For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.
The Prophet joins here another city even Maroth, and others also in the following verses. But in this verse he says, that Maroth would be in sorrow for a lost good. The verb חול, chul, means to grieve; and it has this sense here; for the Marothites, that is, the inhabitants of that city, would have to grieve for losing their property and their former happy condition.
We have here a long train of mourners attending the funeral of a ruined kingdom. I. The prophet is himself chief mourner (Mic 1:8, Mic 1:9): I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked, as a man distracted with grief.
Commenting on Micah 1:8-16
For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good,.... Or, "though they waited for good" (r); expected to have it, yet the reverse befell them: or "verily they were grieved for good" (s); for the good things they had lost, or were likely to lose; and which they had no more hope of, when they saw Jerusalem in distress.