Book of Micah

“ With the latter Micah begins a series of three oracles, which give the substance of his own prophesying in contrast to that of the false prophets whom he has just been satirising. He has told us what they say, and he now begins the first of his own oracles with the words, But I said. It is an attack upon the authorities of the nation, whom the false prophets flatter. Micah speaks very plainly to them. Their business is to know justice, and yet they love wrong. They flay the people with their exactions; they cut up the people like meat. ”

“ In the name of every village within sight he reads a symbol of the curse that is coming upon his country, and of the sins that have earned the curse. So some of the greatest poets have caught their music from the nameless brooklets of their boyhood's fields; and many a prophet has learned to read the tragedy of man and God's verdict upon sin in his experience of village life. But there was more than feeling in Micah's choice of his own country as the scene of the Assyrian invasion. He had better reasons for his fears than Isaiah, who imagined the approach of the Assyrian from the north. ”

“ Nevertheless his heart clings most to his own home, and while Isaiah pictures the Assyrian entering Judah from the north by Migron, Michmash and Nob, Micah anticipates invasion by the opposite gateway of the land, at the door of his own village. His elegy sweeps across the landscape so dear to him. This obscure province was even more than Jerusalem his world, the world of his heart. It gives us a living interest in the man that the fate of these small villages, many of them vanished, should excite in him more passion than the fortunes of Zion herself. ”

“ This Isaiah was followed by Micah and Obadiah, who confirmed and embellished his soul-satisfying gospel. And these two brave messengers boldly denounced the priest-ridden ritual of the Hebrews and fearlessly attacked the whole sacrificial system.
Micah denounced "the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money." He taught of a day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: "But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God." ”

“ Micah himself was the prophet of the country as distinct from the capital, of the peasants as against the rich who oppressed them. When, therefore, he fixed upon Bethlehem as the Messiah's birthplace, he doubtless desired, without departing from the orthodox hope in the Davidic dynasty, to throw round its new representative those associations which had so endeared to the people their father-monarch. The shepherds of Judah, that strong source of undefiled life from which the fortunes of the state and prophecy itself had ever been recuperated, should again send forth salvation. ”

“ The finest oracles of Micah (vi. 1-vii. 7) were probably uttered in the reign of Manasseh, and give the simplest and purest expression to the supremacy of morality as the one true end and test of religion. Micah is as indifferent as the Decalogue to all claims of rites, ceremonies, and outward worship. "Jehovah demands nothing for Himself; all that He asks is for man: this is the fundamental law of the theocracy."
The apostasies of the king and the denunciation of the prophets thus came into fierce collision, and led naturally to persecution and bloodshed. ”

“ Thus the blood of the first martyr-prophet, if we except the case of Zechariah, had been shed by the son of Judah's most pious king. Jeremiah himself only narrowly escaped martyrdom. The precedent of Micah helped to save him, though it had not saved Urijah. He was far more powerfully protected by the patronage of the princes and the people. Standing in the Temple court, he had declared that, unless the nation repented, that house should be like Shiloh, and the city a curse to all the nations of the earth. ”

“ Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah over Judah, and of Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea over Israel 2 Kings 15:23-30; 17:1-6. He was a prophet in Judah Jeremiah 26:17-19 but the book called by his name chiefly concerns Samaria. ”

“ The national life was broken up, the religious life followed in the same path, until, as the Book of Judges graphically says in narrating how Micah set up an Ephod and Teraphim for himself and made his son a priest, "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." With a people so recently won for a higher faith, there could not but follow a recrudescence of heathen or semi-heathen beliefs and practices. ”

“ He foresaw the fulfillment of Messianic hopes as arising only from the ruin of the existing order of things. No more than the first five chapters are by Micah himself (Ib., vol. i. p. 498 ff.) . His book is remarkable for the extremely warlike description he gives of Messianic happiness. Many other prophets conceive it as an important element in that happiness that the Israelites shall be victorious over their enemies; but few, if any, have come up to Micah in the fervor with which he foretells the desolation, the carnage, the utter suppression of rival nations, which will accompany that age. ”

“ Micah, in the book of Judges, makes himself a houseful of gods, and hires a Levite as his domestic chaplain. How long the practice persisted we may judge from the royal scorn which Isaiah pours on the image-mongers, who hewed down cedars and cypresses, oaks and ashes, some for fuel and some for idols. Let us hear the great prophet: "He burneth part thereof in the fire ”

“ The epigrammatic sayings of the Bible are not confined, as we have already seen, to the Book of Proverbs. We find them elsewhere. Hosea says of idolaters, “They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Micah declared of the mercenary prophets, “He that putteth not into their mouth, they even declare war against him.” At the same time princes and judges are so corrupt, that “the best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.”
Jeremiah charges against the people, “As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses of deceit.” ”

“ It is, therefore, by no means impossible for this passage also to have been Micah's, and we must accordingly leave the question of its date undecided. Certainly we are not shut up, as the majority of modern critics suppose, to a date under Manasseh or Amon.
3. Chap. vii. 1-6.—These verses are spoken by the prophet in his own name or that of the people's. The land is devastated; the righteous have disappeared; everybody is in ambush to commit deeds of violence and take his neighbour unawares. There is no justice: the great ones of the land are free to do what they like ”

“ Many Hebrew archaeologists have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes used for an image (particularly in the case of Gideon's ephod) , and the story of Micah, in the book of Judges, shows that images were, at any rate, employed in close association with the ephod. If the pulling of the string to call the attention of the god seems as absurd to us as it appears to have done to the worthy missionary, who tells us of the practice, it should be recollected that the high priest of Jahveh was ordered to wear a garment fringed with golden bells. ”

“ He hears the prayer of the foreign sailors, He delights in the repentance of Nineveh, He cares for the cattle, iv. 11. This book is the Old Testament counterpart to "God so loved the world."
MICAH Micah must have been a very striking personality. Like Amos, he was a native of the country—somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gath; and he denounces with fiery earnestness the sins of the capital cities, Samaria in the northern kingdom, and Jerusalem in the southern. To him these cities seem to incarnate the sins of their respective kingdoms, i. 5; and for both ruin and desolation are predicted, i. ”

“ Why then do you say to me, What is your trouble?
18:25 And the children of Dan said to him, Say no more, or men of bitter spirit may make an attack on you, causing loss of your life and the lives of your people.
18:26 Then the children of Dan went on their way; and when Micah saw that they were stronger than he, he went back to his house.
18:27 And they took that which Micah had made, and his priest, and came to Laish, to a people living quietly and without thought of danger, and they put them to the sword without mercy, burning down their town. ”

“ Micah seems to grasp the secret of the ages when he exclaims, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be the ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." For centuries there is suspense, and then over the quiet plain below the hill is heard the evangel: "Be not afraid: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." ”

“ There is a twofold "travail" of Israel:
(1) that which brings forth the "man child" (Christ) Revelation 12:1,2 and (2) that which, in the last days, brings forth a believing "remnant" out of the still dispersed and unbelieving nation Micah 5:3; Jeremiah 30:6-14; Micah 4:10. Both aspects are combined in Isa. 66. In Micah 5:7 we have the "man-child" (Christ) of Revelation 12:1,2 in Micah 5:8-24 the remnant, established in kingdom blessing. The meaning of Micah 5:3 is that, from the rejection of Christ at His first coming Jehovah will give Israel up till the believing remnant appears ”

“ It was true of the rich and mighty of the capital that
"They covet fields and seize them,
And houses, and take them away.
They oppress a man and his house,
Even a man and his heritage."
This much was clear on the surface of things. Rapacity on the part of the rich meant oppression of the poor; increase of power for the mighty meant decrease of opportunity for the humble tiller of the soil and for the wage earner.
Seeing all this and understanding it, Micah felt himself impelled to fight the cause of the common people.
Conditions and a sympathetic soul thus made Micah a Prophet. ”

“ It is an unusual construction; but those words with which Micah begins his prophecy are the very same in the original with those wherewith Micaiah ended his, 1 Kings xxii. 28. 2. The earth is called upon, with all that therein is, to hear what the prophet has to say: Hearken, O earth! The earth shall be made to shake under the stroke and weight of the judgments coming; sooner will the earth hear than this stupid senseless people; but God will be heard when he pleads. If the church, and those in it, will not hear, the earth, and those in it, shall, and shame them. ”

“ Are there cannon there, brother?”
“Yes, there are,” said Micah, slowly. “Four six-pounders. They belonged to the Volunteers. We kept them. We thought they might be useful some day.”
“Ah,” said Donald, “it’s a pity. We shall have the trouble of re-capturing them. Come, let us go down to the meeting-house. I should like to see these terrible yeomen.”
“Some one has given them information,” said Micah. He was silent for a minute. Then he muttered as if to himself—
“Some one has informed against us. Some one has brought this evil upon us. Who has done this thing? Who is our secret enemy?” ”

“ I will devise the evil to you of punishment for your conduct; you shall have your necks brought under the yoke of servitude. Tiglath-pileser ruined this kingdom, and transported the people to Assyria, under the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah; and Micah lived to see this catastrophe. See on [83] (note) .
Verse 4
Take up a parable against you - Your wickedness and your punishment shall be subjects of common conversation; and a funeral dirge shall be composed and sung for you as for the dead. The lamentation is that which immediately follows: We be utterly spoiled ”

“ Bishop Newcome observes that Micah was of the kingdom of Judah, as he only makes mention of kings who reigned over that country. It is supposed that he prophesied farther on in the reign of Hezekiah than Hosea did; although [7] was written before the captivity of the ten tribes, which happened in the sixth year of Hezekiah. It is plain from [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , that he was sent both to Israel and Judah. Like Amos and Hosea, he reproves and threatens, with great spirit and energy, a corrupt people. ”

“ Newcome, a prophecy that was to be fulfilled by the coming of the Messiah, when the Gentiles were to be admitted into covenant with God, and the apostles were to preach the Gospel, beginning at Jerusalem, [101] ; [102] , etc., when Christ was to be the spiritual Judge and King of many people, was to convince many nations of their errors and vices, and was to found a religion which had the strongest tendency to promote peace. Bp. Lowth thinks that "Micah took this passage from Isaiah;" or the Spirit may have inspired both prophets with this prediction ”

“ If men's having the Lord among them will not restrain them from doing evil, it can never secure them from suffering evil for so doing; and it is very absurd for sinners to think that their impudence will be their impunity.
3. The doom passed upon them for their real wickedness, notwithstanding their imaginary protection (v. 12) : Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field. This is that passage which is quoted as a bold word spoken by Micah (Jer. xxvi. 18) , which yet Hezekiah and his princes took well, though in another reign it might have gone near to cost him his head ”