Micah 7:4
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of your watchmen and your visitation comes; now shall be their perplexity.
American King James Version (AKJV)
The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of your watchmen and your visitation comes; now shall be their perplexity.
American Standard Version (ASV)
The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is worse than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen, even thy visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
The best of them is like a waste plant, and their upright ones are like a wall of thorns. Sorrow! the day of their fate has come; now will trouble come on them.
Webster's Revision
The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.
World English Bible
The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.
English Revised Version (ERV)
The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is worse than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen, even thy visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity.
Clarke's Micah 7:4 Bible Commentary
The best of them is as a brier - They are useless in themselves, and cannot be touched without wounding him that comes in contact with them. He alludes to the thick thorn hedges, still frequent in Palestine.
The day of thy watchmen - The day of vengeance, which the prophets have foreseen and proclaimed, is at hand. Now shall be their perplexity; no more wrapping up, all shall be unfolded. In that day every man will wish that he were different from what he is found to be; but he shall be judged for what he is, and for the deeds he has done.
Barnes's Micah 7:4 Bible Commentary
The best of them is as a brier - The gentlest of them is a thorn , strong, hard, piercing, which letteth nothing unresisting pass by but it taketh from it, "robbing the fleece, and wounding the sheep." "The most upright", those who, in comparison of others still worse, seem so, "is sharper than a thorn hedge", (literally, the upright, them a thorn hedge.) They are not like it only, but worse, and that in all ways; none is specified, and so none excepted; they were more crooked, more tangled, sharper. Both, as hedges, were set for protection; both, turned to injury. Jerome: "So that, where you would look for help, thence comes suffering." And if such be the best, what the rest?
The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh - When all, even the good, are thus corrupted, the iniquity is full. Nothing now hinders the "visitation", which "the watchmen", or prophets, had so long foreseen and forewarned of. "Now shall be their perplexity" ; "now", without delay; for the day of destruction ever breakcth suddenly upon the sinner. "When they say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them" 1 Thessalonians 5:3. : "whose destruction cometh suddenly at an instant". They had perplexed the cause of the oppressed; they themselves were tangled together, intertwined in mischief, as a thorn-hedge. They should be caught in their own snare; they had perplexed their paths and should find no outlet.
Wesley's Micah 7:4 Bible Commentary
7:4 As a briar - Mischievous and hurtful. The day - The day in which they shall sound the alarm. Cometh - Surely, speedily, and unavoidably.Now - When that day is come.