Micah 2:10

“Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy” is the reply of the people Micah has just rebuked. They have heard that a disaster is coming which they cannot escape, and that their own lands will be shared out to others, and their answer is to command God’s prophets to stop. The order comes from the oppressive rich and from those who follow them, and it shows hearts set hard against repentance. They wanted to keep their comfortable, unjust way of life and the good name that went with it, and the prophets’ message threatened both.

The Hebrew verb for “prophesy” in this verse is nâṭaph, a less common word than the usual nābā. Nâṭaph means to ooze or to fall in drops, and from that it is used of speaking by inspiration. It pictures God’s word coming down on his people like drops of rain or dew, steady and persistent, and the people want even the drops stopped. The word “prophesy” comes back again and again in this short verse, which keeps the quarrel at its centre: the people try to silence the message, and God’s messengers keep bringing it.

To refuse the prophets was to refuse the God who sent them, and Israel did it again and again. Isaiah describes a rebellious people who say to the prophets, “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isaiah 30:9–11). The priest Amaziah ordered Amos to stop prophesying (Amos 7:12–13). Jeremiah was seized for his prophesying (Jeremiah 26:8), and Pashhur struck him (Jeremiah 20:1–2). Through Jeremiah the LORD said of his people that they “hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers” (Jeremiah 7:26).

In verse 7 the LORD answers the people through Micah. “O thou that art named the house of Jacob” calls them by their covenant name, the name of God’s chosen people descended from Jacob, and it sets who they are beside how they live. They may have thought that being the house of Jacob kept them safe from judgment, as though the covenant bound God’s Spirit to protect them whatever they did. Three questions follow. The first two expect the answer “No”, and the third expects “Yes”.

“is the spirit of the LORD straitened?” The word rûwach means wind, breath and spirit, and “the spirit of the LORD” is God himself present and at work in power and wisdom. Qâtsar means to be short or to curtail (it is also the word for reaping a harvest), so “straitened” means shortened. The question asks whether the LORD’s power or patience has been cut short, as if he had grown too weak to act or too impatient to bear with his people. The LORD asked Moses the same kind of question in the wilderness: “Is the LORD’S hand waxed short?” (Numbers 11:23).

“are these his doings?” The doings are the coming judgment and the distress the people feel. They blamed God for their trouble, as though he were acting on a whim or unjustly. The disaster is the just result of their own oppression, set out in the verses before, and God’s ways are always right. Moses sang of him, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). The prophets say the same throughout: Amos calls for judgment to run down as waters (Amos 5:24), and Isaiah pronounces woe on those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

“do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?” The word dâbâr means word or speech, and in other places a matter or thing. “My words” are all that God says through his prophets, his law, his commands, his warnings and his promises, and they are given for the good of those who live by them. Yâshâr means straight, just or upright, and hâlak, to walk, describes a whole manner of life. To walk uprightly is to live with integrity and honesty by God’s standards, from the heart as well as in outward practice, acting justly towards others. Micah later gathers it into one sentence: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). The psalms say the same of God’s law, which converts the soul and in the keeping of which “there is great reward” (Psalm 19:7–11), and of the righteous man, who is like a tree planted by the rivers of water (Psalm 1:1–3).

Verse 8 turns from the people’s complaint to their crimes. “Even of late” (ʼethmôwl) marks this as a recent thing, and perhaps a growing one. “My people” (ʻam, a people gathered as one) is God’s own name for them, and that is what makes the next words so shocking. They have “risen up” (qûwm, to rise) “as an enemy”. The word ʼôyêb is a form of the verb to be hostile, and it is the ordinary word for an enemy. The people bound to God by covenant and called to uphold justice are treating their own brothers the way foreign invaders would.

“ye pull off the robe with the garment” names the crime. The verb pâshaṭ means to strip or put off, and it is also used of flaying and of a sudden raid, so the word fits the picture of an enemy plundering. The robe, ʼeder, is a mantle, a word that can also mean amplitude or splendour, and here it is a valuable outer cloak. The garment, salmâh, is a person’s dress or clothing. The oppressors take both, leaving their victims stripped of their covering and their dignity.

“from them that pass by securely as men averse from war” names the victims. They pass by (ʻâbar) in safety (beṭach, safety or security, here used as “securely”), travellers and peaceful citizens going about their business and trusting that they are safe. They are “averse from war”, turned back (shûwb) from war (milchâmâh), people unarmed and unready for any fight. To prey on such people is cowardly and cruel.

Verse 9 shows where the greed of verses 1 and 2 leads, and who pays for it. “The women of my people” are members of God’s covenant people, perhaps widows or women whose husbands were gone, and such women were among the most exposed in Israel, often with little legal or economic standing of their own. The oppressors have “cast out” these women. The verb gârash means to drive out or expel, and it is also used of divorce. They were driven “from their pleasant houses” (Hebrew mibbeit ta’anugeyha, from the house of her delights), the cherished family homes that gave them shelter, security and a place in their heritage.

Land in Israel was an inheritance from God, meant to keep a family secure from one generation to the next (Leviticus 25). The rich of Micah’s day were gathering up houses and fields through debt, twisted lawsuits and plain seizure, coveting what belonged to others (Micah 2:1–5). Amos speaks of the same men treading upon the poor (Amos 5:11). The law had guarded exactly these people: “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge” (Deuteronomy 24:17). Scripture calls God’s people to open their mouths for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8–9), and James calls it pure religion to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction (James 1:27).

Verse 10 gives the sentence. “Arise ye, and depart” is a command to get up and go, the announcement of a forced exile. Those who drove women out of their houses are now told that they themselves must leave. The reason follows: “this is not your rest.” The word for rest, mᵉnûwchâh, means rest, quiet and a settled dwelling place. God had promised Israel the land as their rest and inheritance after their wanderings (Deuteronomy 12:9–10). That rest depended on faithfulness to him, and by their deeds these people have forfeited it.

“because it is polluted” gives the reason the land can be their rest no longer. The verb ṭâmêʼ means to be or become unclean, or to defile, and it covers uncleanness by contact as well as by unlawful acts. Their oppression and violence, along with the idolatry of their day, had defiled the land. “it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction” uses a verb and a noun from the same root together. Châbal means to bind or to destroy, and it is also used of writhing in pain like a woman in labour. Chebel can mean a rope or a measuring line, and also a pang of pain or ruin. Joined together they promise a severe and painful ruin.

Verse 11 shows the kind of prophet the people would welcome. “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie” describes a man whose whole manner of life is deceit. He walks (hâlak, the same verb as “walketh uprightly” in verse 7), but his walk is in lies. The spirit that moves him is a spirit of deception, and the word is rûwach, the same word used of the Spirit of the LORD in verse 7. Sheqer, falsehood, means a lie, deception or sham, and the word can also mean something vain that disappoints. So the source of his message is a lying spirit, and God’s Spirit has nothing to do with it.

“I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink” gives his message, and the verb is nâṭaph again. The people who told the true prophets to stop dripping their words will gladly let a liar drip his. Yayin, wine, and shêkâr, strong drink, are fermented drinks, and here they stand for plenty, pleasure and an easy life without trouble or judgment. Where God’s true prophets warned of famine, exile and suffering, this man promises good times and no consequences, which is exactly what the people want to hear.

“he shall even be the prophet of this people.” The liar who promises pleasure is the very man they will accept as their prophet, while they reject the one who speaks God’s hard truth. Jeremiah saw the same thing: “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31). The LORD told him, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not” (Jeremiah 14:14), and the whole of Jeremiah 23 is given over to such prophets. Moses had given Israel a way to tell the true prophet from the false (Deuteronomy 18:20–22).

The New Testament warns that the same thing will happen in the church. Paul says that the time will come when people will heap to themselves teachers “having itching ears”, who tell them what their own desires want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3–4), and Peter says that false teachers will rise among God’s people as false prophets did in Israel (2 Peter 2:1–3).

Every part of this passage points forward to Jesus. He is the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), the true Prophet, and like the prophets before him he brought a message many wanted silenced. He exposed the sin of the people and the hypocrisy of their leaders, above all in his woes on the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23). The people of Micah’s day silenced the prophets to avoid shame, and the world crucified Jesus, who willingly took shame on himself. He “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), bearing it for our sin, so that “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11).

In him the Spirit of the LORD was shown to be unshortened, for “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him” (John 3:34), and he showed his power over sin, sickness and death in his resurrection. He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), and his words do good to all who believe in him and walk in the light as he is in the light (1 John 1:7). Through him the Spirit is poured out on all his people (Acts 2:17), so that they walk uprightly by the Spirit’s power.

Where God’s people rose up as an enemy and stripped the defenceless, Christ came to serve and to give his life (Mark 10:45). He is the Lamb of God (John 1:29), who let himself be stripped and crucified, and “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He counts what is done for the hungry, the stranger and the naked as done for him (Matthew 25:35–40), and he has made his people fellowcitizens with the saints and of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19–22), a community called to the justice and mercy that Micah demanded.

Against those who cast out women and children, Jesus announced good news to the poor and liberty to the oppressed (Luke 4:18–19). He denounced religious leaders who “devour widows’ houses” (Matthew 23:14), and he has gone to prepare a place for his people in his Father’s house, where there are many mansions (John 14:2–3). In him God’s glory is restored to his children.

The rest that the oppressors forfeited is offered anew in him: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30). A rest still remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:1–11), in a kingdom which cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28). The blood of Jesus cleanses the sin that pollutes the heart as well as the land, and where “the wages of sin is death”, God gives eternal life through him (Romans 6:23). The command to arise and depart has its echo for believers in Paul’s words, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19).

The false prophet promised wine and strong drink. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and he told his followers plainly that they would take up a cross (Matthew 16:24) and have tribulation in the world, with peace in him because he has overcome the world (John 16:33). What he gives truly satisfies: living water (John 4:10–14) and himself as the bread of life (John 6:35).

These verses show a God who goes on speaking to people who tell him to be quiet. His Spirit has lost none of its strength, his judgments are right, and his words are meant for the good of those who hear them and walk uprightly. He sees the traveller stripped on the road, the woman put out of her house and the child robbed of a future, and he calls their loss his own. He will remove a people who defile his land, and he holds out a rest that oppression cannot take away.

The passage also shows how comfortable lies win a hearing. The people of Micah’s day wanted smooth words and a prophet of wine, and they got the shame they had tried to avoid. God’s word may wound before it heals, but the truth that convicts is the same truth that leads to repentance and life, and in Christ, who bore our shame, it comes to us with the promise that whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.