Micah 6:16

This trouble the people bring upon themselves by their ungodly conduct. With this thought the divine threatening is rounded off and closed. Mic 6:16. "And they observe the statutes of Omri, and all the doings of the house of Ahab, and so ye walk in their counsels; that I may make thee a horror, and her inhabitants a hissing, and the reproach of my people shall ye bear." The verse is attached loosely to what precedes by Vav. The first half corresponds to Mic 6:10-12, the second to Mic 6:13-15, and each has three clauses. השׁתּמּר, as an intensive form of the piel, is the strongest expression for שׁמר, and is not to be taken as a passive, as Ewald and others suppose, but in a reflective sense: "It (or one) carefully observes for itself the statutes of Omri instead of the statutes of the Lord" (Lev 20:23; Jer 10:3). All that is related of Omri, is that he was worse than all his predecessors (Kg1 16:25). His statutes are the Baal-worship which his son and successor Ahab raised into the ruling national religion (Kg1 16:31-32), and the introduction of which is attributed to Omri as the founder of the dynasty. In the same sense is Athaliah, who was a daughter of Jezebel, called a daughter of Omri in Ch2 22:2. All the doing of the house of Ahab: i.e., not only its Baal-worship, but also its persecution of the Lord's prophets (Kg1 18:4; Kg1 22:27), and the rest of its sins, e.g., the robbery and murder committed upon Naboth (1 Kings 21). With ותּלכוּ the description passes over into a direct address; not into the preterite, however, for the imperfect with Vav rel. does not express here what has been the custom in both the past and present, but is simply the logical deduction from what precedes, "that which continually occurs." The suffix attached to בּמעצותם refers to Ahab and O…

After the precious promises in the two foregoing chapters, relating to the Messiah's kingdom, the prophet is here directed to set the sins of Israel in order before them, for their conviction and humiliation, as necessary to make way for the comfort of gospel-grace. Christ's forerunner was a reprover, and preached repentance, and so prepared his way. Here, I. God enters an action against his people for their base ingratitude, and the bad returns they had made him for his favours (Mic 6:1-5). II. He shows the wrong course they should have taken (Mic 6:6-8). III. He calls upon them to hear the voice of his judgments, and sets the sins in order before them for which he still proceeded in his controversy with them (Mic 6:9), their injustice (Mic 6:10-15), and their idolatry (Mic 6:16), for both which ruin was coming upon them.

6:16 evil King Omri . . . wicked King Ahab: These kings began perhaps the most rebellious dynasty to reign in northern Israel (885–841 BC; 1 Kgs 16:23—2 Kgs 10:17), and Elijah condemned them to annihilation (2 Kgs 10:17). No northern kings of Israel followed the laws of Moses (cp. Mic 1:5-6). Omri and his son Ahab were the epitome of evil kings (e.g., 1 Kgs 18:4; 21:1-26). Omri’s dynasty was destroyed in 841 BC (2 Kgs 9:14–10:17), and the people of Israel who followed their evil example would similarly be destroyed.