Catholic Commentary
Lament Over Moral Collapse
1Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.2The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.3Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe. The powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.4The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.5Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth!6For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
Micah 7:1–6 depicts a prophet's anguished lament over the complete moral collapse of Israelite society, where godly persons have vanished, the righteous are hunted down, and even family bonds have become adversarial. The passage indicts every social tier—rulers, judges, neighbors, and households—for abandoning covenant faithfulness, leaving only vertical trust in God as the remaining reliable relationship.
When a society abandons justice, it devours itself from the inside—and the only trustworthy refuge is vertical prayer to the God who remains.
Commentary
Micah 7:1 — "Misery is mine!" The Hebrew exclamation 'allelai li ("Woe is me!" or "Misery is mine!") opens the passage with the raw cry of a soul overwhelmed. Micah here steps momentarily out of his prophetic role and speaks as an individual sufferer, evoking the lament psalms (cf. Ps 22; 88). The imagery he immediately reaches for is agricultural: he compares himself to a gleaner arriving after the harvest — no first-fruits remain, no early figs (prized for their sweetness). The fig harvest was a powerful symbol of Israel's covenantal blessing (cf. Num 13:23); its absence is not merely economic but spiritual. The land has been stripped of its godly men as completely as a vineyard after the gleaners have passed. This is not hyperbole but prophetic perception: Micah sees clearly what others are too comfortable to name.
Micah 7:2 — "The godly man has perished out of the earth" The Hebrew ḥāsîd ("godly" or "faithful one") carries the weight of covenant loyalty — one who embodies ḥesed, the steadfast loving-kindness at the heart of God's own character. To say the ḥāsîd has "perished from the earth" is to say that covenant faithfulness itself has become extinct in Israel. This echoes Psalm 12:1 almost verbatim ("Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases to be"). Micah's diagnosis is total: not merely that some are wicked, but that the very category of the righteous is disappearing. He specifies that "they lie in wait for blood" — murderous ambition lurks everywhere — and each man hunts his own brother with a net, suggesting the predatory, exploitative relationships that have replaced genuine community.
Micah 7:3 — "Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently" The Hebrew here is striking: wickedness is done with both hands (al-hāra' bi-shnê yādayim) — with full effort, expertise, and enthusiasm. This is not sin committed in weakness or passion but sin pursued as a craft. Micah indicts three classes: the prince who makes demands, the judge who accepts bribes, and the great men who "speak the evil of their soul." The entire structure of justice — those most obligated to uphold it — has been corrupted from top to bottom. The machinery of society has been retooled for exploitation.
Micah 7:4 — "The best of them is like a brier" Even the most upright in this corrupt society are compared to a thorn-hedge (sîr) or a brier-patch — dangerous to approach, wounding those who come near. If the best are like thorns, what are the rest? This verse climaxes with a note of eschatological urgency: "the day of your watchmen, your punishment, has come." The prophets had spoken of a coming day of reckoning; Micah announces its arrival. Now is the moment of "confusion" — the societal order, built on exploitation rather than covenant, will unravel.
Verses 5–6 — "Don't trust in a neighbor… the son dishonors the father" These verses catalogue the complete breakdown of every tier of human relationship: the neighbor, the friend, the wife (the most intimate human bond), and finally the household itself. Son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law — the very cells of social life have become adversarial. The phrase "a man's enemies are the men of his own house" is among the most devastating in all of prophetic literature. Micah's solution — implied by the unit's ending and made explicit in v. 7 — is that the only trustworthy relationship remaining is vertical: "But as for me, I will look to the Lord."
Typological and Spiritual Senses: The Fathers recognized this passage as possessing a profound typological dimension. Christ himself quotes verse 6 in Matthew 10:35–36 and Luke 12:53, applying it directly to the divisions His own coming would provoke — not because He wills discord, but because the Gospel demands a loyalty that supersedes even blood. Thus Micah's lament becomes a prophetic anticipation of the scandal of the Incarnation: the arrival of the Messiah into a broken world would not immediately resolve its brokenness but would first expose and intensify it. The gleaner-image of verse 1 gains further resonance: Christ arrives among humanity precisely as the gleaner who finds no first-fruits — and who himself becomes the first-fruits of a new harvest (cf. 1 Cor 15:20).
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition reads this passage on multiple levels, each illuminating the others.
At the literal-historical level, St. Jerome, who commented extensively on Micah in his Commentarii in Michaeam, reads the passage as an indictment of the moral degeneracy of both the Northern and Southern kingdoms — a society in which structural injustice (the corrupt prince and judge of v. 3) had metastasized into personal and familial chaos (vv. 5–6). Jerome notes that the corruption of the judge and magistrate always precedes the corruption of the household: public vice destroys private virtue.
At the Christological-typological level, the Church Fathers — including Origen (Homiliae in Lucam) and Tertullian (Adversus Marcionem) — were struck by Our Lord's direct citation of Micah 7:6 in His missionary discourse. This is no mere illustrative quotation; Christ identifies the dynamic Micah describes as the signature of His own messianic mission. The Catechism of the Catholic Church §575 notes that Jesus' coming caused division precisely because it called Israel — and every human community — to a decision that no natural loyalty could substitute for. Fidelity to Christ may demand what appears to be rupture with family or culture.
Theologically, the disappearance of the ḥāsîd (v. 2) is read by St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei XIX) as the condition of the civitas terrena when it severs itself from God: without genuine virtue, every social bond becomes a form of mutual predation. The Catholic natural law tradition, developed through Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94) and reaffirmed in Gaudium et Spes §74, holds that justice in the public order is the indispensable foundation of trust in private life — precisely what Micah's corrupt princes and judges have dismantled. Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae §20 echoes this passage when it describes a "conspiracy against life" operative in societies that have institutionalized injustice: "their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently."
For Today
Contemporary Catholic readers may find Micah's lament uncomfortably recognizable. We live in a time of institutional distrust — of government, of media, and painfully, of the Church herself. Micah does not counsel cynicism or withdrawal; his response in v. 7 is vigilant, expectant prayer: "I will look to the Lord." This is the posture the passage demands of us.
Practically, Micah's catalogue of broken relationships (vv. 5–6) is a mirror for examining our own communities. Do we practice the ḥesed — the covenant faithfulness — whose absence he mourns? The passage is a call to become, deliberately and deliberately, the ḥāsîd who has "perished from the earth": a person of integrity who is costly to exploit, whose word is reliable, whose family bonds are cultivated as sacred. For parents, v. 6's image of the dishonoring son is an urgent summons to the patient, daily work of passing on faith. For Catholics in public life, v. 3's portrait of the prince and judge who corrupt justice is a stark examination of conscience. The antidote to societal moral collapse is not primarily political but personal: one faithful person, one intact household, one trustworthy friendship at a time.
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