Here the conciseness of the expressions has made interpreters to differ in their views. Some read thus, Distill ye not, -- they will distill; that is, the Jews speak against the prophets, and with threats forbid them, as with authority, to address them. The Hebrew word, distill, means the same as to speak; though at the same time it is applied more commonly to weighty addresses than to such as are common and ordinary. If any understands, they will distill, or speak, of the Jews, then the Prophet points out their arrogance in daring to contend with God's prophets, and in trying to silence and force them to submission. We indeed find that ungodly men act thus, when they wish to take away the liberty of teaching from God's prophets; for they resist as though they themselves were doubly and treble prophets. So also in this place, Distill ye not, that is, the Jews say, Let not the servants of God prophesy. But some think that a relative is understood, Distill ye not for them who distill; as though he had said, that ungodly men would not bear God's prophets and thus would prevent and restrain them, as much as they could, from speaking. Others make this distinction, Distill ye not, -- they shall distill; as though the Jews said the first, and God the second. Distill ye not, -- this was the voice of the ungodly and rebellious people, who would cast away from them and reject every instruction: but God on the other side opposed them and said, Nay, they shall distill; ye forbid, but it is not in your power; I have sent them: though ye may rage and glamour a hundred times, it is my will that they should proceed in their course. We hence see how various are the explanations: and even in the other part of the verse there is no more agreement between interpreters: They shall not distill; respecting this clause, it is sufficiently evident, that God here intimates that there would be now an end to all prophecies. How so? Because he would not render his servants a sport, and subject them to reproach. This is the true meaning: and yet some take another view, as though the Prophet continued his sentence, They shall not distill, lest the people should receive reproaches; for the ungodly think, that if they close the mouths of the prophets, all things would be lawful to them, and that their crimes would be hid, in short, that their vices would not be called to an account; as though their wickedness was not in itself sufficiently reproachful, were God to send no prophets, and no reproof given. No doubt, profane men are so stupid as to think themselves free from every reproach, when God is silent, and when they put away from themselves every instruction. Hence some think, that this passage is to be understood in this sense. But I consider the meaning to be that which I have stated; for he had before said, Distill ye not who distill; that is, Ye prophets, be no longer troublesome to us; why do you stem our ears? We can no longer bear your boldness; be then silent. Thus he expressly introduced the Jews as speaking with authority, as though it was in their power to restrain the prophets from doing their duty. Now follows, as I think, the answer of God, They shall not distill, that he may not get reproaches: Since I see that my doctrine is intolerable to you, since I find a loathing so great and so shameful, I will take away my prophets from you: I will therefore rest, and be hereafter silent. -- Why? "Because I effect nothing; nay, I subject my prophets to reproaches; for they lose their labor in speaking, they pour forth words which produce no fruit; for ye are altogether irreclaimable. Nay, as they are reproachfully treated by you, their condition is worse than if they were covered with all the disgrace of having been criminal. Since then I subject my prophets to reproach I will not allow them to be thus mocked by you. They shall therefore give over, they shall prophesy no longer. [1] " But the Lord could not have threatened the Jews with any thing worse or more dreadful than with this immunity, -- that they should no more hear anything which might disturb them: for it is an extreme curse, when God gives us loose reins, and suffers us, with unbridled liberty, to rush as it were headlong into evils, as though he had delivered us up to Satan to be his slaves. Since it is so, let us be assured that it is an awful threatening, when he says, They shall not distill, lest they should hereafter become objects of reproach.

Footnotes

1 - Newcome, apparently on the authority of the Septuagint, joins a part of the last verse to this, and gives this rendering,-- In the congregation of Jehovah prophesy not, O ye that prophesy: They shall not prophesy to these: For he shall remove from himself reproaches. The last line he applies to the true prophet, that he would not subject himself to disgrace by exercising his office. Henderson's version is the following: -- Prophesy not; those shall prophesy Who will not prophesy of these things: Reproaches are incessant. This is viewed as being altogether the language of the people, interdicting the true prophets, specifying those whom they approved, and deprecating the reproaches cast upon them by the true prophets. Another version, which is materially adopted by Calvin, is admitted by our Author as not unsuitable, but he prefers the one given above. The main objection is to the last line, which in the original is this, -- l' yg klmvt The last word is plural, and means reproaches; and the verb ysg is in the third person of the future tense, and may be derived either from svg, to recede, to depart, or from gsg, to remove, both in a transitive and intransitive sense. Having an objective case, it cannot be the first verb, and must be the second in its transitive meaning. Then the rendering is, He will not, or let him not, or let none remove reproaches. This being the literal rendering of this sentence, we must now consider what version of the former part will correspond best with it. It is that no doubt adopted by Calvin, though the last clause cannot admit of the meaning he attaches to it. The people say, "Prophesy ye not who prophesy;" God answers, "They shall not prophesy to these;" and then the Prophet adds, speaking of God, "He will not remove reproaches;" that is, he will not remove them by his prophets with the view of amending their reproachful conduct. The last clause is evidently viewed as an anomalous construction by Henderson; for he renders it as though the plural noun were the nominative case to the verb in the singular number, and this because the latter precedes the former. There may be instances of this in Hebrew, but it is by no means a common usage; though it be so in the Welsh language, which in so many of its peculiarities is very much like Hebrew. This sort of construction is the ordinary one in that language: a plural noun has commonly a verb in the singular number, when placed before it. This sentence in Welsh would be exactly the same as in Hebrew--Nid ymadawa gwaradwyddiadau The noun in the plural number is the nominative case to the preceding verb, which is in the singular number, and the verb too is in the future tense, and is yet understood as having the meaning of the present tense. -- Ed.

Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy; they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take shame - The words are very emphatic in Hebrew, from their briefness, "Prophesy not; they shall indeed prophesy; they shall not prophesy to these; shame shall not depart." The people, the false prophets, the politicians, forbade God and Micah to prophesy; "Prophesy not." God, by Micah recites their prohibition to themselves, and forewarns them of the consequences.
Prophesy ye not - , literally drop not. Amaziah and the God-opposing party had already given an ungodly meaning to the word . "Drop not," "distill not," thus unceasingly, these same words, ever warning, ever telling of "lamentation and mourning and woe Ezekiel 2:10; prophesying not good concerning us, but evil" 1-Kings 22:18. So their descendants commanded the Apostles Acts 4:18; Acts 5:40 not to speak at all or to teach in the Name of Jesus Acts 5:28. Did we not straitly command you, that ye should not teach in this Name? Acts 6:13. This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. God answers; They shall certainly prophesy. The Hebrew word is emphatic. The prophets had their commission from God, and Him they must obey, whether Israel Ezekiel 2:5, Ezekiel 2:7 would hear or whether they would forbear. So must Micah and Isaiah Isaiah 28:9-14, Isaiah 28:22 now, or Jeremiah Jeremiah 1:7, Jeremiah 1:17; Jeremiah 26:10-15, Ezekiel, and the rest afterward. "They shall not prophesy to these."
He does not say only, "They shall not prophesy to them," but, to these; that is, they shall prophesy to others who would receive their words: God's word would not be stayed; they who would hearken shall never be deprived of their portion; but to these who despise, "they shall not prophesy." It shall be all one, as though they did not prophesy; the soft rain shall not bedew them. The barn-floor shall be dry, while the fleece is moist Judges 6:37. So God says by Isaiah; "I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it" Isaiah 5:6. The dew of God's word shall be transferred to others. But so shame (literally shames manifold shame,) shall not depart, but shall rest upon them forever. God would have turned away the shame from them; but they, despising His warnings, drew it to themselves. It was the natural fruit of their doings; it was in its natural home with them. God spoke to them, that they might be freed from it. They silenced His prophets; deafened themselves to His words; so it departed not. So our Lord says John 9:41, Now ye say, we see; therefore your sin remaineth; and John the Immerser John 3:36, The wrath of God abideth on him. It hath not now first to come. It is not some new thing to be avoided, turned aside. The sinner has but to remain as he is; the shame encompasseth him already; and only departeth not. The wrath of God is already upon him, and abideth on him.

Prophesy ye not - Do not predict any more evils - we have as many as we can bear. We are utterly ruined - shame and confusion cover our faces. The original is singular, and expressive of sorrow and sobbing. Literally, "Do not cause it to rain; they will cause it to rain; they cannot make it rain sooner than this; confusion shall not depart from us." To rain, often means to preach, to prephesy; Ezekiel 20:46, Ezekiel 21:2; Amos 7:16; Deuteronomy 32:2; Job 29:22; Proverbs 5:3, etc.
The last line Bp. Newcome translates, "For he shall not remove from himself reproaches;" and paraphrases, "The true prophet will subject himself to public disgrace by exercising his office."

(d) Prophesy ye not, [say they to them that] prophesy: (e) they shall not prophesy to them, [that] they shall not take shame.
(d) Thus the people warn the prophets that they speak to them no more, for they cannot endure their threatenings.
(e) God says that they will not prophesy, nor receive any more of their rebukes or taunts.

Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy,.... Or "drop not" (h); such terrible words, such menacing things; let them not flow from your lips with such profusion and abundance; cease from speaking in the name of the Lord, if we can hear nothing else but sharp reproofs, and severe judgments: or the first word respects the true prophets of the Lord, and forbids their prophesying; and, according to others, the next should be rendered, "let them prophesy", or "drop" (i); that is, the false prophets, that prophesy smooth things; and so the sense is, let the one prophesy, but not the other:
they shall not prophesy to them; these are the words of the Lord, in answer to the other, that since they did not like his prophets, their should no more be sent to, them, nor should drop or distil the rain of doctrine upon them; but, as a judgment upon them, should be deprived of them: or, "they shall not prophesy according to these" (k); as the false prophets do, not such things as they; or the whole may be rendered thus, "prophesy not", or, "if they prophesy, let them not prophesy as these" (l); such things as these; namely,
that shame shall not overtake them; that is, as the false prophets, who said that shame and confusion should not come upon the people of Israel, or the wrath denounced against them, but they should enjoy great peace and prosperity: but the first sense seems best, and the meaning of this clause to be, that the true prophets of the Lord should not prophesy any more to this people, since they did not choose they should: "that shame might not come upon them"; that the prophets might not be treated by them in a shameful and ignominious manner: or, as others, "shame shall not depart from them" (m); though they think to escape it by forbidding the prophets prophesying terrible things to come, yet confusion will be their portion at last.
(h) "ne stilletis", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Burkius, Junius & Tremellius; "ne stillatote", Piscator. (i) "stallent isti", Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius; "stillanto", Piscator. (k) "secundum istos", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (l) "Ne vaticinemini, aut si vaticinentur ne talia vaticinentur", Castalio. (m) "non recedent ignominiae", De Dieu; "non retroageretur summa ignominia", Cocceius; "non recederet ignominia magna", Burkius.

Since they say, "Prophesy not," God will take them at their word, and their sin shall be their punishment. Let the physician no longer attend the patient that will not be healed. Those are enemies, not only to God, but to their country, who silence good ministers, and stop the means of grace. What bonds will hold those who have no reverence for God's word? Sinners cannot expect to rest in a land they have polluted. You shall not only be obliged to depart out of this land, but it shall destroy you. Apply this to our state in this present world. There is corruption in the world through lust, and we should keep at a distance from it. It is not our rest: it was designed for our passage, but not for our portion; our inn, but not our home; here we have no continuing city; let us therefore arise and depart, let us seek a continuing city above. Since they will be deceived, let them be deceived. Teachers who recommend self-indulgence by their doctrine and example, best suit such sinners.

Prophesy ye not, say they--namely, the Israelites say to the true prophets, when announcing unwelcome truths. Therefore God judicially abandons them to their own ways: "The prophets, by whose ministry they might have been saved from shame (ignominious captivity), shall not (that is, no longer) prophesy to them" (Isaiah 30:10; Amos 2:12; Amos 7:16). MAURER translates the latter clause, "they shall not prophesy of such things" (as in Micah 2:3-5, these being rebellious Israel's words); "let them not prophesy"; "they never cease from insult" (from prophesying insults to us). English Version is supported by the parallelism: wherein the similarity of sound and word implies how exactly God makes their punishment answer to their sin, and takes them at their own word. "Prophesy," literally, "drop" (Deuteronomy 32:2; Ezekiel 21:2).

As such a prophecy as this met with violent contradiction, not only from the corrupt great men, but also from the false prophets who flattered the people, Micah indicates it by showing that the people are abusing the long-suffering and mercy of the Lord; and that, by robbing the peaceable poor, the widows, and the orphans, they are bringing about the punishment of banishment out of the land. Micah 2:6. "Drip not (prophesy not), they drip: if they drip not this, the shame will not depart. Micah 2:7. Thou, called house of Jacob, is the patience of Jehovah short, then? or is this His doing? Are not my words good to him that walketh uprightly?" הטּיף, to drip, to cause words to flow, used of prophesying, as in Amos 7:16. The speakers in Micah 2:6 are not the Jews generally, or the rich oppressors who have just been punished and threatened. The word yattı̄phū does not agree with this, since it does not mean to chatter, but to prophesy, as Micah 2:11 and also the primary passage Deuteronomy 32:2 show. But Micah could not call the rich men's speaking prophesying. It is rather false prophets who are speaking, - namely, those who in the word 'al-tattı̄phū (prophesy not) would prohibit the true prophets from predicting the judgments of the Lord. The second hemistich is rendered by most of the modern commentators, "they are not to chatter (preach) of such things; the reproaches cease not," or "there is no end to reproaching" (Ewald, Hitzig, Maurer, and Caspari). But this is open to the following objections: (1) That הטּיף ל in Micah 2:11 means to prophesy to a person (not concerning or of anything); (2) that sūg or nâsag means to depart, not to cease; (3) that even the thought, "the reproaches to not cease," is apparently unsuitable, since Micah could not well call a prohibition against prophesying an incessant reproach; and to this we may add, (4) the grammatical harshness of taking לא יטּיפוּ as an imperative, and the following לא יסּג as an indicative (a simple declaration). Still less can the rendering, "they (the true prophets) will not chatter about this, yet the reproach will not depart" (Ros., Rckert), be vindicated, as such an antithesis as this would necessarily be indicated by a particle. The only course that remains, therefore, is that adopted by C. B. Michaelis and Hengstenberg, viz., to take the words as conditional: if they (the true prophets) do not prophesy to these (the unrighteous rich in Micah 2:1, Micah 2:2 : Hengstenberg), or on account of these things (Michaelis), the shame will not depart, i.e., shameful destruction will burst incessantly upon them. On the absence of the conditional אם, see Ewald, p. 357, b. Such addresses as these do not please the corrupt great men; but they imagine that such threats are irreconcilable with the goodness of Jehovah. This is the connection of Micah 2:7, in which the prophet meets the reproach cast upon his threatening words with the remark, that God is not wrathful, and has no love for punishing, but that He is stirred up to wrath by the sins of the nation, and obliged to punish. האמוּר is not an exclamation, "O, what is said! = O for such talk as this!" (Ewald, Umbreit, Caspari); for it cannot be shown that the participle is ever used in this way, and it cannot be supported from הפכּכם in Isaiah 29:16, especially as here a second vocative would follow. Nor is it a question: Numbers dicendum? Dare one say this?" (Hitzig). For although he might be an interrogative particle (cf. Ezekiel 28:9), the passive participle cannot express the idea of daring, in support of which Hitzig is quite wrong in appealing to Leviticus 11:47 and Psalm 22:32. האמוּר is not doubt a vocative, but it is to be taken in connection with bēth-Ya‛aqōb: thou who art called house of Jacob. There is very little force in the objection, that this would have required האמוּר לך ב י, since אמר, when used in the sense of being called or being named, is always construed with ל of the person bearing the name. The part. pal of 'âmar only occurs here; and although the niphal, when used in this sense, is generally construed with ל, the same rule may apply to אמר as to קרא in the sense of naming, - namely, that in the passive construction the ל may either be inserted or omitted (cf. Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 54:5; Deuteronomy 3:13), and האמוּר may just as well be used in the sense of dicta (domus) as הנּקראים in Isaiah 48:1 in the sense of vocati = qui appellantur. The whole nation is addressed, although the address points especially to the unrighteous great men. Is Jehovah indeed wrathful? i.e., has He not patience, does He not exercise long-suffering? Qātsar rūăch must not be explained according to Exodus 6:9, but according to Proverbs 14:27. Or are these ('ēlleh, the punishments threatened) His deeds? i.e., is He accustomed, or does He only like to punish? The answer to these questions, or speaking more correctly, their refutation, follows in the next question, which is introduced with the assuring הלוא, and in which Jehovah speaks: My words deal kindly with him that walks uprightly. The Lord not only makes promises to the upright, but He also grants His blessing. The words of the Lord contain their fulfilment within themselves. In היּשׁר הולך, it is for the sake of emphasis that yâshâr stands first, and the article properly belongs to hōlēkh; but it is placed before yshr to bind together the two words into one idea. The reason why the Lord threatens by His prophets is therefore to be found in the unrighteousness of the people.

They shall not prophesy - So God doth in his displeasure grant their desire. Take shame - That will not take shame to themselves.