over! - an exclamation of despair (Le de Dieu, Ewald, etc.); and it is written after ‘âmar, because נהיה as an exclamation is equivalent in meaning to an object. The omission of the copula Vav precludes our taking ‘âmar in connection with what follows (Maurer). The following clauses are a still further explanation of נהיה: we are quite laid waste. The form נשׁדּנוּ for נשׁדּונוּ is probably chosen simply to imitate the tone of lamentation better (Hitzig). The inheritance of my people, i.e., the land of Canaan, He (Jehovah) changes, i.e., causes it to pass over to another possessor, namely, to the heathen. The words receive their explanation from the clauses which follow: How does He cause (sc., the inheritance) to depart from me! Not how does He cause me to depart. לשׁובב is not an infinitive, ad reddendum, or restituendum, which is altogether unsuitable, but nomen verbale, the fallen or rebellious one, like שׁובבה in Jer 31:22; Jer 49:4. This is the term applied by mourning Israel to the heathenish foe, to whom Jehovah apportions the fields of His people. The withdrawal of the land is the just punishment for the way in which the wicked great men have robbed the people of their inheritance.
Verse 5
Mic 2:5“Therefore wilt thou have none to cast a measure for the lot in the congregation of Jehovah.” With lâkhēn (therefore) the threat, commenced with lâkhēn in Mic 2:3, is resumed and applied to individual sinners. The whole nation is not addressed in לך, still less the prophet, as Hitzig supposes, but every individual among the tyrannical great men (Mic 2:1, Mic 2:2). The singular is used instead of the plural, to make the address more impressive, that no one may imagine that he is excepted from the threatened judgment. For a similar transition from the plural to the singular, see Mic 3:10. The expression, to cast the measure begōrâl, i.e., in the nature of a lot (equivalent to for a lot, or as a lot), may be explained on the ground that the land was divided to the Israelites by lot, and then the portion that fell to each tribe was divided among the different families by measure. The words are not to be taken, however, as referring purely to the future, as Caspari supposes, i.e., to the time when the promised land would be divided afresh among the people on their return. For even if the prophet does proclaim in Mic 2:12, Mic 2:13 the reassembling of Israel and its restoration to its hereditary land, this thought cannot be
