1
MICAH
Mic 1:1-5
The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Hear, all you peoples!
Listen, O earth, and all that is in it!
Let the Lord GOD be a witness against you,
The Lord from His holy temple.
3 For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place;
He will come down
And tread on the high places of the earth.
4 The mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before the fire,
Like waters poured down a steep place.
5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob
And for the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the transgression of Jacob?
Is it not Samaria?
And what are the high places of Judah?
Are they not Jerusalem?
“Micah” (who is like Yahweh)was from Moresheth about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem wrote from about 750-687 B.C. making him a contemporary of Isaiah. His prophecy first was about the coming judgment of God against the northern 10 tribes by Assyria and against Judah by Babylon. But as with so many prophets there was also a later fulfillment in the 1st century with the establishment of the new spiritual kingdom of Christ and the judgment of God against old covenant Israel.
“o earth” here as is often done the word means “land” specifically the land of Israel.
OT:776
'erets (eh'-rets); from an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land):
KJV - common, country, earth, field, ground, land,
Gen 12:1
Now the LORD had said to Abram:"Get out of your country,From your family And from your father's house,To a land that I will show you.
Gen 15:18-21
18 On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying:"To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates -- 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."
Gen 48:21
21 Then Israel said to Joseph, "Behold, I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers.
Ex 3: 8
8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.
Num 14: 8
8 If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us,'a land which flows with milk and honey.'
“from his holy temple”
Ps 11:4
4 The LORD is in His holy temple,The LORD's throne is in heaven;His eyes behold,His eyelids test the sons of men.
Hab 2:20
20 "But the LORD is in His holy temple.Let all the earth keep silence before Him."
Vs 3 “the Lord is coming out of his place” refers to God coming in judgment against Israel and Judah but using Assyria and Babylon and later Rome to punish them.
Ps 96:13
13 For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.He shall judge the world with righteousness,And the peoples with His truth.
Isa 62:11-12
11 Indeed the LORD has proclaimed To the end of the world:"Say to the daughter of Zion,'Surely your salvation is coming;Behold, His reward is with Him,And His work before Him.'" 12 And they shall call them The Holy People,The Redeemed of the LORD;And you shall be called Sought Out,A City Not Forsaken.
Zech 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!Behold, your King is coming to you;He is just and having salvation,Lowly and riding on a donkey,A colt, the foal of a donkey.
Mal 3:1
"Behold, I send My messenger,And he will prepare the way before Me.And the Lord, whom you seek,Will suddenly come to His temple,Even the Messenger of the covenant,In whom you delight.Behold, He is coming,"Says the LORD of hosts.
Matt 24:1-3
Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down." 3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying,"Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Heb 10:37-39
37 "For yet a little while,And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. 38 Now the just shall live by faith;But if anyone draws back,My soul has no pleasure in him."
39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Rev 1:7
7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him.
Vs 4 “mountains melt and valleys split” is judgment language using hyperbole
Ps 18:1-12
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said:I will love You, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised;So shall I be saved from my enemies. 4 The pangs of death surrounded me,And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. 5 The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me;The snares of death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD,And cried out to my God;He heard my voice from His temple,And my cry came before Him, even to His ears. 7 Then the earth shook and trembled;The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken,Because He was angry. 8 Smoke went up from His nostrils,And devouring fire from His mouth;Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down With darkness under His feet. 10 And He rode upon a cherub, and flew;He flew upon the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness His secret place;His canopy around Him was dark waters And thick clouds of the skies. 12 From the brightness before Him,His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire.
Ps 97:1-5
The LORD reigns;Let the earth rejoice;Let the multitude of isles be glad! 2 Clouds and darkness surround Him;Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. 3 A fire goes before Him,And burns up His enemies round about. 4 His lightnings light the world;The earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the LORD,At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
Vs 5”transgression of Israel and Judah”
OT:6588
pesha` (peh'-shah); from OT:6586; a revolt (national, moral or religious):
KJV - rebellion, sin, transgression, trespass.
Job 34:37
37 For he adds rebellion to his sin;He claps his hands among us,
And multiplies his words against God."
Isa 53:5
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
“Samaria”
1 Kings 16:23-26
23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel, and reigned twelve years. Six years he reigned in Tirzah. 24 And he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; then he built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill. 25 Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all who were before him. 26 For he walked in all the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin by which he had made Israel sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their idols.
“Jerusalem”
2 Kings 16:1-4
In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
Jer 32:26-35
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 27 "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me? 28 Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it. 29 And the Chaldeans who fight against this city shall come and set fire to this city and burn it, with the houses on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal and poured out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke Me to anger; 30 because the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil before Me from their youth. For the children of Israel have provoked Me only to anger with the work of their hands,' says the LORD. 31'For this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My fury from the day that they built it, even to this day; so I will remove it from before My face 32 because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me to anger -- they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 33 And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. 34 But they set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 35 And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.'
Mic 1:6-7
6 "Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field,
Places for planting a vineyard;
I will pour down her stones into the valley,
And I will uncover her foundations.
7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,
And all her pay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire;
All her idols I will lay desolate,
For she gathered it from the pay of a harlot,
And they shall return to the pay of a harlot."
“uncover her foundations”
OT:1540
galah (gaw-law'); a primitive root; to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense); by implication, to exile (captives being usually stripped); figuratively, to reveal:
Gen 9:20-22
21 Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.
2 Kings 17:6
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
2 Kings 24:13-15
14 Also he carried into captivity all Jerusalem: all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land.
“harlot”
Hos 2:5
5 For their mother has played the harlot;She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.For she said, 'I will go after my lovers,Who give me my bread and my water,My wool and my linen,My oil and my drink.'
Ezek 16:31-34
"You erected your shrine at the head of every road, and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot, because you scorned payment. 32 You are an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband. 33 Men make payment to all harlots, but you made your payments to all your lovers, and hired them to come to you from all around for your harlotry. 34 You are the opposite of other women in your harlotry, because no one solicited you to be a harlot. In that you gave payment but no payment was given you, therefore you are the opposite."
Mic 1:8-11
Therefore I will wail and howl,
I will go stripped and naked;
I will make a wailing like the jackals
And a mourning like the ostriches,
9 For her wounds are incurable.
For it has come to Judah;
It has come to the gate of My people --
To Jerusalem.
10 Tell it not in Gath,
Weep not at all;
In Beth Aphrah Roll yourself in the dust.
11 Pass by in naked shame, you inhabitant of Shaphir;
The inhabitant of Zaanan does not go out.
Beth Ezel mourns;
Its place to stand is taken away from you.
“I will go stripped and naked”- the prophet is symbolizing what is going to happen to Israel just as Isaiah did.
Isa 20:1-4
2 at the same time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet." And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. 3 Then the LORD said, "Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, 4 so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
“wounds are incurable” it is too late for Israel to repent , her judgment is upon her! Very similar to John’s writing when judgment was upon Jerusalem.
Rev 22:9-11
10 And he said to me, "Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. 11 He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still."
“tell it not in Gath” is a proverbial saying going back to David.
2 Sam 1:17-20
Then David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son, 18 and he told them to teach the children of Judah the Song of the Bow; indeed it is written in the Book of Jasher: 19 "The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places!How the mighty have fallen! 20 Tell it not in Gath,Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon --Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Mic 1:12-16
12 For the inhabitant of Maroth pined for good,
But disaster came down from the LORD
To the gate of Jerusalem.
13 O inhabitant of Lachish,
Harness the chariot to the swift steeds
(She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion),
For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.
14 Therefore you shall give presents to Moresheth Gath;The houses of Achzib shall
be a lie to the kings of Israel.
15 I will yet bring an heir to you, O inhabitant of Mareshah;The glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.
16 Make yourself bald and cut off your hair,
Because of your precious children;
Enlarge your baldness like an eagle,
For they shall go from you into captivity.
- Maroth; bitterness. Its site is unknown; but it was in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Ewald suggests that it is the same as Maarath
(from The Pulpit Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2001 by Biblesoft)
Josh 15:58-60
58 Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor, 59 Maarath, Beth Anoth, and Eltekon: six cities with their villages; 60 Kirjath Baal (which is Kirjath Jearim) and Rabbah: two cities with their villages.
“Lachish” about 14 miles northeast of Gaza
2 Kings 18:14
14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have done wrong; turn away from me; whatever you impose on me I will pay."
2 Kings 14:17-20
18 Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 19 And they formed a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there. 20 Then they brought him on horses, and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the City of David.