Micah 1:5

January 1st, 2018

I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.

Any person, place or thing that you value more than the Word of God is a form of idolatry. Be careful what you hold in high esteem…for in our desires our heart lies.

God hates idolatry! As a Nation’s leaders go… so go the people it leads.

Micah 1:5

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria. and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

The corruption of the country came from the capital cities. Samaria, on her hill, set an example of idolatry, drunkenness, and all the evils of a most profligate society; and even Jerusalem, the city “set on an hill,” gave a home in the Temple of Jehovah to heathen deities. Elliot.

What is the transgression of Jacob — Where is the chief cause of Israel’s sin and apostacy? Is it not Samaria — Is it not in that city, the chief seat of the kingdom, the residence of the king and his princes, who have set up the idolatry of the golden calves, and made it the established religion of the kingdom? What are the high places of Judah, &c. — Doth not the idolatrous worship, practised in the high places of Judah, receive its chief encouragement from the city of Jerusalem, even from Ahaz, and the great men who there join with him in that idolatry? Benson.

The vices of leaders and rulers shall be surely and sorely punished. The punishment answers the sin. What they gave to idols, never shall prosper, nor do them any good. What is got by one lust, is wasted on another. Matthew Henry.

Are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? - Jerusalem God had formed to be a center of unity in holiness; the tribes of the Lord were to go up there to the testimony of Israel; there was the unceasing worship of God, the morning and evening sacrifice; the Feasts, the memorials of past miraculous mercies, the foreshadowings of redemption. But there too Satan placed his throne. Ahaz brought thither that most hateful idolatry, the burning children to Moloch in the valley of the son of Hinnom 2 Chronicles 28:3. There 2 Chronicles 28:24, he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. Thence, he extended the idolatry to all Judah 2 Chronicles 28:25. And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers. Hezekiah, in his reformation, with all Israel 2 Chronicles 31:1, went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces and bowed down the statues of Asherah, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, as much as out of Ephraim and Manasseh. Nay, by a perverse interchange, Ahaz took the Brazen Altar, consecrated to God, for his own divinations, and assigned to the worship of God the altar copied from the idol-altar at Damascus, whose fashion pleased his taste 2 Kings 16:10-16.

Since God and mammon cannot be served together, Jerusalem was become one great idol-temple, in which Judah brought its sin into the very face of God and of His worship. The Holy City had itself become sin, and the fountain of unholiness. The one temple of God was the single protest against the idolatries which encompased and besieged it; the incense went up to God, morning and evening, from it; from every head of every street of the city Ezekiel 16:31; 2 Chronicles 28:24, and (since Ahaz had brought in the worship of Baalim 2 Chronicles 28:2, and the rites of idolatry continued the same,) from the roofs of all their houses Jeremiah 32:29, went up the incense to Baal; a worship which, denying the Unity, denied the Being of God.Barnes.

For the transgression; the singular for the plural, the many transgressions committed amongst them; but especially that flood of iniquity which, springing up in Samaria, did overflow the whole kingdom, idolatry, pride, luxury, cruelty, and oppression. Matthew Poole.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel,.... All this evil, all these calamities and judgments, signified by the above metaphorical phrases, these did not come by chance, nor without, reason; but were or would be inflicted, according to the righteous judgment of God, upon the people of Israel and Judah, for their manifold sins and transgressions, especially their idolatry: and should it be asked,

what is the transgression of Jacob? what notorious crime has he been guilty of? or what is the iniquity the two tribes are charged with, that is the cause of so much severity? the answer is,

is it not Samaria? the wickedness of Samaria, the calf of Samaria? as in Hosea 7:1; that is, the worship of the calf of Samaria; is not that idolatry the transgression of Jacob, or which the ten tribes have given into? it is; and a just reason for all this wrath to come upon them: or, "who is the transgression of Jacob?" (r) who is the spring and source of it; the cause, author, and encourager of it? are they not the kings that have reigned in Samaria from the times of Omri, with their nobles, princes, and great men, who, by their edicts, influence, and example, have encouraged the worship of the golden calves? they are the original root and motive of it, and to them it must be ascribed; they caused the people to sin: or, as the Targum,

"where have they of the house of Jacob sinned? is it not in Samaria?''

verily it is, and from thence, the metropolis of the nation, the sin has spread itself all over it:

and what are the high places of Judah? or, "who are they?" (s) who have been the makers of them? who have set them up, and encouraged idolatrous worship at them?

are they not Jerusalem? are they not the king, the princes, and priests, that dwell at Jerusalem? certainly they are; such as Ahaz, and others, in whose times this prophet lived; see 2 Kings 16:4; or, as the Targum,

"where did they of the house of Judah commit sin? was it not in Jerusalem?''

truly it was, and even in the temple; here Ahaz built an altar like that at Damascus, and sacrificed on it, and spoiled the temple, and several of the vessels in it, 2 Kings 16:10. Gill.