Micah 2:4

"In that day shall they take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We are utterly ruined: he changeth the portion of my people: how doth he remove it from me! to the rebellious he divideth our fields."

In this, the rich and heartless oppressors of the poor, who have been robbed of their lands, by the powerful overlords of their society, shall be avenged. The evil oppressors have taken away the lands of the poor; very well, God will take it away from them.

Wolfe challenged the translation of the word for "parable," insisting that it means "by-word" or "reproach."[7] That might be correct, for did not Moses prophesy concerning Israel? that:

"Jehovah will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation that thou hast not known ...; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all the peoples whither Jehovah shall lead thee away" (Deuteronomy 28:36-37).

"To the rebellious he divideth our fields ..." Deane identified the "rebellious" here as, "The king of Assyria (or Babylon), named as being a rebel against Jehovah, whom he might have known by the light of natural religion (Romans 1:20)."[8] Deane is correct except in his apparent supposition that great kings among the Gentiles, such as that of Assyria, would not have known God, except by the light of natural religion. On the other hand the entire ministry of Jonah culminated in the conversion of the entire city of Nineveh, including the king. Subsequent kings of Assyria were, therefore, in a genuine sense "apostates" or "rebellious" against God. There is hardly any question upon which there is more misunderstanding than that of the extent of God's revelation to the pre-Christian Gentile world. (See the discussion of this in my commentary on Romans, pp. 30,34.)