“Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.
2 “Hear, you mountains, the LORD’s accusation;
listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the LORD has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel.
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I burdened you? Answer me. 4 I brought you up out of Egypt
and redeemed you from the land of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you,
also Aaron and Miriam. 5 My people, remember
what Balak king of Moab plotted
and what Balaam son of Beor answered.
Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.”
6 With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly Or
prudently with your God.
Israel’s Guilt and Punishment
9 Listen! The LORD is calling to the city—
and to fear your name is wisdom—
“Heed the rod and the One who appointed it. The meaning of the Hebrew for this line is uncertain. 10 Am I still to forget your ill-gotten treasures, you wicked house,
and the short ephah, An ephah was a dry measure. which is accursed? 11 Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales,
with a bag of false weights? 12 Your rich people are violent;
your inhabitants are liars
and their tongues speak deceitfully. 13 Therefore, I have begun to destroy you,
to ruin Or
Therefore, I will make you ill and destroy you; / I will ruin you because of your sins. 14 You will eat but not be satisfied;
your stomach will still be empty. The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
You will store up but save nothing,
because what you save Or
You will press toward birth but not give birth, / and what you bring to birth I will give to the sword. 15 You will plant but not harvest;
you will press olives but not use the oil,
you will crush grapes but not drink the wine. 16 You have observed the statutes of Omri
and all the practices of Ahab’s house;
you have followed their traditions.
Therefore I will give you over to ruin
and your people to derision;
you will bear the scorn of the nations. Septuagint; Hebrew
scorn due my people”
Here the Prophet avowedly assumes that the people were sufficiently 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 sufficiently 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 you to the right way; but as ye are past recovery, vengeance alone now remains for you: he will no more spend labor in vain on you; for he finds in you neither shame, nor meekness, nor docility.”
The Prophet might have thus spoken to them; but he says that another thing was committed to his charge by the Lord, and that is, to contend or to plead before the mountains. And this reproach ought to have most acutely touched the hearts of the people: for there is here an implied comparison between the mountains and the Jews; as though the Prophet said, — “The mountains are void of understanding and reason, and yet the Lord prefers to have them as witness of his cause rather than you, who
exceed in stupidity all the mountains and rocks.” We now then perceive the design of God.
Some take mountains and hills in a metaphorical sense for the chief men who then ruled: and this manner of speaking very frequently occurs in Scripture: but as to the present passage, I have no doubt but that the Prophet mentions mountains and hills without a figure; for, as I have already said, he sets the hardness of the people in opposition to rocks, and intimates, that there would be more
attention and docility in the very mountains than what he had hitherto found in the chosen people. And the particle את, at, is often taken in the sense of before: it means also with; but in this place I take it for ל, lamed, before or near, as many instances might be cited. But that this is the meaning of the Prophet it is easy to gather from the next verse, when he says —
