Micah 6:14

14 You will eat but not be satisfied, and your hunger will remain with you. What you acquire, you will not preserve; and what you save, I will give to the sword.

Micah 6:14 Meaning and Commentary

Micah 6:14

Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied
Either not having enough to eat, for the refreshing and satisfying of nature; or else a blessing being withheld from food, though eaten, and so not nourishing; or a voracious and insatiable appetite being given as a curse; the first sense seems best: and thy casting down [shall be] in the midst of thee;
meaning they should be humbled and brought down, either by civil discords and wars among themselves, or through the enemy being suffered to come into the midst of their country, and make havoc there; which would be as a sickness and disease in their bowels. So the Targum,

``thou shalt have an illness in thy bowels.''

The Syriac version is,

``a dysentery shall be in thine intestines;''

a secret judgment wasting and destroying them; and thou shall take hold, but shall not deliver; and [that] which thou
deliverest will I give up to the sword;
the sense is, that they should take hold of their wives and children, and endeavour to save them from the sword of the enemy, and being carried captive: or should "remove" them ^F16, as the word is sometimes used, in order to secure them from them; or should "overtake" ^F17; the enemy, carrying them captive; but should not be able by either of these methods to save them from being destroyed, or carried away by them; and even such as they should preserve or rescue for a while, yet these should be given up to the sword of the enemy, the same or another. Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret this of their women conceiving, and not bringing forth; and, if they should, yet what they brought forth should be slain by the sword ^F18. But the Targum and Jarchi incline to the former sense.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F16 (gotw) "et amovebis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius; "summovebis", Drusius, so Ben Melech; "et removebis", Burkius.
F17 "Assequeris", Syr.
F18 R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 35. 2.

Micah 6:14 In-Context

12 For the wealthy of the city are full of violence, and its residents speak lies; their tongues are deceitful in their mouths.

13 Therefore I am striking you severely, to ruin you because of your sins.

14 You will eat but not be satisfied, and your hunger will remain with you. What you acquire, you will not preserve; and what you save, I will give to the sword.

15 You will sow but not reap; you will press olives but not anoint yourselves with oil; you will tread grapes but not drink the wine.

16 You have kept the statutes of Omri and all the practices of Ahab’s house; you have followed their counsel. Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of contempt; you will bear the scorn of the nations. ”