Micah 6-7
Notes
Transcript
The final Gloom and Glory
The final Gloom and Glory
Our Gloom from chapter six runs until verse 7 of chapter 7
Here we start like every new section does with what Hebrew word that means Hear, or Listen?
Shema
Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
In other places we’ve talked about how sometimes the prophets contain images that make us think of an ancient courtroom where a trial is taking place. The commentaries talk about it all the time. I’ve left it out a lot but here it’s just too clear and present in the plain reading of the text to not mention it. We have God calling His people out to plead their case because they have broken the law, they’ve violated the covenant and so they’re essentially on trial. And have been this whole time. Now they are called to testify, and the mountains, hills, and in verse 2 even the foundations of the earth are called to witness this case.
Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has an indictment against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
So the solid unchanging things of the landscape are to witness this case. They don’t change and they will last long after these people are gone.
God begins his testimony and case history for the record in the following three verse.
“O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
What did God do to deserve the rejection he got? He lays out things he has done for them. Primary on the list was saving them from Egypt and in that time giving them 3 prophets Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to guide them.
Then the story of Balak and Balaam. Balak king of Moab was afraid of this numerous people that was coming from Egypt so he sent for Balaam to curse them. Instead Balaam pronounces blessing 3 times because he can’t say something that God has told time not to. We learn later however the Balaam figures a way around this to get Israel cursed. He conspires with Balak Num 31:16 to make sure there are some hot Moabites nearby to tempt the men of Israel so they go into sin causing a covenant curse to come upon them. Which is what happened in Shittim.
The righteousness of God both did not allow them to be cursed on the basis of a pagan King’s desire, but also brought righteous punishment when they went into sin.
With these two picture we see deliverance, blessing, and just punishment. So shouldn’t these people already understand what is expected of them? Can they tell from the events just cited how they should respond to God?
“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
Should they act like Balak acted when he setup 7 altars and made all the sacrifices to get what he wanted? Of course not. What then?
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
God has already laid out through His Word what is good. We’ve talked about that. Deciding what is good and what is bad on our own authority is the fundamental sin of the Garden. If we rely instead on God’s decision for what is good and what is bad then we are empowered to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with the Lord.
So we have setup the history to backup that Israel should know what is good, then pointed to what they should be doing, which we know, and they know, they aren’t doing, now we see the judgment pass on them.
The voice of the Lord cries to the city—
and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!
Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
and with a bag of deceitful weights?
Your rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,
making you desolate because of your sins.
You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not preserve,
and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
For you have kept the statutes of Omri,
and all the works of the house of Ahab;
and you have walked in their counsels,
that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”
Omri was the King of the Northern Kingdom that set Samaria as the capital and is the father of Ahab who married Jezebel and followed her taking the kingdom with him into Baal worship.
The people did not leave their pagan ways but continued in Ahab’s footsteps.
Finally the lament of the loss of this people by Micah is contained in the first 7 verses of chapter seven.
Woe is me! For I have become
as when the summer fruit has been gathered,
as when the grapes have been gleaned:
there is no cluster to eat,
no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.
The godly has perished from the earth,
and there is no one upright among mankind;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and each hunts the other with a net.
The fruit are the godly who have perished from the earth - there is no more godly among these people. Would God not spare Sodom for just one righteous person still in the city? It leaves the hope that the northern Kingdom will still be spared to wither away.
We then have a mirrored restating that points first to the reality of none that are good being left then ending with the symbolic imagery of briers and thorn hedges.
Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well;
the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;
thus they weave it together.
The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.
No one is left that can be trusted, not neighbor or friend, not even family.
Put no trust in a neighbor;
have no confidence in a friend;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your arms;
for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
Wrapping up the Glood Micah looks still to hope for himself in verse 7
But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
This look toward hope in vs seven swings us into the paired glory to follow the gloom.
Here in Micah 7:8 the glory begins with a psalm of faith, faith which is trust in the promises of God.
Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.
I will bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall look upon his vindication.
Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will look upon her;
now she will be trampled down
like the mire of the streets.
I saw a note in a commentary that points to the psalms of trust 11, 16, 23, 27, 125. In high school Psalm 11 was my favorite psalm, it still is some days when I feel like I’m in Micah 6 but I can have the hope of Micah 7. It sings about taking refuge in the Lord when the foundations of the world are crumbling around you, remember that the Lord is on his heavenly throne.
We move then from the hope they had to the future restoration.
A day for the building of your walls!
In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
In that day they will come to you,
from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their deeds.
“In that day” is one of those phrases we’ve seen that clue us into an end times perspective. Certainly we see some of this fulfilled in Nehemiah when the wall are rebuilt but this is the end when all believers are in view. That is captured here by this naming of ‘they’ that come from Assyria, Egypt, and from sea to sea mountain to mountain - basically the whole world. But those who still reject the Lord will live in a continually desecrated and dying land...
Then we get a prayer and guidance for the people who follow God. Which is followed by the sentence of those who still rejected the Lord.
Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock of your inheritance,
who dwell alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them graze in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
I will show them marvelous things.
The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;
they shall lick the dust like a serpent,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their strongholds;
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall be in fear of you.
In the final 3 verses of Micah we see the Character of God shown prominently.
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.
Pardon Iniquity
Pass over transgression
Tread our iniquities
Cast out our sins
What God does that? our God the only true God.
That was a lot to take in, what to glean from our final Gloom and Glory, and the whole book of Micah? That God is just but loving and has provided a way to deal with sin. His expectations for us are to rely on Him for what is good so that we may act justly, love kindness and walk humbly with God.
Martin Luther quoted from Jerome’s ending of his Micah commentary and someone has translated Luther. And I translated from their English to our contemporary English. I really liked this prayer and want to end tonight with this prayer in response to this book.
Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (4) A Hymn of Praise to God (7:18–20)
O God, who is a God like unto Thee? Who pardonest iniquity, passest by the transgression of the remnant of Thy people; who retainest not Thine anger forever because Thou delightest in mercy! Thou hast turned to us again and hast had compassion upon us. Thou hast subdued our iniquities and hast cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Oh, preserve unto us this Thy mercy forever and ever, so that we may walk in the light of Thy Word and escape all dangers threatening us from Satan and the world, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Redeemer. Amen. Amen. Amen.
O God, who is a God like you? Who pardons iniquity, passes by the transgression of the remnant of Your people; who does not keep angry forever because You delight in mercy! You have turned to us again and have had compassion on us. You have subdued our iniquities and have cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea. Oh, preserve for us your mercy forever and ever, so that we may walk in the light of Your Word and escape all dangers threatening us from Satan and the world, through Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Redeemer. Amen. Amen. Amen.