Micah

Micah Micah’s home was the village of Mareshah, in the maritime plain of Jonah, near the borders of the Philistines.

He was a contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, and prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and the earlier years of Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He prophesied concerning both Samaria and Jerusalem, but the burden of his prophecy was for Judah.

Micah bore the same name, abbreviated, as Micaiah, the Son of Imlah, the prophet of Israel, who stood alone for God against the 400 false prophets, 150 years before this, in the days of Ahab, when he and Jehoshaphat went against Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings 22:1-53). Micaiah had concluded his prophecy with the words, “Hearken, O people, every one of you.” Micah begins his prophecy with the same words. The three divisions of his book each begins with this call to Hear: Micah 1:2; Micah 3:1; Micah 6:1. Micaiah had seen “all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd.” Micah’s prophecy abounds in allusions to the Good Shepherd and His pitiful care over His flock. With much brokenness of heart Micah denounces God’s judgments upon Judah for their sins, but he seems to hasten over the words of judgment, and to linger over the message of God’s love and mercy, concluding his prophecy with a specially beautiful proclamation of it, with which he identifies his own name, Micah, which means “Who is like God?” “Who is like the Lord, the Pardoner of sin, the Redeemer from its guilt, the Subduer of its power? For no false God was ever such a claim made. This was the one message that he loved above all to proclaim; and his own name was the herald to the people in his day” (Dr. Pussy).

Samaria and the Cities of Judah. Micah proclaims the coming judgment first upon Samaria, and then upon the cities of Judah. These were all speedily fulfilled by the armies of Assyria. The idolatry of Israel had spread to Jerusalem, and the strong city of Lachish seems to have been the connecting link, “the beginning of the sin of the daughter of Zion” (Micah 1:13). It is this spread of idolatry, and all its attendant evils, to Judah, under king Ahaz, which Micah specially deplores. He rebukes the extreme oppression of the poor, women and little children being driven from their homes; covetousness and self-aggrandizement, even at the price of blood, which he graphically likens to cannibalism. He specially denounces the sins of the rulers, bribery among the judges, false weights and balances.

Micah further proclaims the captivity in Babylon (Micah 4:7), and the destruction of Jerusalem (Micah 3:12), even to the plowing up of the city, which was fulfilled by the Emperor Hadrian. We are distinctly told in the book of Jeremiah that this prophecy led to the great turning to the Lord of King Hezekiah and his people, at the beginning of his reign, which averted the destruction of the city, it may be for 136 years, and led also to 211the great reformation under that king. The elders of Judah reverted to this prophecy of Micah about 120 years after it was uttered, when the priests would have put Jeremiah to death for predicting the same doom.

“Bethlehem of Judah.” But for us the great interest of the prophet Micah centers round its clear prophecies of the Savior who was to come. It was from this book that “all the chief priests and scribes of the people,” gathered together by Herod, proclaimed unhesitatingly that it was at Bethlehem of Judah that the Christ, the King, should be born. This prophecy proclaims His eternity. He who was to go forth from Bethlehem as the Ruler, was He whose goings forth were “from the days of eternity.” Micah 5:3 is closely connected with Isaiah 7:14.

“He shall stand and feed (or rule) in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God.” Here we have the majesty of the Royal Shepherd caring for His flock.

Micah’s picture of the restoration of Zion and many nations flowing to it, and the glory and prosperity of Christ’s Kingdom, with its reign of universal peace, was introduced by Isaiah into his prophecy.

Nahum