Micah

Chapter 3 ends with the mountain of the house laid waste: “Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps” (3:12). The next verse sets the same mountain “in the top of the mountains,” with many nations going up to be taught (4:1–2). The judgment was real, and in Hezekiah’s day it was held back: the king “besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them” (Jeremiah 26:19). The promise is larger than a rebuilt city. Isaiah was given the same words (Isaiah 2:2–4), and the risen Lord told his disciples that repentance and remission of sins should be preached “among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). The law goes forth from Zion, and the LORD reigns there “from henceforth, even for ever” (4:7).

The third call to hear opens a trial with the mountains for witnesses: “O my people, what have I done unto thee?” (6:3). The LORD brought them out of Egypt, “redeemed thee out of the house of servants,” and sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam (6:4). The people reply with offers that climb from yearling calves to rivers of oil to “my firstborn for my transgression” (6:7). The answer is not new: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good” (6:8), as Moses had told Israel what the LORD required (Deuteronomy 10:12). Judgment is what the heads of Jacob should have known and abhorred instead (3:1, 3:9); mercy is what God delights in (7:18). This is the walk of a people already redeemed, not a price for redemption. Augustine put it plainly: You ask what you should offer: offer yourself.

Micah’s promises gather around what is left. The LORD will “surely gather the remnant of Israel” and put them together “as the flock in the midst of their fold” (2:12). He will assemble “her that halteth” and “make her that halted a remnant” (4:6–7): the lame and the driven out, not the strong. “The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD,” which “tarrieth not for man” (5:7). The flock has a shepherd. The ruler from Bethlehem “shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD” (5:4), and the book’s last prayer is “Feed thy people with thy rod” (7:14). Paul found the same in his own day: “there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5).

Micah’s name is a short form of Micaiah, who is like Jah?, and the book ends by asking it: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?” (7:18). It opened on “the transgression of Jacob” (1:5), which the prophet was filled with the Spirit to declare (3:8). The question echoes the song at the sea, “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?” (Exodus 15:11), and the LORD has just promised marvels “according to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt” (7:15). As Pharaoh’s host was cast into the sea (Exodus 15:4), he will “cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (7:19). The pardon rests on his oath: “the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers” (7:20).