Chunks: The Book of Micah

In this final episode, I want to add one important qualification to what's been said in this podcast about God's covenant faithfulness. The teaching of the New Testament is that God initiated a new covenant in Jesus. Knowing the role of covenant faithfulness in books like Micah helps deepen our understanding and appreciation of this important fact!

Our memories of the past shape how we see the present and the future. Because of this, we are all in a sense "time-travelers." This kind of imagination is crucial to hope, and it's the note on which the book ends: the prophet's hope for the future is grounded in his memory of God's past faithfulness.

No one knows for certain the origin of the phrase "to put the kibosh on" something. But my own theory is that it comes to us from Yiddish, and is related to a Hebrew word that Micah uses to describe what a gracious God does to the guilt we incur from our sin.

The book of Micah ends with a beautiful and worshipful prayer from the prophet, one in which the people hopefully joined. The prayer seems to echo words spoken by God to Moses long ago; even if God punishes sin, he also abounds in mercy and forgiveness.

Much of what Micah says presupposes that in their greed and wickedness, the people of Judah and Jerusalem have ceased to fear God as they should. By contrast, in chapter 7, the prophet envisions other nations coming to fear God, and by extension, his people. But we have to be careful here: the assumption is that the people have repented, and have returned to a proper fear of God themselves.

We've seen Micah use the metaphor of shepherd and sheep to describe God's relationship as king to his people. This is renewed in chapter 7, in a beautiful and hopeful picture of God's people returning to the lush pasturelands of their past...

Back in chapter 4, we heard Micah's prediction of a blessed future for Jerusalem. Something similar is said in chapter 7. Destruction will not be the end of the story...

What is hope? In one well-known description, a researcher describes it as "the will and the ways": a hopeful person is motivated to make something happen and can see a way to do it. Christian psychologist Everett Worthington calls these "willpower" and "waypower," and adds a third element: waitpower. Even if we possess the other two, can we truly have hope if we can't wait patiently for change to happen?

We tend to think of tragedies and comedies as sad and funny respectively. And they often are. But in a classical sense, what makes a story a comedy is that there is a reversal of fortune, where a bad situation turns around. And in the final chapter of Micah, even with all the doom and gloom, the prophet still looks for an ultimate reversal of fortune for God's people.

Is hope possible when the situation is so dire, when the entire nation of Judah has collapsed morally? Despite the dreary portrait Micah paints, he still watches and waits for vindication from God.

It's bad enough that Judah's leaders have become corrupt. But worse, under their leadership, the entire moral fabric of the kingdom has unraveled. Micah gives a gloomy portrait of the nation, in which no one can trust anyone else.

The 16th century Italian statesman Machiavelli has the dubious honor of having a personality trait named after him: Machiavellianism. It describes someone who is manipulative and unafraid to use power to achieve selfish ends. But Micah's words suggest that this would describe the leadership of Judah.

To me, one of the oddest stories in the New Testament is that of Jesus cursing a fig tree. What did the fig tree to deserve it? But the story makes more sense against the background of God's anger at his people for not producing proper fruit, as we can see from the book of Micah.

If you took physics in school, you may remember the idea of momentum: once something is in motion, it will stay that way until some other force intervenes. But momentum isn't just about things like billiard balls: it can be about kingdoms. Once corruption takes hold, it keeps going, until...

From the beginning of chapter 6, God has been bringing a lawsuit against his people. Now, in verses 13 to 15, we have the verdict--which is phrased in a way that runs opposite to ancient promises of blessing.

More words of condemnation: the people are accused of unethical business practices and other forms of wrongdoing, taking advantage of the poor and powerless...

As we've seen, God doesn't want mere religious behavior from his people, no matter how impressive; he wants people of righteous character. In Micah 6:9, God calls to the people. It's a wake up call; will anyone listen?

At some point, most people find themselves having to do something they don't know how to do. Should they "fake it till they make it"? When it comes to the Christian life, the answer is...yes and no. We'll dip into virtue theory briefly to see why this is so.

Jesus often accused the Pharisees of hypocrisy. Though they excelled at following the rules of religious piety, they lacked the godly character that should have gone with the behavior. This is, in part, the lesson of Micah 6:8...

We come now to what may be the best known verse in the book, Micah 6:8, which summarizes in a nutshell how a life of true righteousness should look. It will take a few episodes to unpack its implications...

In Micah 6:6-7, the people seem to give a response to the lawsuit. The language seems respectful, even worshipful: "With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?" But there's reason to believe that this display of piety isn't sincere...

The oracle in Micah 6, in which God brings a lawsuit against his people, mentions two people who otherwise would be bit players in the Old Testament drama: "Balak, king of Moab" and "Balaam, son of Beor." Why these two men? It may be an echo of the story of Joshua--and a poignant reminder of how the people had promised to be faithful before.

God, as we've seen, is bringing a lawsuit against his people, and the verdict is not in question. But the case against Judah is not given in terms of a list of accusations: it's an almost tender reminder of God's faithfulness to them throughout their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

Chapter 6 shifts the scene to a courtroom: God is bringing a lawsuit against his people for their unfaithfulness to the covenant. Micah is the prosecuting attorney, and the mountains and hills are called as witnesses...

"I will destroy..." The passage we've been examining over the last two episodes can be a disturbing one, particularly if we want to hold onto a one-dimensional view of God's love and grace. But we cannot soft pedal the wrath of God in this book or in this passage. Can we recognize the depth of God's anger at sin and still believe--and believe deeply!--in his love?

Security and trust point to a basic need we share as vulnerable humans. Even kings need reassurance sometimes... In the previous episode, we considered Micah 5:10-15, in which God vows to destroy Judah's disobedience and idolatry. This passage may be best read against the background of King Hezekiah's concern about the imminent invasion by Assyria. The question is: when disaster threatens, in whom or what do we trust?

The book of Micah assumes that God is a covenant God, a God who is faithful to the promises made to Abraham and others. It's because of this that the remnant will eventually destroy their enemies. But the people have been disobedient--which means that God must first destroy whatever stands in the way of their faithfulness to the covenant.

In the previous episode, we saw how Micah 5:7 prophesied that the remnant would be a blessing to the nations, like dew in an arid climate. But the next two verses portray the remnant as a marauding lion instead. How do we hold these two images together?

God's people were always meant to be a blessing to others. But the remnant--the much smaller number who would eventually return from Babylonian exile--would find themselves in tense relationships with their new neighbors. Were the people still meant to be a blessing to them? That's what Micah 5:7 seems to suggest...

In the previous episode, I suggested that we need to have both a view from below and a view from above to read Micah (and other prophecy) rightly. This episode will explore how we might do that using the words of both Micah and Isaiah to think of Jesus as the Prince of Peace.

Making sense of prophecy requires a different way of looking at history: the texts can refer to both the people's current situation and the near or distant future at the same time. Put differently, we need both a view from below and a view from above...

The beginning of Micah chapter 5 brings us to one of the best known passages from the book: the prophecy of the one who would come from Bethlehem to rule God's people, the prophecy cited by the advisors of Herod the Great in the gospel of Matthew. This episode begins our exploration of Micah's prophecy against the background of that New Testament story.

Unless God fights their battles, the people of Judah have no hope against the forces of Assyria or Babylon. Yet this is what Micah promises. Using the metaphor of threshing grain, Micah promises that God will give them a stunning victory against impossible odds.

Doom and gloom, heartache and hope. The oracles of Micah ping back and forth. We've seen some remarkable words of hope in recent verses--but now its time to go back to words predicting destruction and exile, even mentioning Babylon by name. And still there is hope, for Micah promises that God will rescue the people from Babylon.

We've raised the question of how long it would take for Micah's prophecy to be fulfilled. In Micah, God is portrayed as the Shepherd-King--and followers of Jesus should remember this when reading references in the New Testament to Jesus as Shepherd and King. In this episode, we'll explore some of those references.

Micah's oracle promises God's care for his flock, for the remnant of the people left after the exile. None of this would happen in Micah's lifetime. And although the people did return little by little when Persia defeated Babylon and ended their exile, the promise that Jerusalem's royal status would be restored still wasn't fulfilled. How long would it take?

We've already seen how the closing verses of chapter 2 uses the metaphor of God as the Shepherd-King. And we've seen how the opening verses of chapter 4 paint a beautiful picture of the eventual restoration of Jerusalem. That oracle of hope in chapter 4 continues in verses 6 to 8, again bringing in the metaphor of God as the shepherd who watches over the flock, the remnant who will return from exile.

In previous verses, we've seen how Micah both predicts the punishment that is coming to Jerusalem and Judah, and yet also a future in which the nations will actually seek God. In the meantime, what? Do the people just wait for disaster or peace to come? No: they are to to walk in God's way, as they were always called to do.

Imagine living (as many in the world do) under the constant threat of war. Then imagine having that burden lifted, so that you were free to relax in your garden and take it easy. That's the image Micah uses to speak of the hope that still lay in the future...

The oracle at the beginning of chapter 4 envisions Jerusalem a place to which the nations stream. Not only do they come to learn from God, they come seeking justice. And when this happens, there will no longer be any need for war: weapons will be exchanged for the tools needed for farming.

Chapter 3 ended with a grim prediction of the fall of Jerusalem. But chapter 4 opens with a hopeful vision of the city being restored to a place of prominence, with the people streaming to it to learn God's ways...

In chapter 1, Micah already pronounced doom upon Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Now, in 3:12, he uses similar language to predict the destruction of Jerusalem. This wouldn't happen in Micah's lifetime, but it would in Jeremiah's--and as we'll see in this episode, it was because of Micah's prophecy that Jeremiah was spared execution.

As we've seen, the various kinds of corrupt leaders in Judah had all been swayed by lure of money. But what they also share in common is a spiritual delusion: despite their greedy and unrighteous behavior, they think their worldly success is a sign of God's blessing.

Micah has already lashed out against corrupt judges and false prophets. Here, he again speaks against judges and prophets, but also priests. What do all these leaders share in common? They've betrayed their duty for money.

In contrast to the false prophets--who may have been Micah's former colleagues!--Micah claims to be filled with the Spirit and therefore empowered to declare the people's sins openly to them. As we'll see in this episode, what he says about himself might remind us of the apostle Paul...

Micah now turns his condemnation against the false prophets who are paid to tell the powerful what they want to hear. While the previous oracle against corrupt judges was from Micah, this oracle is from God--for the false prophets claim to speak on God's behalf.

Imagine going to court as a plaintiff seeking justice, and finding that the judge is taking bribes from the defendant. Such is the injustice in Jerusalem, and Micah doesn't mince words in his condemnation of corrupt judges. His language is extreme, suggesting that the corrupt are eating the innocent alive.

In chapter 3, Micah turns to some of his harshest condemnations. There are three oracles against the corrupt leaders of Judah, which we will explore one at a time in upcoming episodes. Here, I introduce the idea of corruption itself, especially as it relates to our understanding of sin.

As we've seen, some of Micah's words portray God as the shepherd of his people, conveying a sense of comfort and protection. But the metaphor would have meant more than that to Micah and his audience. As we'll explore in this episode, the metaphor of God as shepherd in the Old Testament cannot be easily separated from image of God as king.

Perhaps the best-known, best-loved psalm is Psalm 23, the so-called Shepherd Psalm. We are the sheep for whom God as shepherd cares. The metaphor is used throughout the Old Testament to speak of God's covenant devotion to his people. And even despite the dire prediction of the punishment that is coming to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, Micah still brings words from God that convey the shepherd's protection of his flock.