Tyndale Open Study Notes

Verse 1

1:1 Micah is presumably a short form of Micaiah, which means “Who is like the Lord?” • Moresheth was a fortress city located a short distance southeast of Gath in the low-lying hills of southwestern Judah. • Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (see Micah Book Introduction, “Setting”): The reigns of these three kings covered about 65 years total (about 750–686 BC). • God’s message came to Micah in visions. • Samaria and Jerusalem were the capitals of northern Israel and Judah. Sometimes these city names refer to their entire countries.

Verse 2

1:2–2:13 This message of judgment introduces some of the major concerns of Micah’s prophecies and asserts God’s determination to judge his people and put them into exile (1:16; 2:4-5), but it concludes with the Lord’s assurance that he will rescue a remnant from exile (2:12-13).

1:2-7 This oracle concerns Samaria prior to 722 BC, when Samaria was destroyed and its people were deported. The Sovereign Lord was coming to judge his people.

1:2 Attention! translates the same word that introduces the Shema (“Listen!”) in Deut 6:4. • The holy Temple is the Lord’s heavenly abode, not the corrupt Temple in Jerusalem (Mic 1:2-3).

Verse 3

1:3 Tramples the heights implies a theophany, an appearance of the God who is behind the historical convulsions about to afflict Samaria (cp. Deut 33:29; Ps 108:13; Amos 4:13). God is sovereign over nations and nature. The Canaanite god Baal was also thought to be active in this manner—descriptions of God like this one emphasize that the Lord, not Baal, is truly sovereign.

Verse 4

1:4 The strong and apparently immovable mountains will melt at the Lord’s presence (see Ps 97:5). Nothing can stand against him.

Verse 5

1:5 Rebellion is parallel to sins; these two key words describe Israel’s failure in the Old Testament. • Who? . . . Where? The capital cities of God’s people should have been holy places, but they were sources of corruption instead. Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, was built by Omri (885–874 BC) as a political, military, and economic crossroads of the ancient Near East (1 Kgs 16:24). Omri was an evil king, and so his city was evil (cp. Mic 6:16, 1 Kgs 16:25). • Jerusalem: The prophet would not allow the people of Judah to be smug about the northern kingdom’s imminent destruction. Judah’s beautiful Temple was no different from a Canaanite center of idolatry (literally high place).

Verse 6

1:6-7 a heap of ruins: The Lord threatened to devastate his treasured cities. Assyria virtually annihilated Samaria in 724–722 BC in a horrendous three-year siege. • Samaria, like most cities, was built on a hill. Here, the stones of her walls crash into the valley below as they are violently dismantled. Ancient armies would systematically shatter city walls down to their foundation stones. • Samaria and Jerusalem were filled with carved images and sacred treasures put there by worshipers or taken as war booty. • Prostitution pictures Israel’s persistent spiritual and physical waywardness. This metaphor was regularly used by the Israelite prophets to express Israel’s abandonment of the Lord, her true husband, in order to obtain the blessings promised by the pagan gods. In addition, the worship of those gods often in fact involved sexual activity. • Elsewhere refers to the exile of Samaria into Assyria and its various provinces and conquered vassal states (722 BC). The same outcome was forecast for Jerusalem (3:12; Jer 26:18).

Verse 8

1:8-16 In response to the Lord’s predicted judgment, Micah walked around barefoot and naked to express mourning (cp. Isa 20:2; Lam 2:10; Ezek 24:17), vividly depicting what would happen to Samaria (Israel) and Jerusalem (Judah). They would be stripped of their wealth, power, and population. • A jackal and an owl make forlorn sounds and live in forsaken wilderness areas (Isa 34:13; Jer 50:39).

Verse 9

1:9 into Judah . . . Jerusalem: The corruption now permeated the entire nation, north to south.

Verse 10

1:10-15 The cities listed were in the lowlands of southwestern Judah’s coastal areas. The sequence may represent the Assyrian army’s march down the coastal plain and from there into Judah’s heartland in 703–701 BC.

Verse 11

1:11 Exile was the ultimate, most devastating curse (Deut 4:29; 28:37, 48; Jer 25:7-11).

Verse 12

1:12 even to . . . Jerusalem: God’s judgment reaches wherever corruption has taken hold (cp. 1:9).

Verse 13

1:13 Lachish was the second most important city in Judah, after Jerusalem, and was Judah’s main center of defense against their enemies. Even today, a massive tell over 150 feet (46 meters) high remains. Lachish fell in 701 BC, having been besieged, terrified, starved, and demolished by Sennacherib’s war engines. Sennacherib celebrated its fall as one of his greatest victories and featured the event in monumental carvings on his palace walls.

Verse 14

1:14 Farewell gifts said good-bye to the doomed people of Moresheth-gath as that city also became Assyrian property.

Verse 15

1:15 the leaders (literally the glory): The leaders of Israel should have been Israel’s “glory” by setting examples of moral excellence and wise, caring leadership. Instead, God’s shepherds corrupted their nation. • Adullam was destroyed by Assyria in 701 BC.

Verse 16

1:16 The people of Judah, including Jerusalem, were exiled and deported to distant lands in Babylonia in 605, 597, and 586 BC. Babylon was some 1,000 miles (1,700 kilometers) from Jerusalem. • shave your heads: This act of mourning and despair (see also Jer 41:5) could also signify purification (Lev 14:7-10; Num 6:10-11).