Micah 2:6,7

THE PROPHET ACCUSED AS AN ENEMY. Micah 2:6-7(a)

RV. Prophesy ye not, thus they prophesy. They shall not prophesy to these: reproaches shall not depart. Shall it be said, O house of Jacob, Is the Spirit of Jehovah straitened? are these his doings?
LXX. Weep not with tears in the assembly of the Lord, neither let any weep for these things; for he shall not remove the reproaches, who says, the house of Jacob has provoked the Spirit of the Lord; are not these his practices?

COMMENTS

Micah 2:6. PROPHESY NOT. THEY PROPHESY

These are the words of the false prophets and their followers in response to the warning pronounced by the prophets of Jehovah. Others than Micah had been rebuked in this same way. (e.g. Amos 7:16)

The warnings of God's spokesmen grate on the ears of those who will not hear. They specifically charge Micah to desist from saying, reproaches shall not depart from Israel. (Don-'t talk like that, preacher, it's not nice and it's not tolerant, and we won-'t listen!)

Micah 2:7. SHALL IT BE SAID, O HOUSE OF JACOB?.

Those whom the prophet has warned now turn on him as though he, and not they, were the enemies of God. In effect their challenge is, we are God's people. we wear His name. Are we not the chosen Israel? Are we not the sons of the patriarchs? How can you say that God will act so toward His favorite people?
Here is a glimpse of the national pride and racial arrogance that was ultimately to prevent the Jews from accepting Christ and which caused them to persecute Stephen and Paul for preaching a Gospel of universal concern. They have had increasing difficulty, throughout the remainder of their history as a nation, and still today as a race, in grasping the fundamental concept of a covenant people. Somehow the idea that God's Israel is composed of those who are related to Him by obedient faith and not merely by racial ancestry or national origin seems beyond their comprehension as a people. Modern Zionism is a case in point.

There are some evangelical Christians today whose understanding of the prophets is warped by the same erroneous idea. Most of the far out schemes and devices dealing with eschatology have at their heart the notion that God is somehow bound to the physical Hebrew race and the citizens of a national Jewish commonwealth. Nothing could be farther from the prophets-' understanding of the nature of God's Israel. The insistence of Micah in this particular context is that the race. the nation, will suffer non-deferrable calamity because they have failed to really be Israel. They have failed, by going off after strange gods and by breaking the Law of God, to keep the covenant upon which their peculiar relationship to God depended. (Cf. Exodus 19:5-6)

The logic of Micah's accusers is reflected in their retort, Is the Spirit of Jehovah straitened? are these His doings? In effect, is Jehovah's Spirit so constricted and narrow that He would allow the destruction of His chosen people? One hears much the same reasoning today on the part of those who insist on identifying Israel with a race or a political commonwealth.
The error of such thinking lies in this: it is precisely because the Spirit of God is not straitened that He will take such drastic measures to preserve the covenant faith. If God were only the tribal or national God of the Hebrews, He would be bound, or straitened, to defend them as my people, right or wrong.

But such is not the case. Israel was called into being in the beginning because it was God's purpose through them to bless all nations. To do this there must be a once-for-all demonstration that His relationship to His people does not depend upon their racial origin and national identity, but upon their obedient faith. In the captivity there will be no nation, no holy city, no sacred temple. The people will have only their faith to cling to. Micah will shortly say that out of this experience will come a faithful remnant through whom God's redemption will come.

The tendency manifest here to blame God or His spokesman for the social calamities of a nation are not confined to the dusty ancient archives of Biblical history. it is a tendency very much alive and with us today. The person who says, if there is a God why does He allow poverty and suffering and war and inequality to go unremedied, if there is a God how can He allow such things to exist in a -Christian-' civilization? is voicing the same false concept of God as that held by Israel and Judah in the days of the minor prophets.

The failure of such logic lies in its major premise. It assumes that a nation which gives lip service to God and prints in God we trust on its coins is a Christian nation. Or, in its modern version, it assumes that all men are the children of God by some inalienable right. Such simply is not, and never has been the case. God's people are those who are faithful to His covenant, who obey His commandments. Ultimately a child of God is one who receives His redemption through the promised Seed of Abraham. (Cf. John 1:11-12)

The time had come in Micah's day to place the blame for what was about to happen squarely where it belonged, to tell it like it is. The suffering and destruction and famine that lay ahead for both Israel and Judah would come as a result of their unfaithfulness, their disobedience and their failure to hear and heed God's call to repentance.
We have arrived at a similar time in the history of western civilization, and especially in Christian America.

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.