God’s Anger against Samaria and Judah (Ch. 1). 

        The opening section (vers. 2-1) deals mainly with Samaria. It is purely a message of inevitable doom, and therefore be­yond her idolatry Samaria’s sins are not specified. As it now stands the prophecy serves rather as an introduction to the judgment on Judah, for Micah sees the Assyrian armies rolling south over Judah and especially over the Shephelah, which he knew so well, after Samaria’s fall; so he raises his lament in vers. 8-16. This contains the longest sustained play upon words in the Old Testament, the names of the places, probably all in or near the Shephelah being chosen for that purpose (For details see R.S.V. or Moffatt’s translation.). If we are right in assigning this section to the reign of Ahaz, these verbal fireworks probably reflect the prophet’s unpopularity, which forced him to such methods of gaining a hearing. There is no indication in the rest of the book that Micah was addicted to puns.