Micah 2:4-5

A TAUNT AGAINST THE WICKED. Micah 2:4-5

RV. In that day shall they take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We are utterly ruined: he changeth the portion of my people: how doth he remove it from me! to the rebellious he divideth our fields. Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast the line by lot in the assembly of Jehovah.
LXX. In that day shall a parable be taken up against you, and a plaintive lamentation shall be uttered, saying, We are thoroughly miserable: the portion of my people has been measured out with a line, and there was none to hinder him so as to turn him back; your fields have been divided. Therefore thou shalt have no one to cast a line for the lot.

COMMENTS

Napoleon once wrote, Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts to one. It was so in the case of those against whom Micah spoke the message of God. The power by which they enforced their social abuses was related directly to the moral power of a false religion. It is the exercise of power that most clearly reveals what is at the base of the true character of a man. In their case, the foundation of their abusive character was Baalism.
Having compromised God's truth with the falsehood of Baalism, the character of these rulers and social leaders was not forged of any real metal. Having first given way to the temptation to flirt with a false god, they found no real standard of ethics by which to govern their own lives. The inevitable result was the extreme cruelty against their fellows to which their greed had driven them. When the wrath of God is released against them, they will feel the sting of their own sins, as their enemies taunt them.

The taunt (or parable) which will be spoken against them by those who see the judgement of God brought upon them is written in advance, by the prophet in Micah 2:4-5. ... a parable against you, and lament with. lamentation, might be more literally rendered, lament with a lamentation of lamentations. In the Hebrew text it reads naha, nehi, nihyah, and is reminiscent of the sing-song yaya, yaya, yaya with which young children taunt one another in every language. This monotonous insulting derision will be leveled against them repeatedly as their enemies make jest of their hardship, just as they now make sport of those whom they oppress.

Their friends, on the other hand, will cry in their behalf, ... we are utterly ruined. Those who now sit high and mighty at the expense of the down-trodden will find themselves in total despair. They will exclaim, ... He changed the portion of my people, how doth he remove it from me! To the rebellious he divideth our fields.
The irony and justice of God's judgements are magnificent. The powerful have changed the inheritance of the common people by cunning theft. They have removed the lands from them without recourse. In their downfall they will complain against God for doing exactly the same to them. In their straying from Jehovah to Baalism they have rebelled against God, and their rebellion has resulted in their misuse of power and wealth and their trodding down of His people. In that day they will wonder why God has taken the same possessions from them and given them to the rebellious Gentiles who will over-run their lands.
In verse five, Micah warns them that, just as they have left no legal recourse to those from whom they have stolen property, so in that day they will have none that shall cast the line by lot. There will be no legal division of land, because there will be no land left to divide. It will be occupied by the enemies. There will be no courts to establish titles, because the government will be in the hands of the invader. Their misery over the loss of their unjust claims and titles will bring to them a measure of the misery they are now heaping upon others, They have forgotten that the land. this land especially, belongs to God. He led their fathers to it for His purposes, Now that they have deserted Him for Baal and are grabbing the land for their own greed, He will remove it completely from them.

History records that this warning was fulfilled in the northern kingdom at the dispersion of the ten tribes, and in the southern kingdom at the Babylonian captivity. Although God Himself restored the southern kingdom seventy years later, as a homeland for a remnant through which to fulfill the promise of the covenant, it is extremely difficult to justify any modern claim to the northern territories by the present state of Israel on any Scriptural basis. God removed the land from them in punishment for their despicable idolatry and maltreatment of His people, and because they refused to hear and heed the warnings of the prophets.

Chapter VIIQuestions

Second Cycle

1.

Discuss the relationships between individual and social sins.

2.

Discuss power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely in reference to the situation denounced by Micah.

3.

How do power and authority test a persons character?

4.

Discuss Pascal's statement power without justice is tyranny.

5.

How is this evidenced in the circumstances addressed by Micah?

6.

How can a just God devise evil? (Micah 2:3)

7.

What was the power by which the social leaders of Micah's day enforced their evil designs?

8.

How does God's punishment predicted by Micah fit the crime of those He will punish? (Micah 2:5)

9.

What is the relationship between the wickedness addressed by Micah and the false prophets of the day?

10.

What part did national pride and racial arrogance play in the downfall of the wicked northern and southern kingdoms?

11.

How does God's purpose in Israel rule out such pride and arrogance on the part of the faithful?

12.

How do you answer the tendency to blame God for social calamities?

13.

Discuss mistreatment of people as evidence of enmity with God.

14.

What single fact made God's punishment of social sin in Israel and Judah necessary to the accomplishment of His purpose in the covenant?

15.

What single characteristic of the Israelites during the Babylonian captivity stood out above all else?

16.

Describe the kind of prophet the people desired in Micah's time. (Micah 2:11)

17.

Discuss the problem of textual unity of the scriptures. (cf. Micah 2:12-13)

18.

The idea of a restored remnant, as presented by Micah, presupposes the destruction of ____________ and the rejection of the ____________ per se.

19.

The doctrine of election, divine choice, is, in the Bible, always related to the ____________.

20.

What is the similarity of modern denominationalism and the attitude of racial and national priority with God on the part of the Jewish people of Bible times?

21.

Discuss the figures of the shepherd, the breaker, and the king in connection with the remnant.