Micah 3:9-12

CONCLUSION OF THE DENUNCIATIONS. Micah 3:9-12

RV. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
LXX. Hear now these words, ye chiefs of the house of Jacob, and the remnant of the house of Israel, who hate judgment, and pervert all righteousness; who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof have judged for gifts, and the priests thereof have answered for hire, and her prophets have divined for silver: and yet they have rested on the Lord, saying, Is not the Lord among us? no evil shall come upon us. Therefore on your account Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a storehouse of fruits, and the mountain of the house as a grove of the forest.

COMMENTS

To this point, Micah has denounced specifically the wealthy whose wealth is gained by cheating the poor, the false prophet who preaches what his listeners want to hear while he ignores their sins, the judges who are unconcerned with justice and the political officials who, like their constituents, hate good and love evil. In this passage he summarizes and concludes the list of those whose greed for power and wealth, along with their unconcern for human misery have brought God's covenant nation to her downfall.
The list of their sins has an ominously familiar ring to anyone aware of the present spiritual condition of our own nation. They abhor justice and pervert all equity. They judge for reward, teach for hire and divine for money. And through it all they have the audacity to lean upon Jehovah. Rather than repent and obey His laws, they presume to believe that they are yet His people, so that no evil can befall them.
False teaching is always recognizable by its emphasis on the goodness of God accompanied by the denial of His wrath. its proclamation of the promises of God while denying the condition of those promises. The preaching of such lies only makes the judgements of God the more certain.

(Micah 3:9) Hear is here resumed from verse one, indicating that Micah is about to sum up his denunciation of the evils of those who claim to be God's people.

The term heads of Jacob as in verse one calls attention to the civil rulers of the commonwealth, while rulers of the house of Israel here as there refers to the religious leaders. The sum of all of which he has accused them is that they abhor justice and pervert all equity.

Pusey remarks concerning Micah 3:9, They abhorred judgement he says, as a thing loathsome and abominable, such as men cannot even bear to look upon; they not only dealt wrongly, but they perverted, distorted, all equity. whatever was right by conscience or by God's laws, they distorted, like the sophists making the worse appear the better cause.

A rather sadistic anecdote will illustrate how this attitude toward social justice is very much alive today, The story is told of two black men walking along a limited access highway in the deep south. A wealthy plantation owner's Cadillac struck them both, throwing one into a nearby cotton field and the other through the car's windshield and onto the back seat. A sheriff soon arrived on the scene and announced, We-'ll charge one with leaving the scene of an accident and the other with breaking and entering. The humor of this story lies not in the judgement of the sheriff against the unfortunate blacks, but in the unlikely circumstances of the accident. Perversions of justice just as far-fetched are matters of court record throughout the United States. The reasons are the same as those which brought about the corruption of Micah's day.

(Micah 3:10) Maintaining his distinction between the civil and religious authorities, Micah accuses the latter of building up Zion with blood and the former of building up Jerusalem with iniquity.

Religion consisted of meticulously observing the formal sacrifices daily in the temple while ignoring the moral implications of the law, particularly the matter of human relations. The charge is reminiscent of that leveled against the religious leaders of first century Zion by Jesus, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith: but these things ye should have done and not to have left the other undone. (Matthew 23:23) Both Micah and Jesus would have agreed with Proverbs 15:8, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Jehovah. The covenant purposes of God, symbolized here in the term Zion, cannot be built upon the blood of religious sacrifices offered by evil men.

We cannot but note in passing that one of the chief reasons for the disenchantment of modern man with the institutionalized church is that the religious people who are members of the churches have too often failed to relate their duty to God to their duty to man and particularly to the social injustices exacted from the poor and the ignorant. It is easy to say that the purposes of God are redemptive rather than reformative. that the business of the church is to preach the gospel and win the lost, but it is not so easy to reach the lost whose stomach is empty because some influential member of the church has denied him work because of the color of his skin. It is easy to say the church's business is to proclaim the redemption of Christ to those outside the church, but it is not so easy to get the outsider to listen to a recital of his spiritual needs while we remain aloof and unconcerned for his physical needs. No doubt this is why Jesus-' only detailed account of the judgement has to do with those who fed and visited and clothed the downtrodden in His name. or who while performing great religious works had failed to do so. (Matthew 25:31-46) In the prophecy of Micah, as well as that of the Lord, the punishment of such evil is severe and total.

Just as the religion of Zion was built upon the blood of mockingly meaningless sacrifices, so the political structure of Jerusalem's civil government was built upon social iniquity. Matthew Henry's comment here says it about as well as it can be said, They pretend in justification of their extortion and oppressions, that they have built up Zion and Jerusalem: they add new streets and squares. and adorn them; they establish and advance the public interests both in church and state, and think therein they do God and Israel good service.
Could there be any more accurate illustration in an ancient writing of the social injustices of modern America? In the name of progress we move underprivileged people out of inadequate homes for which we pay them little or no renumeration to make way for our expressways and urban renewal projects. we exact exorbitant taxes to subsidize such urgent projects as the scientific study of earthworms while many who pay the taxes are forced to deprive their children of the necessities of life. the list of our iniquities is as long as that charged by Micah against the leaders of his society. We will be something less than wise if we fail to understand that the moral dry rot which destroyed Israel and Judah in the eighth and seventh century B.C. will also destroy ours in the 20th and 21st centuries A.D.

HEADS. PRIESTS. Micah 3:11

Following still farther his denunciation of both the civil and religious leaders of the nation, Micah again accused the judges of being corrupt, deciding cases on the basis of bribes rather than justice.

To this charge, the prophet adds a new note. Heretofore, he has denounced the false prophet as representative of the corrupt religious system, Now he turns to the priest. The priest, he alleges, teaches for hire. The duty of the priest was to teach the law and decide controversy with justice, (Leviticus 10:11, Deuteronomy 17:11) Instead, these spiritual representatives of God among His people were emmeshed in the same materialism that polluted the rest of the upper classes of society.

Nor does Micah forget the false prophet in making this summary of his charges. He again asserts that the prophets preach only to fill their purses. They divine, that is they proclaim what they know the people want to hear as the will of God in order to receive pay.
And while they do this, they tell the people that God is among them, that the doom predicted by Micah and Isaiah and others cannot come to pass because they are, after all, the chosen people of God.
Such a claim brings up a rather moot question, very relevant in our day: Who is the real patriot? Who is really concerned for his country? The person who says my country right or wrong or the person who, like Micah, sees the faults of his homeland and sets about in the name of God to do something about those faults?
Is should be apparent from the subsequent doom pronounced against Zion and Jerusalem, as well as from the testimony of more recent history, that God's relationship to the Jews as a race or as a nation is not unconditional. They have rejected Jehovah for Baal. they have abandoned spiritual justice for materialistic gain and fleshly pleasure. As their ancient uncle Esau, they have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage and so no longer have any claim to the promises of Jehovah!

THEREFORE. Micah 3:12

In consequence of the sin of those in high places, the sacred mountain, Zion, is to be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem their capital is to be as any other high place in the forest. (On the 6th September, A.D. 70, Jerusalem fell and the Romans destroyed it so completely that they drove a plough across the ruins. As a nation the Jews had come to an end; and their own mad folly had brought their end upon them. Barclay)

The kingdom is finished. The north will go first, the south will soon follow. And God will recall a remnant through whom to accomplish His promise ... in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:3 (b))

One hundred years later another prophet, Jeremiah, would quote these verses from Micah in defense of his own denunciations of an equally sinful generation. (Jeremiah 26:18)

Chapter VIIIQuestions

Third Cycle

1.

Discuss Micah's concern for the covenant in light of his plea in Micah 3:1-4.

2.

Discuss the concept of absolute good and evil in contrast with modern situation ethics (new morality). Micah 2:1 -ff

3.

What is meant by pluch off their skin and flesh from their bones (Micah 2:2(b) - Micah 3:3)?

4.

Discuss the will of God as the only natural and proper standard of all that is right.

5.

Discuss ways to penetrate the layers of ignorance in modern philosophies with the truth of God's sovereignty.

6.

Are the prophetic warnings of the consequences of loving evil and hating good relevant to our current moral revolution?

7.

What three classes of people does Micah denounce? (Micah 2:1-3; Micah 3:1-5)

8.

What specific class of leaders are accused of making the people to err?

9.

What seems to have been the chief concern of the false prophets?

10.

What is God's warning to mercenary prophets?

11.

Comment on the idea that God is a tolerant benevolent benefactor.

12.

What is to be the fate of the false prophets in the day of the judgement against the wicked nations as pronounced by Micah?

13.

What three things characterize Micah as a true prophet as opposed to the false prophets?

14.

Compare the false prophet syndrome of Micah's day with our present religious climate in America.

15.

What is the relationship between false religious teaching and the cultural collapse of a civilization?

16.

What are the specific sins with which Micah charges the wealthy, the false prophet, the magistrates, the political officials?

17.

False teaching is always recognizable by its emphasis on the ____________ of God accompanied by a denial of His ____________.

18.

The term head of Jacob calls attention to ____________.

19.

Rulers of the house of Israel refers to ____________.

CHAPTER IX

FUTURE EXALTATION AND
MESSIANIC HOPE