Micah 1:15
Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel.
Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah,.... Another city in the tribe of Judah, mentioned with Achzib in
Joshua 15:44; and by many thought to be the birth place of this prophet; and, if so, his faithfulness may be observed in declaring the whole counsel of God, though against his own fire place; and this must be an aggravation of the sin of the inhabitants of it, that they had such a prophet that arose from them, and they regarded him not. There is a beautiful allusion in the word "heir" to Mareshah {s}, which signifies an "inheritance"; and here were an "heir" or heirs for it, as the Targum; not the Persians, as some in Aben Ezra, and in an Agadah mentioned by Jarchi, who descended from Elam the firstborn of Shem; and so had a right of inheritance, as those interpreters suppose; but the king of Assyria, who should invade the land, and seize upon this place among others, and possess it, as if it was his by right of inheritance, having obtained it by conquest: and this being by the permission and according to the will of God, he is said to be brought by him to it. Capellus thinks, on the contrary, that Hezekiah and his posterity are meant:
he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel; another city in the tribe of Judah, a royal one, Joshua 15:35; said by Jerom to be in his time no small village, and to be about ten miles from Eleutheropolis; called the "glory of Israel", having been a royal city in Joshua's time, Joshua 12:15; and a fenced city in the times of Rehoboam,
2 Chronicles 11:7; and Eusebius says it was a large town; and Jerom says it was not a small one in his time; though some think Jerusalem is meant, the metropolis of the nation, Israel being put for Judah, as in Micah 1:14; and to be read, "he that is the enemy and heir shall come to Adullam, yea, to the glory of Israel" {t}; even to Jerusalem, the most glorious city in all the tribes; though others are of opinion that this is the character of the enemy or heir that should come thither, called so by way of contradiction, as coming to the reproach and disgrace of Israel; or, ironically, whom Israel before gloried in, when they had recourse to him for help. The margin of our Bible reads, "the glory of Israel shall come to Adullam"; that is, the great men, the princes and heads of the people, shall flee to the cave of Adullam {u}, to hide them from the enemy, where David was hid from Saul; see
1 Samuel 22:1. Burkius {w}, a very late commentator, takes Adullam for an appellative, and with Hillerus {x} renders it, "the perpetuity of the yoke"; and the whole thus, "at the perpetuity of the yoke, the glory of Israel shall come"; that is, when all things shall seem to tend to this, that the yoke once laid on Israel by the Gentiles shall become perpetual, without any hope of deliverance, then shall come the Deliverer, that is, Jesus, the Glory of Israel; and, adds he, God forbid we should think of any other subject here; and so he interprets the "heir" in the preceding clause of the Messiah; and which is a sense far from being despicable.
{s} vryh & hvrm.
{t} So Piscator, Juuius, Drusius.
{u} "Ad Adullam veniet gloria Israelis", Cocceius.
{w} He published Annotations on the twelve minor Prophets at Heilbronn, 1753, which he calls a Gnomon, written in imitation of Bengelius's Gnomon of the New Testament, whose son-in-law it seems he is, and by whom his work is prefaced.
{x} Onomast. Sacr. p. 739.