(9) Her wound is incurable.--The state of Samaria is incurable: she is doomed: the destroyer is approaching--nay, he comes near, even to Jerusalem. The outlying towns are described as shuddering at the invader's advance, but Jerusalem itself is spared.

Verse 9. - Her wound; her stripes, the punishment inflicted on Samaria. Incurable (comp. Jeremiah 15:18) The day of grace is past, and Israel has not repented. It is come. The stripe, the punishment, reaches Judah. To the prophetic eye the Assyrians' invasion of Judaea seems close at hand, and even the final attack of the Chaldeans comes within his view. The same sins in the northern and southern capitals lead to the same fate. He is come. He, the enemy, the agent of the "stripe." The gate of my people. The gate, the place of meeting, the well guarded post, is put for the city itself (comp. Genesis 22:17; Deuteronomy 28:52; Obadiah 1:11). Pusey thinks that Micah refers to something short of total excision, and therefore that the invasion of Sennacherib alone is meant (2 Kings 18:13). But the fore shortened view of the prophet may well include the final ruin.

1:8-16 The prophet laments that Israel's case is desperate; but declare it not in Gath. Gratify not those that make merry with the sins or with the sorrows of God's Israel. Roll thyself in the dust, as mourners used to do; let every house in Jerusalem become a house of Aphrah, a house of dust. When God makes the house dust it becomes us to humble ourselves to the dust under his mighty hand. Many places should share this mourning. The names have meanings which pointed out the miseries coming upon them; thereby to awaken the people to a holy fear of Divine wrath. All refuges but Christ, must be refuges of lies to those who trust in them; other heirs will succeed to every inheritance but that of heaven; and all glory will be turned into shame, except that honour which cometh from God only. Sinners may now disregard their neighbours' sufferings, yet their turn to be punished will some come.For her wound is incurable,.... Or her "stroke is desperate" (e). The ruin of Samaria, and the ten tribes, was inevitable; the decree being gone forth, and they hardened in their sins, and continuing in their impenitence; and their destruction was irrevocable; they were not to be restored again, nor are they to this day; nor will be till the time comes that all Israel shall be saved: or "she is grievously sick of her wounds"; just ready to die, upon the brink of ruin, and no hope of saving her; this is the cause and reason of the above lamentation of the prophet: and what increased his grief and sorrow the more was,

for it is come unto Judah; the calamity has reached the land of Judah; it stopped not with Israel or the ten tribes, but spread itself into the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; for the Assyrian army, having taken Samaria, and carried Israel captive, in a short time, about seven or eight years, invaded Judea, and took the fenced cities of Judah in Hezekiah's time, in which Micah prophesied;

he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem; Sennacherib, king of Assyria, having taken the fenced cities, came up to the very gates of Jerusalem, and besieged it, where the courts of judicature were kept, and the people resorted to, to have justice done them; and Micah, being of the tribe of Judah, calls them his people, and was the more affected with their distress.

(e) "desperata est plaga ejus", V. L. "plagae ejus", Montanus, Drusius.