no good. This, saith Latimer, is a naughty, a very naughty answer. A grief it will be, and fit it should be; piety to God and pity to men calls for it. Christ wept over Jerusalem; Paul had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart (not inferior to that of a woman in travail ’Oδυνη, Romans 9:2) for his contumacious countrymen; neither could he speak of those lewd lowlies at Philippi with dry eyes, Philippians 3:18. But an utter discouragement it should not be, since our reward is with God however, Isaiah 49:5, and perhaps a larger, because we have wrought with so little encouragement: we have ploughed when others have only trod out the grain: they trod and fed together, when as those that plough have no refreshing till the work be done, Hosea 10:13.

VII. (1) Woe is me!—Micah gives here a fearful picture of the demoralised state of society in Judah which had called down the vengeance of God. As the early fig gathered in June is eagerly sought for by the traveller, so the prophet sought anxiously for a good man; but his experience was that of the Psalmist: “The godly man ceaseth; the faithful fail from among the children of men.”

CHAPTER VII The prophet begins this chapter with lamenting the decay of piety and the growth of ungodliness, using a beautiful allegory to imply (as explained in Micah 7:2) that the good man is as seldom to be met with as the early fig of best quality in the advanced season, or the cluster after the vintage, 1, 2. He then reproves and threatens in terms so expressive of great calamities as to be applied in the New Testament to times of the hottest persecution, 3-6. See Matthew 10:35-36. Notwithstanding which a Jew is immediately introduced declaring, in the name of his captive people, the strongest faith in the mercy of God the most submissive resignation to his will, and the firmest hope in his favour in future times, when they should triumph over their enemies, 7-10. The prophet upon this resumes the discourse, and predicts their great prosperity and increase, 11, 12; although the whole land of Israel must first be desolated on account of the great wickedness of its inhabitants, 13. The prophet intercedes in behalf of his people, 14. After which God is introduced promising, in very ample terms, their future restoration and prosperity, 15-17. And then, to conclude, a chorus of Jews is introduced, singing a beautiful hymn of thanksgiving, suggested by the gracious promises which precede, 18-20. NOTES ON CHAP. VII Verse 1. Wo is me!] This is a continuation of the preceding discourse. And here the prophet points out the small number of the upright to be found in the land. He himself seemed to be the only person who was on God's side; and he considers himself as a solitary grape, which had escaped the general gathering. The word קץ kayits, which is sometimes used for summer, and summer fruits in general, is here translated late figs; and may here, says Bishop Newcome, be opposed to the early ripe fig of superior quality. See on Hosea 9:10, and Amos 8:1-2. He desired to see the first-ripe fruit - distinguished and eminent piety; but he found nothing but a very imperfect or spurious kind of godliness.

Micah 7:1-6. These verses should be read in connexion with Chap. 6.

Woe - o is me! for I am, as when they have gathered the summer fruits , as the grape-gleanings of the vintage “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts,” Isaiah said at the same time, “is the house of

OF THE NATION’S , Micah 7:1-6.Scholars are not agreed on the person of the speaker in these verses; some think of the prophet, some of Zion, some of the “true Israel,” that is, Israel after the spirit.