Bible Strands
Micah 1:6
Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Micah delivers Yahweh’s declaration of judgment on Samaria, identifying it as the epicenter of Jacob’s transgression immediately after naming Jerusalem as Judah’s high place.
The words — שָׂמַתִּי (samati) means “I will make” or “I will place,” and הִגַּרְתִּי (higgarti) means “I will expose” or “I will pour down,” describing the physical dismantling of the city.
The thread — This dismantling motif appears in Ezekiel 13:14 where God levels whitewashed walls to expose foundations, in Micah 3:12 where Zion becomes a plowed field and heap of rubble, and in 2 Kings 19:25 where God’s long-planned ordination of conquest is declared.
Why it lands — The text demands readers stop romanticizing compromised institutions, recognize that idolatry produces structures destined for ruin, and accept that divine judgment strips away pretense to reveal underlying foundations.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 13:14 I will tear down the wall you whitewashed and level it to the ground, so that its foundation is exposed. The city will fall, and you will be destroyed within it. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
- Micah 3:12 Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.
- 2 Kings 19:25 Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
- Lamentations 4:1 How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.
- Isaiah 25:2 Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.
- Isaiah 25:12 The high-walled fortress will be brought down, cast to the ground, into the dust.
- Jeremiah 9:11 “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Jeremiah 51:25 “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the LORD. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.
- Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.
- Hosea 13:16 Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.