Micah 6: Hear, You Mountains, the Indictment of the Lord

Good morning! Or whatever time of day it is for you, as you read this.

Micah 6 begins with a strain of desperation in the prophet's voice.

Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
    and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
    and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has an indictment (controversy) against his people,
    and he will contend (plead) with Israel. (Micah 6:1-2)

Until now, God has been telling them that sin has brought coming judgment on them, and their response has been to blatantly say that Micah's word is false. They've been coming up with their own prophecies about blessing, and assuring themselves that nothing will go wrong.

The beginning of this chapter reminded me of a time recently when I was visiting my sister and her four little kids.

Her two oldest are 4 year old (now 5, but 4 when this story took place) twin girls, the third is a 3 year old girl, and the youngest a baby. One of their aunts sent them a ton of princess dresses, and two pairs of play-high-heels. You can imagine how it was with three little girls and only two pairs of beautiful shoes, so their mother put the shoes away with the promise that they'd make an appearance again when they learned to share with each other.

When my sister and I arrived, they did get the shoes out! But not without a warning, the shoes would only stay out as long as they could play nicely. Well, they couldn't, so in the box they went again. One of the twins felt so wronged. She just could not understand why the shoes had to be put away.

Their mother knew that they didn't have the maturity yet to understand the answer, so she told her not to argue about it, she had made up her mind. My little niece couldn't see that my sister really wanted them to have the shoes, and that she would love to give them back. She couldn't understand how she could both want them to have them, and take them away. So she continued to argue.

My sister, knowing she was perceived as unfeeling, eventually tried to reason with my niece. "The reason I took them away was because you can't share them! I want to get them out for you, but I just can't right now."

"But we CAN share!" Was the response. The same response they gave earlier, that had resulted in more fighting between sisters.

Parents have to make decisions that are good for their children, even if those decisions make them seem unfeeling or mean. Most often, because their parents know that small children don't have the maturity to grasp reason, a debate is not a part of the equation. Sometimes, if a parent is accused of being wrong, and pushed to their limit, that parent might in desperation, TRY to plead their case. Usually, like with my sister and her daughter, the case is made to a jury who is highly biased.

In Micah 6, God reminds me of a desperate parent. Having all good intentions, every decision made in the best interest of His "children," He is still argued with. Finally, He decides to try "pleading" with Israel.

This is His case:

“O my people, what have I done to you?
    How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 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.
5 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.” (Micah 6:3-5)

(Before I get into this, I recommend reading Numbers 22-24 for proper context. For sake of space, I won't go through the whole thing, but the entire context of the story is very helpful to understand.)

God starts by showing them that His intentions toward them have always been good. He brought them out of bondage, He gave them great leaders, He conquered their enemies, He blessed them by people who set out to curse them. Why would they turn away from Him now, supposing that His intentions have changed?

As I was thinking about the people He gave them for leaders, I was reminded of Exodus 32, when the people of Israel, RIGHT after coming out of Egypt, have already built idols to worship. God's response is rage, He tells Moses that He will destroy them, and start over with his family. He would be keeping His covenant to Abraham, because Moses was a descendant of His.

But Moses' response is this:

Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. (Exodus 32:12-14)

I just thought, Wow. What better case could God make before this "jury?"

Not only did God save the people, bless the people, fight for the people, but He gave them a leader who loved the people enough to argue with God for their protection. To guard against a moment when God Himself had had enough, He put in place a man who would plead for them.

On top of this, He mentions another story, where a man was commissioned to curse them. God has power to break every curse, to protect from evil, but He didn't just do that. He wasn't content just to shield them from evil, He wanted to replace that evil with good. Instead of cursing, He caused their would-have-been enemy to bless them.

And then we get one of the most profound thoughts in the whole bible.

“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?
7 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?”
8 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? (Micah 6:6-8)

His case is made. His intentions have always been good, He has always done rightly, He has even done more for them than they ever deserved. His conclusion is not that He wants them to repay Him for His goodness by servitude, His conclusion is that He wants them to come back to Him.

His desire is to walk with them, His longing to teach them, His ambition to make them like He is.

I mentioned in a previous post that I love to try to see how the heart of God stays consistent in the Old and New Testaments, I feel like this verse needs very little inspection to make that clear.

Imagine verses 7-8 put this way:

I was not pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil.
So I gave My firstborn for your transgression,
    the fruit of My body for the sin of your soul.”
8 I have 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? (Micah 6:6-8)

The rest of the chapter, (I hope you read) goes right back to the judgment that God is bringing, and why He is bringing it.

One thing that I found interesting about this whole book, is that it was more than a warning to the people from Micah. First, it was a warning to the people while they were in rebellion, but second, it was a book. It was written to last, to be a reminder for the people when they were captives, looking back with regret that they hadn't listened. I imagine, for every hopeless captive who read it, that all of the time God spent showing them how He cared for them and still had goodness in store for them, it brought hope.

But clearly that's not all it was for, because it STILL lasts. God isn't done with this message for Israel, and now that He gave His firstborn for our transgression, inviting everyone to be a part of Israel, this book is for all of us.

Everything God judged Israel for still grieves Him, and He will judge. Everything Israel did that hurt God still hurts Him, everything He wanted for Israel He wants for us. 

His heart, shown so intensely in an intense time in history, is the same.

Micah 5: A Way Forward

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)