Micah

Micah prophesied in rural Judah during the same period as Hosea and Isaiah, and so was witness to many of the same events which inspired the messages of his contemporaries.  However, despite prophesying in a similar time and location, the authentic message of Micah's prophetic career which we have access to most closely parallels that of Amos, the northern prophet who prophesied in the decades before Micah.  Like Amos, Micah's condemnation of social injustice and corruption take precedence over prioritizing Yahwism, which so dominates the book of Hosea.

Little Book, Littler Micah

The only section of Micah widely agreed upon to be authentic to the eponymous 8th century prophet is Chapters 1-3 (excluding 2:12-13), a little under half of the 7 chapter book.  Chapter 6 and 7:1-7 may also be original to the prophet, as these passages of judgment and lamentation over a sinful nation more closely align with the theme of the first chapters of the book and make no anachronistic references to exile or Babylon.  The rest of the book (2:12-13, Chapters 4-5, and the conclusion of chapter 7) likely originates from the exilic or post-exilic periods, as the dispossessed Hebrews reinterpreted and augmented Micah's original prophecies in light of their current situation.  After all, the punishments which Micah foretold did eventually come to pass, even if it did take more than a century beyond Micah's career for Jerusalem to fall to Babylonian conquest.

Champion of the People

(Credit: Erhui1979/Getty Images)

In the authentic oracles found in chapters 1-3, Micah makes it abundantly clear that the current social structure is failing the people.  Hailing from the small town of Moresheth, Micah was a simple man from humble origins (1:1).  He saw how the centralization of power in Samaria (capital city of the nothern kingdom, Israel) and Jerusalem (capital of the southern kingdom, Judah) allowed the wealthy elites to seize the assets of the common man and make vassals of the poor (2:1-2).  Micah views the prideful capital cities and their kings as idolatrous monuments to greed and corruption.  And so Micah foretells a coming theophany in which Yahweh descends from his temple to lay waste to the urban centers:

Hear, you peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and all that is in it; and let the Lord Yahweh be a witness against you, the lord from his holy temple.  For lo, Yahweh is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.  Then the mountains will melt under him and the valleys will burst open, like wax near the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.  - Micah 1:2-4

Could Micah be prophesying a volcanic eruption like that of Chile's Calbuco Volcano in April of 2015? (Photo credit: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images)

I generally find theophanies very entertaining due to their creative, alien grandeur, and this one in Micah doesn't fail to deliver.  Like a volcanic eruption, Yahweh's presence will literally melt mountains and rupture valleys.  His awesome might will warp the very landscape around him, devastating the cities below as punishment for their iniquities:

All this for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel.  What is the transgression of Jacob?  Is it not Samaria?  And what is the high place of Judah?  Is it not Jerusalem?  Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards.  I will pour down her stones into the valley, and uncover her foundations.  All her images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste; for as the wages of a prostitute she gathered them, and as the wages of a prostitute they shall again be used.  - Micah 1:5-7

Here Micah calls the cities "high places", a term oft-used to refer to illegal hilltop shrines where the people of the ancient levant would carry out ritual sacrifices to their gods, Yahweh among them, away from the jealous eyes of the temple priests.  While the centralized authorities in the capitals generally condemned the popular cultic practices of the countryside, Micah turns this accusation around, claiming that the cities themselves are idols for a sinful people.

After a pun-filled funeral dirge for the towns which would be destroyed in a coming invasion, likely that of Assyria's Sennecherib in 701 BCE (1:8-16), oracles against Israel and Judah dominate chapters 2 and 3.  He condemns the abuse of power by the wealthy and foretells a time when an invader (once again, likely Assyria) will strip the corrupt of their ill-gotten possessions (2:1-5).  But the corrupt predictably don't want to hear Micah's condemnations, believing Yahweh would only ever bless his people, not punish them:

"Do not preach" - thus they preach - "one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us."  Should this be said, O house of Jacob?  Is Yahweh's patience exhausted?  Are these his doings?  Do not my words do good to one who walks uprightly?  - Micah 2:6-7

Micah rebuts their attempts to shut him up by laying the blame at their feet.  The reckoning to come is not the fault of the prophet who bears the bad news ("don't shoot the messenger") but the fault of the corrupt, abusive, violent, and warmongering who incur the wrath of Yahweh (2:8-10).  For ones such as these, Micah imagines a prophet who dispenses nothing but lies and empty promises would better suffice (2:11).  Following this is the jarring insertion of an exilic period promise of restoration which just screams of the pen of a later editor (2:12-13).  It is wildly out of context and I can't imagine why it was inserted here.  Strange.

Chapter 3 picks back up with the condemnation by comparing the political leaders to cannibals who feast on the flesh of the people (3:1-3), then accusing the prophets of taking bribes to prophesy favorably (3:5-7).  Of course Micah is a good and just prophet, unlike those other guys (3:8).  Once again, the corrupt kings, priests, and prophets confess confidence in Yahweh's protection, which ironically will only seal their doom (3:9-12).

Pretty sure I've read this part before...

The opening of Chapter 4 looks familiar.  Like... really familiar.  Which is because Micah 4:1-4 is exactly the same as Isaiah 2:2-4.  Nobody seems to know who wrote it, but scholars seem to lean toward neither Micah nor Isaiah being the original author of this passage.  It's a neat passage, and is quoted in a Disturbed song I'm familiar with, but likely was not written by Micah.  The same can be said for the rest of chapters 4 and 5 which date to the exilic or post-exilic periods and contain promises of return and restoration for the remnant in Babylonian exile.  Including a straight up name-drop of Babylon (4:10).

King David Reincarnated?

We also find in this later material a prophecy of a future Davidic King which would come to play a huge role in later apocalyptic Judaism and Christian theology (5:2-6).  I find the line "whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" particularly interesting.  I wonder, is the author of this prophecy predicting that the messianic king will be King David reborn, or simply a descendant of David?  Was the idea of an ancient hero's reincarnation something exilic period Jews would be familiar with?  I'm just spit-balling here, but it's an intriguing idea.

The King David fresco in Basilica di San Vitale by Tarquinio Ligustri - 1603 CE

Centuries later this prophecy of a messiah hailing from Bethlehem (David's hometown), would inspire the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke to place Jesus' birth in Bethlehem in their nativity narratives, despite his well-known origins in Nazareth.

Indictment and Punishment of a Lost Society

Chapters 6 and 7 may once again return to authentic material from Micah, though it is disputed among scholars.  To open chapter 6, Yahweh invokes the natural elements as court witnesses as he indicts his people for their crimes (6:1-2).  They have forgotten him, and everything he has done for them (6:3-5).  He asks not for their sacrifices of calves, rams, or oil, or their firstborn children (well, that's a relief), but simply that they live justly:

"With what shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before God on high?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will Yahweh 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?"  He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does Yahweh require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  - Micah 6:6-8

But the nation does not carry out justice.  It does not love kindness. It does not live in humility and reverence for Yahweh.  Therefore their god promises to punish the people for their corruption and violation of civil ethics (6:9-11).  The crimes of the rich will bring doom upon the land (6:12-13).  There is not a righteous person left to be found, but only violence, corruption, abuse of power, distrust and betrayal (7:1-5).  Even families are at each others' throats (7:6).  The situation is dismal.  This section of the book ends with the author contrasting the motives of the unfaithful with his own religiosity:

But as for me, I will look to Yahweh, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.  - Micah 7:7

The rest of chapter 7 likely dates to later periods, describing how Israel will triumph over its enemies after suffering Yahweh's punishment (7:8-10).  The author foretells a victory so great that even Israel's enemies will convert to Yahwism (7:16-17).  Finally the additions to Micah conclude with a prayer of thanksgiving for Yahweh's overlooking of sins (7:18-20).  This is terribly ironic, as Micah wished for anything but.  Micah longed for Yahweh to punish the oppressive elites, do away with the monarchy, and return the people to a simpler rural lifestyle.  Pardoning iniquity and passing over transgressions is antithesis to Micah's message of divine justice.  If Micah knew such forgiving language was appended to his prophecies he would probably roll over in his grave.

Psalm 7

Once again, we have a Psalm beseeching Yahweh for deliverance from persecution.  It's mostly the same sort of stuff as in others, but there are some interesting bits.  By comparing different versions of Psalm 7, I can tell that the Hebrew must be pretty difficult.  There are a few contradictions between versions which stand out.  It is unclear in 7:3-5 whether the Psalmist is claiming to not have attacked an enemy or to not have *not* retaliated against an enemy.  Okay, that's confusing.  Let me lay it out for you.  Here's how the NRSV renders the verses:

O Yahweh my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my ally with harm or plundered my foe without cause, then let the enemy pursue and overtake me, trample my life to the ground and lay my soul in the dust.  - Psalm 7:3-5 (NRSV)

And here is how the New Jerusalem Bible translates it:

Yahweh my God, if I have done this: if injustice has stained my hands, if I have repaid my ally with treachery or spared one who attacked me unprovoked, may an enemy hunt me down and catch me, may he trample my life into the ground and crush my vital parts into the dust.  - Psalm 7:3-5 (NJB)

The notes for the NJB explicitly state that this is the law of talio from Exodus 21:23-25, which required that good be requited with good and evil with evil.  According to the NJB, "the text must not be watered down as in the versions 'if I requited with evil the man who wronged me', or (following the Aramaic) 'robbed (my persecutor)'; the morality of the Gospel is yet to come".  The NJB seems to be taking a pretty hard stance here that other translations are trying to soften the text, when in reality the Psalmist was saying that he has in fact disseminated proper biblical justice in that classic "eye for an eye" manner.

Another interesting bit is whether the one whetting his sword and preparing his instruments of death in verses 12-13 is Yahweh or the enemy.  It is unclear who 'he' refers to and is therefore rendered differently in varying translations.  The image of Yahweh sharpening his holy sword and preparing to unleash volleys of fiery arrows upon the enemies of the Psalmist is so metal.  I love it.

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Welp, that's a wrap for this one.  Thoughts, comments, or questions?  Think I'm some kind of lunatic for proposing that the author of Micah 5 might have been anticipating a reincarnated King David?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section below, then please join me next time when we take a look at Zephaniah and the 8th Psalm!