THERE is a significance often in a name in Scripture, attracting attention to something to be remembered, or witnessing of some gracious act of God either to His people as a whole or to individuals among them. Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Joshua, are instances of this. Nor are these names, so significant, confined to early days. In the time of the kingdom, as in that of the patriarchs and wilderness journey, we meet with examples of the name illustrating something connected with the one who bore it. In the days of Ahab and Jehoshaphat we find it, and in the reign of Jotham we again meet with it. Elijah, raised up to recall Israel to the confession of the true God, bore witness, as his name imports, that Jehovah is God. The heathen widow of Zarephath learned it to her joy; the people of Israel acknowledged it at Carmel; and the two captains of fifty with their companies discovered it to their confusion and destruction. The ministry of Elisha was of a different character, and his name would teach it. Elijah vindicated the divinity of Jehovah, Elisha exhibited His saving and healing power. At a date subsequent to these devoted men, in the south of the land, at Moresheth, was born the prophet Micah, an abridged form of the name Micaiah, by which he is spoken: of in Jer. 26:1818Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. (Jeremiah 26:18), in the Hebrew text, which means Who is like Jehovah; and his writings seem intended to illustrate what his name challenges all to disprove, that there is none like Jehovah of Hosts, the mighty God of Israel.
Called to the prophetic office when Hosea was ministering in Israel, 'and before Isaiah bad announced to Ahaz the, miraculous conception of Immanuel, ere Samaria had received within her gates for the first time since she became the capital of the kingdom of Israel, a conquering army, he appears designed by the Lord Jehovah to direct the nation, if they would attend to him, to their only stay in the times of calamity which were fast approaching. By Hosea God taught the people the only way of restoration for those who have sinned against Him. In the pages of Isaiah He described the King yet to be on the earth in power, and the blessings to be enjoyed under His reign; and in Micah, whilst taking up in some degree the moral condition of the remnant, and the future blessings under the Shepherd of the sheep, the Lord shows the apostate people of the prophet's day that there is none like Himself, Jehovah their God.
Opening, as has been observed, with the closing words of his namesake who stood before Ahab and Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:2828And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you. (1 Kings 22:28)), as a summons to all the nations to hear what Jehovah has to witness against them-Jehovah from His holy temple, Micah speaks at once of the destruction of Samaria, and depicts the march of the Assyrian army to Jerusalem through Judah, in which, places hitherto unmentioned in Scripture, would be witnesses as long as time should last of God's visitation on account of sin. " Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, in nakedness and shame: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth; the mourning of Beth-ezel shall take from you its standing " (1: 11). Saphir would experience captivity, whilst Zaanan 'would be afraid to venture forth on its behalf, and Beth-ezel be too much occupied with her own sorrow to help a neighbor city in distress. Places known, tenanted, and beloved by those who dwelt in them, too small, probably, to be noticed in the day of Israel's greatness, are thus connected for over with the nation's calamity. Right well did they deserve this infliction, as the prophet proceeds to declare. The sorrow occasioned by an invading army is grievous, but that was not the first occasion when oppression and violence, and insecurity of possessions had been experienced. Often must the cry of the oppressed and defenseless have ascended up to heaven ere Sennacherib's armed hosts Overran Judah. Neither rank, nor that which so often appeals to man's, heart with success, the helplessness of women and children, was suffered to stand in the way as a barrier against lawlessness and covetous desires
(2: 1, 2, 8, 9). Of reproofs they were impatient; to the prophets of God they would not hearken, but desired them to keep silence. " Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy " (2: 6). Yet the people believed in the existence of a prophetic Spirit. It was not the ignorance of those who thought there could be no revelation that Micah reproves, but the determined spirit of opposition to all that came from God, whilst ready to receive what a lying spirit might enunciate. " If a man walking in spirit (or vanity) and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people " (ver. 11). A time of enjoyment was what they wanted, present ease and the indulgence of the appetite, without reference to the future, was enough for them. Wine and strong drink was all they cared to hear about. What did such people deserve but rooting out, and that forever?
All the nations assembled to hear the Lord's controversy must own that punishment was justly the due of such a generation as this; but all are called on to hearken, and to learn that there was none like God, as the prophet, unable because of Israel's sin, to promise present ease, can yet speak of future triumph. Desolation and captivity were near at hand; but restoration and prosperity is the future in store for them. " I will surely assemble, 0 Jacob, all of thee: I will surely gather the remnant of Israel: I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold; they shall make a great noise by reason of the multitude of men." Security, plenty, and increase shall be theirs when this takes place, Different had been, and were in the prophet's day, the fortunes of Israel and Judah, but at the time of which Micah prophesies they will be united. Together will Jehovah set them as the sheep of
Bozrah. Exposed to the ravages of the Assyrian they both were, they shall be " as a flock in the midst of their fold," or rather " pasture." Besides this, there was something which directly concerned the nations. The breaker shall go before Israel, even their king, the Lord at their head; and whilst to Israel He will act as a shepherd, the nations will find Him to be the breaker who will remove every barrier raised up to oppose the return of His people, and to keep them still in subjection to a foreign yoke. Amos had predicted the captivity of Samaria. " And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her" (4: 3). Micah predicts their return when they shall safely and without hindrance pass out through the gates of the cities of those who have ruled over them. Far better than present ease and strong drink was this. If the false prophet would predict, but in vain, a time of self-indulgence and fleshly gratification, the true prophet could speak with certainty of something, though distant, yet far more cheering; not alleviation in the midst of adverse circumstances, nor present indulgence in the face of a victorious invader, but a bright future of complete deliverance from a foreign yoke, and peace and plenty with the Lord as their Shepherd in their midst. Polluted was the land in the prophet's day; it was no fit resting-place for the people of the Lord then; there will come a time when it shall be clean, manifested by the Lord's presence afresh, and. He will be actively engaged in restoring His people to their land, never more to be dispossessed of it. How short-sighted were the people of Micah's day! What a vista of coming blessing does he present!
Again, the prophet summons people to hearken. This time it is to the heads of Jacob and to the princes of the house of Israel that he speaks. Their sins and those of the false prophets are stated. The rulers shall cry to the Lord, but He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. The prophets shall find it night to them, they shall not have a vision; it will be dark with them that they shall not divine; "the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed and the diviners confounded, yea, they shall cover their lips, for there is no answer of God" (3: 4-7). What should they do then? Where should they turn? Their prayer shut out from God's presence; the future, as far as they can foresee it, pitch darkness, with nothing, unless God should intervene, but despair to overwhelm them; this is a pitiable condition indeed. Their deserts are clear, but there is none like God; so, whilst He will make the false prophets conscious of the darkness, His own messenger can penetrate the gloom and map out the future of the people.
This he does. Judgment must be executed, and that on Jerusalem. In chapter i. the prophet had spoken of Samaria's overthrow, here he announces the overturn of Jerusalem. David's city must be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem which Solomon enriched become heaps, and the mountain of the house, where the Shechinah had been, should be as the high places of the (rather, a) forest, i.e. what it was in Abraham's day (Gen. 22:1313And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. (Genesis 22:13)). Of Samaria we read of nothing but destruction; the stones were to be poured down into the valley, and the foundations to be discovered. The ivory house, one of the glories of Ahab's reign
(1 Kings 22:3939Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (1 Kings 22:39)), must perish; and to Samaria, so beautiful in situation, fitted for a metropolis, Micah holds out no prospect of returning prosperity and beauty. Of Jerusalem it is otherwise, and in language, found also in Isaiah, he predicts its exaltation and metropolitan character, as the habitation of the God of Jacob would be again within it, to which not the tribes only, but many nations in the last days, shall go up. The Lord Jehovah at Jerusalem, His rule shall be obeyed among the Gentiles, peace and plenty be the portion of all nations, and the long-exiled people, afflicted of God for their sins, shall return and become a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth even forever. There had been a season of prosperity and power under David and Solomon; that shall return, for unto Zion shall come the first dominion, the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. No room will there be for contrasting the future blessing, when enjoyed (as in Ezra 3:1212But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: (Ezra 3:12)), with what their fathers had known in the palmiest days of the kingdom, for the first dominion shall come to Zion, and the final issue of the Babylonish captivity shall be redemption from the power of their enemies, and their overthrow by the people they have so trampled on and despised.
Very clear is this outline, and very decided is the language. It could not be otherwise, for the plan is of God, and the words have been selected by the Spirit of God. In common with Isaiah, Micah speaks of the future of the temple, yet he does not simply travel over ground which others before him have trod. He shows his competency to declare by the Spirit of the Lord what shall be in the future, as he speaks of the birthplace of the Messiah, not elsewhere predicted, and tells of the returned remnant's rejection in consequence of their treatment of the Eternal One.
Living after the fulfillment of part of his prophecy, we can mark the exactness of his predictions and understand the statement concerning things yet future. Rejected of Jehovah for their rejection of the Christ until Jerusalem shall travail in birth with child, the prophet marks the difference between that which characterizes the epoch in which we live and that which will come after it, "the remnant of His brethren shall return unto the children of Israel." Now they form part of the church, then they will be reckoned with the nation. "And He shall stand and feed (i.e. as a shepherd his flock) 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." And, as the prophet has told out what the people of Zion will do to the enemies gathered together against them at Jerusalem (4: 12, 13), he also tells us, what none beside him predict, the victorious march of the once oppressed and captive people into the very region of the earth from whence the conqueror of the ten tribes had come forth (v. 6). Then, turning back to the land, his home, and the home of the nation when restored, he advertises all of the changes that will be witnessed. He knew it as a land of chariots, and horses, and strongholds, and witchcrafts, and groves. The chariots and horses forbidden to Israel (Deut. 17:1616But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. (Deuteronomy 17:16)), and witchcrafts shall cease, and the groves be cut down, and the fenced cities, those silent but impressive witnesses of lawlessness and violence and weakness, shall be needed no longer. Vengeance, too, will be executed in anger and fury, not upon Israel, but on the heathen, such as they have not heard. Who but God could trace out such an outline, now partly fulfilled? And who but He would address a confessedly guilty nation in such language as this?
A third time the prophet summons witnesses to hearken to what the Lord saith. The nations, and the leaders of Israel have been respectively addressed; now he speaks before the mountains, and the hills are to hear his voice, " for the Lord hath a controversy with His people, He will plead with Israel" (6. 7.) His dealings with them at the outset of their national existence are referred to. How had He wearied them that they had turned from Him? Had He not brought them up out of Egypt, redeemed them out of the house of servants, and provided them with all that they wanted-Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the king and lawgiver, the priest, and the prophetess? Had He not also withstood Balaam at the close of their wilderness career? These acts proclaimed His righteousnesses (so Micah wrote). But of what could they speak? The remnant confess their sin, the wickedness of the rest God exposes. But if the best of them could only take the ground of confession, what could they, standing on the ground of law, look for but judgment? Where then should they turn? There was but One to whom they could look-Jehovah, against whom they had sinned. For Him they must wait as the God of their salvation, knowing that He would bear them, This the remnant declare they will do, and the prophet can assure them that their confidence will not be misplaced. " I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him, until He plead my cause and execute judgment for me: He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness," are the words provided by the Spirit of God for the daughter of Zion to use. "In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed," is God's immediate answer by the prophet, speaking of the certainty of Zion being rebuilt. When that takes place, they will assemble to her from Assyria, and from the cities of Egypt (not the fortified cities), and from Egypt (not the fortress) to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. The flock of God's heritage shall feed in Bashan and Carmel as in days of old, and Israel, the prey and sport of nations, shall prosper, whilst abject fear shall take possession of the Gentiles, because of the Lord and of His people (7: 9-17).
Recording this bright ending to so dark a beginning, well might the prophet break out at the close in words expressive of wonder at the God whose servant he was, and whose purposes of mercy toward Israel he was commissioned to declare. " Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion on us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old." His character, His faithfulness, are the stay of His people. Sinned they have, and that grievously, but God delighteth in mercy. Judgment is His strange work, but mercy is His delight. What a character of their God, and ours too, will that be for them to meditate upon! Unworthy of any favor they are, but God's word is pledged to Jacob (Gen. 35:1212And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. (Genesis 35:12)), and the origin of every promise He gave them as His earthly people was His kindness to Abraham. The grounds on which He could thus act must be sought for elsewhere. What God is, and will be to His people is what Micah was charged to declare. And surely it will be found at the close of the nation's long night of darkness and bitterness, when the remnant of Messiah's brethren shall have returned to the children of Israel (as the faithful in the prophet's day which preceded the Babylonish captivity, and the faithful during its continuance, and the returned remnant of Ezra's and Nehemiah's time, in the midst of the alternations of hope and fear in which they lived, severally proved), that God's faithfulness and truth are the stay of His people. To show mercy is His prerogative (Psa. 62:1212Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work. (Psalm 62:12)). So, though the nation turned from Him in Micah's day, He will surely bring back His people in power. When all was dark, He alone could, and did, shed light on the scene. And when all is fulfilled, the closing words of Micah's prophecy will be the language just suited for His finally ransomed people. We, too, know what it is to find comfort in the knowledge of His character and of His faithfulness to that which He has announced (Eph. 2:4-64But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 2:4‑6); 1 Thess. 5:2424Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24)).