(2) Chapter 2 : Verses 6,7 – As we saw in the last issue, Micah has been prophesying about the coming judgment on the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. Since the start of the second chapter, he has been prophesying more about the coming judgment on the northern kingdom of Israel (See Scripture Study – Blossom15:April11,para13). After hearing the prophecies of Micah about the exile of the people and the other destructions that are to visit them, the false prophets of Israel rebuked Micah to not prophesy about such unpleasant things and if he did not, then such disgrace will not come upon them. Even today, there are many who think that if we do not speak or think about bad things, they won’t happen to us. Those false prophets did not stop at that. They told the people of Israel to not believe the prophecies of Micah and justified it by arguing that God is long patient/gracious (Does the LORD become impatient?) and also God does not do such destructive things (Does he do such things?). Moreover, they said to the people of Israel that since they were walking upright, their words of prophesy will only bring good to them unlike the prophecies of Micah, which were about destruction. Even today, there are many such people who are ready to give sweet and likeable advice to others. But, only those who truly love us will rebuke us when we err, by speaking the truth. Many, even if they see that someone is erring, will not rebuke them, not wanting to hurt that person’s feelings. Such behavior is wrong. Truly, there will not be much difference between the false prophets of Micah’s time, who tried to justify the sins of the people, failing to rebuke them and those among the church who keep quiet and look the other way, when someone is erring right front of their eyes. We have to keep in mind that the Christian church is a fellowship of the godly and not a social gathering. Hence, we should always elect only eligible elders, allow only worthy people to preach and should rebuke each other, forgive each other while always doing the work of spreading the gospel.
(3) Verses 8,9 – God responds to the false talk of the false prophets of Israel. God says that lately the people of Israel have become sinful and have risen up against him like an enemy. He continues to describe their sins. He says that they, in their greed even stripped off the valuable robes of passersby including those men who had fought as soldiers for the country. Since God does not say that they robbed the robes from others, it is possible that He is talking about those who took away every belonging of a person including his/her robes in return for the money he/she owed as debt to them. Such behavior was a great crime in the eyes of the Lord for He had explicitly commanded in the Law that even for the sake of a due debt, one should not take away the robe of a person for it was that person’s only covering (Exodus 22:26,27). Basically, God wanted His people to behave with decency and generosity. Infact, God even warned the people that if such a person, having lost his robe, cried out for help, He would listen to him with compassion (Exodus 22:27). But, the people of Israel of Micah’s time had no compassion in their hearts and ignored God’s advice. They did not even show mercy to those men who fought to defend their country. Such was their greed! Since love is the commandment to us as well, we must also always treat others with compassion. The people of Israel of Micah’s time did not stop at that and behaved even worse. God says that they took away the pleasant homes of helpless or widowed women either for the debt they owed or through the misuse of power and drove them away, thus exposing their lack of compassion to even helpless women. This affected the children of those women greatly. God says that those uncompassionate people took away the blessing of home that He had given to those children and made them homeless. We too should be careful to be compassionate at all times. No matter how badly a person has hurt us or done evil to us or owes money to us, we should never lose our compassion and basic human decency by taking actions that we know will deprive them of their fundamental necessities of food, clothing and shelter. We should never feel happy about the suffering of the people who have hurt us but instead be ready to help them in any way we could. We should specially care for helpless women and children (James 1:27). Such compassion was not found in the people of Israel of Micah’s time. This was one of God’s complaints against them.
(4) Verses 10,11 – God angrily tells the people of the northern kingdom of Israel to get up and go away from the promised land, which He had given them as inheritance. He calls the place which he had given to them in the past as a place of rest, as now not being their resting place because the sins of the people had defiled it. And because of that defiling, He has to judge the land and hence if they stay there, they will only meet a destruction; that too a painful destruction brought on by their defiling sins (See NASB rendering of verse 10). As prophesied by God here, when the Assyrians invaded and captured the northern kingdom of Israel in 722/723 B.C, a painful and complete destruction visited the land of Israel. But those who had listened to the ‘Get up, go away’ advise of God through this prophesy would have been spared from that destruction as they must have left Israel before the destruction came. This should remind us that much of Old Testament prophecies had/have a practical value to the people of that time or the time of the fulfillment of those prophecies, a point many tend to miss when they study them. We noted this during our study of the 70 seven-year periods prophecy in an issue of Grace as well (See Grace – Blossom32:August10,para09). We should keep this in mind when we study the prophecies that talk about our time, as we also need to glean the practical value of them to us in order to act accordingly. Reverting back to Micah’s time, God knew very well that many of the people of Israel will not heed to his advice. Instead, God says that if a liar and deceiver comes up to the people of Israel and prophesies that the people will have plentiful blessings and make merry with wine and beer, the people will accept him as the prophet, for his message will be sweet to their ears. So, the people of Israel of Micah’s time were more ready to accept a false prophet who spoke the things they wanted to hear, then a man of God who spoke the sometimes harsh truth. Even today, many Christian churches take the course of preaching sweet but false sermons and proclaim that following Christ will lead to earthly prosperity and success. To such preachers, many do not even ask with common sense that if indeed Christ is a path to earthly prosperity, then why did some of the greatest followers of Christ like the apostles and the early disciples of Christ suffered so greatly and wandered around with nothing as documented in the Bible. On the contrary, it is a fact that these churches that preach sweet but false sermons are the ones that see a rise in membership. Even those of us who know the true gospel of Christ must also be careful because human nature is such that it dislikes rebuke and enjoys hearing nice things. We should not let ourselves surrounded by people who just approve of whatever we do or say and live on blissfully unaware of our shortcomings in both actions as well is in doctrinal beliefs. Such a path will only lead us away from God as we will neither be able to repent of our wrong deeds, nor be able to reform the inaccurate doctrines that we might blindly hold as true. Infact, that is the precise reason why both our magazines, Grace & Scripture Study, are never written keeping in mind the audience or their preconceived ideas about a subject, for our goal is not to please or pander to our readers but is to put out the conclusions of our Biblical studies without adulteration or hesitance, even if those conclusions are sometimes in contradiction to long held beliefs amidst us. Some may (as some have in the past) not approve of this approach. But, our humble request to such is this; please take time to test each of our conclusions with an open mind. And if you remain unconvinced, do write to us explaining why you believe our conclusions are wrong with biblical evidence. We welcome such communication because our primary goal is not to blindly defend whatever we have written in these magazines but to learn the word of God, more clearly and accurately. So, we will give careful consideration to such communication with an open mind and if we are convinced of the evidence presented, we are more than ready to acknowledge and correct our mistakes. Truly, all of us should be people, who are able to listen to rebukes that are genuine. The people of Israel of Micah’s time were not like that and were more interested in following preachers who pandered to them and thus judgment would come upon them.
(5) Verses 12,13 – God till now was rebuking the people of Israel and listing out their sinful acts. Now, he begins to comfort them. He says that he will regather all the people who are going to be dispersed by the Assyrian conquest of 722/723 B.C. This is an unfulfilled prophecy even till this day. After the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by Assyria in 722/723 B.C, it never rose again. While the southern kingdom of Judah was captured by Babylon in 587 B.C and its people were also exiled, they were regathered by God after 539 B.C, when Cyrus of Persia defeated Babylon. After that, they remained in Judah until the 66 A.D – 73 A.D Roman-Judean wars, only after which they got scattered again as prophesied by Jesus as well as by Daniel’s 70 seven-year periods prophecy (Luke 21:20-24, Daniel 9:20-27, See Grace – Blossom32:August09,paras6,7,8,9). But on the other hand, the people of the northern kingdom of Israel never returned home after their exile in 722/723 B.C. This is why the plague that is to come upon the northern kingdom of Israel is called as ‘incurable’ in Micah 1:9 (See Scripture Study – Blossom15:April11,para06). Truly, the time when the people of Israel are going to be fully regathered as prophesied here by God will be in the beginning of the coming Kingdom of God. For more than the last 100 years, especially since the second presence of Christ began in 1874 A.D., God has been setting the stage for this regathering. This is shown by the fact that there is a nation called Israel in the map of the world today. But, the present state of Israel is still a nation of iniquities as it has not accepted Christ yet and also, all of the Promised Land is not yet under Israel in peace. Henceforth, this prophecy’s fulfillment will be at the commencement of the kingdom of God. Moreover, God also says that He will not only gather all of Israel but also surely gather the remnant of Israel. The word ‘remnant’ is used at many places in the Old Testament. We have to interpret the meaning of it, based purely on the different contexts in which it is used. For example, some prophecies while speaking about the southern kingdom of Judah, talk about the remnant that will gather again after the Babylonian exile that began in 587 B.C. Those prophecies were fulfilled with the return of exiles from Babylon after being released by Cyrus of Persia in 539 B.C, after he defeated Babylon (See Grace – Blossom15:April09,para05). Hence, in those prophetic contexts, the word ‘remnant’ refers to those people of Judah of that time, who remained faithful to God in Babylon and returned with faith with Judah after 539 B.C., instead of staying back in Babylon. But, in the present biblical passage we are studying and also in many other such Old Testament prophecies, the time of regathering of the remnant of Judah or Israel as gleaned from the context is the kingdom of God. In that particular contexts, whom does the ‘remnant’ represent? In those contexts, God calls those people who were faithful to him till death as the ‘remnant’ i.e. the Old Testament faithful. That is, at the resurrection in God’s kingdom, the people of Judah and Israel, who lived faithfully to God till their death will be gathered in resurrection by God as part of the Old Testament faithful, as perfect humans and having eternal life. It is those people whom God calls as the ‘remnant’ in the contexts where their gathering takes place in the kingdom of God. They will resurrect and be as God’s representatives in the world. God says here that he will gather in resurrection those faithful who lived and died during the time of Micah in the kingdom of God. ‘Pen’ is a place where the sheep are safe. In this context, it refers to the kingdom of God. At that time, all of them will throng the ‘pen’ i.e. the kingdom of God and be happy and content like a flock in the pasture. To enable them to overcome the obstacles on the way to the kingdom of God, the one who breaks the obstacles will go before them. We know that the obstacle that prevented mankind from entering the kingdom of God was Adamic sin and the man who broke that obstacle was none other Jesus. Just as a good shepherd skillfully guides his sheep to the pen overcoming obstacles on the way, likewise Jesus enables them to break open the gates of the kingdom of God and brings them safely there (John 10:7-14). God says that He along with their King Jesus will guide them into the kingdom of God. Truly, God and Jesus are guiding us also towards God’s kingdom.
(6) Chapter 3 : Verses 1,2,3,4 – In these verses, Micah criticizes the leaders and the royal class of the northern kingdom of Israel. Micah says that being the leaders of the nation of Israel, they had the duty to embrace justice but instead they were such that they hated good and loved evil. A hunter will hunt his prey, then tear apart its skin, flesh and bones, chop them and put it a pan to cook, so as to eat it. Just like that, the leaders of Israel were selfish and hunted down their own people without mercy and looted them to the bones. But Micah says that when God’s judgment (the one talked about in the previous chapters) comes upon Israel, the leaders of Israel will be scared and cry out to the Lord for help but God will not forget the evil they had done all along and hide his face from them, not answering to their cries. Much the same way, in 722/723 B.C. God’s judgment came upon the leaders of Israel and God made them lose badly to the Assyrians. Infact, we see in the Bible that Hoshea, who was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel at that time, was imprisoned by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:4). Repentance should come from the heart and such repentance will never be ignored by God. But, if we ignore many warnings from God and continue in sin, even justifying that sin with pride and then we claim to repent in deathbed – that will not be true repentance. Since, the leaders of the northern kingdom of Israel were like that, their cries in the end were not answered and God destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.
(7) Verses 5,6,7,8 – After listing the sins of the leaders of Israel, Micah goes onto list the sins of the false prophets of Israel. Those false prophets were leading the people of Israel astray. They were very selfish. They proclaimed a word of ‘peace’ to those who offered them something to eat i.e. who paid them. On the other hand, they proclaimed prophecy against, even a prophecy of war condemning those who refused to feed them i.e. did not pay them. Since, the prophets who were supposed to be selfless and honest were acting dishonestly; God is going to rise against them. Micah says that since the prophets were lying, God will expose their false prophecies and make them so ashamed and disgraced before the people such that they will all cover their faces in disgrace. Indeed, Micah says that upon the false prophets, the seers and on the diviners who were banned in the Law (Deuteronomy 18:10), a dark night of confusion will arise and their already false sun will completely go dark, leaving them clueless. Their predictions will miserably fail and people will lose respect for them. But Micah says, he on the other hand will be filled with the power and the spirit of the Lord and with justice & might and continue to declare to Jacob i.e. the people of the northern kingdom of Israel, their transgressions and sins. Micah knew that the message of God will hurt the people of Israel and make them angry towards him. But the fact that he still continued to deliver it is a lesson to all of us. We too should not preach to please people but God and say the truth as it is in the Bible. Otherwise, God will darken our spiritual knowledge as well.
(8) Verses 9,10,11 – Micah who was talking about the northern kingdom of Israel, starts to speak about the southern kingdom of Judah starting from the 9th verse. It is important to understand this change in context. Since Micah talks about Jerusalem herein, it is evident that he is talking about the southern kingdom of Judah. But why does he call the leaders of Judah as leaders of Israel & Jacob as till now he has been referring only the northern kingdom of Israel as Jacob & Israel. To understand this properly, we need to delve into the history of Micah’s time. The nation of Israel which was a single state got separated as the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel after the reign of Solomon. Biblical writings during that time of division call the northern kingdom separately as Israel and the southern kingdom separately as Judah. When we studied the first chapter of the book of Micah, we saw that Micah as well did the same (See Scripture Study – Blossom15 :April11,para04). But after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722/723 B.C., the southern kingdom of Judah remained as the sole surviving state for the people of Israel. Henceforth, Biblical writings after 722/723 B.C call even the southern state of Judah as Israel as it was the sole surviving state for the descendants of Israel. Even Jesus who during his first coming came chiefly to the land of Judah, called it as Israel. This being the case, Micah 1 to Micah 3:8 were written before the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722/723 B.C. That is why in them the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel are mentioned separately. But, we know for sure that Micah 3:9-12 was written after 722/723 B.C. At that time, there was no kingdom called Israel in the north. Hence, the southern kingdom of Judah was also called as Israel. Afterall, the people of Judah were also the descendants of Jacob/Israel. But, how can we say that Micah 3:9-12 was written after 722/723 B.C. The answer to this legitimate question will be dealt with in the next paragraph. Let us first study these verses. In these, Micah lists the sins of the leaders, priests and prophets of the southern kingdom of Judah in detail. The leaders and rulers of Judah not only despised justice but they were so sinful that they even distorted all that was right. They filled even their holy city of Jerusalem also known as Zion with wickedness and even bloodshed. Micah summons such evil leaders to hear the message of God. The leaders of Israel instead of judging the disputes between the people honestly, took bribes. Even the priests taught only those who paid them money. The prophets as well took money and told the personal future fortunes of people, something which God had forbade. But the irony was, despite being in complete disharmony with the precepts of God, the leaders, priests and prophets of Judah told themselves that God was among them and hence no disaster will come upon them. In a way, they were fooling themselves. Such was their state. What is to happen to them? Let us continue to on to the next verse which will provide us the answer.
(9) Verse 12 – Disaster is going to come upon them. Micah says that because of their sins, even Zion i.e. Jerusalem will be plowed like a field and become a heap of rubble. Even the hill upon which the temple was situated will become like a mound overgrown with thickets due to lack of care. The temple in Jerusalem was situated over a small hill. Even today, that hill is present and is popularly called as the ‘Temple Mount’. The Jews of Micah’s times as well as today consider this hill as holy. Micah says here that hill itself will suffer negligence. Basically, Jerusalem as well as the temple are going to be destroyed is Micah’s message. The leaders, priests and prophets were the ones who were supposed to guide the people in the right path. Since, they themselves were corrupt, the people of Judah must have fallen into extreme sinfulness and that is why Micah blames that the coming destruction is a result of the failure of those with responsibility. The destruction foretold by Micah in this verse came true in 587 B.C when Jerusalem as well as the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. But, there is a history behind this verse that brings out the merciful nature of God. Near about 75 years after Micah’s lifetime, in 608 B.C, Jehoaikim became the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. At that time, prophet Jeremiah prophesied in the presence of priests, prophets and the people of Judah that Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed soon (Jeremiah 26:1-7). Angered by that prophecy, the people of Judah wanted to kill Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:8-17). But then, some of the elders who were present there remembered an event that took place in the lifetime of Micah. They started by saying the following ‘Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah’ and proceeded to quote the verse we are studying now, Micah 3:12. They went on to say that even though Micah prophesied against Jerusalem, the king of that time of Judah, Hezekiah did not put Micah to death but instead repented and hence God relented and did not destroy Judah then and so we should also not kill Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:18,19). Hezekiah became a co-regent with Ahaz in 729 B.C but he became a sole ruler of Judah after the death of Ahaz in 715 B.C. and ruled till 687 B.C. Importantly, the Assyrian invasion of Judah happened around 702 B.C. and since Jeremiah 26:18,19 tells that Micah prophesied Micah 3:12 around that time, we can learn that Micah 3:9-12 was prophesied by Micah around 702 B.C. That is how we learn that Micah 3:9-12 was prophesied after the 723 B.C. destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel as we claimed in the previous paragraph. We have to keep in mind that earlier itself i.e. in the 1st chapter itself, Micah had prophesied that destruction will come till the gate of Jerusalem (See Scripture Study – Blossom15:April11 ,para06). That prophesy came true in 702 B.C. and at that time when Judah was in the brink of destruction, Micah must have prophesied these verses (Micah 3:9-12) as a warning to the leaders of Judah. If Hezekiah, the king of Judah had not repented then, Jerusalem would have been destroyed at that time itself. But since Hezekiah sought God, God relented. Infact, since we know this history about how God relented his judgment on Judah, we know for sure that Micah 3:1-8 is a separate prophecy about the northern kingdom of Israel. Because, as we saw earlier, in Micah 3:4 God says that even if the leaders cry out to him, He won’t hear their cries (See para06). So, Micah 3:1-8 can only refer to the northern kingdom of Israel. Because, as we saw, in 702 B.C., when on the brink of destruction by Assyria, Hezekiah cries to Him were answered by God. This shows the merciful nature of our God. When the people of the city of Nineveh repented on Jonah’s preaching, God was merciful even then (See Scripture Study – Blossom07:August10,paras11,12). The reason that God said in advance that he would not heed to the cries of the leaders of the northern kingdom of Israel in 723 B.C was that the sins of the northern kingdom had attained unacceptable proportions. Therefore God had decided firmly to destroy that nation. Infact, after Hezekiah’s reign, the people of Judah sinned once again. And soon, their sins also reached unacceptable proportions and God decided firmly to destroy Judah. So, despite the fact that a righteous king named Josiah arose in the middle, God did not change his decision, though He personally liked Josiah (2 Kings 21:9, See Grace – Blossom23:December09,para2). Hence, though God is merciful and long patient, we should not test His patience. In the end, Jerusalem was destroyed Babylon in 587 B.C as prophesied here by Micah.
(10) Chapter 4 : Verses 1,2 –The chapter divisions in the Bible were done by men and not God as the original manuscripts do not have them. Hence, sometimes the chapter divisions can mislead because portions that have to be continuous have been divided across two chapters. Here as well, it is the prophecy that started in Micah 3:9 that is continuing in the 4th chapter. In Micah 3:9-12, Micah spoke about the destruction of earthly Jerusalem. Now, he continues to talk about the glories of the new heavenly Jerusalem. In Micah 3:12, Micah had said that the hill upon which the temple of Jerusalem was present would become a thicketed wild bush. But in the last days, Micah says that the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be exalted about all other hills and will be established as the highest of the mountains. We know that this prophecy will get fulfilled at the beginning of the coming kingdom of God. ‘Mountain’ generally denotes kingdom in Old Testament prophecies (Daniel 2:35). So, mountain of the Lord’s temple means the mountain on which God’s temple is present. As we saw earlier, even the Jerusalem temple of Micah’s time was situated on the temple mount. Since, the whole of Jewish Law is mentioned as a type by the New Testament, we know that the Jerusalem temple that was a central part of the Jewish Law was also a type (Hebrews 10:1). Since in the New Testament, the church of Christ is called as the temple of God, the Jerusalem temple must have shadowed the church of Christ (Ephesians 2:19,20, 1 Corinthians 3:16, Revelations 3:12). Just as the typical Jerusalem temple was on a mountain, so will be the anti-typical God’s temple i.e. the church of Christ – on the exalted mountain of God’s kingdom. We will explore how the Jerusalem temple symbolizes the church and how the temple mount symbolizes the kingdom of God in a future issue of Grace. We learnt that the Church of Christ is the temple of God and it will be established in the Kingdom of God. As Micah says here, in the kingdom of God, nations of the world will come to the kingdom of God and the church of Christ, which will be the temple of God’s presence. As Micah says here, many nations will flow to the Kingdom of God (‘mountain of the Lord’) and the church of Christ (‘temple of the God of Jacob’), saying that if we go there we will learn the ways of God and walk in His paths. Micah says that at that time the Law of the land and the word of God will come out from Zion i.e. Jerusalem. Some confuse what Zion refers to. Zion is nothing but another name for Jerusalem. In the context of the kingdom of God, what does Zion or Jerusalem represent? The Church of Christ is denoted by many symbols in the Bible – ‘bride’, ‘temple of God’ etc. Similarly, Church of Christ is also called as the city of Jerusalem. Truly, it is the church of Christ that is symbolized by the term new Jerusalem (Revelations 2:1-4). Thus, Micah is talking about the time when the church and Christ together rule the earth. It is exciting to know that Micah who lived about 2600 years back had prophesied about us! Let us thank God for the privileges He has given us. Amen.
–To be continued in the next issue –