Be sure to subscribe to the YouTube Channel or Follow Bible Fiber wherever you listen to podcasts!
Micah’s book opens with an image of Yahweh descending from his heavenly throne and marching down to earth like a plaintiff entering the courtroom. In this closing section, Yahweh is back in the courtroom with the prophet Micah, his counsel, delivering the terms of the covenant lawsuit. The trial begins: “Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel” (6:1-2).
Micah was a prophet to the Kingdom of Judah. In his oracles, however, he preferred using Judah’s covenant name, Israel, or the term “House of Jacob” to refer to a time before the nation was divided. He was establishing the antiquity of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people before laying out Yahweh’s case against the nation.
Witnesses, defendant, and plaintiff
Micah artfully called upon the hills and mountains to be silent witnesses to the legal case against Israel. He was following a long tradition of bringing in objects of creation to witness Israel’s covenant ceremonies. When Moses had laid out the blessings and curses attached to the covenant obligations, he had called “heaven and earth” to the witness stand, swearing that disobedience would ensure many punishments including the loss of the land (Deut. 30:19). Later, when Joshua warned the people of the dire consequences of idol worship, he had set up a stone as a witness, threatening that if the people rebelled against God, the stone would testify against them (Josh. 24:25).
Yahweh invited Israel to present formal testimony for themselves before presenting the evidence, asking, “My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me” (6:3). The invitation suggested that the national mood at the time was resentful of Yahweh. The people were grumbling about his absence during their time of desperation. In their understanding, Jerusalem was God’s earthly throne, immune from destruction. As the elect, they felt entitled to protection. Yet, how could they explain Assyria’s many victories against them? They were amplifying the blessings associated with the covenant while muting the curses. Micah was addressing these assumptions about their election when he later told the people they needed to “walk humbly” with God (6:8).
In his defense, Yahweh described all the ways he had proved his fidelity to his covenant with Israel throughout the generations. He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, he had sent them appointed leaders like Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, and he had helped them conquer the many nations of Canaan during the conquest. Micah also highlighted God’s intervention with King Balak of Moab as one of God’s many gracious acts (Num. 22-24), probably because the event was a bookend that separated the period of wanderings from the period of conquest.
The purpose of reciting God’s significant acts of salvation on behalf of Israel was to show that God was not the one failing to fulfill the covenant. The national narrative needed to change. God had chosen them out of all the peoples to be a source of salvation for the world, and now they were the ones in desperate need of revival.
In response to the reminders of Yahweh’s faithfulness to the covenant, Israel dialogued with Yahweh about what was required of them. They planned their questions as if they were inquiring about rules for entry into the temple precincts. In the Psalms, David asked a similarly phrased question: “O Lord who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?” (15:1). David rightly presumed that those permitted to enter God’s presence lived a blameless life, honored their God, spoke truth, and acted justly.
Misunderstanding sacrifice
Israel was asking the wrong questions. They were asking what kind of offerings they should bring to Yahweh as a demonstration of their faith. Their first question pertained to the quality of the sacrifice. Should it be a year-old calf (6:6)? Then they inquired regarding the quantity of the offering. Would a thousand rams or ten thousand rivers of oil suffice (6:7)? Judging by the proportions of their sacrifices, the people were clearly desperate to win back Yahweh’s favor. But they were blind to the actual expectations of their God.
There was a desperate exaggeration in their questions about required sacrifices, climaxing with the shocking question: “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression” (6:7)? This inquiry, more than any of the previous misguided questions, showed how far the people of Israel had removed themselves from the knowledge of God. They now embraced the pagan instincts of their neighbors.
Hosea had written, “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6). How had they forgotten Yahweh’s warning to resist the evil ways of their neighbors when they entered the promised land? Child sacrifice was an abomination to God (Deut. 12:29-31). The prophet Jeremiah said that child sacrifice had never even arisen in Yahweh’s mind (Jer.7:30-31).
In other ancient Near Eastern cultures, sacrifice and ritual worship were all that was required by their many gods. The gods of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon did not demand an ethical and moral standard from the people. They did not ask for justice, humility, or morality. The House of Jacob was trying to worship Yahweh like their neighbors worshiped. In their systems, sacrifice trumped obedience. What resulted was a worship system devoid of the expression of love that God intended. Their sacrifices were a bargaining contract between the people and their gods, a debasement of the loving covenant relationship that Yahweh had designed.
So, what was required to approach Yahweh and to reconcile the broken covenant relationship? Micah answered them: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8). This is the verse for which Micah is probably best known. However, his summary of God’s desires was not unique. Centuries before, Samuel had understood the people were over-focusing on ritual worship and under-focusing on God’s call for righteous living. He had also preached that God desired obedience over sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22).
That same exhortation reverberated throughout the prophets. In Hosea, Yahweh had said he desired “acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). In Amos, God had refused to accept the burnt offerings or grain offerings. What he wanted instead was justice and mercy (5:21-24).
In his one generalizing summary of Yahweh’s will, Micah addressed right living on both the horizontal realm, man’s interaction with fellow man, and the vertical realm, man’s relationship with God. Justice, humility, and kindness were the ideal, but the reality in eighth-century BCE Israel looked much different.
Earlier in his book, Micah had called out the leaders of Israel for their corruption. By the end of his book, he broadened the accusation to all the people of Israel who were mistreating and abusing one another. People lied in court and cheated in the marketplace. The land was full of deceit and violence. Micah compared their degenerate state to the Kings Omri and Ahab. Except for these instances, the Minor Prophets did not identify other kings outside of their historical superscriptions. Omri and Ahab had been Baal-embracing kings of the Northern Kingdom. To the Judahites, any association with them would have been the ultimate insult.
With such a low spiritual barometer in Israel, the people deserved judgment. Micah intentionally named the consequences for their disobedience in the same manner that Moses had laid them out in Deuteronomy 28: enemies would invade, babies would go unborn, and crops would go unharvested.
Prophetic calling
Micah 7 changes tone, and the prophet began to write autobiographically. “What misery is mine,” he lamented, bringing back the vision of a lonely prophet crying barefoot and naked for the fate of his hometown (1:8,12). Micah used an allegory about a vineyard stripped completely of fruit to describe his pointless search for even one righteous person in the land. Though God was craving the fruit of the godly, what he found instead was anarchy. “Everyone lies in wait to shed blood,” the prophet mourned (7:2). There was a total breakdown of family and communal harmony. Neighbors, family members, and friends no longer trusted each other.
Our steadfast prophet Micah walked alongside the people and their coming punishment. He was already standing upright, looking beyond this present torture, waiting on the promises of Yahweh to be fulfilled in the future. He said, “But I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me” (7:7). Notice how all three lines of this poetic stanza mention both the prophet and God together in various respects.
Micah ends with an oracle of hope, half praise, and half aspirational prayer. Gone was his bitter tone when he had accused the people of hating good and loving evil (3:1-3). Micah now prophesied that one day God would pour out His wrath, and Israel would confess her guilt and seek restoration (7:9). Yahweh would no longer judge his people, but instead, he would advocate for them and restore them once more to their land. The House of Jacob might not remember the covenant, but Yahweh remembered, and he promised to fulfill all his covenant promises.
Israel’s enemies were victorious at the time, but their punishment was coming. Israel would return to her land and reclaim her territory. There is plenty of archaeological evidence showing that in Micah’s day the population of the city of Jerusalem exploded. Refugees from the Northern Kingdom and from the smaller towns of Judah fled to the only fortified city left standing. When Micah prophesied a “day for extending your boundaries,” (7:11) he was speaking to the core desires of the overpopulated city. Assyria’s merciless policies in Israel and Judah shamed and disgraced the people and attempted to dethrone their God. But Micah prophesied Israel’s vindication.
God was going to perform a second Exodus. When Micah said, “You will again have compassion on us” (7:19), he was calling back to the Exodus when the cries of the people had reached Yahweh’s ears. Israel had been powerless against the Egyptian slave masters, and she was now powerless against the Assyrians. Only the mighty delivering acts of Yahweh intervening in history could bring Israel out of exile and back into the land once more.
The Exodus is a pivotal moment in Jewish history. If the entire New Testament hinges upon Christ’s death and resurrection, the entire Old Testament hinges upon the Exodus. The beginning of the Hebrew scripture builds up momentum to the Exodus and the rest of Hebrew scripture calls back to that moment. That act of salvation, the God of their forefathers stepping into history to free a band of slaves from the Egyptian empire, was the first domino to tip over in a series of other salvific acts.
Then came the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and Yahweh’s presence during the wilderness wanderings and the stage-by-stage conquest of the promised land. In Jewish tradition even today, the Exodus is still the central event, told and retold through the holiday of Passover.
Micah closes with his own namesake asking, Mikhayhu, “Who is a God like you?” He recognized that what set Yahweh apart was not his omnipotence, power, or might. All the pagan nations claimed those attributes for their false gods.
Micah asked, “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy” (7:18). God’s grace would continue to be revealed from then into the future in a thousand separate ways, both for the people of Israel and for the world. God’s power cannot be measured, yet He extends His mercy and grace to the humble and lowly.