Micah 7:1

The chapter falls into two divisions, the first being a representation in the mouth of the prophet upon behalf of Zion-Jerusalem, "bewailing the absence of any righteous ones within her borders."[1] It is not necessary to suppose that the general population of the city engaged in any such lament; it is rather an outline of the dreadful social conditions uttered by Micah in the form of a lament. The conditions revealed show "a complete social rebellion against constituted authority and natural relations."[2] The first paragraph (Micah 7:1-6). reads very much like the front pages of newspapers in the United States at the present time.

Micah 7:7-17 are spoken upon behalf of the spiritual remnant, in whose mouths Micah places a confession of sins and a plea for Jehovah to receive them. A final prophecy of what God will do (Micah 7:18-20) brings the prophecy of Micah to a close.

Micah 7:1

"Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat; my soul desireth the first-ripe fig."

Beginning here and through Micah 7:6, we have "one of the most poignant criticisms of a commercial community ever to appear."[3] Nothing "to eat" is a metaphor of the lack of honesty and integrity in Jerusalem, as appears in succeeding verses. Just as in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, "There were not `ten righteous persons' for whose sake the city might have been spared!"[4]

"Like Jeremiah, a century later (Jeremiah 5:1), he is unable to find a single godly person. He compares himself to a man wandering in the fields in search of something to eat."[5]