Micah 3:7. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.
The margin has “upper lip,” that is, the lip-beard or mustache, as the word sapham is rendered by Gesenius and others. The Hebrews held the beard in high estimation as a mark of manliness. To cover the lip, and thus conceal the beard growing there, was a sign of sorrow or of mourning.
Thus, in the text, Micah represents the prophets as mourning because God refuses to reveal himself to them: “they shall all cover their lips.” Thus also the leper was required to cover his upper lip (Lev. 13:45). An allusion to this custom is likewise made in Ezekiel 24:17, 22.