Micah 7:17

New Living Translation

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Contextual Overview

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

lick: Genesis 3:14, Genesis 3:15, Psalms 72:9, Isaiah 49:23, Isaiah 60:14, Isaiah 65:25, Lamentations 3:29, Revelation 3:9

move: 1 Samuel 14:11, Psalms 18:45, Jeremiah 16:16

worms: or, creeping things

they shall be: Exodus 15:14-16, Joshua 2:9-11, Joshua 9:24, Psalms 9:20, Isaiah 2:19-21, Isaiah 64:2, Jeremiah 33:9, Zechariah 14:5, Revelation 6:15-17, Revelation 18:9, Revelation 18:10

Reciprocal: Leviticus 11:42 - goeth upon the belly Joshua 10:16 - in a cave 2 Samuel 22:46 - out Nehemiah 2:10 - it grieved Psalms 102:9 - I Have Proverbs 14:19 - General Proverbs 30:32 - lay Isaiah 7:19 - in the holes Isaiah 52:15 - kings Micah 4:3 - and rebuke Nahum 3:11 - thou shalt be hid Zephaniah 3:15 - he hath Zechariah 14:12 - the plague wherewith

Cross-References

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Gill's Notes on the Bible

They shall lick the dust like a serpent,.... Whose food is the dust of the earth, according to the curse pronounced on it, Genesis 3:14; and which is either its, natural food it chooses to live on, as some serpents however are said o to do; or, going upon its belly, it cannot but take in a good deal of the dust of the earth along with its food; and hereby is signified the low, mean, abject, and cursed estate and condition of the seed of the serpent, wicked and ungodly men, the enemies of Christ and his people; who wilt be forced to yield subjection to him and his church, and will pretend the most profound respect for them, and the highest veneration of them. The allusion seems to be to the manner of the eastern nations, who, in complimenting their kings and great men, bowed so low to the ground with their faces, as to take up with their mouths the very dust of it. Particularly it is said of the Persians, that they first kiss the pavement on which the king treads, before they speak unto him, as Quistorpius on the place relates; and Valerius Maximus p says, that when Darius Hystaspis was declared king by the neighing of his horse, the rest of the six candidates alighted from their horses, and prostrated their bodies to the ground, as is the manner of the Persians, and saluted him king; and Herodotus q observes the same, custom among the Persians; and to this custom the poet Martial r refers; and Drusius says it is a custom in Asia to this day, that, when any go into the presence of a king, they kiss the ground, which is a token of the great veneration they have for him. The phrase is used of the enemies of the, Messiah, and of the converted Jews and Gentiles at the latter day, and is expressive of their great submission to them; see Psalms 72:9;

they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; who put out their heads and draw them in again upon the least notice or approach of danger; or like serpents, as Jarchi and Kimchi, which lurk in holes, and creep out of them oft their bellies, or any other creeping things. The word s here used signifies a tremulous and tumultuous motion, like the wriggling of a worm out of the earth; or the hurry of ants, when their nests are kicked or thrown up: this is expressive of the confusion and perturbation of the enemies of the Lord and his people; of the Babylonians, who were obliged in a hurry to leave their palaces, as the Targum and Aben Ezra interpret their holes, and their fortresses and towers, and deliver them to the Medes and Persians; and of Gog and Magog, and the antichristian states, who will be obliged to abandon their places of abode, and creep out of sight, and be reduced to the lowest and meanest condition;

they shall be afraid of the Lord our God: because of the glory of his majesty, the greatness of his power, and for fear of his judgments:

and shall fear because of thee; O God, or Israel, as Kimchi; the church of God, whom they despised and reproached before; but now shall be seized with a panic, and live in the utmost dread of, because of the power and glory of God in the midst of them, and lest they should fall a sacrifice to them.

o Vid. Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 1. c. 44. col. 27. p L. 7. c. 3. sect. 2. q Polymnia, sive l. 7. c. 12. r "Et turpes humilesque, supplicesque, Pictorum sola basiate regum". Epigram. l. 10. Ep. 71. s ירגזו "contremiscent", Munster, Tigurine version, Cocceius; "frement, sive tumultuabuntur", Calvin; "trepide prorepent", Burkius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They shall lick the dust like a (the) serpent - To lick the dust, by itself, pictures the extreme humility of persons who east themselves down to the very earth (as in Psalms 72:9; Isaiah 49:23). To lick it “like the serpent” seems rather to represent the condition of those who share the serpent’s doom Genesis 3:14; Isaiah 65:25, whose lot, viz. earth and things of earth, they had chosen (Rup.): “They shall move out of their holes”, or, better, shall tremble, (that is, “come tremblingly,”) out of their close places , whether these be strong places or prisons, as the word, varied in one vowel means. If it be strong places, it means, that “the enemies of God’s people should, in confusion and tumltuously with fear, leave their strongholds, wherein they thought to be secure, not able to lift themselves up against God and those by Him sent against them.” “Like worms of the earth”, literally, creeping things, or, as we say, reptiles, contemptuously. “They shall be afraid of”, or rather come trembling to, the Lord our God; it is uot said their, but our God, who hath done so great things for us. And shall fear because of (literally, from) Thee, O Lord, of whom they had before said, Where is the Lord thy God?

It is doubtful, whether these last words express a “servile tear,” whereby a man turns away and flees from the person or thing which he fears, or whether they simply describe fear of God, the first step toward repentance. In Hosea’s words, “they shall fear toward the Lord and His goodness” Hosea 3:5, the addition, and His goodness, determines the character of the fear. In Micah, it is not said that the fear brings them into any relation to God. lie is not spoken of; as becoming, any how, their God, and Micah closes by a thanksgiving, for God’s pardoning mercy, not to them but to His people.

And so the prophet ends, as he began, with the judgments of God; to those who would repent, chastisement, to the impenitent, punishment: “sentencing Samaria, guilty and not repenting” (Rup.), to perpetual captivity; to Jerusalem, guilty but repenting, promising restoration. So from the beginning of the world did God; so doth He; so shall He unto the end. So did He show Himself to Cain and Abel, who both, as we all, sinned in Adam. Cain, being impenitent, lie wholly cast away; Abel, being penitent,” and through faith offering a better sacrifice than Cain, and “bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance, He accepted.” So He hath foreshown as to the end Matthew 25:0. Rup.: “And that we may know how uniformly our Judge so distinguisheth, at the very moment of His own death while hanging between the two thieves, the one, impenitent and blaspheming, He left; to the other, penitent and confessing, He opened the gate of paradise; and, soon after, leaving the Jewish people unrepentant, He received the repentance of the Gentiles.” Thus the prophet parts with both out of sight; the people of God, feeding on the rich. bounty and abundance of God, and His marvelous gifts of grace above and beyond nature, multiplied to them above all the wonders of old time; the enemies of God’s people looking on, not to, admire, but to be ashamed, not to be healthfully ashamed, but to be willfully deaf to the voice of God. For, however to lay the hand on the mouth might be a token of reverent silence, the deafness of the ears can hardly be other than the emblem of hardened obstinacy.

What follows, then, seems more like the unwilling creeping-forth into the Presence of God, when they cannot keep away, than conversion. It seems to picture the reprobate, who would not “hear the Voice of the Son of God and live” John 5:25, but who, in the end, shall be forced to hear it out of their close places or prisons, that is, the grave, and come forth in fear, when they shall “say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us” Luke 23:30; Revelation 6:16. Thus the prophet brings us to the close of all things, the gladness and joy of God’s people, the terror of His enemies, and adds only the song of thanksgiving of all the redeemed.