Therefore also will I-- (Literally, And I too,) that is, this dost thou, and thus will I too do. Pococke: "As thou madest sick the heart of the poor oppressed, so will I, by My grievous and severe punishments, make thee sick," or make thy wound incurable, as in Nahum, "thy wound is grievous," (Nahum 3:19 literally, made sick. In making thee desolate because of thy sins. The heaping up riches shall itself be the cause of thy being waste, deserted, desolate.

Will I make thee sick in smiting thee - Perhaps better, "I also am weary with smiting thee, in making thee desolate for thy sins." They were corrected, but to no purpose; they had stroke upon stroke, but were not amended.

Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee,.... With the rod to be heard, Micah 6:9; by sending among them some of his sore judgments, as famine, pestilence, the sword of the enemy, internal wars, and the like; which should cause their kingdom, and state, and families, to decline and waste away, as a sickly and diseased body. So the Targum,

"and I brought upon thee illness and a stroke.''

The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, "and I began to smite thee"; as by Hazael, king of Syria, and Tiglathpileser, king of Assyria, who had carried part of them captive;

in making thee desolate because of thy sins; went on, not only to make them sick, and bring them into a declining state, but into utter desolation; as by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who carried Israel captive; and by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who led Judah captive, because of their sins of idolatry, injustice, and oppression, with others that abounded among them.

The threat of punishment follows in Micah 6:13-16. Micah 6:13. "So also now do I smite thee incurably, laying waste because of thy sins. Micah 6:14. Thou wilt eat, and not be satisfied; and thine emptiness remains in thee; and thou wilt remove, and not save; and what thou savest I will give to the sword. Micah 6:15. Thou wilt sow, and not reap; thou wilt tread olives, and not anoint thyself with oil; new wine, and not drink wine." With וגם־אני the threatened punishment is represented as the consequence of, or retribution for, the sins of the people. החליתי הך: literally, I have made the smiting thee sick, i.e., smitten thee with incurable sickness (for hechelaah, see at Nahum 3:19 and Jeremiah 30:12; and for the fact itself, Isaiah 1:5-6). The perfect expresses the certainty of the future. The suffix refers to the people, not of the capital only, but, as we may see from Micah 6:16, of the whole of the kingdom of Judah. Hashmēm (an uncontracted form; see Ges. 67, Anm. 10), devastando, is attached to the preceding verb in an adverbial sense, as a practical exemplification, like the שׁבע in Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:28, which Micah had in his eye at the time. For the individualizing of the punishment, which follows, rests upon Leviticus 26:25-26, and Deuteronomy 28:39-40. The land is threatened with devastation by the foe, from which the people flee into fortresses, the besieging of which occasions starvation. For the fulfilment of this, see Jeremiah 52:6 (cf. 2 Kings 6:25). ישׁח, ἁπ.λεγ., hollowness, or emptiness of stomach. ותסּג, thou mayest remove, i.e., carry off thy goods and family, yet wilt thou not save; but even if thou shouldst save anything, it will fall into the hands of the enemy, and be destroyed by his sword (vid., Jeremiah 50:37). The enemy will also partly consume and partly destroy the corn and field-fruit, as well as the stores of oil and wine (vid., Amos 5:11). ולא תסוּך שׁמן is taken verbatim from Deuteronomy 28:40.

Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.

6:13 Sick - God will e're long so smite, that the strokes shall reach the heart, and make Israel heartsick of his wounds.

13. make thee sick in smiting-(Le 26:16, to which perhaps the allusion here is, as in Mic 6:14; Ps 107:17, 18; Jer 13:13).

6:9-16 God, having showed how necessary it was that they should do justly, here shows how plain it was that they had done unjustly. This voice of the Lord says to all, Hear the rod when it is coming, before you see it, and feel it. Hear the rod when it is come, and you are sensible of the smart; hear what counsels, what cautions it speaks. The voice of God is to be heard in the rod of God. Those who are dishonest in their dealings shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make. What is got by fraud and oppression, cannot be kept or enjoyed with satisfaction. What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest. Sin is a root of bitterness, soon planted, but not soon plucked up again. Their being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept themselves in his love, was an honour to them; but now, being backsliders, their having been once the people of God turns to their reproach.