As we continue our journey through the Trei Asar, we have officially reached the halfway point! Our next navi is Micah, the sixth of the twelve prophets in this collection.
Micah is one of the better-known prophets, in part because his sefer (book) contains some very important Messianic prophecies. We’ll get into some of those in the next blog. But first, let’s start where we normally do.
What do we know about Micah? Who was he? And what is his prophecy about?
Based on the information Micah gives us in verse 1, namely that he prophesied during the reigns of Yotam, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, we can confidently place him in the middle of the 700s BCE. That makes Micah a contemporary of Hosea, Isaiah, and Amos. And there is a lot of overlap between Micah and Isaiah.
It probably was not by design, but in outcome, Micah’s seven chapters are almost like a condensed version of Isaiah’s 66 chapters. Or, as Jewish commentator David Solomon says, Micah is like “Isaiah on steroids!”
Now, from the Bible itself, we don’t know much about Micah. Verse 1 tells us that he was from Moresheth, which was in Judah, not far from Lachish. Like Isaiah, Micah directed his prophecy primarily toward Yehudah (Judah), the southern kingdom. However, in chapter 1, Micah vividly frames Judah’s sins against the backdrop of what had happened in the northern kingdom of Israel. And what were the sins of the northern kingdom that led to HaShem judging them?
Well, if you’ve been following this series, you might remember from Hosea and Amos that we can largely sum up the sins of the north with two concepts: idolatry and social injustice. And in chapters 1 and 2, Micah tells us that these same things have come to characterize Judah as well. Micah 1:5 says:
“What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?”
That is quite an accusation! The “high places” were notorious locations for avodah zarah, or idolatry. So, with a poetic and prophetic punch to the gut, Micah says that the idolatry in the high places of Samaria has now reached Jerusalem itself. Thus, Micah warns that Jerusalem is on the brink of destruction.
To say the least, this is a bad scene.
Judah is committing idolatry, and as is so often the case in the prophets, idolatry leads to social injustice. And that’s exactly what Micah catalogs in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 2, Micah says:
“Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away.” (Micah 2:1-2)
So…interpreting these verses does not require much effort! The people in Judah dreamed up their evil schemes, and then in the morning they would wake up and carry them out. They were using their power to take land and homes from other people. And HaShem says they will pay for it.
BIG TIME.
Then in chapter 3, Micah narrows his focus to the leaders of Judah. And there are three kinds of leaders he focuses on: the political leaders, the neviim (prophets), and the cohanim (priests). And with full-throttle chutzpah (nerve), Micah says they are all corrupt. He brings this to a head in Micah 3:11:
“Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, ‘Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.’”
Clearly, there are lots of problems here. And the problems are pervasive across the board of Judah’s leaders. It seems there is no safe area in Judah that has not become corrupt.
The leaders are schemers. And as is normally the case with religious and civic schemers, they exploit people for cash. But I’m particularly interested in the second half of the verse.
“Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.”
Not only were these leaders corrupt, but they thought they were untouchable. And they thought Jerusalem was untouchable. You know, it is fascinating to me how common it is for people engaged in deception not to realize how thin the ice they are skating on is. And actually, this can happen to any of us. It almost certainly has.
I can look back at times in my own life when I was not only deceived, but I was deceived about how close I was to serious danger. But thanks be to God for His prophets and for His Word, which can bring us back to truth and solid ground if we will let God in. And apparently, that is exactly what happened in Micah’s day. Micah ends chapter 3 with about the strongest warning he could possibly give:
“Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.” (Micah 3:12)
Micah is saying the Temple will be destroyed. But as we have seen throughout the Neviim, disaster and judgment can sometimes be averted when there is sufficient teshuvah (“repentance” or a “return” to God).
Interestingly, about a hundred years later, the prophet Jeremiah looks back at this very prophecy. Jeremiah 26 tells us that King Hezekiah and the people responded to Micah’s warning. Hezekiah feared HaShem and sought His favor, and HaShem relented from the disaster He had pronounced against them, and Jerusalem was preserved. Unfortunately, the people in Jeremiah’s day did not respond in the same way. And eventually, the disaster Micah had warned about came upon them in the form of the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the First Temple. But that’s not the end of the story.
It’s really something how the Neviim take us on a roller coaster ride. It doesn’t get much more somber than Micah chapter 3. But then we get to chapter 4.
Suddenly, Micah takes us from the possible destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to a vision of the acharit hayamim, the “latter days” or “end of days.” The Temple Mount will be established, the nations will flow to Jerusalem, and they will say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” (Micah 4:2)
So I have a question. Why would HaShem communicate this message here at this point?
We’ve just had three chapters describing horrific corruption in Judah. Why the about-face? Why suddenly shift the focus to this incredible picture of the future?
Well, I think HaShem communicates this message here because, as a good Father, He doesn’t just tell us what we are doing wrong. He shows us what we can be. And that’s what a good parent does. A good parent and a good leader hold us accountable but also give us a vision for where we can go and what we can be. I think the sudden shift in Micah 4 is HaShem’s way of saying to Judah:
This is what you were made for…and you can have it if you return to Me.
And as we’ll see in the next blog, Micah’s vision of what Judah and Jerusalem were made for is much bigger than Judah alone.
