Musar for Micah 3:11

One of the reasons the paragraph of vows (Numbers 30) is adjacent to the paragraph of the festivals (Numbers 28) is that the 9th of Av is also called a festival, מועד. The ראשי המטות are the Sanhedrin of the people, the Supreme Court. The laws governing vows were addressed to them specifically. The reason that the line "Moses spoke to the children of Israel," is inserted between the paragraph dealing with the festivals and the paragraph dealing with vows and oaths when the former had concluded with the words "Moses told the children of Israel all that G–d had told him to tell them" is in order to separate the two subjects (one disaster from another). Tragically, what happened to the Sanhedrin in the days of Zedekiah (who had accused them of annulling his vow to be loyal to Nebuchadnezzar) later also happened to the Jewish community at large due to our many iniquities i.e. those mentioned in Parshat Massay, the penalty for which is exile or execution. This is what the prophet Jeremiah 9,20 refers to when he says: כי עלה מות בחלונינו, ואשר לחרב לחרב (ibid. 15,2). The prophet refers to a variety of deaths experienced by the population. The former refers to pestilence, the latter to violent death. Still later in the same verse, the prophet speaks to those who have survived, telling them that they will experience exile, i.e. ואשר לשבי לשבי. The attribute of Justice mentioned in several instances in פרשת דברים, struck the Jewish nation subsequently, also making no distinction between the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant. G–d's judgments demonstrated that He certainly did not play favorites, a fault His representatives on earth had been guilty of. Due to our many sins the catastrophe also hit the site whence justice should have been dispensed, i.e. the seat of the Jewish Supreme Court within the Temple precincts. Rashi comments on Kohelet 3,16 ומקום הצדק שמה הרשע, "In the place of righteousness there is wickedness," that when Solomon describes this as something he had "seen," he refers to a vision of his which foretold of what the prophet Isaiah later on described (1,21): "Righteousness lodged in her, but now murders." Solomon also foresaw the retribution. The site became one where Nebuchadnezzar and his henchmen issued severe decrees against the Jews remaining in Jerusalem.