Hello again!
I don't know if anybody is even reading these Micah posts, but I sure am enjoying writing them. I was commenting to some of my sisters recently that I love social media and my blog because I find myself so entertaining. Hehe. It's pretty silly, but I feel like it's better than having the comparison problem. That was a COMPLETE rabbit trail, it has nothing to do with Micah. Alright, let's start.
So...there are a million things I want to say about Micah 5, but I'll just avoid the semi-obvious ones, and cut straight to the chase. When I read Micah 5 with the purpose of studying it so that I could learn all there is to know, I was very confused when I came upon verses 10-15.
Let's recap really quickly.
Micah 1 - God is bringing judgment on Israel.
Micah 2 - Israel is oppressive and deceptive, pretending they have favour with God when they have rejected Him.
Micah 3 - The leaders of Israel have corrupted justice.
Micah 4 - Someday God will reign over Israel, and bring peace to the world.
In Micah 4, God is just getting started about how He will bring peace and prosperity to Israel. He describes how He will reign in Jerusalem, and people from all over the world will respect His authority. In Micah 5, God promises that Israel will be a strong nation that cannot be defeated.
Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off. (Micah 5:9)
Then we get to the confusing part.
And in that day, declares the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots... (Micah 5:10)
Wait. Isn't He in the middle of blessing them? How are they supposed to be a strong army if they don't have horses and chariots? What will take them into battle?
...and I will cut off the cities of your land
and throw down all your strongholds... (Micah 5:11)
Certainly doesn't sound like a strong nation to me. Homeless, weaponless... Verse 12 gives us a little more insight,
and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes; (Micah 5:12)
So they aren't following God? I'm confused. He just said He's going to gather the lame and afflicted back to Himself, so they will all follow Him again, and He is going to be the ruler that even other nations are going to look up to! Yet His own people will be listening to fortune tellers and using witchcraft?
and I will cut off your carved images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
14 and I will root out your Asherah images from among you
and destroy your cities.
15 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey. (Micah 5:13-15)
That's when I realized, God didn't say He would come and make them all perfect. He just said He was going to rule. He said that He would come to deal JUSTLY with the people, both inside, and outside of Israel. Justice implies that there is a law that has been broken.
In my last post I said that I want to see the heart of God in His message to Micah, and here is a perfect example of it.
His heart was to "assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away," His heart was to give His people the freedom to "sit under their own vine and fig tree," and that "no one shall make them afraid." His heart was to rescue the people, and redeem them from the hand of their enemies, but He knows that it was the people themselves who created their wound in the first place, and that they made it incurable. He knows their tendency is to go right back to it.
As He gives them a vision of a peaceful time when all of their fears and sorrows are gone, He shows them that in order to keep that peace, their sin would have to have no way to get back in.
He didn't say He would cut off their hands, He's not talking about judging them anymore. He said He would cut off the sorcery FROM their hand. He's talking about a way forward.
He says that He will cut down their idols, destroy their cities, cut off their horses and their chariots, He is not saying He will cut down THEM.
It reminds me of back in 1 Samuel, (as mentioned in my last post) where we see that God didn't want them to have a king. Why? It wasn't that God didn't want them to have good reputation among other nations, or that He wanted them to be leaderless, He had provided them with both.
He didn't want them to have someone who could easily lead them away from Him. Who needs horses when God is your king? Who needs chariots when God is your king? Who needs sorcery when GOD is your KING?
From the perspective of someone who wants to be close to God, this is a very reassuring thought. I've often thought things like, "NOW I've done it. God couldn't possibly love me after this. I've pushed the limit TOO far."
But Israel would push the limit past warning after warning, past judgment, past captivity, past redemption, past blessing. Even while God would be king of Israel, they would build an Asherah pole. And God would cut it down, but He wouldn't cut them down. Instead, He would show them how to let go of the Asherah pole as it crashed to the ground, and pick up a cross and follow Him.
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel...
...and he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5 And he shall be their peace. (Micah 5:2, 4-5a)
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