Bible Strands
Micah 1:7
All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Micah pronounces judgment on Samaria’s idolatry and syncretism, directly following the prophecy of the city’s physical ruin in Micah 1:6.
The words — The Hebrew פְּסִילֶיהָ (pe.si.Lei.ha) denotes carved images that יֻכַּתּוּ (yu.kat.tu) will be smashed, while אֶתְנַנֶיהָ ('et.na.nei.ha) refers to her wages/profiteering that יִשָּׂרְפוּ (yi.sa.re.fu) will be burned in the fire.
The thread — The prophet links this judgment to the Deuteronomy 23:18 prohibition against bringing prostitute’s wages into the temple, echoing Hosea 2:12 where God strips away what Israel falsely trusted as divine provision.
Why it lands — The text states that objects and wealth gathered through illicit worship will face destruction and be redirected to the very defilement that produced them. A reader must confront the reality that God repurposes the fruits of idolatry as instruments of their own undoing.
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
And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 23:18 You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.
- Hosea 2:12 I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
- Hosea 8:6 For this thing is from Israel—a craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria.
- Hosea 10:5 The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn over it with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.
- Revelation 18:3 All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”
- Leviticus 26:30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.
- Deuteronomy 9:21 And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.
- 2 Kings 23:14 He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.
- 2 Chronicles 31:1 When all this had ended, the Israelites in attendance went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own property.
- 2 Chronicles 34:6 Josiah did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them.