Micah Wk 2
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We are on week two of our three-week series on the book of Micah! Micah was written around 700 BC, that makes it about 2700 years old, give or take a day or two. The Jewish nation had split into two nations; a northern kingdom called Israel, and a southern kingdom called Judah. There was so much animosity between the two that Israel even teamed up with other pagan nations to attack Judah at times. Judah felt they were superior because they didn’t worship pagan gods, but we learned last week that in God’s eyes, they were just as sinful as Israel.
What was Judah doing? The wealthy, the powerful, the religious leaders, the political leaders, the royalty, essentially everyone that had any power, were abusing their status by taking advantage of those who were poor and suffering. They stole people’s ancestral lands. They let the poor starve to death. They took advantage of them. Whatever they could do to increase their own wealth, profits, and status, they did it. And Micah called them out for it. It’s why he’s known as the “poor man’s prophet.” He didn’t just speak to the poor, he was an advocate for the poor.
Micah was a prophet for decades; his ministry spanned the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. The book is made up of three sets of prophecies; one for each king and the nation under them. The pattern is a whole lot of doom with a little hope at the end.
This week, we’re looking at Micah 3-5, the prophecy to Hezekiah. Watch for Micah’s three themes; judgment, restoration and justice. Today, we're going to focus on the themes of judgment and restoration.
Micah was angry with the rulers, the prophets, and the priests – the people with all the authority. Those were essentially the three branches of government or leadership 2700 years ago. In chapter three, there are three sets of oracles, four verses each, in which he calls out each one of those three groups. Micah 3:1-12
Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel. Should you not embrace justice, you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones; who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?” Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done. This is what the Lord says: “As for the prophets who lead my people astray, they proclaim ‘peace’ if they have something to eat, but prepare to wage war against anyone who refuses to feed them. Therefore night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them. The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God.” But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin. Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness. Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us.” Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.
Notice Micah 3:1
Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel. Should you not embrace justice,
The political leaders would have also functioned as judges. When the wealthy broke the law and seized the property of the poor, the leaders/judges, not only protected the wealthy, they consistently ruled in their favor despite knowing they had broken the law!
you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones; who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?”
The leaders were not cannibals, this was simply a harsh metaphor. Prophets would often use extreme language to communicate an emotion so that the people listening would understand how God felt about what they were doing. He told these leaders that in God’s eyes, what they were doing was just as bad as if they actually had skinned the people alive and had eaten them. It’s disgusting, repulsive, and abhorrent. Micah was also implying that these poor people were going to their graves far earlier than they should have because they were starving. They've lost their land. They had lost their means to protect themselves. Micah said their early deaths were on these leaders’ heads. It’s why God allowed them to be attacked by Assyria.
Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done.
Micah almost sounded shocked here, almost like he was asking, “How dare you?!?” The poor cried out to them for help and they ignored them. How could they expect any different from God when they called out to Him now? God would treat them the way they treated the people they controlled.
He then moved on in verse five to call out the prophets;
This is what the Lord says: “As for the prophets who lead my people astray, they proclaim ‘peace’ if they have something to eat, but prepare to wage war against anyone who refuses to feed them
Commentaries note that the language that Micah used here would have been clear to the prophets, but the effect is lost in the translation to English. Micah was in effect saying, “You’re a bunch of prostitutes. You are just selling yourself out to whoever will pay you what you want, and you refuse to help those that have nothing to give you.” Kinda like a OH SNAP moment.
Therefore night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them.
These prophets had been gifted by God to see and understand and reveal truth, but Micah warned them that they were going to lose their ability to have visions because they had abused it.
The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God.”
In Hebrew, “disgrace” includes the meaning of being religiously unclean. We don't really get that concept living in modern America. We don't have religious practices that say we can’t come to church if we touched the wrong kind of food or spent time with the wrong kind of animals.
But 2700 years ago, if someone was religiously unclean, they had to keep their distance from everyone else. One of the extreme examples of that was leprosy, a horrific disease. People with leprosy had to walk around yelling “unclean, unclean, unclean,” so that everybody would be warned to keep their distance, both to protect them from getting the disease, as well as to protect them from becoming religiously unclean.
This word “disgraced” is the same word that was used to describe people with leprosy. In the culture, if somebody was exposed to be a false prophet, which they were going to be once they stopped having visions, they were to be treated as bad as those with leprosy. They wanted power, position and wealth, but not only were they going to lose it all, the people were going to reject them and cast them out.
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin.
He then went on to address the corrupt priests in verses 9-12;
Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness. Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us.”
The priests believed that because God had promised their people the Promised Land that they were safe, despite the reality that they were letting people buy forgiveness and pay them off for sacrifices. They had ignored God’s promise that they would be judged if they did not follow Him. The results of this kind of attitude is revealed in verse twelve;
Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.
They would have assumed that God would protect His temple; these words would have been shocking. But Micah was right, there would come a day when they would be invaded, and even the temple would be destroyed. Their sins led to them becoming a conquered people. But at the same time, there was a thread of hope; in each of these prophecies Micah gave a small glimpse of hope that they could still be restored to God.
Let's look at Micah 5:2-6
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land and march through our fortresses. We will raise against them seven shepherds, even eight commanders, who will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land and march across our borders.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
This is a pretty big “but.” This “but” is a reversal of what has been said before; in other words, there was a chance to change the outcome from doom to hope.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah”
If we translated that sentence literally from the original Hebrew, it could be written, “You're insignificant with regard to your existence in the clans of Judah.” In other words, Bethlehem compared to everybody else, was nothing.
Then it goes on, “out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Bethlehem was where King David had come from. It was the most insignificant city, and yet King David came from there and became their greatest king. If you remember David’s story, in Jewish culture, he should have never been king. He was the youngest of eight brothers. David’s dad didn't even bother presenting him to the prophet as a potential king. In his mind, there was no point. The Bible also hints that he wasn't good looking or tall – attributes expected of a king. Yet, he became the greatest king they ever had.
Micah reminded them that out of this nothing town came their greatest king, and from that same town would come another ruler, a descendant of King David. Looking back we know that, here, Micah spoke of Jesus! Jesus’ human parents were descendants of David, and He was from Bethlehem.
Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land and march through our fortresses. We will raise against them seven shepherds, even eight commanders, who will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land and march across our borders.
I feel like there are some Nimrod jokes that should happen here.
There were a couple things happening here; some of this prophecy is about Jesus coming 2000 years ago – which was still some 700 years in the future when Micah said this, and some of it is referring to when Jesus will come again and establish His kingdom. I can see why some people thousands of years ago thought that the Messiah was going to be a political Messiah; they were the chosen people meant to have a nation. We know now, because of hindsight, that Jesus is so much more than a political rescuer; He came to save our eternity.
There are a handful of places in the Old Testament that are obviously about Jesus; this is one of them. Another is Isaiah 52, which graphically describes Jesus’s death centuries before it happened. Critics accused Christians of adding those passages later to validate Jesus. It was an easy accusation to make because for most of the last two thousand years, the oldest copies of the Bible we had were from centuries after Jesus’ time on Earth.
Which makes sense, right? How are we going to have 3000-year-old copies of scrolls? They turn to dust. Our country’s declaration of independence is a little over a couple of centuries old. Within a few decades of them writing it, they realized the paper was starting to fall apart. Today, it's under incredible protection to keep it from fading, to keep it from disintegrating, and they have the latest technology protecting this sacred document for our nation and it’s still slowly degrading.
In the 1940’s, an important discovery was made at the Dead Sea. Some shepherds discovered caves with clay pots containing scrolls. They're called the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thousands of years ago there was a group, the Qumran community. They were a group of Jewish monks who made copies of the Old Testament, as well as other commentaries and other writings like the Midrash. So far, about 800 to 900 different documents have been discovered, in about 50,000 pieces. Some of them were cut up, some of them were falling apart, some of them were fully intact. The arid climate near the Dead Sea has kept them preserved. Using radio carbon dating, Christian and secular scientists have proven the Dead Sea scrolls were created from about 385 BC to about 82 AD. We've confirmed without a shadow of doubt that most of these documents are significantly older than the time of Christ. This revolutionized everything, we have copies of the Old Testament prophecies about Christ from before the time of Christ.
This is a piece of Micah, with the passage we just read in chapter five about Jesus coming. This specific piece was dated around 50 BC to 1 AD. Scientists are confident that this little piece of scroll, clearly talking about Jesus, is 30-80 years before Christ died on the cross. The evidence points to God giving Micah and other prophets knowledge they couldn’t possibly have had otherwise.
But back to this passage! Micah is speaking to King Hezekiah. The other two kings that Micah prophesied to in this book didn’t listen to him, and as a result, the judgment happened. Jeremiah recorded something different about Hezekiah, though:
Some of the elders of the land stepped forward and said to the entire assembly of people, “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.’ “Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did not Hezekiah fear the Lord and seek his favor? And did not the Lord relent, so that he did not bring the disaster he pronounced against them? We are about to bring a terrible disaster on ourselves!”
The judgment was delayed because the people repented. Even though Micah had made it sound like this was a done deal, there was still hope.
There are three things we can learn for our lives today. The first is that [1] God's holiness requires judgment. We learn from the Old Testament over and over and over that God is holy and our sin requires a punishment.
The second thing is this; [2] Micah’s book teaches us sin’s seriousness. Sometimes, we look at the New Testament and its emphasis on forgiveness, which is so critical, and can lose sight that the Old Testament shows us the seriousness of sin in God's eyes. When God looked at how these people were treating other people, He was revolted, He was furious. That language, His anger, His holiness, and His fury with what they had done teaches us God’s heart.
And yet, the third thing we learn is this: [3] there's always a way to restoration throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. No matter how bad the sin is, there is always a path to being restored with God. Our path to restoration is through Jesus taking the punishment for our sins. When I look at Micah, and Hezekiah’s response in Jeremiah, this is incredibly hopeful.
If our community lived in the days of Micah, would God judge us? I consider people gaining wealth at the expense of others and I wonder how many in the world are suffering horrible conditions so that Americans can have great things? How often do we abuse or rip off each other? How often do we talk about each other behind each other's backs, tear each other down or take advantage of others? And yet, we can have hope as well.
This passage in Jeremiah 26 changes the reading of Micah 3-5, doesn't it? The truth of Scripture is that there is no limit to what God will forgive. Jeremiah is a powerful reminder that even in the worst of judgment, there is still hope, there is still a way to forgiveness and being restored with God.
Before we close, let’s split into groups of 3-5 people and discuss these questions:
Discussion Questions:
If we lived in the days of Micah, would God judge our community? Why or why not?
Are there sins too big to forgive?
How does Jeremiah 26:17-19 change our reading of Micah?
Does God’s forgiveness have limits for you?
