Mic 6:16

“And the statutes of Omri shall be observed—I know that you will not obey Me, but through you and your children will all the statutes of Omri and Ahab [the evil kings of Israel] be observed. and the disgrace of My people you shall bear—You shall bear the iniquity for the disgrace that the peoples of the world deride My people, for the Torah admonished them concerning (Deut. 25:14): “You shall not have in your house two kinds of ephah,” but they do not keep it.”

“For the statutes of Omri are kept,.... Who of a captain of the army was made king of Israel, and proved a wicked prince; he built Samaria, and set up idolatrous worship there, after the example of Jeroboam, in whose ways he walked, and, as it seems, established the same by laws and edicts; and which were everyone of them observed by the Israelites, in the times of the prophet, though at the distance of many years from the first making of them, which aggravated their sin; nor would it be any excuse of them that what they practised was enjoined by royal authority, since it was contrary to the command of God; for the breach of which, and their observance of the statutes of such a wicked prince, they are threatened with the judgments of God; see Kg1 16:16; and all the works of the house of Ahab; who was the son of Omri, and introduced the worship of Baal, and added to the idolatry of the calves, which he and his family practised; and the same works were now done by the people of Israel: and ye walk in their counsels; as they advised and directed the people to do in their days: that I should make thee a desolation; the city of Samaria, the metropolis of Israel, or the whole land, which was made a desolation by Shalmaneser, an instrument in the hand of God; and this was not the intention and design of their walking in the counsels and after the example of their idolatrous kings, but the consequence and event of so doing: and the inhabitants thereof an hissing; either of Samaria, or of all the land, who should become the scorn and derision of men, when brought to ruin for their sins: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people; that which was threatened in the law to the people of God, when disobedient to him; or shameful punishment for profaning the name and character of the people of God they bore; or for reproaching and ill using the poor among the people of God; and so it is directed to the rich men before spoken of, and signifies the shame and ignominy they should bear, by being carried captive into a foreign land for their sins. Next: Micah Chapter 7”

“The statutes of Omri are kept - Omri, king of Israel, the father of Ahab, was one of the worst kings the Israelites ever had; and Ahab followed in his wicked father's steps. The statutes of those kings were the very grossest idolatry. Jezebel, wife of the latter, and daughter of Ithobaal, king of Tyre, had no fellow on earth. From her Shakespeare seems to have drawn the character of Lady Macbeth; a woman, like her prototype, mixed up of tigress and fiend, without addition. Omri Ahab, and Jezebel, were the models followed by the Israelites in the days of this prophet. The inhabitants thereof a hissing - לשרקה lishrekah, "for a shriek;" because those who should see them should be both astonished and affrighted at them. There are few chapters in the prophets, or in the Bible, superior to this for genuine worth and importance. The structure is as elegant as it is impressive; and it is every way worthy of the Spirit of God.”

“The statutes of Amri, &c. The wicked ways of Amri and Achab, idolatrous kings. (Challoner) — They were the most infamous of Israel, 3 Kings xvi. 25, 30. (Worthington) — Hebrew, “the statutes of Amri are kept.” Septuagint, “The precepts ( ami ) of my people shall parish” (Haydock) — You, rich men. (Calmet) — Septuagint, “you shall receive the reproach of people.” (Haydock) Bible Text & Cross-references: God expostulates with the Jews for their ingratitude and sins: for which they shall be punished. 1 Hear ye what the Lord saith: Arise, contend thou in judgment against the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. 2 Let the mountains hear the judgment of the Lord, and the strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord will enter into judgment with his people, and he will plead against Israel. 3 *O my people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I molested thee? answer thou me. 4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and delivered thee out of the house of slaves: and I sent before thy face Moses, and Aaron, and Mary? 5 *O my people, remember, I pray thee, what Balach, the king of Moab, purposed: and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him, from Setim to Galgal, that thou mightest know the justices of the Lord. 6 What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy? wherewith shall I kneel before the high God? shall I offer holocausts unto him, and calves of a year old? 7 May the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams, or with many thousands of fat he-goats? shall I give my first-born for my wickedness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: *Verily, to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God. 9 The voice of the Lord crieth to the city, and salvation shall be to them that fear thy name: hear, O ye tribes, and who shall approve it? 10 As yet there is a fire in the house of the wicked, the treasures of iniquity, and a scant measure full of wrath. 11 Shall I justify wicked balances, and the deceitful weights of the bag? 12 By which her rich men were filled with iniquity, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue was deceitful in their mouth. 13 And I therefore began to strike thee with desolation for thy sins. 14 Thou shalt eat, but shalt not be filled: and thy humiliation shall be in the midst of thee: and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not save: and those whom thou shalt save, I will give up to the sword. 15 *Thou shalt sow, but shalt not reap: thou shalt tread the olives, but shalt not be anointed with the oil: and the new wine, but shalt not drink the wine. 16 For thou hast kept the statutes of Amri, and all the works of the house of Achab: and thou hast walked according to their wills, that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof a hissing, and you shall bear the reproach of my people.”

“statutes of Omri--the founder of Samaria and of Ahab's wicked house; and a supporter of Jeroboam's superstitions (Kg1 16:16-28). This verse is a recapitulation of what was more fully stated before, Judah's sin and consequent punishment. Judah, though at variance with Israel on all things else, imitated her impiety. works of . . . Ahab-- (Kg1 21:25-26). ye walk in their counsels--Though these superstitions were the fruit of their king's "counsels" as a master stroke of state policy, yet these pretexts were no excuse for setting at naught the counsels and will of God. that I should make thee a desolation--Thy conduct is framed so, as if it was thy set purpose "that I should make thee a desolation." inhabitants thereof--namely, of Jerusalem. hissing-- (Lam 2:15). the reproach of my people--The very thing ye boast of, namely, that ye are "My people," will only increase the severity of your punishment. The greater My grace to you, the greater shall be your punishment for having despised it, Your being God's people in name, while walking in His love, was an honor; but now the name, without the reality, is only a "reproach" to you. Next: Micah Chapter 7”

“This trouble the people bring upon themselves by their ungodly conduct. With this thought the divine threatening is rounded off and closed. Mic 6:16. "And they observe the statutes of Omri, and all the doings of the house of Ahab, and so ye walk in their counsels; that I may make thee a horror, and her inhabitants a hissing, and the reproach of my people shall ye bear." The verse is attached loosely to what precedes by Vav. The first half corresponds to Mic 6:10-12, the second to Mic 6:13-15, and each has three clauses. השׁתּמּר, as an intensive form of the piel, is the strongest expression for שׁמר, and is not to be taken as a passive, as Ewald and others suppose, but in a reflective sense: "It (or one) carefully observes for itself the statutes of Omri instead of the statutes of the Lord" (Lev 20:23; Jer 10:3). All that is related of Omri, is that he was worse than all his predecessors (Kg1 16:25). His statutes are the Baal-worship which his son and successor Ahab raised into the ruling national religion (Kg1 16:31-32), and the introduction of which is attributed to Omri as the founder of the dynasty. In the same sense is Athaliah, who was a daughter of Jezebel, called a daughter of Omri in Ch2 22:2. All the doing of the house of Ahab: i.e., not only its Baal-worship, but also its persecution of the Lord's prophets (Kg1 18:4; Kg1 22:27), and the rest of its sins, e.g., the robbery and murder committed upon Naboth (1 Kings 21). With ותּלכוּ the description passes over into a direct address; not into the preterite, however, for the imperfect with Vav rel. does not express here what has been the custom in both the past and present, but is simply the logical deduction from what precedes, "that which continually occurs." The suffix attached to בּמעצותם refers to Ahab and Omri. By למען the punishment is represented as intentionally brought about by the sinners themselves, to give prominence to the daring with which men lived on in godlessness and unrighteousness. In אתך the whole nation is addressed: in the second clause, the inhabitants of the capital as the principal sinners; and in the third, the nation again in its individual members. שׁמּה does not mean devastation here; but in parallelism with שׁרקה, horror, or the object of horror, as in Deu 28:37; Jer 25:9; Jer 51:37, and Ch2 29:8. Cherpath ‛ammı̄: the shame which the nation of God, as such, have to bear from the heathen, when they are given up into their power (see Eze 36:20). This shame will have to be borne by the several citizens, the present supporters of the idea of the nation of God.”