Deeper Commentary

Micah Chapter 3

Micah 3:1 I said, Please listen- Often the prophets break off from predicting coming condemnation to plead personally with their hearers to repent [this explains some of the strange shifts of pronouns in the prophets]. Chapter 2 is a message of judgment from God against Israel. And now Micah pleads personally with them.

You heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?- "Heads" translates the same word used in the preceding verse, Mic. 2:13, where we noted that Yahweh was the head of His people, both in exile and restoration. The leadership were supposed to be working on God's behalf, leading the people with Him and for Him. They didn't "know" justice in the sense of actively engaging with it; "know" means effectively to have relationship with. By not knowing justice they hated it (:9).

 

Micah 3:2 You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones- This is the language of wolves tearing their prey. The shepherds of Israel were in fact wolves.

Micah 3:3 Who also eat the flesh of My people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron- It is a lion who breaks the bones of its prey. The leaders of Israel had acted as the Assyrian lions would do to God's people.

Micah 3:4 Then they will cry to Yahweh, but He will not answer them. Yes, He will hide His face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil- "Evil" is the term used so often of the evil to be brought upon God's people by their invaders. But the people had themselves done "evil" to themselves. Their judgment was appropriate to their sin.

Micah 3:5 Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead My people astray; for those who proclaim, Peace! to those who feed them- "Peace" often refers to peace with God. The priests of the calf shrines of Israel and of the idol shrines within the Jerusalem temple (Mic. 1:5) assured the people that they enjoyed peace with God, and would not suffer from the Assyrians. This is the same kind of fake "peace and safety" cry of the last days (1 Thess. 5:3). They said this to those who paid them, who fed them. They were career religionists. As noted on Mic. 2:11, it was for this reason that the common people were as guilty as their spiritual leaders; for they wanted to hear the message which their leaders taught them, and even paid for it. It's simply not the case that God would punish the mass of innocent people for the sins of their religious leaders. The masses get the leadership they essentially want, in that the leaders know they must say what the masses want. That principle has been historically true, regardless of whether democracy was practiced or not. And so at this point in Israel's history, the leaders spoke what they knew the masses wanted to hear. And so the masses, although they were abused by their leadership, still stood responsible before God. See on :7.

 

And whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him- The singular "him" may refer specifically to Micah. Those who didn't pay the false prophets to teach what they wanted to hear, had war prepared or sanctified against them. This is the language of jihad, of holy war- but waged by the false prophets upon the faithful minority. They religiously justified persecuting those who didn't support them, appealing to a very quasi spirituality. See on Mic. 4:3.

Micah 3:6 Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them- The prophets in view are the false prophets of :5. It is the same idea as Ez. 13:23: "Therefore you shall no more see false visions, nor practise fortune telling. I will deliver My people out of your hand". This verse is not saying that from then on, there would be no more prophets inspired by Yahweh. For there were prophets after Micah, and he himself goes on to insist that he is inspired (:8). The false prophets would have no further vision because the night of destruction would come upon them, rather than the light of God's Kingdom which they claimed was about to dawn due to the people's supposed faithfulness to the idol shrines, which they claimed were a form of devotion to Yahweh. This was the very message of Am. 5:18,20- the false prophets proclaimed the coming of a glorious day of Yahweh, but that day would be night and not light to them. The inversion of light to darkness suggests a de-creation, an undoing of creation, which is the very way that God envisages the destruction of His people and land.

Micah 3:7 The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God- In their last moments, they would realize that there was no answer from God. God going silent is the ultimate sign of condemnation, as experienced by Saul. "Confounded" is the word Isaiah uses of how Judah would be "confounded" when their idols were destroyed and revealed as impotent (Is. 1:29). "Disappointed and confounded" is the Hebrew phrase used about the ordinary people of Judah in Jer. 15:9. As noted on :5, the masses were also not innocent, for it was their desires which led to the leaders teaching as they did.

Micah 3:8 But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin- Micah insists that he is inspired by God's Spirit, whereas the false prophets were not. The references to Jacob and Israel may refer to Judah and the ten tribes. Both had sinned, and Judah were not to assume that they were more righteous. Micah personally was to be the declaration to Israel; see on Mic. 6:8.

The reality of God’s anger, His hurt, His jealousy, means that God isn’t indifferent to sin. And neither should we be, increasingly surrounded by it as we are, with sin presented to us as the norm of human existence. We may feel or express disapproval at sin; but God’s reaction is something which language can’t convey. It results in the broken heart of God. This is the message of the prophets: that we must end our indifference, quite literally, for God’s sake. Sadly, many readers of the prophets seem to feel that these men are merely droning on, one prophet, one chapter, seems so much like the next. Yet read sensitively, and in a good translation, the words of the prophets expose us to a relentless shattering of indifference. Their words are onslaughts against cherished assumptions, patterns of living, challenging our endless evasions of issues, calling faith and behaviour to account. They are the very voice of God passionately imploring us to turn more fully to Him. Their task was “to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin”; just as Isaiah did, who probably led the school of prophets which Micah belonged to (Mic. 3:8 = Is. 58:1).

Micah 3:9 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who hate justice, and pervert all right judgment- They didn't "know" justice in the sense of actively engaging with it; "know" means effectively to have relationship with (:1). By not knowing justice they hated it. They of course would have denied this; but God sees the implication of our actions and states them for what they really are. The words for "justice" and "right judgment" are typically associated with the characteristics of God Himself (Dt. 32:4). The leaders are called the 'leaders' of His people (:1) just as God is described with the same term in Mic. 2:13. They were to manifest God, to reflect His characteristics to others.

Micah 3:10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity- The great houses of Jerusalem were built on the basis of the fraud and theft they had committed, as detailed in :11 and also mentioned in Jer. 22:13; Ez. 22:27; and the records of Jerusalem's desolation stress the destruction of the great houses. Instead of building up Zion, they were in effect reducing her to rubble (:12).

Micah 3:11 Her leaders judge for bribes- Micah's contemporary Isaiah had also bemoaned this (Is. 1:23); it was a flagrant disobedience to the Law (Ex. 23:8; Dt. 16:19).

And her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money- As explained on :5, the fact the people paid for their teaching meant that the teachers taught what those paying them wanted to hear. And so the guilt of the nation was shared by the entire society; it wasn't just the false teachers and priests who were responsible, but those who paid them to tell them what they wanted to here. The "fortune" they prophesied was that a wonderful Messianic kingdom would come soon, rather than destruction. Hence as explained on :6, the day of Yahweh which was coming would be night and not light for them, as in Am. 5:18,20.

Yet they lean on Yahweh and say, Isn’t Yahweh in the midst of us? No disaster will come on us- The context of :12 suggests this is specifically concerning the false teachers of Judah. They assumed Yahweh was in their midst, and therefore they were invincible, because they had the Jerusalem temple and didn't worship in the calf shrines of the ten tribes. They felt that having the temple in their territory and using it was their automatic justification (Is. 48:2; Jer. 7:4,8-11). And the departure of the cherubim in Ez. 1 would suggest that the shekinah glory was still seen in the temple until the captivity. And yet they had built idol shrines within the Jerusalem temple (Mic. 1:5; Ez. 8). This is the problem with organized religion and religious symbols; simply being involved with them can lead to the false assumption that therefore Yahweh is with us, in our midst, and we must be on the right path.

"Lean" is a word often used by Micah's contemporary prophet Isaiah. Judah leaned or trusted upon their enemies rather than Yahweh (Is. 10:20), upon Egypt (Is. 31:1), upon their own deceit (Is. 30:12). And yet they also claimed to trust in Yahweh. This is not contradictory, but rather absolutely true to life; that effectively we can trust in human strength, whilst genuinely claiming to trust Yahweh. Rabshakeh mocks Judah for this, saying that they trusted or leaned upon Egypt, and yet also upon their God Yahweh (Is. 36:6; 37:10). Trust in Yahweh can only be total; anything less than total trust is not trust.

Yahweh was only "in the midst" of His people in the restored, Messianic Kingdom (s.w. Joel 2:27; Zeph. 3:15,17). But they assumed they had Him with them, when in fact their uncleanness precluded His real presence in their midst.

Micah 3:12 Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest-  We can wrongly get the impression that the prophets droned on and were never really responded to. But Micah was different. These prophecies of his did elicit repentance. These words could have come true in his time, when the Assyrians invaded Judah; but they didn't, because there was sufficient repentance of a minority (Jer. 26:18,19), to the point that Jeremiah cites this as an appeal for the Judah of his day to repent. These words came only partially true in the Babylonian context. The Babylonian invasion left part of the temple still standing and even functional, although mount Zion was desolate (Lam. 5:18), but the foundations weren't plowed, although there were heaps of rubble (Neh. 2:17; 4:2). The only time Zion's foundations were plowed was by the Romans in AD70. And so we see how prophecy is conditional, just as in 40 days, Nineveh would have been destroyed. But the Ninevites repented, and it didn't happen. But the prophetic word does come finally true, even if it is reapplied and rescheduled. And so these words of Micah did come true in AD70.