The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself

Micah
From Hell to Hope

Week of Monday, July 15, 2002

In his book on the prophets, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that when all is said and done, Israel's prophets were really trying to do two things. Their ministry was one of criticizing and energizing.¹ One the one hand, they intended to disturb the status quo, question the reigning order of things, make people view the normal state of affairs in a different light, and advocate a new way of seeing and living—personally, socially, spiritually, economically, politically, in short, in every dimension of life. The prophets wanted to afflict the comforted and the complacent. Don't read the prophets if you don't want a stiff challenge.

But the prophets were also about energizing. By this Brueggemann means that they wanted to comfort the afflicted. They intended to “generate hope, affirm identity, and create a new future.”² That is, they were not simply about negative critique and tearing down, they were also about positive affirmation, encouragement, and building up. This becomes especially evident, for example, when it becomes clear that Israel—God's elect!—will be destroyed by the pagan nations of Assyria (722 BC) and Babylon (586 BC). How could that possibly happen? Did it not suggest the wholesale failure of God's plan? When Israel was in exile, struggling and feeling forgotten and abandoned by Yahweh, the prophets energized them by reminding them, “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, and you are mine...You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:–5). If you have ever felt in despair or down in the dumps, like you were facing a hopeless situation, then perhaps the prophets have a word for you. Yes, they dished out the vinegar; but they also gave us honey for the heart.

Micah offers a good example of both prophetic critique and pastoral comfort. We don't know much at all about him except that he came from the small town of Moresheth (1:1), about twenty miles southwest of Jerusalem. That places him in the southern kingdom of Judah although he also directs his prophecy to the northern kingdom of Israel. We also know that he was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, Amos and Hosea because he tells us that he prophesied during the reigns of kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. In fact, in a tantalizing literary clue, you will see that Micah 4:1–3 and Isaiah 2:2–4 are almost identical. One prophet clearly copied from the other, or maybe they both used a third source? At any rate, we see that there was some form of pronounced collaboration among some of the prophets, a prophetic “school” if you will.

The prophecy begins with the announcement that God has a case to make against His people, and it is not pretty. He is coming down from His lofty abode, “lodging a charge against Israel” (6:2), and as a result the mountains will melt like wax and the valley will split open like water washing down a hill. Micah's critique is a word of disaster, destruction, calamity and ruin for both Israel and Judah. Why so? He singles out for special treatment Samaria and Jerusalem (1:5), the respective capital cities of the northern and southern kingdoms, and as such the unique centers of influence for their nations. More particularly, he singles out the upper crust, the intelligentsia and cultural heads of these cities.

The prophets who should be leading the nation's religious life are false prophets. They give Micah the same treatment that Amos received, the same reception that Jeremiah got: “Do not prophesy about these things; disgrace will not overtake us.” According to Micah, the perfect prophet for these people was a liar and a deceiver who came and said, “I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer” (2:6–11). “If one feeds them then they proclaim peace” (3:5). “Her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money, yet they lean upon the Lord and say, ‘Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us’” (3:11). Micah has the unpleasant task of telling these religious leaders that they are dead wrong in all they are saying and doing.

What about the civic leaders and rulers? Micah paints a disturbing picture of political oppression and economic exploitation by the strong and powerful against the weak and dispossessed. “The powerful dictate what they desire—they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge” (7:3–4). The rich are people of violence (6:12). These leaders “tear the skin from my people” and “break their bones in pieces” (3:2–3). They despise justice, distort the right, take bribes as a matter of course, and are “skilled in doing evil with both hands.” To make it worse, the religious leaders sanctioned this, they legitimized the status quo and said it was God's will.

Contrary to what these false prophets preached, disaster did overtake Israel, just as Micah predicted. Assyria invaded the north and trampled their forces in 722 BC. Babylon obliterated the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. At this Micah could only weep and wail. He says that he went about barefoot and naked, that he howled like a jackal and moaned like an owl. Why? Because Israel's wound was incurable (1:8–9).

But just when the prophetic critique sounds like far too much to bear, Micah, like many of the prophets, energizes God's people with words of hope. Broadly speaking, he does this in four ways. First, he speaks about a remnant people. True, disaster befell the nation as a whole, but out of this forced exile there would come a remnant. Eventually we will read about this remnant in the post-exilic prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Out of ruin God will bring a significant measure of restoration and renewal. That might sound and feel impossible when you are in the iron furnace of Assyria or Babylon, but Israel could count on it.

Micah also points his fallen people to “the last days” (4:1), some time in their far future. In words that echo Isaiah and indicate some sort of literary dependence, Micah promises that in some future day “many nations” will come, not just Israel and Judah, and “they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” This will be a time of comfort not critique, of healing not hellfire, of restoration and not ruin. Part of this future salvation would come from the Messiah, promised by Micah to come from tiny Bethlehem (5:2, quoted in Matthew 2:6).

Then, Micah gives to Israel two of the most memorable passages in all of Scripture. In the first he reminds them of the nature of true religion. It consists not of mere outward formality, of rote rituals, but of an inner transformation: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

Finally, after all of his fire and brimstone, Micah reminds them of the never-ending grace of God. In the last two verses of the entire prophecy, he offers these same false prophets, drunken religious leaders, corrupt politicians, greedy business people, and self-serving civic fathers and mothers a word of forgiveness. Every year these words are read by worshiping Jews on the Day of Atonement.

Who is a God like you,
       who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
       of the remnant of His inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
       but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
       you will tread our sins underfoot
       and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (7:18–19)