Micah 6-7

Micah 6-7

Chapter 6, summarized, divides into pretty clear sections, and its primary theme is judgment. To open, it’s almost as if nature itself will be a witness for the case God has against the people (the mountains and hills are invoked as listeners). Then, through Micah, God reviews the ways in which He or She has consistently brought Israel salvation from its suffering. These reminders can be summed up with the challenge, “How have I wronged you so that you treat me this way?” What follows is what the people’s proper response to this question should be, to which God gives an answer in Micah 6:8, which I’ll comment on further below. The final section, the longest, reviews the ways in which Israel has done wrong--primarily by practicing injustice and oppression--and this section continues with a judgment which states that all the nation’s labor and effort will yield no reward.

6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, 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?”

Coming of age in the ‘80s, when Protestant denominations in general were transitioning from hymns to contemporary worship songs, I can never read this verse without hearing the corresponding song I learned as an adolescent. While the song isolates this verse from its larger context, I think this verse stands on its own quite well as a command of God. The two verses leading up to this one consider the legitimacy of sacrifice as a way of making things right with God. How do I make things right? Do I bow down before God? Should I sacrifice young calves? Maybe “thousands of rams”? My firstborn? And Micah answers his own question: He has told you what is good, and that is justice, mercy, humility, and paying attention to what God is doing.

This seems to anticipate the new covenant, one that replaces the sacrifices of animals with the ultimate sacrifice of God in the person of Jesus. And I think of something Jesus said: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” I don’t know the context of this statement, but I’ve been puzzling over all the nuances of Jesus’ meaning for years. I heard this verse spoken in the middle of a sermon which I had dazed out of, and when I heard “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” I suddenly found my attention arrested. Now that I’m reading Micah, I see the consistency of God’s message, first through the mouth of a prophet, and then through the very mouth of God as man. If that doesn’t put an emphasis on this verse as an important insight on living rightly with God I don’t know what would. Be just; be merciful and kind; be humble and pay attention.

Humility is one of those concepts that remains a bit abstract for many of us. I suppose I think of humility as a contrast to pride, a willingness to recognize all that we don’t know or understand, along with a refusal to determine our value based on our own efforts and accomplishments.

The last section of Chapter 6 is a good one, again emphasizing the ways injustice is practiced through “wicked scales” and “dishonest weights”--cheating for profit-- and that “your wealthy are full of violence,” a sure way to retain their dominant position in society. The judgment in this case is profound and severe. The people shall eat and still be hungry, do work and not receive any of the produce (“sow, but not reap”; “tread grapes, but not drink wine”; etc.).

Micah 7

Summary

In the first section of chapter 7, the previous themes of judgment are revisited: intentional injustice is rampant, evidenced by the fact that bribes are commonplace and every person is out for his or her own self-interest. But there’s even another level of wrong emphasized in this chapter; one cannot even trust the members of one’s own family or the person one shares a bed with. Next, the speaker acknowledges, on behalf of the entire nation I suspect, the legitimacy of the judgment that ensues, but he also states that while this judgment is deserved, God will make things right and that the judged will eventually see themselves on the side of God again. As a reminder of what this is like, the speaker reviews briefly the miraculous ways in which God has previously cared for His people and predicts that God will do so again, and God’s forthcoming miracles will birthe a desperate yearning for God’s salvation and mercy. The chapter closes with a commentary on the extent of God’s love and mercy; he will forgive Israel and restore relationship with them because He is faithful to His people.

7:1-4

I mainly want to comment on these verses because of the degree to which they emphasize the prevalence of evil. The examples and descriptions provided are reminiscent of the description of the world prior to the great flood. Micah proclaims, “The faithful have disappeared from the land, and their is no one left who is upright” and goes on to observe that “their hands are skilled to do evil.” He also emphasizes that the community has devolved into one in which everyone preys on his or her fellow humans: “They all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets.” He reviews the truth that even the most important elements of society are corrupt: the courts take bribes and those with means abuse the power this gives them for their own ends.

As if he hasn’t already communicated the extent of corruption and a void of right living, Micah announces that “the best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge.” With this paired simile and metaphor, it is clear that suffering is the pervading reality for those who do not find themselves in positions of power or privilege.

7:5-6 “Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household.”

In verses 1-4, It seems that things are as bad as they could be, but they are even worse than the barrage of images can explain. In verses five and six, Micah warns against the instinct to trust one’s closest allies or even one’s own family. This sounds like the greatest tragedy one could imagine in life, and beyond that, this circumstance suggests that hopelessness is unavoidable. Having experienced fairly mild bouts of social anxiety on occasion, this makes me think of the concept of a “safe place.” Sometimes this is a literal place in space, for instance a house, an apartment, or a bedroom. Other times this safe place is represented by particular people in our lives. In both instances, a safe place is somewhere where we can breathe, where we can quiet the panic in our minds and experience rest and restoration. But Micah’s message is clear: there is no safe place. This concept is one from which the words “horror” and “terror” surely derive.  

Until I went through the process of writing about these two verses, I didn’t recognize the beauty and hope that explodes from the next verse, 7:7: “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”

I had not intended to be led into a paragraph of personal testimony, but after the journey of reflecting on these verses, I’ve found it a natural progression. I have not experienced betrayal by my family nor by my friends, but years ago I did find myself in a place where I had no intimate friends, only surface ones. One night, in an extreme state of anxiety, I shut myself in my “bedroom,” a little room above the porch of a house that could only be accessed by passing through another bedroom, and I tried to calm myself. I had abandoned the faith of my youth, and thus when my mind expressed the words, “Where can I go?” my intention was only to ask myself the question and hope it would lead somewhere that would slow my heart rate. Instead, it seemed Jesus himself answered me, and what began as a desperate question was transformed to a prayer. Though my experience is different than Micah’s, it is through this experience that I can understand Micah’s trust in the steadfastness of God. Even though my intention wasn’t to seek God, God’s presence overwhelmed me and a “safe place” was instantly made in my mind and my heart. The years since have included much hopefulness, much skepticism, and much sinfulness, but this experience has remained an anchor for my faith and for my trust that I am not alone in this world, that God desires right relationship with me personally. While my theology has shifted significantly away from a focus on the extremely “personal” God I grew up with, it’s interesting to note that Micah’s statement in verse seven suggests that we should cling to hope in God not just as a community but also (and perhaps especially) as individuals.

7:8 “Do not rejoice 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 almost overlooked an interesting nuance in this verse, which I think is contained in the two little clauses “when I fall, I shall rise.” Initially, I took this to be a parallel to the sequence of judgment and restoration that is detailed in Micah’s prophecies. Taken as such, it could be reworded, “Though I will fall, I will eventually rise,” and perhaps this is the intended meaning. But it is the second part of this verse that causes me to pause and ponder a different meaning for the first part. The second part says, “When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.” In this example, the Lord is a light even when Micah is in the midst of darkness. This scenario does not suggest that light will come after darkness but that light is present during darkness. Since this example is paired with the first, a possible interpretation of the first example is that “rising” actually occurs simultaneously to the process of “falling.” Rising isn’t an eventuality, it is a reality that is concurrent with, and perhaps enabled by, the falling. This seems like a very fine point to bother analyzing, but it seems significant for more than one reason, and generally speaking it seems representative of the paradoxical truths that are sprinkled throughout Scripture. The most significant of these, of course, is that it is Jesus’ death that brings life to all, not in some indefinite future time, but immediately. God's "end" has been accomplished, and the result is our new beginning. Jesus' resurrection is merely confirmation that the availability of salvation and restoration with God is the ultimate reality. This rising-in-the-process-of-falling also brings to mind verses like “he who humbles himself shall be exalted,” as well as the general tenor of the beatitudes in Matthew Chapter 5. As a final note, this idea is consistent with the idea in Micah Chapter 4 that rescue occurs in the place of exile. I assume not everything in the Bible is counter-intuitive, but it’s certainly interesting how often its truths can be identified as such. Perhaps this helps explain why “the cross [i.e. our salvation] is foolishness to those who are perishing” (I Corinthians 1:18); God’s logic cannot be equated with human logic. It appears that a counter-intuitive truth has been revealed to Micah when he proclaims, "When I fall, I shall rise."

7:12-13: “In that day they will come to you from Assyria to 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 doings.”

In these verses Micah provides some more detail concerning the restoration of Israel as a model nation. In fact, it will also be a place of refuge, and the only one at that. It’s tempting to apply environmentalism to the last part of these verses, and it may not be errant to do so, but I prefer extreme caution when applying the Bible to current times. Its details have been used countless times to argue that the end of the world is tomorrow, and its prophecies have been applied to particular countries and specific international leaders multiple times over the brief course of my lifetime. Given this precaution, it seems important to remember that this is God’s message, through Micah, to the nation of Israel. And with this as context, we can see at least that the course of humanity without God bends toward self-destruction. My own conclusion here fascinates me, since I find hope in the humanist perspective of our current times: if we recognize the wrongs we do to our fellow humans and to the earth, aren’t we also capable of discerning ways to save ourselves and the future generations of humanity? According to this prophecy, the answer is No, this is not the ultimate course of a humanity left to rely on its own wisdom. Is the thrust of goodness in us too weak, or is this described future a hint at some level of determinism in God’s plan for Creation, or is there some third option? I honestly don’t know, but the overall theme of Micah seems to suggest that we must refrain from oppressing others while we’re here and that our ultimate concern should be to recognize God in our lives and in our world and that we should seek to let the light of God’s justice shine within whatever context we find ourselves in. Admittedly, this interpretation applies Micah’s prophecies to a time and a place they were not delivered in, but for those of us who identify as Christians, it seems nearly impossible to avoid such efforts.

7:18-20

As a reminder that these prophecies are delivered specifically to the nation of Israel, verse 20 states, “You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.”

Verses 14-17 also emphasize that these prophecies are delivered specifically to the nation of Israel. In the process of my commentary, I’m suddenly finding myself a bit timid to claim a right to interpret these verses. Were they intended for me? Initially no, no more that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were told for my immediate benefit. And yet the New Testament seems to include me--and all of us--in this story of God’s relationship with a particular people.

Accepting my inclusion in God's story on faith, verses 18-19 instill hope for all of humanity, as they describe the character of the God who created us: “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

Wow, these images of God’s character are beautiful and hope-inducing. Because of something I read recently (from Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw) I’m reminded of the mercy God extended even to Cain, who killed his brother, Abel. If I am included within the scope of Micah’s prophecy, as the books of the New Testament suggest, then I am included in the blanket of a forgiving, compassionate God, and I am thus included in the judgment of sins, the rescue within exile, the rising as I fall, and the ultimate forgiveness, compassion, and mercy that culminated in Jesus’ acceptance of death at my own virtual hands. Within the darkness of this world and even within myself, the Lord provides light, and it is this light which I must recognize and display to the world around me. Ironically, to do so I must accept the "fall" that is inevitable given my sinful, human condition, and I must trust that within this apparent darkness, God will bring light.