9 You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my blessing forever.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He proceeds with the same subject, that they refrained from no acts of injustice. It was indeed a proof of extreme barbarity not to spare women and children, for they are both weak and helpless. Their sex exempts women from violence, and their age, children. [1] Even in wars, women, and also children, escape in safety. We hence see that the Prophet, by stating a part for the whole, proves here that the people had addicted themselves to cruelty really barbarous; they were not restrained from exercising it, no, not even on women and children. Since it was so, it follows, that their boast of being the chosen people was vain and fallacious. House of delights he ascribes to the women who, being the weaker sex, prefer being at home and in the shade, rather than going abroad. The more necessary it was that their recesses should remain safe to them. Now, what was taken away from the children, God calls it his ornament; for his blessing, poured forth on children, is the mirror of his glory: he therefore condemns this plunder as a sacrilege. The word lvlm, laoulam, designates the continuance of their crimes, as though he had said, that they were cruel without ever showing any repentance. Now it follows --
1 - This verse presents several anomalies. We have "women" and the verbs in the plural, and then "house," "her delights," and "her children." It may be thus rendered, -- The women of my people ye drive away, Each from the house of her delights; From off her children ye take away my ornament forever. The word rendered in our version "flory," is hdr, which means ornament, beauty. Piscator says, pulchras vestes quas Deus illis donavit -- "the beautiful garments which God gave them." God claimed the land of Canaan and all its blessings as his own. They took these away without restoring them according to the law. Henderson justly observes, that "ornament" is to be taken "collectively for the ornamental clothes which they wore, and with which they had been provided by Jehovah." -- Ed.
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses - (literally, from her pleasant house,) each from her home. These were probably the widows of those whom they had stripped. Since the houses were their's, they were widows; and so their spoilers were at war with those whom God had committed to their special love, whom He had declared the objects of His own tender care, "the widows and the fatherless." The widows they "drove vehemently forth", as having no portion in the inheritance which God had given them, as God had driven out their enemies before them, each "from her pleasant house," the home where she had lived with her husband and children in delight and joy.
From (off) their (young) children have ye taken away My glory - Primarily, the glory, comeliness, was the fitting apparel which God had given them (as Hosea 2:11), and laid upon them , and which these oppressors stripped off from them. But it includes all the gifts of God, wherewith God would array them. Instead of the holy home of parental care, the children grew up in want and neglect, away from all the ordinances of God, it may be, in a strange land. "For ever." They never repented, never made restitution; but so they incurred the special woe of those who ill-used the unprotected, the widow, and the fatherless. The words "forever" anticipate the punishment. The punishment is according to the sin. They never ceased their oppression. They, with the generation who should come after them, should be deprived of God's "glory," and cast out of His land forever.
The women of my people - Ye are the cause of the women and their children being carried into captivity - separated from their pleasant habitations, and from my temple and ordinances - and from the blessings of the covenant, which it is my glory to give, and theirs to receive. These two verses may probably relate to the war made on Ahaz by Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel. They fell suddenly upon the Jews; killed in one day one hundred and twenty thousand, and took two hundred thousand captive; and carried away much spoil. Thus, they rose up against them as enemies, when there was peace between the two kingdoms; spoiled them of their goods, carried away men, women, and children, till, at the remonstrances of the prophet Oded, they were released. See 2-Chronicles 28:6, etc. Micah lived in the days of Ahaz, and might have seen the barbarities which he here describes.
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away (k) my glory for ever.
(k) That is, their substance and living, which is God's blessing, and as it were part of his glory.
The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses,.... Not content to slay their husbands, they took their wives or widows captive, dispossessed them of their habitations, where they had lived delightfully with their husbands and children; so we find that, at the time before referred to, the people of Israel carried captive of their brethren two hundred thousand women, and brought them to Samaria, 2-Chronicles 28:8. Some understand this of divorce, which those men were the cause of, either by committing adultery with them, which was a just reason for their husband's divorcing them; or by frequenting their houses, which caused suspicion and jealousy:
from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever; that which God would have had glory from, and they would have given it to him on account of; as their being brought up in a religious way; their liberties, both civil and religious; their paternal estates and inheritances, and the enjoyment of their own land; and especially the worship of God in the temple, of which they were deprived by being carried away from their own country: or it may be understood of the glory that accrues to God by honourable marriage, and the bed undefiled; and the dishonour cast upon him by the contrary, as well as upon children, who may be suspected to be illegitimate.
The women of my people--that is, the widows of the men slain by you (Micah 2:2) ye cast out from their homes which had been their delight, and seize on them for yourselves.
from their children--that is, from the orphans of the widows.
taken away my glory--namely, their substance and raiment, which, being the fruit of God's blessing on the young, reflected God's glory. Thus Israel's crime was not merely robbery, but sacrilege. Their sex did not save the women, nor their age the children from violence.
for ever--There was no repentance. They persevered in sin. The pledged garment was to be restored to the poor before sunset (Exodus 22:26-27); but these never restored their unlawful booty.
The women - The widows. Of my people - Of Israelites, not strangers, that were by peculiar provision from God's law, to be tenderly dealt with, Exodus 22:22. Cast out - You have turned out of their old habitations. From their children - You have turned their children out of their houses, and estates, which were secured by the law of God from any sale beyond the jubilee; yet you have confiscated them for ever. My glory - Which was the glory of my bounty to them.
*More commentary available at chapter level.