Micah 3:9

Third strophe. - Mic 3:9. "Hear this, I pray, O he heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, who abhor right, and bend all that is straight. Mic 3:10. Building Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with wickedness. Mic 3:11. Their heads, they judge for reward; and their priests, they teach for hire; and their prophets, they divine for money, and lean upon Jehovah, saying, Is not Jehovah among us? evil will not come upon us." With the words "Hear this, I pray," the address returns to its starting-point in Mic 3:1, but only to announce to the leaders of the people the threat of punishment for which the way has been prepared by Mic 3:2-7. To this end their God-forgetting conduct is briefly summed up once more in Mic 3:10, Mic 3:11. The summons to hear is really attached to the end of Mic 3:8. They are to hear the sin of Jacob (Mic 3:9-11); but they are also to hear the punishment for their sin, to which the word "this" points. The civil rulers only are addressed in Mic 3:9, - namely, those who were charged with the administration of justice and of the affairs of the state, but who did the very opposite, who abhorred justice, and made the straight crooked, because they passed sentence for bribes (Mic 3:11). They thereby build Zion with blood, etc., i.e., obtain the means of erecting splendid buildings by cruel extortions, and partly also by actual judicial murders, as Ahab (1 Kings 21 compared with Mic 6:16), and after him Jehoiakim, had done (Jer 22:13-17). The Chaldeans built with blood in a different sense (Hab 2:12). The participle bōneh (building) is also in apposition to râ'shē bēth (heads of the house, etc.), and the singular without the article is to be taken collectively. They do not, however, truly build the city by this, they simply labour for…

What the apostle says of another of the prophets is true of this, who was also his contemporary - "Esaias is very bold," Rom 10:20. So, in this chapter, Micah is very bold in reproving and threatening the great men that were the ringleaders in sin; and he gives the reason (Mic 3:8) why he was so bold, because he had commission and instruction from God to say what he said, and was carried out in it by a higher spirit and power than his own. Magistracy and ministry are two great ordinances of God, for good to his church, but these were both corrupted and the intentions of them perverted; and upon those that abused them, and so abused the church with them, the prophet is very severe, and justly so. I. He gives them their lesson severally, reproving and threatening princes (Mic 3:1-4) and false flattering prophets (Mic 3:5-7). II. He gives them their lesson jointly, putting them together, as acting in conjunction for the ruin of the kingdom, which they should see the ruins of (Mic 3:9-12).

3:9-12 The leaders of Israel were building Jerusalem on a foundation of murder and corruption. Because of this, the city would be dismantled; it would be reduced to wilderness and ruins (3:12).