Bible Strands
Micah 7:1
Woe is me! For I am like one gathering summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster to eat, no early fig that I crave.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Micah addresses Judah amid total moral collapse, immediately after declaring that the righteous have perished and the wicked hunt one another. He describes his personal experience of spiritual famine as a gatherer finding no fruit in the vineyard.
The words — אַ֣לְלַי ('A.lai) translates literally as "woe!" and קַ֔יִץ (Ka.yitz) means "summer fruit," both anchoring the verse in sudden loss and unfulfilled expectation.
The thread — The text of Isaiah 24:13 and Isaiah 28:4 records the same harvest imagery to mark national ruin and fading splendor. Hosea 9:10 contrasts this by stating Israel's original state as firstfruits before the current desolation.
Why it lands — The passage demands acknowledgment that spiritual barrenness leaves no room for self-deception or reliance on former blessings. It requires the reader to confront the reality of divine judgment before seeking restoration.
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
Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 28:4 The fading flower of his beautiful splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, will be like a ripe fig before the summer harvest: Whoever sees it will take it in his hand and swallow it.
- Isaiah 24:13 So will it be on the earth and among the nations, like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest.
- Hosea 9:10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Shame; so they became as detestable as the thing they loved.
- Isaiah 17:6 Yet gleanings will remain, like an olive tree that has been beaten—two or three berries atop the tree, four or five on its fruitful branches,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
- Psalms 120:5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!
- Isaiah 6:5 Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.”
- Isaiah 24:16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me.” The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery.
- Jeremiah 4:31 For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”
- Jeremiah 15:10 Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.
- Jeremiah 45:3 You have said, ‘Woe is me because the LORD has added sorrow to my pain! I am worn out with groaning and have found no rest.’”