THE prophet Micah lived during the times of Isaiah and Hosea. He declares that the Lord is speaking from His temple, and coming in judgment upon the earth because of the transgressions of Israel and Judah. (chapter 1) His people are therefore called upon to arise and depart because it is polluted—as usual, the faithful are to depart from iniquity. (chapter 2)
The heads and princes of the house of Israel should have known judgment, but they hated the good, and loved the evil, and did eat the flesh of His people; but they shall cry, and He will not hear them. The prophets also that bite with their teeth, and say, Peace, had made His people err; therefore Zion, for their sakes, shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps. We know how literally this has taken place. (Chap. 3) But the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem, and the chosen city and holy mountain shall yet be established in blessing by Jehovah. Yea, though many nations are gathered against her, and say of Zion, Let her be defiled, yet shall they be as the sheaves of the floor, which the daughter of Zion shall arise and thresh. (chapter 4)
Messiah is then prophetically announced, His place of nativity being Bethlehem of Judah. His divinity is alluded to as One whose “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting;” His true Messiahship and exaltation referred to as “ruler in Israel;” His rejection— “They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek;” His present hiding from His people Israel— “He will give them up until she which travaileth path brought forth.” Then the future restoration of a remnant of Israel— “For the remnant of Messiah’s brethren shall return unto (not the Church, but) the children of Israel.” Then Messiah’s reign takes place, for “He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord; in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God; and they shall abide: for now shall He be great unto the ends of the earth.” (chapter 5:1-4.) He will deliver His own from the Assyrian army, which shall yet come against Jerusalem. The remnant of Israel shall be a blessing to others, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass. They shall be also in the place of power as a lion among the beasts of the forest, their hand lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off. The Lord, however, will destroy their chariots, cut off witchcrafts out of the land, destroy graven images, pluck up their groves, and execute vengeance and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard. (chapter 5)
The prophet having thus set before the people the blessings in store for them in the last days under Messiah’s rule, returns to the subject of God’s controversy with them because of their transgressions and idolatry, referred to in the opening of the book. He appeals to them on the ground of their redemption from Egypt, and of Balak’s ways and Balaam’s answer that they might “know the righteousness of Jehovah.” He assures them that God looks into the heart, and that He therefore cannot be pleased with mere ordinances; and bids them consider who it is that is now chastening them; for they had had wicked balances, and a bag of deceitful weights; they had also kept the wicked statutes of Omri, and walked in the ways of Ahab. (chapter 6)
Micah, as we have seen in other prophets, is in heart deeply affected with the people’s fallen and degraded condition, and his only relief is in looking to the Lord, and waiting for the God of his salvation. He comforts himself also with the assurance that while the nations around shall be judged, yet that God will by and by have compassion upon His people, subdue their iniquities, cast all their sins into the depths of the sea, and perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, according to His oath and promise.