How does Samaria’s warning reach Jerusalem?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The descent and destruction oracle leads into lament, town addresses and captivity.

Chapter breakdown

The heading announces Assyrian destruction of Samaria and invasion of Juda and Jerusalem. Micheas the Morasthite receives the word during Joathan, Achaz and Ezechias’s reigns. Peoples and earth are summoned to hear God witness from his holy temple. God comes down upon the high places; mountains melt and valleys cleave like wax before fire and waters descending a steep place. Jacob’s wickedness is identified with Samaria and Juda’s high places with Jerusalem.

Samaria becomes a field’s heap of vineyard stones, its stones lowered to the valley and foundations exposed. Graven things, wages and idols are destroyed. The edition explains wages as idol presents or traffic and labour earnings, and the harlot’s hire as removal from idolatrous Samaria to idolatrous Ninive. The speaker laments stripped and naked, comparing cries with dragons and ostriches. The desperate wound reaches Juda and Jerusalem; the edition reads this as the Assyrian invasion following Samaria’s destruction.

Geth is not to hear the declaration; tears are withheld and dust sprinkled. The edition says this prevents Philistine exultation and describes penitence at home, while preserving Aphrah as a possible city name. The beautiful place departs in shame, those in the confines do not go out and the adjoining house receives mourning. The edition identifies beauty with Samaria, preserves Sapir as a possible city, explains fear at the confines and identifies the neighboring mourners as Judea and Jerusalem despite their pretended independence. Jerusalem’s weakness is interpreted as bitterness of sin.

Chariot tumult astonishes Lachis. The edition says it first learned Samaria’s idolatry and transmitted it to Jerusalem, and interprets Geth’s messengers as vain appeals for help. An heir comes to Maresa and Israel’s glory reaches Odollam. The edition explains the inheritance wordplay and displacement to a city at the dominions’ edge, then penance. The ending commands enlarged baldness for children carried captive.

The story inside

The edition preserves possible city-name readings. Lachis’s idolatry is an attributed explanation. Maresa and Odollam accompany displacement and penance.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The edition preserves possible city-name readings.
2
Lachis’s idolatry is an attributed explanation.
3
Maresa and Odollam accompany displacement and penance.

Test your recall

What does the note say of Samaria’s wages?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 101452–101465
1:1. The word of the Lord, that came to Micheas, the Morasthite, in the days of Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda: which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. 1:2. Hear, all ye people: and let the earth give ear, and all that is therein: and let the Lord God be a witness to you, the Lord from his holy temple. 1:3. For behold the Lord will come forth out of his place: and he will come down, and will tread upon the high places of the earth. 1:4. And the mountains shall be melted under him: and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as waters that run down a steep place.
Lines 101471–101484
1:6. And I will make Samaria as a heap of stones in the field when a vineyard is planted: and I will bring down the stones thereof into the valley, and will lay her foundations bare. 1:7. And all her graven things shall be cut in pieces, and all her wages shall be burnt with fire, and I will bring to destruction all her idols: for they were gathered together of the hire of a harlot, and unto the hire of a harlot they shall return. Her wages.... That is, her donaries or presents offered to her idols: or the hire of all her traffic and labour.—Ibid. Of the hire of a harlot, etc.... They were gathered together by one idolatrous city, viz., Samaria: and they shall be carried away to another idolatrous city, viz., Ninive.
Lines 101486–101496
1:8. Therefore will I lament, and howl: I will go stript and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches. 1:9. Because her wound is desperate, because it is come even to Juda, it hath touched the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. It hath touched the gate, etc.... That is, the destruction of Samaria shall be followed by the invasion of my people of Juda, and the Assyrians shall come and lay all waste even to the confines of Jerusalem.
Lines 101498–101507
1:10. Declare ye it not in Geth, weep ye not with tears: in the house of Dust sprinkle yourselves with dust. Declare ye it not in Geth.... Viz., amongst the Philistines, lest they rejoice at your calamity.—Ibid. Weep ye not, etc.... Keep in your tears, that you may not give your enemies an occasion of insulting over you; but in your own houses, or in your house of dust, your earthly habitation, sprinkle yourselves with dust, and put on the habit of penitents. Some take the house of dust (in Hebrew, Aphrah) to be the proper name of a city.
Lines 101529–101542
1:13. A tumult of chariots hath astonished the inhabitants of Lachis: it is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Sion for in thee were found the crimes of Israel. It is the beginning, etc.... That is, Lachis was the first city of Juda that learned from Samaria the worship of idols, and communicated it to Jerusalem. 1:14. Therefore shall she send messengers to the inheritance of Geth: the houses of lying to deceive the kings of Israel. Therefore shall she send, etc.... Lachis shall send to Geth for help: but in vain: for Geth, instead of helping, shall be found to be a house of lying and deceit to Israel.
Lines 101544–101556
1:15. Yet will I bring an heir to thee that dwellest in Maresa: even to Odollam shall the glory of Israel come. An heir, etc.... Maresa (which was the name of a city of Juda) signifies inheritance: but here God by his prophet tells the Jews, that he will bring them an heir to take possession of their inheritance: and that the glory of Israel shall be obliged to give place, and to retire even to Odollam, a city in the extremity of their dominions. And therefore he exhorts them to penance in the following verse. 1:16. Make thee bald, and be polled for thy delicate children: enlarge thy baldness as the eagle: for they are carried into captivity from thee.