Micah 6:10

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) The scant measure.—Literally, the hateful ephah of leanness—i.e., less than it should be. The Jews were much addicted to the falsification of weights and measures. They made “the ephah small, and the shekel great, falsifying the balances by deceit” (Amos 8:5).

Benson Commentary

Micah 6:10-12. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness, &c. — Notwithstanding all the express laws, the exhortations and reproofs given you upon this subject, and so many examples of punishment set before you; still are there many that use unjust and fraudulent means to enrich themselves? who keep scant measures to sell their goods by, which the law of God often declares to be an abomination to him? The reproof is the same with that of Amos 8:5, where see the note. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, &c. — Shall I approve or acquit them, as if they were righteous? For the rich men thereof — Namely, of the city, spoken of Micah 6:9; are full of violence — Not only of fraud and injustice, but oppression, tyranny, and cruelty. And the inhabitants have spoken lies — Have gone aside from truth, integrity, and fidelity, and have deceived each other by falsehood.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:9-16 God, having showed how necessary it was that they should do justly, here shows how plain it was that they had done unjustly. This voice of the Lord says to all, Hear the rod when it is coming, before you see it, and feel it. Hear the rod when it is come, and you are sensible of the smart; hear what counsels, what cautions it speaks. The voice of God is to be heard in the rod of God. Those who are dishonest in their dealings shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make. What is got by fraud and oppression, cannot be kept or enjoyed with satisfaction. What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest. Sin is a root of bitterness, soon planted, but not soon plucked up again. Their being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept themselves in his love, was an honour to them; but now, being backsliders, their having been once the people of God turns to their reproach.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Are there yet - Still after all the warnings and long-suffering of God, "the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked?" "Treasures of wickedness" are treasures gotten by wickedness; yet it means too that he wicked shall have no treasure, no fruit, but his wickedness. He treasureth up treasures, but of wickedness; as James saith, "Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days" James 5:3, that is, of the miseries that shall come upon them James 1. The words stand over against one another; "house of the wicked, treasures of wickedness;" as though the whole house of the wicked was but a "treasure-house of wickedness." Therein it began; therein and in its rewards it shall end. "Are there yet?" the prophet asks. There shall soon cease to be. The treasure shall be spoiled; the iniquity alone shall remain.

And the scant ephah - (Literally, "ephah of leanness" the English margin) which is abominable? Scant itself, and, by the just judgment of God, producing scantness, emaciated and emaciating (See Micah 6:14); as He says, "He gave them their desire, and sent leanness withal into their soul" Psalm 106:15; and James, "it shall eat your flesh as it were fire" James 5:3. Even a pagan said, , "Gain gotten by wickedness is loss;" and that, as being "abominable" or "accursed" or, one might say, "bewrathed," lying under the wrath and curse of God. Rib.: "What they minish from the measure, that they add to the wrath of God and the vengeance which shall come upon them; what is lacking to the measure shall be supplied out of the wrath of God." The Ephah was a corn-measure Amos 8:5, containing about six bushels; the rich, in whose house it was, were the sellers; they were the necessaries of life then, which the rich retailers of corn were selling dishonestly, at the price of the lives of the poor . Our subtler ways of sin cheat ourselves, not God. In what ways do not competitive employers use the scant measure which is accursed? What else is all our competitive trade, our cheapness, our wealth, but scant measure to the poor, making their wages lean, full and overflowing with the wrath of God?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. Are there yet—notwithstanding all My warnings. Is there to be no end of acquiring treasures by wickedness? Jehovah is speaking (Mic 6:9).

scant measure … abominable—(Pr 11:1; Am 8:5).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Are there yet? after so many express laws peremptorily forbidding, so many examples of punishments on such, after so many reproofs, menaces, and exhortations by so many prophets, dare you still do so unjustly?

Treasures of wickedness; gotten by injurious, oppressive courses, ill-gotten wealth; the wickedness wherewith they raked their wealth together is laid up with their wealth, as the like is said, Jam 5:3.

In the house of the wicked: none have thought of restoring their ill-gotten goods; the wicked fathers, who heaped them together, laid them up in their houses, and the children retain them; the house, i.e. family, of these do as their fathers, store up violence, and so do directly contrary to the first rule, Micah 6:1, to do justly.

The scant measure, which is less than standard; see Amos 8:5; by which these unrighteous ones did both offend against God, and cozen their chapmen.

That is abominable; God abhors such injustice, Proverbs 11:1 20:10,23 Deu 25:13-16. It is most hateful in his sight.

Are there yet? after so many express laws peremptorily forbidding, so many examples of punishments on such, after so many reproofs, menaces, and exhortations by so many prophets, dare you still do so unjustly?

Treasures of wickedness; gotten by injurious, oppressive courses, ill-gotten wealth; the wickedness wherewith they raked their wealth together is laid up with their wealth, as the like is said, Jam 5:3.

In the house of the wicked: none have thought of restoring their ill-gotten goods; the wicked fathers, who heaped them together, laid them up in their houses, and the children retain them; the house, i.e. family, of these do as their fathers, store up violence, and so do directly contrary to the first rule, Micah 6:1, to do justly.

The scant measure, which is less than standard; see Amos 8:5; by which these unrighteous ones did both offend against God, and cozen their chapmen.

That is abominable; God abhors such injustice, Proverbs 11:1 20:10,23 Deu 25:13-16. It is most hateful in his sight.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness the house of the wicked?.... There are; they continue there. This is the voice of the Lord by the prophet, and the language of the rod of correction to be heard, exposing the sins of the people, for which the Lord had a controversy with them; particularly their mammon of unrighteousness, the vast wealth, riches, and treasures, collected together by very wicked and unlawful ways and means; and which, instead of restoring them to the persons they had defrauded of them, they retained them in their houses, notwithstanding the reproofs of the prophets, and the corrections of the Almighty. Some render it, "is there not fire?" &c. (k); that is, in the house of the wicked, because of the treasures of wickedness, that which consumes them; but Gussetius (l) interprets it of fornications and adulteries. Others render it, "is there yet a man?" &c. (m); an honourable man, as Aben Ezra, who continues in his iniquity, after the Lord's voice cries to the city; but Abendana interprets it of the prophet himself, continuing to reprove the wicked for their treasures of wickedness, and their other sins;

and the scant measure that is abominable? or "the ephah of leanness provoking to wrath" (n); that is, a deficient measure, less than it should be; the "ephah" was a dry measure, and it was made small, as in Amos 8:5; and held less than it should; and this brought leanness and poverty upon those to whom they sold by it, as well as ruin upon themselves in the issue; for such practices as they were abominable and detestable to God; they stirred up his wrath, and brought destruction on those that used them. The Targum is,

"false measures that bring a curse.''

(k) , Sept. "adhuc ignis", V. L. So Joseph Kimchi. (l) Ebr. Comment. p. 352. (m) "Adhuc num vir domo", Montanus; "adhuc suntne viro domus improbi", some in Drusius. So R. Sol. Urbin, fol. 37. 2.((n) "et ephah macilentiae indignatio a Deo proventura", Tarnovius; "detestatus Domino", Pagninus; "et ephah maciei abominatione digna", Burkius.

Geneva Study Bible

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. The denunciation is couched in the form of questions, to prick the conscience of the guilty ones.

Are there yet the treasures …] i.e. Does the oppressor go on heaping up unjustly acquired spoil?

the scant measure] A particular measure is referred to, viz. the ephah (about three pecks, dry measure). The sin specified reminds us forcibly of Deuteronomy, where it is forbidden to have in one’s house ‘divers ephahs, a great and a small,’ and ‘a perfect and right ephah’ is prescribed (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). Amos, too, Micah’s senior, speaks of those who longed for the expiration of the sabbath, ‘that they might set forth wheat, making the ephah small’ (Amos 8:5).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - The reproof is given in the form of questions, in order to rouse the sleeping conscience of the people. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked? Do the wicked still continue to bring into their houses treasures obtained by wrong? The old versions compare this ill-gotten wealth to a fire which shall consume the homes of its possessors. Septuagint, Μὴ πῦρ καὶ οϊκος ἀνόμου θησαυρίζω θησαυροὺς ἀνόμους; "Is there fire and the house of the wicked treasuring up wicked treasures?" Vulgate, Adhuc ignis in domo impii thesauri iniquitatis? So the Syriac; the Chaldee keeps to the Masoretic reading. The scant measure; literally, the ephah of leanness. The ephah was about three pecks. According to Josephus ('Ant.,' 15:09. 2), it contained one Attic medimnus, which would be nearly a bushel and a half. Fraudulent weights and measures are often denounced (Leviticus 19:35, etc.; Deuteronomy 25:14, etc.; Proverbs 20:10, 23; Amos 8:5). Vulgate, Mensura minor irae plena, where the Hebrew has, that is abominable. Such frauds are hateful to God, and are marked with his wrath. Micah 6:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The threatening words commence in Micah 6:10; Micah 6:10-12 containing a condemnation of the prevailing sins. Micah 6:10. "Are there yet in the house of the unjust treasures of injustice, and the ephah of consumption, the cursed one? Micah 6:11. Can I be clean with the scale of injustice, and with a purse with stones of deceit? Micah 6:12. That their rich men are full of wickedness, and their inhabitants speak deceit, and their tongue is falseness in their mouth." The reproof is dressed up in the form of a question. In the question in Micah 6:10 the emphasis is laid upon the עוד, which stands for that very reason before the interrogative particle, as in Genesis 19:12, the only other place in which this occurs. אשׁ, a softened form for ישׁ, as in 2 Samuel 14:19. Treasures of wickedness are treasures acquired through wickedness or acts of injustice. The meaning of the question is not, Are the unjust treasures not yet removed out of the house, not yet distributed again? but, as Micah 6:10 and Micah 6:11 require, Does the wicked man still bring such treasures into the house? does he still heap up such treasures in his house? The question is affirmative, and the form of a question is chosen to sharpen the conscience, as the unjust men to whom it is addressed cannot deny it. איפת רזון, ephah of consumption or hungriness, analogous to the German expression "a hungry purse," is too small an ephah (cf. Deuteronomy 25:14; Amos 8:5); the opposite of א שׁלמה (Deuteronomy 25:15) or א צדק (Leviticus 19:36), which the law prescribed. Hence Micah calls it זעוּמה equals זעוּם יהוה in Proverbs 22:14, that which is smitten by the wrath of God (equivalent to cursed; cf. Numbers 23:7; Proverbs 24:24). Whoever has not a full ephah is, according to Deuteronomy 25:16, an abomination to the Lord. If these questions show the people that they do not answer to the demands made by the Lord in Micah 6:8, the questions in Micah 6:11 also teach that, with this state of things, they cannot hold themselves guiltless. The speaker inquires, from the standpoint of his own moral consciousness, whether he can be pure, i.e., guiltless, if he uses deceitful scales and weights, - a question to which every one must answer No. It is difficult, however, to decide who the questioner is. As Micah 6:9 announces words of God, and in Micah 6:10 God is speaking, and also in Micah 6:12, Micah 6:13, it appears as though Jehovah must be the questioner here. But אזכּה does not tally with this. Jerome therefore adopts the rendering numquid justificabo stateram impiam; but זכה in the kal has only the meaning to be pure, and even in the piel it is not used in the sense of niqqh, to acquit. This latter fact is sufficient to overthrow the proposal to alter the reading into piel. Moreover, "the context requires the thought that the rich men fancy they can be pure with deceitful weights, and a refutation of this delusive idea" (Caspari). Consequently the prophet only can raise this question, namely as the representative of the moral consciousness; and we must interpret this transition, which is so sudden and abrupt to our ears, by supplying the thought, "Let every one ask himself," Can I, etc. Instead of רשׁע we have the more definite mirmh in the parallel clause. Scales and a bag with stones belong together; 'ăbhanı̄m are the stone weights (cf. Leviticus 19:36; Deuteronomy 25:13) which were carried in a bag (Proverbs 16:11). In Micah 6:12 the condemnation of injustice is widened still further. Whereas in the first clause the rich men of the capital (the suffix pointing back to עיר in Micah 6:9), who are also to be thought of in Micah 6:10, are expressly mentioned, in the second clause the inhabitants generally are referred to. And whilst the rich are not only charged with injustice or fraud in trade, but with châmâs, violence of every kind, the inhabitants are charged with lying and deceit of the tongue. Leshōnâm (their tongue) is not placed at the head absolutely, in the sense of "As for their tongue, deceit is," etc. Such an emphasis as this is precluded by the fact that the preceding clause, "speaking lies," involves the use of the tongue. Leshōnâm is the simple subject: Their tongue is deceit or falsehood in their mouth; i.e., their tongue is so full of deceit, that it is, so to speak, resolved into it. Both clauses express the thought, that "the inhabitants of Jerusalem are a population of liars and cheats" (Hitzig). The connection in which the verse stands, or the true explanation of אשׁר, has been a matter of dispute. We must reject both the combination of Micah 6:12 and Micah 6:13 ("Because their rich men, etc., therefore I also," etc.), and also the assumption that Micah 6:12 contains the answer to the question in Micah 6:10, and that אשׁר precedes the direct question (Hitzig): the former, because Micah 6:12 obviously forms the conclusion to the reproof, and must be separated from what precedes it; the latter, because the question in Micah 6:11 stands between Micah 6:10 and Micah 6:12, which is closely connected with Micah 6:10, and Micah 6:12 also contains no answer to Micah 6:10, so far as the thought is concerned, even if the latter actually required an answer. We must rather take אשׁר as a relative, as Caspari does, and understand the verse as an exclamation, which the Lord utters in anger over the city: "She, whose rich men are full," etc. "Angry persons generally prefer to speak of those who have excited their wrath, instead of addressing their words to them."