The Mystery of Micah
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8). This passage is one of the best-known verses in the Bible. It sums up not only the entire prophetic movement but also the essence of true worship. Oddly enough, this famous passage was most likely not written by Micah. “Not only the tenderness of feeling...but also the dramatic and exceedingly animated descriptions, make the composition of this section by Micah very improbable”1. In fact, the entire court metaphor from 6:1-7:6 is found by Hastings to be diverse enough in contents, style, and character to render him unable to attribute the section to Micah's pen. Even the Encyclopaedia Judaica admits that the writings of Micah could be attributed to two different time periods, stating that Micah could be a younger contemporary of Isaiah or one of the post-Exilic prophets2. Who, then, is Micah? What is his true message? What meaning can people today draw from the words of Micah? All of this is the mystery of Micah.
The origins of the message in the book of Micah are not the only items up for question. There is much debate over when Micah prophesied. It is generally agreed upon that Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah; however, he may have also been a student of Isaiah3. It is likely that Micah prophesied for somewhere around two decades. Micah 1:1 states that Micah prophesied “in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.” The appendix to the New Oxford Annotated Bible states that these kings reigned from 759-687 BC, and that possible allusions to the fall of Samaria in 722 and the campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 place Micah in the final quarter of the eighth century. However, Calvin says that Jotham and Ahaz each reigned for 16 years while Hezekiah reigned for 32, a total of 64 years, different from the appendix's 73 year total4. Calvin also believes that because Micah is said to have prophesied during the reigns of each of these three kings, he must have prophesied for all of Ahaz's reign and only a little from each of the other two kings5. Hastings disagrees, and believes that due to outside references to Micah and also the allusions Micah makes, he prophesied primarily in the reign of Hezekiah, with only a little in the reign of Ahaz and no certain prophesying in the time of Jotham as the first verse asserts6. According to Clark et al., Jotham reigned approximately 740-736 BC, Ahaz 734-716 BC, and Hezekiah 716-687 BC, a total of 54 years. Jeremiah 26: 18-19 references Micah prophesying in the reign of Hezekiah, and scholars today believe that most of Micah's prophesy is to be dated in the period 715-700 BC7. Clearly, there can be no certainty about when exactly Micah prophesied; however, if the Bible is to be believed, Micah prophesied around two decades, the entire reign of Ahaz with a few years on either side of his reign to include the other two kings.
Fortunately, the world view in the time of Micah can be relied on with some certainty. Louise Pettibone Smith gives an excellent account in “The Book of Micah”. “The outstanding characteristic of the eighth century in Western Asia was the domination of Assyria...In December 722 or January 721, Samaria, the capital of North Israel was taken by the Assyrian army. This brought an end to the Northern Kingdom which became an Assyrian province...In 705 Hezekiah of Judah joined in the general revolt against Assyria. Sennacherib invaded Judah, took 46 fortified towns, and by 701 shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage” and extracted heavy tribute. He did not, however, take the city itself nor remove Hezekiah from the throne”8. The end of the eighth century was also a time of great change in the economy of Judah. Since the split from Israel, Judah had been a poor country dependent on agriculture and herding. At the end of the century, Judah gained control of a caravan route lost since Solomon's time, giving Judah control of the lucrative international trade9. This led to a concentration of wealth among Judah's merchant princes while the poor farmers suffered oppression and injustice at the hands of the rich. Micah was born in the country and therefore the oppression of the poor was a major topic of his.
There are many specific institutions and practices that Micah preaches against, yet most every injustice boils down to wealth. Hastings says, “For Micah in assigning the ground for judgement...specifically to do with the aristocracy of Jerusalem, against whom his whole anger is turned on account of the injustice perpetrated by them”10. In 1:7 Micah preaches that Samaria gathered wealth by illegitimate means and thought it to be had by its worship of false Gods. The cause of God's vengeance was that Samaria had abandoned itself to ungodly forms of worship and had departed from the Law. Micah also stamps with disgrace all the wealth in Samaria. Another view of this verse is that idolatry is the crime being punished here and also that the temple prostitutes sold themselves to pay for the making of more idols11.
One of the biggest controversies of Micah's time is addressed in 2:1-2. In Micah's day, society was mainly agricultural, and wealth was therefore mainly in the form of land. Each family had its own ancestral lot, which had originally been distributed by lot after the conquest under Joshua. It had been intended that this family land would never change owners but would remain in the possession of the family forever. As long as each family did have its own land, the the standard of living everyone enjoyed was about the same throughout the community. But after the monarchy was established, the people of the towns and especially of the court began to grow richer than the people of the rural areas. Farmers often did not have enough wealth to enable them to survive a series of bad harvests. They had to sell their ancestral land, which in this way would pass to the rich. It soon happened that the rich were no longer content to wait for misfortune to compel the poor people to sell their land; they would devise ways of forcing them to sell, and would even steal the land if necessary. The courts were in the power of the same rich people, and there was no justice for the poor12.
Injustice runs rampant in Micah's time. “The innocent are eliminated, and the social order of integrity and respect is turned on its head”13. Micah condemns the false prophets who claim to speak for God but who prostitute themselves for financial gain in 3:6-7. In 6:11 Micah turns towards the merchants in the cities. “Treasures of iniquity will be taken away. Frauds and robberies by false measures and deceitful weights do not escape God's judgement. God will punish thefts, and those who cheat by false weights will not continue to go unpunished”14.
Micah 3:1-4 gives a graphic metaphor dealing with judicial and government leaders. The judicial and government leaders are supposed to be concerned about justice, but instead they hate what is good and love what is evil. Micah compares the leaders to cannibals, killing, ripping up, cooking, and eating the people of Israel. This same passage also deals with the higher standard to which God holds His chosen people. The chiefs and rulers of the house of Jacob are God's chosen. The title is not given here as distinction, but rather to amplify their sin, because they should know better. They abuse the high and sacred authority, which was given to them by God 1. The judges are corrupt, given to wickedness and hate good. They are openly wicked and ungodly, and carried on war against anything just and right. This higher standard is also addressed in 6:16, which states that the people have been disloyal to God, following the ways of a wicked king and his foreign gods. Also, the people of Israel are scorned by other nations, even though they are God's people, because they have disobeyed Him15.
The passage 6:6-8 is interesting to interpret. As previously stated, 6:8 is one of the best-known verses in the Bible. The point of this passage is that God will forgive. He will not blindly punish; however, the religious and ritualistic ways of repentance are not what He desires. It is foolish to pretend to happily approach God when, having committed injustice, one is wanting to be as far away from God as possible. The people try to flatter God, without truly repenting; God sees through this. No one can plead ignorance to what God wants because the Law spells out what God wants and now Micah has summed it up. Micah is saying that religion is hypocrisy: the people say want forgiveness but without truly changing themselves16. They try to bribe God with offerings, progressing from reasonable practices to more extravagant ones and then finally to outlawed ones. Even then, the Lord says He doesn't want ritualistic offerings. Unlike the priests, unlike the judges, unlike the kings, God cannot be bought. In giving the famous requirements of the Lord, Micah is careful to close the door to more hypocrisy. He says to “do justice,” not just avoid injustice; he says “to love kindness,” not just to do it, but to take joy in doing so; and he says to “walk humbly with your God,” a requirement to which only an individual and God will be able to attest.
The discrepancies in the authors of the book of Micah and dates of the prophesies actually benefit the discussion of the consequences Judah faces when ignoring the warnings of Micah. In many cases, Micah predicts the exile of the Jews, which is then actually recorded as happening. Micah describes the consequences of many different sinful acts committed by His people. In 1:6-7 Micah foretells that Samaria will be in such ruins that it looks like a field. It will be so empty that vines could be planted there and it will be so deeply destroyed that not even the foundations remain. All the idols that the people worshiped will be destroyed as well. Micah says that Judah and Jerusalem will be destroyed beyond repair in 1:9. 1:11 is an interesting verse in which Micah describes the destruction of individual cities using word-play between the name of the city and some action involving it to emphasize his message. Shaphir, which means splendid, will be made deformed and shamed; Zaanan, which means to migrate, will be forced to stay at home17. After delving into the theft of the poor farmers' land, Micah says in 2:3-5 that God is planning evils against the rich and powerful who have stolen land from the poor. They will be broken down so much they will not be able to be corrected. The events against them will be so great that the Jews create a parable out of it. Micah refers here to the Assyrians taking over and dividing their ancestral land among themselves, so that there is no hope of the Jews ever getting it back. He ends by saying the Jews are unworthy of God's favor. The powerful think they are above the law, but in 2:10 Micah disagrees. Since God's covenant with Abraham, the land of Canaan was sheltered by God for the Jews. It was their nest, per se, their safe haven. In their injustice, the Jews believed that they still held rights to this land, but in breaking the covenant they forfeited all rights they had to Canaan18. Again in 3:4, the government leaders thought they were above the law, but God shows that they are not. He abandons them and ignores their pleas for help. Micah preaches against the false prophets in 3:6-7. They will not be able to reach God and they will be disgraced by their inability to prophesy. Everyone will be able to see God's vengeance on them. 3:12 is the pinnacle of this section: the people are so wicked that God will destroy His own holy city, His own mount Zion, and even His own temple. Micah returns to the consequences faced by Judah in 6:13-16. Nothing will stand in the way of God punishing His people. God will strike them with a famine, not by a lack of food but by making the food not sustain them. He will keep any enemy or other outside force away from them so it is clear that the famine is a curse from God. Finally, God will destroy anything they try to protect. They will then be completely subjected to their enemies. All the fruit of their land will be plundered by others. Judah will be sent into exile and mocked by all other nations.
The book of Micah describes the Jews' return from exile and the peaceful reign of the Lord (4:1-5:1), the ideal future king, the Messiah (5:2-5a), the deliverance of His people and punishment of the foreign nations (5:5b-15), and again the deliverance of God's people and their praise of Him (7:8-20). However, none of this content was written by Micah; this fact is agreed on by Hastings, Smith, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and Clark et al. Micah himself did not prophesy a better time or better society than his own. He only saw the imminent destruction of Judah. The other more hopeful parts of the book of Micah are generally agreed to have been added after the return of the Jews from their Babylonian Exile19.
The meaning of Micah's message was ignored in his own time. His fellow countrymen ignored his prophesies for the hundred years between the time of Micah and the Assyrian invasion. His message can hopefully be applied somewhat to modern times so that some group of people may be changed for the better by it. Micah constantly warns against the evils brought by wealth and power. He preaches against idols and false prophets. Through one of the most well-known scriptures in the Bible, Micah criticizes empty, ritualistic religion. All of these critiques are applicable in the world today. Micah is no longer a mystery. His overall message: to be righteous by following the Law, not in fear of punishment or by blind habit but by an honest love for mercy proven by a humble walk with God.
Works Cited
Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets. Trans. Rev. John Owen. Vol. 14. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993. pp. 147-409
Carroll R, M Daniel. "A passion for justice and the conflicted self: lessons from the book of Micah." Journal of Psychology and Christianity 25.2 (2006): pp. 169-176. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
Clark, David J., Norm Mundhenk, Eugene A. Nida, and Brynmor F. Price. The Books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah. New York: United Bible Societies, 1993. pp. 117-264
E.J. Jerusalem. Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 11. New York: Macmillan Company, 1971. pp. 1479-1483
Hastings, James, ed. Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. III. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. pp. 359-360
Maxey, Al. "The Minor Prophets: Micah." Zianet - Premium Internet Service. Web. 17 Mar. 2010.
Smith, Louise Pettibone. "Book of Micah." Interpretation 6.2 (1952): pp. 210-227. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.
(Note: Sorry for the numbers throughout, I cited via footnotes in this one, and the footnotes didn't copy. Or make much sense in a blog.)
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